Prehistory
According to scientists, human beings started
living in Africa about 2 million years ago. The old
human bones found in Africa were found in an area in
Tanzania called the Great Rift Valley. Prehistory is the
time that comes before history, when there were no
written names and dates. The period of prehistory is
called the Stone Age, because during this time people
flaked and polish sticks and stones in order to make
or invent tools.
The Old Stone Age is also Pal eolithic era. This
time period lasted from about 70,000 to about 12,000
years ago. Prehistoric humans were called huntergathers, because they gathered plants and
vegetables and because they hunted animals. The
animal hunted by hunter-gatherers is called their
prey. These animals were important, because they
allowed early humans to survive.
Stone tools were made by a process called flacking,
during which prehistoric hunters’ chipped pieces of
stone to give them a sharp edge.
Life during the Ice Age was hard for early people,
because of climatic changes. The temperature was
very cold; the winters were very hard; and snow was
very deep.
Some human ancestors before modern humans
were named Neanderthal, because their bones have
been discovered in the neander valley in Germany.
They had two thick ridges, and a low forehead.
About6, 000 years ago, people discovered that
could use and mix different types of material to make
tools and weapons and armor and jewelry.
Early Agriculture
The last Ice Age ended about 12,000 years ago.
When the ice age ended the earth’s climate warmed and
the number of plants and animals decreased dramatically.
The diet of early humans changed because the earth’s
climate warmed and the amount of plants and animals
decreased dramitcly.
Humans began to settle in one place because there was a
lot of water when the ice melted and the plants started to
thrive and then the people had no reason to move to move
because plants just grew and grew and the plants
attracted animals.
Agriculture is rising of crops and animals for human
use. So that they could work on farming one area and then
over the 0ver the year the solid would keep getting richer
and better for growing plant in.
To demarcate means to train something useful to people.
It could benefit people because then you wouldn’t have to
go to a lot of trouble to get capture or catch an animal
before slottering it milking it.
A Surplus is an extra supply of something having a
surplus would allow people to specialization.
Specialization means to do partuculaitr kind of work.
Humans would travel to, meet in, and even settle in
towns and villages so they could easily trade.
Civilization is a culture that has developed system of
specialization, region, learning, and government. To say
“cities are the home of civilization” means that there are
enough people in cities to have specializations, teach in
schools, practice their religion by praying together, and
form a government.
Plants that residents domesticated and had a surplus of
were grains such as wheat, which could be ground into
flour to make bread, barley, peas, and lentils. Animals the
residents domesticated were wild goats, pigs, cattle, and
sheep. Skilled crafts they specialized in were pottery,
weaving, jewelry, and copper working. The goods and
products they created were fine clay pots, woven wool
cloth, and copper jewelry
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia is one of the world’s first civilizations.
The word
“Mesopotamia” means Land between the rivers
In Greek. The rivers that formed this area, which is called
the Fertile Crescent, are the Tigris and the Euphrates.
Southern Mesopotamia also goes by the name Sumer.
This region was made up not of countries or counties, but
of city-states, which is a powerful self-governing villages
that controls the villages around it. Three such city-states
were Ashur, Nineveh, and
Assyria.
The Mesopotamians created one of the world’s first
written languages. It is called cuneiform. This was made
by scratching on a wet, clay table. It has about 500
symbols or picture writing that look like the thing they
describe. Usually boys went to school to learn to read,
write, and do mathematics. After they left school, they
became a scribes or official writer. They wrote laws,
legends, songs, and records. The world first set of written
code of laws, called the code of Hammurabi were written
in this language.
The ancient Mesopotamians believed in many gods.
This is called polytheism. Most of their gods were nature
gods. Ki was the god for a good harvest; Enlil was the god
of rain, and Enki was the god of water. The Mesopotamians
built large
Step-temples called ziggurats on which they worshipped
their gods.
Ancient Egypt
Egypt is located in North Africa. The Nile River is the world’s
longest
river. The Nile empties into the Mediterranean Sea. The
Nile helped
people get food because when the river flooded, the land
got minerals from
the floodwater, which made the plants thrive. Irrigation is
a system of canals
to bring water to crops and fields. It helped people make a
living
because farmers wouldn’t have to go all the way to the
river just
to get water to water their crops.
The type of government the Egyptians had revolved around
the Pharaoh. The Pharaoh’s job was to make sure that
Egypt continued to be wealthy and did well in trade.
Hieroglyphics is a system of 800 pictures-signs and
symbols that represented things or letter sounds. Scribes
had an important role in Egyptian society. Scribes traveled
around Egypt, writing about important events and also kept
track of who paid their taxes. Only boys could become
scribes. They started to learn writing and math at 10 years
old. They wrote with reed pens on papyrus made from
reeds. On top of the Egyptian social pyramid was the
Pharaoh, next were the scribes, below them were the
farmers and craftsmen, and on the bottom were the slaves.
What type of religion did the Ancient Egyptians have?
Egyptians had many gods. Who was the head of their
religion? The head of the religion was the pharaoh. What
were pyramids? The pyramids were like houses to the
pharaoh and his wife what was the purpose, or function, of
a pyramid? The purpose or function of the pyramids was
to have a house for the pharaoh and his wife.
Ancient grease
The civilization of ancient Greece lay on Eastern
Europe in and peninsulas that stick into the Mediterranean
Sea. A peninsula is an area of land almost entirely
surrounded by water.
. Small harbors throughout the area give protection for
ships that dock there. Two of the large peninsulas on the
Greek mainland are Peloponnesus and Attica. The citystate of Sparta, Athens’ enemy, was on the large peninsula
named the Peloponnesus. Crete and Rhodes are two large
Greek islands in the Mediterranean Sea. The civilization of
Minoa, named after King Minos, grew up on the island of
Crete. And the early Greek civilization of Mycenae grew on
the mainland of Greece.
Athens was the most powerful city-state on Attica.
This was where -democracy was born. This is the form of
government in which the people controlled their
government by voting. This form of government was first
started by Solon. Later, during the Golden Age of Athens,
the statesman Pericles expanded Athens’ democracy. In
Athens, the citizens would gather in the Assembly to vote
on laws. Pericles was responsible for building the
Parthenon, which is a temple to the goddess Athena on top
of the Acropolis. Athena was the goddess of war and
wisdom. The Acropolis was a high hill in the center of the
city where citizens could go for protection when enemies
attacked the city.
The city of Athens itself was named after the goddess
Athena. The Greeks worshipped many other gods,
including Dionysus god of wine—and Zeus—the chief god,
He is father of Athena. Every four years the Greeks would
have the Olympics Games near Mt. Olympus, in order to
entertain and please the gods and goddesses.
Ancient Rome
The ancient civilization of Rome was founded on
the Italian peninsula. The city was founded on the
Latium Plain. The Timer River flows through the
center of the city.
According to mythology, twin brothers named
Romulus and Remus founded Rome. After Rome’s last
king, whose name was Tarquinius was overthrown,
Rome became a republic, which is a government in
which the people choose their leader representatives
to speak for them and pass laws. (The U.S.A. has this
form of government.)
Rome was divided up into 2 social groups: plebeians
and patricians. Plebeians are working class people who
work for patricians, who are rich land-owners. The
patricians were not always fair towards the plebeians. So,
the plebeians rebelled and got the patricians to publish
Rome’s first set of laws. These were called The twelve
Tables.
The most powerful branch of Rome’s government was
the
Senate. It was made up of patricians. It controlled law-
making and how money was spent in Rome. Senates were
elected by the plebeians from the Citizen assembly. They
asked the Senates to pass laws for the plebeians. There
were two powerful consuls. One was head of the army and
one was a chief judge.
Rome wanted to be the unquestioned leader of the
entire Mediterranean region. So they went to war with the
civilization of Carthage over who would control the island
of Sicily. These wars were called the Punic wars.
Julius Cesar was Rome’s first dictator, which is an allpowerful ruler. Caesar was from a wealthy patrician
family, and he had built up his power as a Senator, Consul,
and later as the military governor of Roman Gaul [France].
After Julius Caesar was stabbed to death in the Senate, his
adopted stepson, named Augustus Caesar, became
emperor. Rome grew in power and in the size of the area
that it controlled. The time when Augustus Caesar ruled
was called the Pax Romana, which means Roman peace. To
pay for its huge building projects, Rome collected lots of
money from those it had conquered. It counted the
numbers of people whom it had conquered; they called
this count a Census. Roman soldiers built an immense
network of roads. Water was carried to new Roman cities
on raised water bridges called aqueducts. Roman citizens
enjoyed bloody entertainment in Rome’s immense
coliseum, which is where gladiators fought to the death.
Middle ages
The middle ages were from A.D. 500 to the
1400s. Charles Martel is the grandfather of “Charles
the Great” who was the commander, who drove the
Arabs out of the Merovingian kingdom of the Franks
Charles Martel’s grandson was Charlemagne, the
greatest leader of the franks. Charlemagne went
around the southwestern part of Germany at the time
and conquered kingdoms. Charlemagne had in
relation to Roman Christianity that he was crowned
the Roman Emperor. Charlemagne conquered
western Germany and eastern France. The pope
wanted Charlemagne to restore the might of the old
Roman Empire, so he crowned him the Roman Empire
to complete this mission.
Feudalism was a way to keep peace in Europe. When
did it start? Feudalism started around the year 800.
It worked to help control Europe’s lands the kings
divided land into fiefs, fiefs were land that powerful
landowners gave to knights or nobles. In return for
getting the land nobles pledged to give their king
their loyalty, support in a war, and promised to
keep the peace. Feudalism maintained peace and
order, because of how it worked, it always worked
the same way the landowner gave the fief to the
noble, than they had to give the king their loyalty,
support in a war, and they promised to keep the
peace. Vassals were nobles who took an oath of
loyalty to their lords. A lord was the landowner of
the fief The relationship between a lord and vassal
was the vassal was very loyal to the lord. Fiefs were
land that powerful landowners gave to knights or
nobles. The oath of fealty was when a vassal swore
loyalty to his lord. The Code of Chivalry was the
code of conduct that knights believed they should
follow. Knights were nobles who agreed to fight for
a king or powerful landowner. The responsibilities
of knights were to fight on horseback with armor.
Serfs had the role to man the land that nobles got.
The serfs had to harvest the crops and tend to the
farm animals. They had to pay taxes in crops they
harvested. A manor was a settlement, with a
fortified house that belonged to the fief’s owner,
which a serf lived in. A manor would usually have a
church too that serfs could go to.
The Norse were northern raiders that came from
Denma. The Duke of Normandy crossed the English
Channel with about 5,000 Norse in 1066. William
defeated Harold, the Saxon king of England. William
was known by William the Conqueror. Changes that
were made by William and his tribe include a
stronger government in England, French culture was
brought, and the new languages were Norman and
Saxon.
King John was the king of England. King John was
forced to sign the Magna Carta, because everyone
wanted fewer taxes, but he wanted more taxes to pay
for wars. The Magna Carta was an important
document, because it established legal rights. It
gave a standard good way to settle legal issues.
The primary religion in the middle ages was the
Roman Catholic Church. Monks were people who lived
in the monasteries where they dedicated their lives
to God. Monks worshiped the Roman Catholic Church
in their time. A monastery was a farm, a church, a
home, and a school all in one area where monks
dedicated their lives to God. Monks had to write
manuscripts for people in the monasteries.
Manuscripts were copied in the scriptorium of the
monastery by monks. Monks would copy prayer and
poetry on to scrolls. Convents were a home for nuns,
there were also many female saints who wanted to
help the poor stayed here also. Nuns were and still
are comparisons to monks or today, priests, but they
were females instead. A cathedral was a large
Christian church where religion was practiced.
What were the Crusades, and over what were they
fought? Crusades were defenders of Jerusalem the
holy land, a series of wars were fought with crusades
to take the holy land. Crusaders battled with the
Muslim always for the holy land. The Reconquista was
a long war fought by Christian army to recapture
Spain.
Craftsmen were tailors, shoemakers, drapers,
bakers, locksmiths, painters, joiners, stonemasons, or
master builders, they belonged to an association called
a guild. They did a trade only in their mastery. If you
were an apprentice you were expected to help your
merchant do trades. A journeyman craftsman was a
craftsman who went to other towns to do trades. The
relation between a journeyman and an apprentice is
they both had to respect each other. You became a
master craftsman when, first you served your time as an
apprentice, than you became a journeyman who
traveled, and finally when you’re a journeyman many
people would spend years in a different city. Than you
could become a master craftsman. A guild is a
association in medieval times that a merchant or
artisan would join, organized to maintain standards and
protect Its’ members.
The Black Death was an epidemic caused by bacteria
spread by rats and flies. It first struck Europe in 1348, it
wiped out one-third or 30,000,000 people of Europe’s
population at the time.
Renaissance
Means to be reborn. It means the of rebirth it
goes back to 1400. Florence is so rich and had a lot of
good craftsman. The role they had in making it a
rich city is that when Lorenzo Medici came power he
made it richer. Humanism is the concern for human
inserts and values. A supporter a patron supports
work. He was a famous artist and he made magnolia
inventing. Perspective is how they make three
dimensional painting and how they make it improve.
He was a great artist one of his best sculptures was
the David. Reform means to remake reformation
means to reform or a movement of a church. They
were called Protestants because they were
protestant against the church. The church. Luther
got band from being a monk. The indulgence was a
lie about what god would do to your dead whether
heaven or not. He invented movable type. The
reason the king broke away from the pope is that he
didn’t wanted divorce the queen and Anglican Church.
He got more powerful and richer by tacking the
church’s land and the money. Queen Elizabeth was
the queen of England and she led her army into a
quick victory over the Spanish. Provide details about
his writing. William Shakespeare was a poet, actor,
and a play writer he made 37 plays and 154 poems.