Characteristics of Civilization study guide summary

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Characteristics of Civilization study guide summary

II. Characteristics of Civilization

civilization:
- early farming villages evolved slowly into complex societies
civitas:
- city
people of a civilization lived in a highly organized society with an advanced knowledge of farming, trade, government, art, and science

A. Classifying Societies

classify societies in terms of the scale and complexity of their social organization

1. Bands

typical form of society among hunter – gathers
small – scale societies
- numbering, usually, fewer than 100 people
members of a band are related to one another by birth or marriage
no formal leadership
few disparities of wealth or status between members

a) Kinship Groups

family
- earliest and most enduring form of human social organization

b) Migratory

forced to periodically move
- obtain their food

(1) Hunter – Gatherers

obtained their food
- combination of hunting wild animals
- gathering wild nuts, fruits, and grains
forced to migrate
- according to seasonal patterns
- to follow the herds they hunted

(2) Nomads

domestication of animals
- allows humans to become herders
- rather than predators
- cows, sheep, goats, horses, and camels
nomadic clan migrate
- on a seasonal basis
- survival of domesticated animals
- to ensure sufficient pasture and water for their herds

2. Segmentary (Tribes)

forced to live in one place
- in order to obtain their food
larger than bands
- numbering up to a few thousand people
divided into several communities
kinship ties
- integrated into the greater society
build permanent structures
- both practical and ceremonial use
more formal leadership than bands
- leaders usually lack real power

a) Agriculturalists

farming
- produce their food
- foundation of sedentary human organization
annual necessities
- clearing, planting, tending, and harvesting
- require nearly constant human attention
forcing farmers to live in small homesteads / villages
allows many more people to obtain their food from a given amount of land
- than either hunting, gathering, or herding

b) Urban

obtain their food
- not by directly farming
- but by trading with or taxing the farmers
surplus food began to be gathered into a single center
people in that area could specialize
- nonagricultural pursuits
- led ultimately to the origins of civilization

3. Chiefdoms

populations
- between 5,000 and 20,000
centered around power centers
marked differences of status between individuals
different lineages are graded
- on a scale of prestige
prestige and status
- depend on how closely an individual is related to the chief
burial customs
governed by a chief:
- senior member of the senior lineage
- control food surpluses and other commodities
- command the labor of the whole society to conduct major building projects

4. States (Civilizations)

considerable specialization of roles
settlement in cities
larger societies than chiefdoms
status is no longer defined primarily by lineage
different classes:
- upper class, relatives of the ruler
- merchants
- craftsmen
- agricultural workers, largest class at the bottom
rulers have power
- use of a standing army
- justified by a political / religious ideology & by law
taxes
- support armies, craftsmen, & the administrators
synonymous with civilization

B. River Valley Civilizations

Nile
Tigres & Euphrates
Indus
Huang He
specialized labor
advanced technology
some form of government
system of values and beliefs
British prehistorian Gordon Childe
- proposed ten characteristics
- by which a civilization can be recognized:
Primary Characteristics:
- all aspects of social organization
- 1. Settlement in Cities
- 2. Full – Time Specialization of Labor
- 3. Concentration of Surplus Production
- 4. Class Structure
- 5. State Organization
Secondary Characteristics:
- aspects of material culture
- 6. Monumental Public Works
- 7. Long – Distance Trade
- 8. Standardized Monumental Artwork
- 9. Writing
- 10. Arithmetic, Geometry, and Astronomy

C. The Economy of a Civilization

economy:
- ways in which people use their environment to meet their material needs
economy of early civilizations
- depended on their farmers’ growing surplus food
- extra food = fewer men and women had to farm = more could earn their living in other ways

1. Farming

critical factor in the emergence of the first civilizations
- transition from hunting and gathering to the farming way of life
- free humans from the constraints imposed by the natural environment
- allowing populations to grow
- rising populations = increased productivity
water their crops
- relied at first on rainfall
- transported water to grow the crops
- digging ditches from a nearby river to their fields
- building small canals and simple reservoirs
crop failures
surplus food
- first form of wealth
- used to gain power over others
- loan of food
- divisions of wealth and poverty

2. Domestication

domestication
- process of selective breeding by which wild animals and plants are made more useful to humans, including cereals or root crops
farming first developed
- in the Middle East
- this region had the widest range of plants & animals suitable for domestication
cereals make ideal staples
- easily be stored for very long periods
each region developed a dependence on different staple crops
- wheat & barley in the Middle East & South Asia
- millet & rice in China and South Asia
- corn in the Americas
animals were also domesticated
- process of selective breeding gradually enhanced useful traits
- sheep and goats (native to West & Central Asia) were domesticated
- their meat, milk, hides and wool
- cattle were domesticated all over Eurasia
- used to pull plows, thus increasing plant yields

3. Specialization

artisans:
- workers skilled in craft
gradual improvement in quality & quantity
metalworks
- make alloys:
- mixtures of metals
bronze
- a reddish – brown metal
- mixing melted copper and tin
- harder than either copper or tin alone
- took sharper cutting edge
Bronze Age
- period that followed the Stone Age
- bronze replace flint & stone
- chief material for weapons and tools

4. Long Distance Trade

lack any natural resources
development of a centralized body
- to organize the procurement & transport of basic commodities
- gained great power
search for new sources of copper and tin
merchants
- a specialized class of traders
- began to handle trade
expeditions soon were covering longer routes
trade moved overland by animal caravans
transported by water
- made rafts and boats for travel on rivers
- sailing ships
ideas were actively shared
- cultural diffusion:
- exchange of goods and ideas when cultures come in contact

D. The Rise of Cities

early cities
- 5,000 to 30,000 residents

1. Planning and Leadership

city residents
- depended on farmers for their food
- farmers had to regularly bring their surplus food to city markets
farmers
- could not build dams, dig irrigation ditches, and maintain reservoirs on their own
repeatedly raid and pillage farms and attack caravans
- needed a way of supervising and protecting agriculture and trade
organized a group of government officials
- oversee the collection, storage, & distribution of farming surpluses
- organized and directed the labor force needed for large – scale construction projects
hired professional soldiers
- guard their territory and trade routes
government leaders, military officials, and priests
- belonged to a ruling class
- ruling class justified its power by means of religion
- land produced food only if the gods and goddesses looked on the people with favor
- king was to assist priests in carrying out religious ceremonies
- to ensure an abundant harvest

2. Levels of Social Standing

economic specialization led to the formation of social stratification
evidence for the position
- especially for the ruling class
- can be found both in the treasures with which they were buried and in the physical layout of the ancient cities
layout of city
- city’s center
- area that held the most important religious and government buildings
- residences of the ruling class
- houses of the merchants
- shops and dwellings of specific groups of artisans
- farmers, sailors & fishermen, lived on the city’s outskirts

3. Invention of Writing

writing originated with the records that priests kept
- wheat, cloth, livestock, and other items they received as religious offerings
priests used pictograms:
- marks and pictures to represent products
- represent abstract ideas
- represent sounds
Canaanite alphabet
- 16th century BC
- Israel and Lebanon
- 28 letters
- stood for syllables that could be combined to spell out a word
1000 BC
- Canaanite alphabet appeared in the Middle East
- Phoenician and the Aramaic alphabets
Aramaic alphabet
- Assyrian empire
- the ancestor of modern Indian scripts
- the Indian – derived scripts of Central & Southeast Asia
Phoenician alphabet
- ancestor of the Hebrew and Greek alphabets
Greek alphabet
- introducing separate letters for consonants and vowels
- adapted by the peoples of Anatolia, the Balkans and Italy, including the Etruscans
Etruscan script
- the Romans made it into the Latin alphabet

Aramaic à Indian
Ú
Canaanite                             Hebrew
➘                      Ú
Phoenician                  Anatolia
➘         Ú
Greek à Balkans
➘
Etruscan        à Latin

4. Religion

new centers of exchange and specialization
annual gatherings of villagers
- to their central ancestral shrines
- times of planting / harvest
- occasion of trade fairs & worship
priests became specialists in knowledge
- developed forms of writing
- to assist them in keeping records
- recording sacred lore

E. Systems of Values

myths:
- traditional stories explaining how the world was formed
- how people came into being
- what they owed their creator

F. Art

G. Warfare

competing for land or resources
outside barbarians
- attack the new urban centers
- search of slaves and plunder
warriors became a dominant class in society
what is it good for?
- new military technologies were invented and copied
- wealth was plundered & ‘redistributed’
- larger political units began to be formed as one city – state conquered another

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