FIRST RIVER VALLEY CIVILIZATIONS

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CHAPTER 1

• FIRST RIVER VALLEY CIVILIZATIONS

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PRE-CIVILIZATION

• Stability due to need to control water
• Small groups could not regulate waters
• Small groups could not defend area
• Predecessors to civilizations
• Small farming villages
• First appeared in S.W. Asia
• Catal Huyuk as example
• Self-sufficient agricultural village in Turkey
• Evidence of trade, tool making, artisans
• Evidence of complex religion
• Specialization of occupations politics, military
• Evidence of metal working (Copper Age)

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CIVILIZATION

• Civilization as Advanced Culture
• Population dependent on cities
• From Latin civitas
• Permanent institutions
• Politics, Religion ability to make war
• Social, labor, gender divisions, inequality
• Clearly defined sense of other barbarian, nomad
• Artisan, intellectual classes favoring technology
• Form of record keeping, specifically writing
• Do not confuse with good or superior

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THE MAP OF 1ST CIVILIZATIONS
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ANCIENT HUMOR
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ENVIRONMENT AS CATALYST

• Mesopotamia (land between rivers)
• Harsh heat, drought unpredictable floods
• Few natural resources short of mud no wood
• No natural defensive areas such as hills
• Area open to invasion by migrating nomads
• People in area must
• Provide permanent food supply
• Regulate, provide permanent water supply
• Provide defense against invaders
• Acquire materials such as timber, minerals

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TIGRIS-EUPHRATES

• Necessity is the mother of invention
• Sumer in S. Iraq was first civilization
• Cuneiform, sciences, math aided farming
• Polytheistic religion
• Religion was to appease gods, control nature
• Art, architecture dedicated to gods, religion
• Priests, later kings rule city-states
• Land owning aristocracy dominate
• Warlike society with slavery
• Trade for needed materials

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LATER MESOPOTAMIANS

• Cycle of Civilization
• Nomads come in and conquer sedentary people
• Conquerors assimilate local sedentary culture
• New civilization blends cultures, thrives for a
  while
• New civilization grows old, invaded by nomads
• Akkad First
• First Empire
• Sargon conquered all of Sumer
• Babylonian First
• City at junction of Tigris-Euphrates
• Hammurabis Law Code
• Laws included in Jewish Torah

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MESOPOTAMIA AS A CHART
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THE NILE RIVER

• Society very different from Sumer
• Nile flooded regularly, predictably
• Provided rich soil, Easy soil to farm
• Civilization regulated flooding, surveying
• Location isolated
• Pharaoh was considered god-king
• Theocracy, almost absolute
• Built pyramid tombs for dead
• Egypt unified for most of history
• Achievements
• Mathematics especially geometry architecture
• Sciences, Medicine
• Art was both secular and sacred
• Religion was positive, egalitarian in many ways

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INDUS VALLEY

• Arose around 2,500 BCE
• Main Cities
• Mohenjo Daro
• Harappa
• Hundreds of other settlements
• Independent city-states, strong government
• Extremely well-planned, coordinated cities
• Elaborate writing system (undeciphered)
• Religion
• Worshipped mother goddess
• Evidence of priestly class and temples
• Collapse
• Little evidence of warfare until end
• Devastated by environmental upheavals
• Destroyed by Indo-European (Aryan) nomads
• Cities abandoned

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HUANG-HE (YELLOW) RIVER

• Developed in isolation
• Along lower Yellow River
• Rich loess soil
• Constantly flooding
• First Dynasties
• Control of flooding critical
• Xia Dynasty (Mythical?)
• God-like kings
• Taught irrigation, sericulture
• Shang Dynasty
• Warlike kings, landed aristocracy few priests
• Most people worked land as peasants
• Elaborate bronze workings naturalistic art

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CHINESE WRITING

• Originated during Shang
• Ideographic
• Writing denotes ideas
• First used on Oracle Bones
• Priests asked gods questions
• Wrote questions on bones
• Tossed into fire
• Cracks read by priests (divination)
• Elitist technique scholar-bureaucrats
• Extremely difficult to read
• Required well-educated class to use
• Only elite had time to learn
• Cuneiform, hieroglyphs had similar effects

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MANDATE OF HEAVEN

• Chinese political idea
• Rulers exercise power given by heaven
• Rulers continue to rule if heaven pleased
• Heaven will take back mandate to rule
• Heaven will replace ruling dynasty
• Indicators of a Lost Mandate
• Wars, invasions, military disasters
• Over-taxation, disgruntled peasants
• Social, moral decline of elite classes
• Increased crime, banditry

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DYNASTIC CYCLE

• One ruling family replaces another
• The Dynasty Changes
• Due to the loss of the Mandate of Heaven
• Stages in Cycle
• New dynasty arises, takes control of China
• Strengthens rule, reestablishes prosperity, peace
• Weakens, becomes lazy, problems arise
• Invasions, revolts toss out reigning dynasty
• Shang replaces Xia, Zhou replaces Shang

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HOWTHECYCLE AND MANDATEWORKTOGETHER
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HERITAGES

• First heritages
• Passed thru children
• Writing systems inherited
• Intellectual systems, art copied
• Religious, philosophical systems copied
• Useful inventions rarely forgotten, easily spread
• River valley civilizations decline by 1000BCE
• All subject to nomadic invasions
• Indo-Europeans and Semites were strongest
• Geographical centers shifted (all except China)
• Political Structures often not continued

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CIVILIZATION SPREADS

• Phoenician Sailors in Lebanon
• City-states traded across Mediterranean
• Invented alphabet
• Asia Minor
• Hittites introduced Iron
• Lydians introduced coinage to area
• Hebrews in Palestine
• Large Semitic migration in area
• There is only one God speaking through prophets,
  priests
• God made a covenant with the Jews, his Chosen
  people
• Ethical monotheism
• Conduct determines salvation
• Man is not eternally damned if he follows Gods
  rules, repents

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NOMADS BARBARIANS?

• Pastoralism
• Domestication of animals
• Way of life based on herding
• Often on fringes
• Bordered settled areas
• Seen as savages
• Interaction vs. conflict
• Nomads traded, coexisted with settled areas
• Nomads warred on, conquered settled areas
• Often protected merchants, allowed trade
• Prior to 1500 BCE little major threat
• Chariot Peoples (Central Asian Indo-Europeans)
• Domesticated horse, invented chariot, iron
  weapons
• Pushed into SW Asia, S. Asia, E. Asia, Europe
• Responsible for spread of ideas, trade