Chapter 1 Objectives
1. Describe what enabled civilizations to develop.
 The revolution of agriculture.
 The development of culture and religion
 Revolution of tool-making and weapons.
2. Identify the characteristics that are critical for a society to become a civilization.
 Formal states, cities, writing, and monuments.
 Have to be located near an adequate water supply.
 Must rely on agriculture for food.
3. Compare the drawbacks of non-civilized societies with civilized societies.
 Non-civilized societies have to travel to keep an adequate food supply.
 Non-civilized societies have to be small because of the amount of land
required to hunt for food.
 The only clothing available was hides from the animals they’d hunted and
killed.
4. Compare the advantages of an agriculturally based society with a hunter-gatherer
society.
 Civilized societies can be stationary with their use of agriculture.
 Civilized societies can be large because of their domestication of animals
and intentional planting of crops.
 Agricultural peoples could afford to build houses, and their domesticated
animals provide not only food, but also wool for more varied clothing.
5. Evaluate the significance of Jewish monotheism in the religious history of early
civilization.
 Judaism was the world’s first clearly developed monotheistic religion.
 It led to the widespread belief in one god, which eventually led to other
monotheistic religions.
 It helped establish culture, which is necessary to develop a civilized
society.
6. Compare the main features of Egyptian and Mesopotamian civilizations. What did the
two civilizations have in common as early civilizations? What were their main differences
in values and organizations?
 Mesopotamia and Egypt were similar as early civilizations in the way that
the need for irrigation induced a need for complex political structures.
 Mesopotamia was developed without a model of how to become civilized,
while Egypt was developed based on Mesopotamia and other early
civilizations.
 While Mesopotamia didn’t have strict government rule, it was necessary in
Egypt because of the complexity of the irrigation system. Mesopotamia
was more of a business class society.
 Mesopotamians (Sumerians) worshipped gods, while Egyptians usually
worshipped and honoured Pharaohs.