AP World Review –

Foundations -
 Building Blocks of Civilization
 What is a Civilization?
– Economic System
– Political Organization
– Moral Code (Religion)
– Written Language and Intellectual
Tradition
– Division of labor
Others ways to tell if it is a civilization
 primary measurement is surplus
– Something above the subsistence level
– Indicators of more time
 other characteristics of civilization
include
– Writing
– Cities
– established states.
 Issues of Civilization vrs. Cultures
 What advantages does an agriculturally based society
have over a hunter/gatherer based society?
– The greatest advantage is reliable food supply, and hence, the
capacity to support larger populations. Agriculture produces
surpluses, and those and agriculture's sedentary nature, open
the door to specialization and a more elaborate culture, etc.
 Why is the development of writing important in the
history of the river valley civilizations?
– Writing is essential for record keeping, bureaucracy,
commerce, and accumulating knowledge; it also makes possible
more varied cultural forms. Writing also led to new social
divisions based on selective literacy.
 Compared to noncivilized societies, what are the major
drawbacks of civilization?
– Often have inequality in social structure and gender as well as
disease and war.
 Early Man
 Beginnings of Humans
– Hominids: 3 to 4 million years on earth
– Hominids were primates
– Earliest Hominids called Australopithecine
– Bipeds
 Other Types of Early Man
– Homo Habilis
– Homo Erectus
– Homo Sapiens
 Stone Age
 Paleolithic Age (Old Stone Age)
– Tools were used
– Simple Huts
– Fire
 Hunter Gatherer Societies
– Family or Clan Groupings
– Political Organizations Begin
– Art and Music also practiced
 Agricultural Revolution: Neolithic Revolution
– Occurred around end of Great Ice Age
– Rapid Population Growth
– Need for Change of Food Supply
– New Skills Needed
 Pastoralism and Agriculture
– Begins with Domestication of Plants and Animals
 Results of Agricultural Revolution
 Many Diversified Crops developed
 Development of Communities and

Villages
– Not Based on family ties
– Lead to formation of Cities
 Early Religions form around Harvest
and Planting Seasons
 Specialization of Labor

– Improved Tools
– Development of Social Classes
 Neolithic Revolution
 What was it?
– A period that saw the development of varied,
specialized tools and accompanied the introduction of
agriculture.
 Initial results
– It opened the potential for agriculture and the
resultant differentiations with hunting and gathering.
 Impact
– People settled down and cities developed which led to
complex systems developing and the change from
societies to civilizations
PreHistory History
 Presence of a written language
 Writing is essential for record keeping,
bureaucracy, commerce, and accumulating
knowledge;
 it makes possible more varied cultural forms.
 Writing also led to new social divisions based
on selective literacy.
– Scribes
– Scholarly gentry
 Dark Age
– Art of writing has developed and been lost
 River Valley Civilizations
 Mesopotamia (between two rivers)
– Tigris and Euphrates River Valley
• Flooding unpredictable in both time and force
– Fertile Crescent
– Written Language: Cuneiform
– Epic of Gilgamesh
– Hammurabi’s Code
 Egypt
– Nile River valley: Upper and Lower Egypt
– Inundation: regular flooding Schedule
– Monarchy: Pharaoh and Small class of Priests
– Duality: Complex Religion, Mummification
• Book of the Dead
– Many great Inventions and Advances
 Comparison of Egypt and Meso
 Common features include writing, surplus, cities, and
established governments;
– Cuneiform
– Hieroglyphics
– Pyramids only different types (steppe dev. Into ziggurats)
 Differences
– cultural tone
– cultural features like ideas of death
– artistic forms
– literary emphases
– government organization and stability
• Egypt placed more emphasis on monarchy and political stability
and held larger territories for longer periods while Fertile
Crescent had city-states that constantly vied for control of the
area and form empires (Sumerians, Assyrians, Akkadians,
Chaldeons, Babylonians, etc…
– mobilization of labor
Stability vs. Instability
Fragmentation which required warlike technology and
different issues of control
 River Valley Civilizations
 Indus Valley
– Indus and Ganges Rivers
– Reason for decline not known
– Highly unified and organized government
– Artistic
– Linear B
 China
– Yellow River valley
– Shang China: first dynasty
– Monarchy
– Bronze work, silk making, pottery, jade
– Zhou Dynasty: Many Advancements
• Mandate of heaven
Political structure tied to social order
and culture by Confucianism
 Confucianism emphasized order, hierarchy,
and deference, including specific injunctions
to obey the emperor.
 Bureaucracy aimed to alleviate political
instability, difficulties of centrally controlling
outlying provinces, and related competition
among landed aristocrats for power and
influence.
 Daoism also supports order by “one way or the
way” although it didn’t support the emperor
Throughout pendulum changes in level
and type of Confucianism
 Qin dynasty outlawed Confucianism
– Legalism encouraged actions based on law and
furthered the totalitarian state
• Actually began to develop in the Zhou dynasty but was
used by Shih Huang Di to unite the region under his Qin
dynasty
– Different than Confucianism which was based on
ethics and right behavior and “rites” or ceremonies
which promote the social and political order
 Adopted as state religion under Wu Di of Han
Dynasty
 Song Dynasty developed Neoconfucianism
 Ancient Chinese Dynasties
I. Early (Neolithic, then River Valley, Huang He)
A. Yangshau - 6000 - 5000 Bce
B. Longshan - 5000 - 4000 Bce
II. Bronze Age (1500-600 BC)
A. Shang Dynasty (1500-1122 bce)
B. Chou (Zhou) (1122-256 bce)
1. Early Chou (Zhou)1100- 600
III. Classical Age (600 BC - 200 ad)
A. Late Chou (Zhou) (600-221 bce)
1. Confucius
B. Chin (First Emperor) (221-206 bce) (Shi hwang di)
1. First Called China
C. Han (paper) (202 BC- 220 ad)
1. 90 % of Chinese consider themselves Han still today
2. Pax Sinica
a. Wu Di (140 BC - 87 bce)
IV. Age of Division (200-600 ad)
A. Three Kingdoms
B. Northern and Southern (Wui, Sui)
V. Medieval Age (600-1200 ad)
A. Tang (618-907 ad)
B. Sung (960-1279 ad)
VI. Yuan Dynasty or Mongol Age (1200-1350 ad)
 Impact
 It appears that the impact of the Indus
is less than the Hwang Ho river-valley
civilizations, because China was much
less disrupted, and thus evidenced more
continuities.
 What evidence could you use to show

that Hwang He river valley had greater

impact on the development of China than
did the Indus River Valley (Mohenjo-daro
and Harappa)
 Southwestern Asia Civilizations
 Persians
– Created one of the largest empires on world history :from
Turkey to Lybia
– Cyrus the Great was first king, Darius the Great
– Advanced Postal System, Roads, Single Currency, and
Decentralized Government
– Zoroastrianism: Primary Religion
• monotheistic
– Fell to Alexander the Great
 Phoenicians
– Syria and Lebanon
– Advanced Export Economy
– Skilled Traders
– Established Carthage
– First Alphabet
 Southwestern Asia Civilizations
 Lydians
– Coined money
 Hebrews
– Ethical monotheism
– Monotheism represented a significant departure
from polytheism in its concept of ethics and
ideas of justice and in the extent to which the
world was viewed as orderly.
– Diaspora
 Assyrians
 Introduction of iron weapons
 Babylonians –
– Significant law code
• Code of Hamurabi
 MesoAmerica
 Did not have the large animals
– Diseases that they carried were not present but made peoples
of Mesoamerica vulnerable to disease when they connected to
the Europeans in the second millennium
 Archaic period includes beginning of agricultural
experimentation
 Olmec’s are the first preclassical civilization (ca. 1150
BCE)
– site is San Lorenzo
 Around La Venta about 35 BCE system of writing is
present
 About 100 CE, at Teotihuacán, the Pyramids of the Sun
and Moon and the Avenue of the Dead are erected at
the "center of the universe" as monuments to the gods
of creation
 Early Myans
 Environmental determinism
 Relationship between culture of a
civilization, success and stability
 How does the culture react to the

environment or environmental change

 Technology

 Movement of peoples into and out of

the area
 Crossroads vs. isolation