Foundations of

Civilizations

Prehistory-300 B.C.
Understanding our Past

Why do we study history?


Why do we study history?

 Studying the Historical Past

 About 5,000 years ago groups of people in
different parts of the world began keeping
written records
 The invention and use of writing marks the
beginning of recorded history
 However…people still had be around for
thousands upon thousands of years prior,
this time before writing is known as
prehistory.
 The individuals who study and write about
the past are known as historians
 They learn and study from artifacts
 Ex. Clothing, artwork/pottery, written
 Studying the Historical Past

 Historians must evaluate all
evidence to determine what is
reliable and what is not
 Is the source
primary/secondary?
 Who is the “author”….are they
stating fact or opinions?
 Is the information real or fake
interpretations
 Often the goal of historians is
to explain cause and effect.
 Historians often try to state facts
and avoid biases, but sometimes
their biases influence their
 Investigating Prehistory

 The study of people, their development
and their origins is known as
anthropology
 Anthropologist study things like bones,
how we have physically changed, and
different cultures

 Within this field is archaeology  this is

the study of the past through material
remains, some examples are…
 Tools, weapons, pottery, clothing, jewelry
 These are used to examine life during the
prehistorical period along with helping to
 Where do Humans Come From?

 Before 1900, we knew very little about
prehistoric groups
 We knew they did not have cities,
governments or complex inventions

 Ancient Clues Found in East Africa

 Mary and Louis Leakey******
 They were searching for clues of human
history in Africa
 They discovered rocks that had been turned
into tools, they later found stones that had
been polished as well
Where was the first evidence
of humans discovered?
What/who was found?

 Where do Humans
Come From?

 Now the question was…who made those
tools?
 After more than two decades Mary Leakey
found a skull embedded into ancient rock
 After carful testing it was confirmed that
the skull belonged to an early hominids.
 Hominids are humans closest relatives

 In 1974 David Johnson was able to put

together a skeleton of a hominid he found
in Ethiopia
 It was dated to at least 3 million years ago
and he named the skeleton “Lucy”
 She was around 4 feet tall

 Early Humans

 Hominids like Lucy are known as australopithecines
 They all lived in Africa, and may have been there as
early as 7 million years ago
 About 2 million years ago homo habilis appeared
 Called the “handy man”…first to make stone tools
 Around 2 million years ago homo erectus also appeared
 They walked fully upright, had larger brains and bones
and smaller teeth than other hominids
 Believed to be the first to master fire, and developed the
hand ax for digging and hunting
 Their remains have been found in Asia and Europe
 Humans Around
the World

 Around 250,000 and 100,000 years ago Homo
erectus disappeared and Homo sapiens
emerged
 Most believe in the “Out of Africa” theory
 Others believe Homo erectus developed into
Homo sapiens around the same time in
different parts of the world

 Out of these two groups Homo sapiens arose

Neanderthals and the earliest modern
humans
 Neanderthals lived mainly in Europe and
Western Asia and disappeared sometime
between 50K and 30K years ago

 Leaving modern humans as the only


 Turning Point….

Why is the Neolithic Revolution seen as a
turning point?

Test on Intro-Chapter 1 Tuesday***

 The Old Stone Age
 Paleolithic = Old Stone Age 
 Was a period beginning several million
years ago and ending around about 14,000
BC
 During this period, different incarnations
of man made their appearance
 Homo erectus, Neanderthal, and Homo sapiens

 These early forms of man learned to

use simple tools, make fire
 MOST IMPORTANTLY, these
people were hunter-gatherers
 Typically lived in small bands/tribes of
20-30 people
 The Old Stone Age

 Characteristics of the Paleolithic Era
 Early life was centered in East Africa
and then spread
 People were hunter-gatherers and
nomadic, they had simple tools made
of stone, bone or wood
 Environment and geography dictated
human life, and presented extreme
challenges
 Spoken language only
 People believed in spirits and forces
were connected to animals this is
known as animism…believed in an
 The New Stone Age

 The New Stone Age began in about 10,000
B.C. when nomads made a groundbreaking
change
 The Neolithic Revolution is sometimes
termed the Agricultural Revolution.
 Humans begin to slowly domesticate plants
and animals in Southwest Asia.
 Agriculture requires nomadic peoples to
become sedentary.
 Populations begin to rise in areas where
plant and animal domestication occurred
 First plow invented 6000 B.C.
 Pop. grows from 5-8 million to 60-70 million.
 Change Post Revolution

 Once the Neolithic Revolution begun no
greater change in the way people lived
was seen until the Industrial Revolution
 Slowly towns and later cities began to
develop
 Catal Huyuk Modern Turkey First
settled: 7000 B.C.
 Jericho Modern Israel First settled: 7000
B.C.
 Towns required job specialization: metal
workers, pottery workers, farmers,
soldiers, religious and political leaders
 Towns often served as trade centers for the
area
 Men began to dominate society; politically,
socially and economically
New Technology

Wheeled Vehicles
• Saves labor, allows transport of
large loads and enhances trade
Potters Wheel (c.6000BCE)
•Allows the construction of more
durable clay vessels and artwork
Irrigation & Driven Plows
•Allows further increase of food
production, encourages pop. growth
Beginnings of
Civilization

What makes up a civilization?
Development of Civilizations

 We now have food…a place to live…what’s next?
 The earliest civilizations were ALL located near
major rivers
 Why were all these civilizations built near water?
 The Neolithic Revolution allowed for a surplus to
occur

 Key term to know: Traditional economy

 This type of economy relies on habit custom or rituals and
tends to change very little over time.
 Trading goods for other goods-NO MONEY
Development of Civilizations

 A civilization is a complex, highly organized social
order…the earliest civilizations were
 Egypt Nile River
 India Indus River Valley
 China Huang and Yellow Rivers
 Mesopotamia Tigris and Euphrates Rivers
 First Civilizations in the Americas
 Unlike in Asia and Africa the first civilizations in the
Americas developed in the highlands of Mexico,
Central and South America
 Many believe these groups crossed into the Americas
on the Bering Land Bridge during the last Ice Age

 Features of a Civilization

 Eight Basic Features of a Civilization
 Cities
 Well-organized central governments
 Complex religions
 Job specialization
 Social classes
 Arts and architecture
 Public works
 Writing
How do civilizations
grow and develop?

 Rise of Cities

 Rise of cities were the main
feature of a Civilization.
 First cities developed after farmers
cultivated lands along river and
produced a surplus of food
 Cites are population centers larger
than town/villages
 Often have a role larger than just
day to day living essentials
 Organized Governments

 Who will rule?
 Early Governments were led by
warrior kings
 Rulers used heredity to ensure their
families place
 Rulers claimed they were placed
there by god
 Governments became more complex
with time and size
 Used to structure large scale projects
like food production and creating
 Complex Religions

 Most ancient people were
Polytheistic
 Polytheistic-believed in many gods
Hinduism and Buddhism
 Monotheistic- Believe in one god
Islam and Christianity
 Believed that the gods controlled
water, fire, sun and human activities
 People built temples and carried out
sacrifices of food animals and humans
to honor the gods
 Religious officials were often some of
the most powerful/most educated
 Job Specialization/Social
Classes

 As people moved into cities they
no longer built everything they
needed.
 People relied on each other and
developed skills
 Metal working- bronze
 Pottery
 Weaver

 This also led to social classes-people

are now ranked
 Arts and Architecture

 Various types of artwork and buildings that express
the talents, beliefs and values of people in society
 Temples
 Rulers built structures to show strength or
immortalize themselves
 Public Works

 Large-scale and often costly
projects that benefit the city
and its people
 Irrigation Systems
 Roads
 Bridges
 Walls
 They often were quite costly
and required a great deal of
human labor and human life
 Writing

 A new skill found in civilizations
 Believed to have begun in temples in
order to record amounts of grain
collected
 Earliest forms of writing were
Pictograms
 Simple drawings that looked like the
object they represented
 This is especially crucial to historians
because with it, we could now see into
the lives of these ancient civilizations
 Spread of Civilizations

 As cities grew they brought
civilization to new areas.

 First Empires grew from

competition and war
 Wars between city states
developed the first empires

 Cultural Changes
 The first cities were spread all
over and needed to trade with
nomadic tribes.
 This often lead to cultural
diffusion, which in turn created
 Civilizations and Change

 Many things can cause
civilizations to change
 Environmental Changes
 Floods
 Droughts
 Volcanoes
 Over use of natural resources

 Interaction among people

could also impact a
civilization
 Cultural Diffusion
 Warfare
 Thank you!!!

Presented by: Manatad, Maz
har Ezra C.