Exam 3 Flashcards
What is civilization?
A type of society marked by the presence of cities, social classes, and the state.
What are 4 features of early cities?
- large populations and the large size of the cities
- organized planning by a central authority, technological intensification, and social stratification
- peoples incorporated their spiritual beliefs and social order into the cities they built
- evidence of economic and social diversity
What is Teotihuacan?
- Ancient city in Mexico
- Archaeological investigations begin in the 1800s.
- Valley of Teotihuacan is 25 miles northeast of Mexico City.
- AD 300
- Great pyramids, specialized architecture, specialized production, houses, markets,
- believed sacred place where sun and moon were created
- human sacrifice at temple
- pyramid of sun by aztec
- large main street
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What was the Mesolithic and what happened?
- Transition from Paleolithic to Neolithic
- Known as Archaic period in Americas
- change from food foraging to food producing
- 12,000 ya global climate warms
- Glaciers recede and sea levels rise
- environments change, eg tundra replaced by forests in the north
- animal extinctions and movements, eg mammoths
- diets shift tto smaller game and more plant foods
- tool technologies change, eg microliths, ground stone tools, seaworthy boats and tools set in wood
Who were the Natufians?
- Mesolithic culture
- 10,200 - 12,500 ya
- Israel, Lebanon, western Syria
- abundant resources
- village sites
- 100-150 people
- communal cemetaries
- ground stone tools
- mortats
- flint sickle blades
- storage pits
- later sites evidence for domestication
What are microliths?
- small blades, usually of flint
- parts of composite tools made of bone and wood
- key to a wider array of tools than in the paleolithic
- sickles, harpoons, arrows, knives, daggers
What is Star Carr?
- site in North Yorkshire, England
- 9500 ya (actually 10,500 ya)
- lakeside site preserved in peat
- antler headdresses, barbed bone arrowpoints, and shale beads
What is the Neolithic?
- New Stone Age
- begins about 10,000 ya
- begginings of plant and animal domestication
What is domestication?
Evolutionary process whereby humans modify, either intentionally or unintentionally, the genetic makeup of a population of plants or animals, sometimes to the extant that that member of the population are unable to survive and/or reproduce without human assistance.
When does domestication occur?
Around 10,000 (10,500) ya at independant places all over the world.
How does domestication change plants?
artificial selection results in:
- bigger seeds
- natural means of dispersal lost
- loss of protective traits against distasteful chemicals
- loss of delayed seed germination
- simultaneous ripening
How did domestication change animals?
artificial selection results in:
- skeletal changes (loss of horns, smaller teeth)
- change in age and sex ratios
- eg, young make goats slaughtered at a higher rate than females
- eg high rate of newborn bones? (bacteria and viruses associated with pens)
What is Skara Brae
- scotland
- 5100-4500 ya
undergroung dwellings linked together by a series of low, covered passages - cattle, sheep, barley
What i gordon childe’s oasis theory?
Environmental determinism
As the earth warmed many regions became drier. people and animals congregated at oases for water. lack of abundant food opushed people in to domesticating plants. the animals that came there were too thin to eat, people began fattening them up.
What is the historical narrative explanation for domestication?
No need to seek one single model to explain the origins of agriculture
- explanations must take in to account:
- geographic situations
- history of foragers
- social structures
- subsistance strategies
each group of hunter gathereers had their own culutural way of dealing with environmental changes. while some settled down other continue to survive as foragers.
