西方文明史chapter 1

in technology: the invention of the potter’s wheel use of metal ox yoke sail




results: improved transportation promoted trade food supply became more reliable village life expanded, and the population increased families that acquired wealth gained a higher social status and became village leaders religion grew more formal Neolithic society was growing more organized and complex, it was on the threshold of civilization.
Prehistory
The Paleolithic Age, or Old Stone Age, began in East Africa nearly 3 million years ago ended about 10,000 years ago Paleolithic ancestors’ action: lived as hunters and food gatherers not learned how to farm never established permanent villages always searched for new dwelling places
Law
The principal collection of laws in ancient Mesopotamia was the famous code of Hammurabi (c.1792-c.1750 B.C.), the Babylonian ruler
Economy
The economy of Mesopotamian cities depended heavily on foreign and domestic trade. Because of trade’s importance to the life of the city, governments instituted regulations to prevent fraud. Business transactions had to be recorded in writing.
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Humanity’s rise to civilization was long and arduous. Some 99 percent of human history took place before the creation of civilization, in the vast ages of prehistory.
Chapter 1 The Ancient Near East: The First Civilizations Civilization was not inevitable; it was an act of human creativity. The first civilization arose some 5,000 years ago in the river valleys of Mesopotamia and Egypt. characteristics of civilized life: established cities and states invented writing developed organized religion constructed large-scale buildings and monuments
The Near (or Middle) East encompasses the modern states of: Egypt, Jordan, Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, Iraq and Iran, and the countries of the Arabian peninsula.
The Rise to Civilization
civilization arose some 5,000 years ago in the Near East (in Mesopotamia and Egypt) and them later in East Asia (in India and China). The first civilization began in cities that were larger, more populated, and more complex in their political, economic, and social structure than Neolithic villages. These developments—cities, specialization of labor, writing, organized government, monumental architecture, and a complex religious structure—differentiate the civilizations from prehistoric cultures.
Religion: The Basis of Mesopotamian Civilization
Religion lay at the center of Mesopotamian life. Every human activity—political, military, social, legal, literary, artistic—was generally subordinated to an overriding religious purpose. Religion was the Mesopotamians’ frame of reference for understanding nature, society, and themselves; it dominated and inspired all other cultural expressions and human activities. Wars between cities, for instance, were interpreted as conflicts between the gods of those cities, and victory ultimately depended on divine favor, not on human effort. Myths—narratives about the activities of the gods—explained the origins of the human species.
Mesopotamian Civilization
Mesopotamia is the Greek for “land between the rivers.” It was here, in the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, that the first civilization began. Around 3000 B.C., their hut settlements gradually evolved into twelve independent city-states, each consisting of a city and its surrounding countryside. Among the impressive achievements of the Sumerians were a system of symbol writing on clay tablets (cuneiform) to represent ideas; elaborate brick houses, palaces, and temples; bronze tools and weapons; irrigation works; trade with other peoples; an early form of money; religious and political institutions; schools; religious and secular literature; varied art forms; codes of law; medicinal drugs; and a lunar calendar.
Sumerian myths the first human beings issued forth form the earth like plant life, or were shaped from clay by divine craftsmen and granted a heart by the goddess Nammu, or were formed from the blood of two gods sacrificed for that purpose.
the New Stone Age, or Neolithic Age, began in the Near East Some 10,000 years ago. Neolithic human beings’ action: farming, established villages domesticated animals, polished stone tools, made pottery, wove cloth.
Paleolithic people developed: spoken language make and use tools of bone, wood, and stone control fire, Most likely, mythic-religious beliefs