History of Civilizations
Introduction : Definitions, Evolution of Humans – The
Birth of Civilization
What is History?
 History can be defined as the analysis and interpretation of the human past that
enables us to study continuity and change over time.
 There is an act of both investigation and imagination that seeks to explain how
people have changed over time.
 Historians use all forms of evidence to examine, interpret, revisit, and reinterpret
the past.
 These include not just written documents, but also oral communication and
objects such as buildings, artifacts, photographs, and paintings.
 There are many subjects of history out there: political, physical,
cultural history.
 Also history has subfields of social, military, religion and economic
history as well.
What is Civilization?
 A Franch word.
 Civilization is a form of human culture in which many people live in urban centers,
have mastered the art of smelting metals, and have developed a method of writing.
 The first civilizations began in cities, which were larger, more populated, and more
complex in their political, economic and social structure than Neolithic villages.
 One definition of civilization requires that a civilized people have a sense of history
-- meaning that the past counts in the present.
 Pace of change in creation of civilization is notable.
 From 100.000 years ago to 7000 B.C.E only few changes occurred. Rapid changes
started about 5000 years ago.
Elements of Civilization?
 Surplus food
 Density of population
 Specialized occupations
 Social classes topped by small elites
 Subordination of women
 Coerced tribute, collected by force if necessary
 State religions
 Monumental public buildings

standing armies

frequent warfare

notable modification of the natural environment

lavish tombs and burial goods for rulers and elites

system of writing and numbers

regular foreign trade

representative art

calendars, math, other science
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some slavery

epidemics of disease
What is Culture?
 Culture is a set of values, traditions, institutions that are shared by a group of
people.
What are Differences between Culture and Civilization?
 Culture represents what we are and civilization represents what we have.
 Civilization includes the things by which we attain other objects, such as
technology and culture is that which brings us pleasure and satisfaction.
 Culture cannot be measured and civilization has a standard of measurement.
How about Movers and Shakers?
 Having impact on events, being innovative, changing the environment and
societies.
 Bringing about the new things that others follow the suit.
Do you think Turkey is currently a «mover and shaker» country in this sense?
 Cultural and social impact on others?
 Economic impacts?
 Science and technology?
 Military?
The Birth of Earth and Human Kind
 It is estimated that the earth came into existence about 6 billion years ago.
 Historians think that human kind came into existence about 5 million years ago
in Africa.
 About 1 to 2 million years ago humans started to spread over Africa, Europe and
Asia.
 Modern humans as we understand from remains emerged about 100.000 years
ago.
 Those people lived by fishing, hunting and collecting wild plants.
 From the remains, we understand that only about 10.000 years ago humans
learned to grow plants, raise animals and make pottery for different purposes.
 This is the beginning of transformation from gatherer to producer.
 Beginning about 5.000 years ago, a complex way of life started in some parts of
the world. Large populations started to increase harvesting via irrigation
systems.
 They created towns and cities which led to architectural structures and flourished
commerce.

Invention of writing enabled those societies to keep inventories of their food
and productions.
 Complex religions took form in this era and social divisions began to increase.
The Paleolithic Age
 This period of time is between 1 million years to 10.000 B.C.E.
 Use of stone tools is the begining of this age.
 Then over the time, which is a fairly long period, humans were hunters, fishers
and gatherers.
 No production of food, but they made sophisticated tools from stone, wood, and
invented fire and acquired language and used as a tool of teaching.
 Humans depended heavely on nature for food and were very vulnerable to wild
animals and natural disesters.
 Humans crossed from Asian to American continent.
 This led to a serious isolation from their ansesters.
 The knowledge of historians about this age is mostly depended on assumptions.
 Hard to determine the facts based on the evidences left.
 Historians may have a different account of what really happened during this age.
The Neolithic Age
 Neolithic Age means “New Stone” in Greek.
 During this period of time, which is about 10.000 years ago, some societies
made the initial shift from hunting and gathering to agriculture.

They became producers rather than consumers only!
 This part of the world is what now we call is Middle East.
 Sheeps, goats and food crops, like wheat and barley were domesticated from wild
life.
 The invention of pottery in this era enabled people to store and cook foods and
liquids.
 They also used pottery as a means of transporting food and liquids.
 People started making clothes from flax and wool.
 Start doing agriculture made these people to build permanent dwellings.
 Same type of small houses were built.
 Self-sufficiency was the main way of life; no import or export!
 What does not fit the general discription of this era is two larger settlements that
found from this period of time.
 One of these two sites was found in Çatal Hüyük, which is 150 miles south of
Ankara.
 Archealogist found the town was built on a 15 acres with a population about
6000 people.
 Interesting houses with no door, in-house decorations from animal heads and
horns and paintings that were re-done on the regular bases.
 The remains of this culture show that agriculture, arts and crafts were
astonishingly diversified.
 The other site was Jericho, which is an oasis near the Dead Sea.
 This area was occupied as early as 12000 B.C.E.
 When it came to 8000 B.C.E a town of 8 to 10 acres grew up.
 To protect their town, settlers built a massive stone wall and created at least one
tower for surveillance.
 This town has developed trade, mixed agricultural activities, and hunting
economy.
 Findings indicate that economy and the settlement patterns of this era might be
more sophisticated than what scholars have originially thought.
 Farmers had larger families than hunters.
 People started to control the nature.
 This led to the creating of civilization.
The Bronze Age and the Birth of Civilization
 After Neolithic and Paleolithic ages another major shift occurred in the history
of human kind.

First in Mesopotamia, later in Nile River in Egypt, and somewhat later in India
and the Yellow River basin in China.
 Larger and smaller settlements were created in those regions.
 Cities were created and big town centers were build with big buildings and
towns were protected by long and tall walls.
 Urban life brought art and technology to the life of humans.
 Metal smelting and manufacture of tools and weapons grew and started
becoming more sophisticated.
 Urbanism triggered industry and technology.
 Trade increased.
 For that reason communication developed.

This formed a culture that is called civilization in terms of what we understand
Early Civilizations in the Middle East

Early civilizations grew near river valleys. Water is very important in creation of
civilizations.
 Middle East is the birth place for civilization.
 What is the situation now?
 Irrigation system was very vital for the life of dwellers.
 Water for farming and human consumption needed to be regulated.
 That is why Mesopotamians created a centralized government.
Mesopotamian Civilization
 The oldest Mesopotamian cities seem to have been founded by Sumerians about
4 millennium B.C.E.
 City-states were created to protect their interest and be prepared for wars.
 First kingdoms of human history took place in those city states.
 Interestingly, the Summerians language is not related to any language that is
known to us today.
 While close by societies were speaking Semitic languages.
 Babylonia, Akkadians and Summerians were main societies of the time in that
region.
 Akkadians created the first empire of human history by taking over Sumerian
city-states and invading part of Iran and Syria.
 What are traits of an empire?
Writing and Mathematics

Sumerians invented the writing system, which is called Cuneiform.
 This writing system used several thousand characters.

Some of these stood for words and some for sounds.
 Sumerians and Babylonians worked hard.
 They became good at study of language and literature, accounting, legal practice,
mathematics and in particular geometry.
 Math was based on 60 rather than 10 (decimal).
 Formal education was limited to those elites who could afford to go to school.
 There were differences between educated and uneducated.
 It was easier to find job and good positions for educated.
 They created a calendar similar to ours.
 Lunar year based on 30 days a month.
Religion
 Sumerians and their successors worshiped many gods and goddesses.
 They visualized their gods in human form with human needs and weaknesses.
 Gods were identified with some natural phenomenon, like sky, fresh water, or
storms.
 They believed gods were immortal and people are created to worship gods.

They gave a physical place to gods.

Every city has a god residing in.
 They believed after life but the picture of it was gloomy.
 Religion naturally influenced the architecture and poetry.
 Great temples and temple-like architecture shaped up big cities.
Society
 Hundreds of thousands of texts from the time of Mesopotamian societies,
particularly from Hammurabi time indicate that the social life was very
sophisticated at the time.
 For that reason they created Hammurabi codes of law, which are considered the
oldest of all laws, and this document itself shows how the social life was
developed.
 Commerce, international trade, moneylending, government contracts, money
investment in land, debts, rates of interest, security and more…
 All were regulated by codes of law at the time.
 How important laws are to understand characteristics of a particular society?
 Family relations and commerce are areas that were strictly regulated.
 Individual rights against powerful rulers were clearly indicated in codes of
laws.
 Laws showed that husband and wife were equal partners in life.
 Although the place of woman was considered home, a woman could work
outside of the home as well.
Slavery
 There were two types of slavery in Mesopotamian societies.
 Chattel slaves and debt slaves.
 Chattels who were slaves had no right and would be bought and sold.
 Of course they were not Mesopotamians.
 Prisoners of wars could be enslaved.
 Having few slaves for a Mesopotamian meant to be wealthy.
 Debt slaves were more common.

Since interest rates were as high is 33.5 percent people were defaulting on their
loans.
 The reason for high interest rates was government involvement.
 It would often cancel certain types of debts.
Egyptian Civilization and Ancient Near East Empires

While Mesopotamian civilization prospered in today’s Iraq, another civilization was
standing up in Egypt alongside the Nile River.
 The river gave life to a civilization.
 Egyptian society built canals, dams and irrigation ditches to control the river’s water.
 That brought agricultural prosperity that unmatched in the ancient world.
 Egyptian society enjoyed the climate and geographical conditions.
 They were safe and secure. No enemies were around like there were in Mesopotamia.
 They created a flood calendar which helped them to be prepared for those Nile
River floods.
 Ancient Egyptian civilization lasted about 3000 years.
 In that span of time 31 royal dynasties took place among upper and lower Egypt.
 Later on those two were united.
 In 30 B.C.E. the Romans defeated Egypt, and effectively ended a civilization of
3000 years.
Language and Literature
 Writing was first appeared in Egypt about 3000 B.C.E. It was complicated;
included hundreds of picture signs.
 Writing was very advanced.
 The literature included narratives, myths, books of instructions in wisdom,
letters, religious texts and poetry which were written on papyri, limestone flakes
and potsherds.
 Why do you think literature and use of language in general are important in
making inferences about a culture or civilization?
Religion
 They believed in many gods.
 Egyptian gods had human bodies, possess human or animal heads, and wear
crowns or thorns.
 They believed in after life and imagined it as full of dangers.
 They believed that preservation of the human body was essential for continued
existence in the afterlife.
 That is why they created mummification which could take up to a 70 day –
process.
Place of woman and the slaves in Egyptian society
 Women’s primary role was to manage household.

Unlike Sumerians, women in Egypt could not go to school, or hold an office,
but they could own and control property.
 They could sue for divorce and in theory they enjoyed equal legal protection
with men.
 Slavery was not as wide spread as it was in Mesopotamia.

They would enslave those Nubians whom they captured in wars.
 As the kingdom grew, the number of slaves expended greatly.
 Sometimes they would enslave the entire society; like they enslaved Hebrews.
 Slaves did lots of different works for the Egyptian society.
 They would be soldiers, police, worked in the field with peasants, do domestic
work or work at shops as helpers.
 Slaves had a chance to be freed based on some certain conditions; like they were
in Mesopotamia.
Ancient Near Eastern Empires
 While there was 18th Dynasty in Egypt, different people had established
themselves in the Near Eaest.
 Kassites in Babylonia, the Hittites in Asia Minor and the Mitannians in northern
Syria and Mesopotamia.
The Hittites
 The Hittites established a kingdom that lasted about 200 years.
 They were Indo-European people and spoke a language that was related to Greek
and Sanskrit.
 Around about 1500 B.C.E. they established a strong, centralized government with a
capital at Hattusas near Ankara.
 The Hittites had a powerful miliraty force. For taking control of Syria and Palestine
they battled Egyptian Empire; the battle ended as a stand off.
 After a while, by 1200 B.C.E the Hittite Kingdom disappeared and Neo-Hittite
states have emarged in the first millennium B.C.E.
 Meanwhile, an important revolution took place after 1100 B.C.E. This is called Iron
Age.

In northern Anatolia, discovery of how to smelt iron took place. This changed the
The Kassites
 The origin of Kassites was unknown and they spoke their own language that was
not similar to any other language.
 They established a dynasty in Babylon and ruled for about 500 years.
 They were organized as big tribal families.
 Great military power of thier time and were equally big like Hittites, Egyptian
Empire, Assyria and Mitannias…
The Mitannians
 Are known as Hurrians also.

They were part of a larger group of people.
 They occupied a teritory from Eupharates to Iran.
 They were eventually destroyed by Hittites and were taken over by Assyrian
Empire later on.
The Assyrians
 These were people of Assur; lived in a city in northern Mesopotamia on the
Tigris River.
 They were a center of trade and important political power of 14th century B.C.E.
 Arameans invaded Assyria.
 Arameans were from northern Syria.
 It is being claimed that the name Syria has been evolved from Assyria over the
The Second Assyrian Empire
 After 1000 B.C.E., the Assyrians started a new and second period of expansion.
 When it came to 665 B.C.E. they pretty much controled Asia Minor, Syria,
Palestine, and Egypt.
 Their success was because of a well-disciplined and powerful army.
 They built spectecular palaces at Nineveh and Nimrud, near the city of Mosul in
Iraq.
 There was a very organized government system.
 They devided their empire into provinces with governers in charge, military
garrisons, and administration for taxation, communications, and intelligence.
 They created colanies of agricultural product stocks alongside the border and in
key areas to supply the military in case of any military incursion beyond their
borders.
 At the end, the empire became too large to govern efficiently. They were divided
by civil wars.
 An empire that was weakened by civil wars, finally was distroyed by the Medes,
who were powerful people of western and central Iran.
 The Medes were joined by Babylonians, who had always been restive under
Assyrian rule.
The Neo-Babylonians
 The medes did not act consistenly on their conquests. Their helpers in the war,
Babylonians took over Assyrian Empire.
 This Neo-Babylonians grew fast and created greatest cities of the World.
 They built spectecular tamples, fortification walls, boulevards, parks and palaces
that world had not seen before.
 They became very good at trade, they linked Egypt, India, Iran and SyriaPalestine by land and sea routs.
 They created an astonomical center at Babylon that kept records of observations
 Persians conquested the Neo-Babylonians in 539 B.C.E. and ended their
empire…
Early Indian Civilization
 As we know it today, Indian culture has developed in past 2500 years.
 But, human societies began their life in the region, which lays from eastern part
of today’s Iran, covers Baluchistan and Himalayan mountains about 5500 B.C.E.
 There are evidences that they cultivated barley and wheat, baked brick dwellings
and later domesticated goats, sheep and cows; did metalworking after 4000
B.C.E.
 Indus valley people created Harappan civilization around 2300 B.C.E and lasted
for few centuries.
 Then Vedic Aryan civilization took over after 1500 B.C.E. This civilization
lasted about 1000 years.

These people could not create a substantial civilization.
The Indus Civilization
 The Indus culture coverd a vast area. The findings show that life was very
homogeneous in this culture.
 City plans and construction were similar to each other.
 They created big cities with population of about 35000 people in at least 2 cities.
 The most striking feature of Harappa and Mohanje-Daro cities was complex
system of covered drains and sewers.
 Economic life was based on agriculture.

Wheat, barley, rice, peas, lentils, sesame, dates and cotton were the main crops.
 As an economic activitiy they wove clothes from cotton, made metal tools and
used the potter’s wheel.
 They made fine bronze, copper and stone sculptures.
 There was trade between Indus culture and Mesopotamia.
The Rise of Civilization in Americas
 Sometime before 12000 years ago, and perhaps as early as 30 000 years ago,
humans crossed Bering region, which is between Siberia and Alaska.
 Back then it was a dry land.
 Over many centuries these Asian immigrants moved south and east towards
South America about 11000 miles.
 Those early movers of America were like other human groups of Paleolithic
times.
 They were living by hunting, fishing and gathering.
 These early Americans seem to cultivate maize in Maxico in about 4000 B.C.E.
 Potato, manioc, squash, beans, peppers and tomatoes were also cultivated.
 Later on, these foods were taken to Europe by European conquesters in 16th
century C.E.
 Eventually, 4 areas of fairly dense settlement emerged in the Americas.
 One of these in the Pacific Northwest in the area around Puget Sound, one was
in the Missisippi valley, and the other two were Mesoamerica and the Andean
region of South America.