Final (2) Flashcards
What is the Amesbury Archer?
2470 B.C. early bronze age burial 5 km from Stonehenge. Has the first gold objects in the country (Britain). Gives a clue to their social status. Wrist guards, beaker pottery present.
What was the significances of the Amesbury Archer?
- Richest burial from the early bronze age
- First time metal working was starting
- Was buried near stonehenge
- He was from an alps region (so a immigrant)
What is the Cahokia Site, Illinois?
1000 - 1250 A.D. Largest Mississippian site (13 sq. km). Maize and Squash agriculture. Emergence of powerful of leadership and differential access to wealth and power. At the centre of the site, there is a mound (Monk’s Mound - 16 acres big). Signs of feasting.
What are indications of wealth and status?
- Size and location of dwellings
- Burial types
What do we see when we talk about Cahokia?
- Signs of wealth/class
- Signs of power
- Signs of community living
- Cultural (sacrificial) practices (women’s pit)
What is a state society?
Class societies, often rigidly stratified into social levels. Rulers in a state society have the power to levy and collect taxes, to establish and enforce laws and to conscript people to work for the state.
What characterizes a civilization?
- Food surplus
- Large, dense populations
- Social stratification
- Formal government
- Labour specialization
- Record keeping
- Monumental works
What are theories to explain the emergence of civilization?
- Irrigation
- Population growth and war
- Local and long-distance trade
What is the theory of irrigation to explain the emergence of civilization?
– textbook
What is the theory of population growth and warfare to explain the emergence of civilization?
States may arise because certain areas are limited, thus competition and warfare. This may lead to the subordination of some groups of people
What is the theory of trade to explain the local and long-distance trade as the emergence of civilization?
When a surplus, you might have more goods to trade. You would need strong leadership and organizational connections between people. (Trade parties, communication).
Where is mesopotamia?
Area of land lying between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. Home of the world’s earliest urban societies.
What are the three periods of Mesopotamia?
- Ubaid period
- Uruk period
- Early Dynastic period
What happened in the ubaid period?
5000-4000 BC. Earliest well-represented period in southern mesopotamia.
What did C. Maisels three factors to the development of mesopotamia??
Check textbook. Food surplus, population growth, irrigation and organizational requirements.
What happened in the Uruk period?
4000 - 3200 BC. When the first urban sites appear. The city was the largest site in a landscape densely settled with smaller towns and villages. This city grew around its central temple district. Assembly halls, big temple, large complexes.
What happened in the Dynastic period?
3200 - 2350 BC. City-states developed in southern Mesopotamia. Signs of fighting and conflict. Signs of walls protecting the cities.
What is a Ziggurat?
Sumerian mudbrick temples that are built on top of large stepped platforms.
What do the temples of the dynastic period indicate with their clay tablets?
That the temples not only overseen religious duties, but also economic distributions.
What was Ur, mesopotamia and who excavated it?
Leonard Woolley. One of the most important mesopotamian cities. Major port for trade through the persian gulf. Leonard found royal burials here with gemstones, beads, headdresses of gold, musical instruments, jewelry, etc.
What was the great death pit?
Appear to be sacrificial victims in a pit in the city of Ur. No evidence of violence, so they might have been voluntary sacrifices to follow their leader in to the afterlife.
The beginning of the written record? (mesopotamia)
Five step process. Tokens, tokens with etchings, tokens in envelopes, impressed marks on slabs, cuneiform markings.
How did the written record begin in mesopotamia?
3500 B.C. Developed from earlier methods from keeping count of things that didn’t have a written language. It developed from a form of basic counting. Used clay tokens. It began with the using tokens as records, then moved to just impressing these tokens or symbols on to wet clay.qw
What is cuneiform?
Used a stylus to press symbols in wet clay to use as a form of a written record. Went from images to depict the item, then the images of the “sounds” of the words.
