History For 9th Grade
History For 9th Grade
History For 9th Grade
(Freshman)
1
Contents:
1.History
1 Etymology
2 Description
3 History and prehistory
4 Historiography
5 Philosophy of history
6 Historical methods
7 Areas of study
7.1 Periods
7.2 Geographical locations
7.2.1 World
7.2.2 Regions
7.3 Military history
7.4 Social history
7.5 Cultural History
7.6 Diplomatic history
7.7 People's history
7.8 Gender history
8 Pseudohistory
2.Prehistory
1 Definition
2 Stone Age
2.1 Paleolithic
2.2 Mesolithic
2.3 Neolithic
2.3.1 Agriculture
3 Bronze Age
4 Iron Age
5 Timeline of human prehistory
3.Human evolution
1 History of ideas about human evolution
2 Before Homo
2.1 Evolution of apes
2.2 Divergence of the human lineage from other Great Apes
3 Genus Homo
3.1 Homo habilis
3.2 Homo rudolfensis and Homo georgicus
3.3 Homo ergaster and Homo erectus
3.4 Homo cepranensis and Homo antecessor
3.5 Homo heidelbergensis
3.6 Homo rhodesiensis, and the Gawis cranium
3.7 Homo neanderthalensis
3.8 Homo sapiens
3.9 Homo floresiensis
3.10 Comparative table of Homo species
4 Use of tools
4.1 Stone tools
4.2 Modern humans and the "Great Leap Forward" debate
5 Models of human evolution
5.1 Multiregional model
5.2 Out of Africa
6 Genetics
4.History of Writing
1 Writing systems
2 Recorded history
2.1 Developmental stages
2.2 Literature and writing
3 Locations and timeframes
3.1 Proto-writing
3.1.1 Europe and Near East
3.1.2 India and Asia
3.2 Bronze Age writing
3.2.1 Cuneiform script
3.2.2 Egyptian hieroglyphs
3.2.3 Chinese writing
3.2.4 Elamite scripts
3.2.5 Anatolian hieroglyphs
3.2.6 Cretan scripts
3.2.7 Early Semitic alphabets
3.2.8 Indus scripts
3.2.9 Mesoamerica
3.3 Iron Age writing
3.4 Writing in Antiquity
3.5 Middle Ages writing
3.6 Modern writing
4 Materials of writing
5.Ancient history
1 The study of ancient history
1.1 Archaeology
1.2 Source text
2 Chronology
2.1 Prehistory
2.2 Timeline of Ancient History
2.2.1 Middle to Late Bronze Age
2.2.2 Early Iron Age
2.2.3 Classical Antiquity
2.2.3.1 Before the Common Era
2.2.3.1.1 Early ancient history
2.2.3.1.2 Late ancient history
2.2.3.2 In the Common Era
2.3 End of Classical Antiquity
4 Religion and philosophy
5 Ancient science and technology
6 Ancient maritime activity
7 Ancient warfare
8 Ancient artwork and music
9 Cultures in the New World
History is the study of the human past, with special attention to the written
record. Scholars who write about history are called historians. It is a field of
research which uses a narrative to examine and analyse the sequence of events,
and it often attempts to investigate objectively the patterns of cause and effect
that determine events.[1][2] Historians debate the nature of history and the lessons
history teaches.[1][3][4] A famous quote by the philosopher George Santayana has
it that "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." [5] The
stories common to a particular culture, but not supported by external sources
(such as the legends surrounding King Arthur) are usually classified as cultural
heritage rather than the "disinterested investigation" needed by the discipline of
history.
Etymology
The word history comes from Greek ἱστορία (historia), from the Proto-Indo-
European *wid-tor-, from the root *weid-, "to know, to see".[8] This root is also
present in the English words wit, wise, wisdom, vision, and idea, in the Sanskrit
word veda,[9] and in the Slavic word videti and vedati, as well as others.[10] (The
asterisk before a word indicates that it is a hypothetical construction, not an
attested form.)
History
Frederick Dielman (1896).
The Ancient Greek word ἱστορία, historía, means "inquiry, knowledge acquired by
investigation". It was in that sense that Aristotle used the word in his Περὶ Τὰ
Ζῷα Ἱστορίαι, Peri Ta Zoa Ηistoriai or, in Latinized form, Historia Animalium.[11]
The term is derived from ἵστωρ, hístōr meaning wise man, witness, or judge. We
can see early attestations of ἵστωρ in Homeric Hymns, Heraclitus, the Athenian
ephebes' oath, and in Boiotic inscriptions (in a legal sense, either "judge" or
"witness", or similar). The spirant is problematic, and not present in cognate
Greek εἴδομαι - eídomai ("to appear"). The form ἱστορεῖν - historeîn, "to inquire",
is an Ionic derivation, which spread first in Classical Greece and ultimately over
all of Hellenistic civilization.
It was still in the Greek sense that Francis Bacon used the term in the late 16th
century, when he wrote about "Natural History". For him, historia was "the
knowledge of objects determined by space and time", that sort of knowledge
provided by memory (while science was provided by reason, and poetry was
provided by fantasy).
The word entered the English language in 1390 with the meaning of "relation of
incidents, story". In Middle English, the meaning was "story" in general. The
restriction to the meaning "record of past events" arises in the late 15th century.
In German, French, and most Germanic and Romance languages, the same
word is still used to mean both "history" and "story". The adjective historical is
attested from 1661, and historic from 1669.[12]
Description
Since historians are observers and participants, the works they produce are
written from the perspective of their own time and sometimes with due concern
for possible lessons for their own future. In the words of Benedetto Croce, "All
history is contemporary history". History is facilitated by the formation of a 'true
discourse of past' through the production of narrative and analysis of past events
relating to the human race.[12] The modern discipline of history is dedicated to the
institutional production of this discourse.
All events that are remembered and preserved in some authentic form constitute
the historical record.[13] The task of historical discourse is to identify the sources
which can most usefully contribute to the production of accurate accounts of
past. Therefore, the constitution of the historian's archive is a result of
circumscribing a more general archive by invalidating the usage of certain texts
and documents (by falsifying their claims to represent the 'true past').
The study of history has sometimes been classified as part of the humanities and
other times as part of the social sciences.[14] It can also be seen as a bridge
between those two broad areas, incorporating methodologies from both. Some
individual historians strongly support one or the other classification. [15] In modern
academia, history is increasingly classified as a social science. In the 20th
century, French historian Fernand Braudel revolutionized the study of history, by
using such outside disciplines as economics, anthropology, and geography in the
study of global history.
Such a definition would include within the scope of history peoples such as
Australian Aboriginals and New Zealand Maori who, before contact with
Europeans, already possessed a strong interest in the past and maintained oral
records transmitted to succeeding generations.
Historiography
Historiography has a number of related meanings. Firstly, it can refer to how
history has been produced: the story of the development of methodology and
practices (for example, the move from short-term biographical narrative towards
long-term thematic analysis). Secondly, it can refer to what has been produced: a
specific body of historical writing (for example, "medieval historiography during
the 1960s" means "Works of medieval history written during the 1960s"). Thirdly,
it may refer to why history is produced: the Philosophy of history. As a meta-level
analysis of descriptions of the past, this third conception can relate to the first two
in that the analysis usually focuses on the narratives, interpretations, worldview,
use of evidence, or method of presentation of other historians. Professional
historians also debate the question of whether history can be taught as a single
coherent narrative or a series of competing narratives.
Philosophy of history
Philosophy of history is an area of philosophy concerning the eventual
significance, if any, of human history. Furthermore, it speculates as to a possible
teleological end to its development—that is, it asks if there is a design, purpose,
directive principle, or finality in the processes of human history. Philosophy of
history should not be confused with historiography, which is the study of history
as an academic discipline, and thus concerns its methods and practices, and its
development as a discipline over time. Nor should philosophy of history be
confused with the history of philosophy, which is the study of the development of
philosophical ideas through time.
Historical methods
The historical method comprises the techniques and guidelines by which
historians use primary sources and other evidence to research and then to write
history.
Saint Augustine was influential in Christian and Western thought at the beginning
of the medieval period. Through the Medieval and Renaissance periods, history
was often studied through a sacred or religious perspective. Around 1800,
German philosopher and historian Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel brought
philosophy and a more secular approach in historical study.[17]
In the preface to his book, the Muqaddimah (1377), the Arab historian and early
sociologist, Ibn Khaldun, warned of seven mistakes that he thought that
historians regularly committed. In this criticism, he approached the past as
strange and in need of interpretation. The originality of Ibn Khaldun was to claim
that the cultural difference of another age must govern the evaluation of relevant
historical material, to distinguish the principles according to which it might be
possible to attempt the evaluation, and lastly, to feel the need for experience, in
addition to rational principles, in order to assess a culture of the past. Ibn
Khaldun often criticized "idle superstition and uncritical acceptance of historical
data." As a result, he introduced a scientific method to the study of history, and
he often referred to it as his "new science". [25] His historical method included role
of state, communication, propaganda and systematic bias in history,[26] However
Ibn Khaldun had no followers and established no school; his work was unknown
in the west until the 19th century and had no influence there. [27][28][29]
Areas of study
Periods
Geographical locations
Particular geographical locations can form the basis of historical study, for
example, continents, countries and cities. Understanding why historic events took
place is important. To do this, historians often turn to geography. Weather
patterns, the water supply, and the landscape of a place all affect the lives of the
people who live there. For example, to explain why the ancient Egyptians
developed a successful civilization, you must look at the geography of Egypt.
Egyptian civilization was built on the banks of the Nile River, which flooded each
year, depositing soil on its banks. The rich soil could help farmers grow enough
crops to feed the people in the cities. That meant everyone did not have to farm,
so some people could perform other jobs that helped develop the civilization.
World
World history is the study of major civilizations over the last 3000 years or so. It
has led to highly controversial interpretations by Oswald Spengler and Arnold J.
Toynbee, among others. World history is especially important as a teaching field.
It has increasingly entered the university curriculum in the U.S., in many cases
replacing courses in Western Civilization, that had a focus on Europe and the
U.S. World history adds extensive new material on Asia, Africa and Latin
America.
Regions
History of Africa begins with the first emergence of modern human beings
on the continent, continuing into its modern present as a patchwork of
diverse and politically developing nation states.
History of the Americas is the collective history of North and South
America, including Central America and the Caribbean.
o History of North America is the study of the past passed down from
generation to generation on the continent in the Earth's northern
and western hemisphere.
o History of Central America is the study of the past passed down
from generation to generation on the continent in the Earth's
western hemisphere.
o History of the Caribbean begins with the oldest evidence where
7,000-year-old remains have been found.
o History of South America is the study of the past passed down from
generation to generation on the continent in the Earth's southern
and western hemisphere.
History of Antarctica emerges from early Western theories of a vast
continent, known as Terra Australis, believed to exist in the far south of
the globe.
History of Australia start with the documentation of the Makassar trading
with Indigenous Australians on Australia's north coast.
History of New Zealand dates back at least 700 years to when it was
discovered and settled by Polynesians, who developed a distinct Māori
culture centred on kinship links and land.
History of the Pacific Islands covers the history of the islands in the Pacific
Ocean.
History of Eurasia is the collective history of several distinct peripheral
coastal regions: the Middle East, South Asia, East Asia, Southeast Asia,
and Europe, linked by the interior mass of the Eurasian steppe of Central
Asia and Eastern Europe.
o History of Europe describes the passage of time from humans
inhabiting the European continent to the present day.
History of Frisia is the study of the rich history and folklore of
the Frisians and their languages, battles, culture, cuisine,
and so forth.
o History of Asia can be seen as the collective history of several
distinct peripheral coastal regions, East Asia, South Asia, and the
Middle East linked by the interior mass of the Eurasian steppe.
History of East Asia is the study of the past passed down
from generation to generation in East Asia.
History of the Middle East begins with the earliest
civilizations in the region now known as the Middle East that
were established around 3000 BC, in Mesopotamia (Iraq).
History of South Asia is the study of the past passed down
from generation to generation in the Sub-Himalayan region.
History of Southeast Asia has been characterized as
interaction between regional players and foreign powers.
Military history
Social history
Social history is the study of how societies adapt and change over periods of
time. Social history is an area of historical study considered by some to be a
social science that attempts to view historical evidence from the point of view of
developing social trends. In this view, it may include areas of economic history,
legal history and the analysis of other aspects of civil society that show the
evolution of social norms, behaviors and more.
Cultural History
Cultural history replaced social history as the dominant form in the 1980s and
1990s. It typically combines the approaches of anthropology and history to look
at language, popular cultural traditions and cultural interpretations of historical
experience. It examines the records and narrative descriptions of past
knowledge, customs, and arts of a group of people. How peoples constructed
their memory of the past is a major topic.
Diplomatic history
People's history
Gender history
Gender history is a sub-field of History and Gender studies, which looks at the
past from the perspective of gender. It is in many ways, an outgrowth of women's
history. Despite its relatively short life, Gender History (and its forerunner
Women's History) has had a rather significant effect on the general study of
history. Since the 1960s, when the initially small field first achieved a measure of
acceptance, it has gone through a number of different phases, each with its own
challenges and outcomes. Although some of the changes to the study of history
have been quite obvious, such as increased numbers of books on famous
women or simply the admission of greater numbers of women into the historical
profession, other influences are more subtle.
Pseudohistory
Pseudohistory is a term applied to texts which purport to be historical in nature
but which depart from standard historiographical conventions in a way which
undermines their conclusions. Works which draw controversial conclusions from
new, speculative or disputed historical evidence, particularly in the fields of
national, political, military and religious affairs, are often rejected as
pseudohistory.
In many countries, such as Japan, Russia, and the United States, the subject
taught in the primary and secondary schools under the name "history" has at
times been censored for political reasons. To give just a few of many examples:
in Japan, mention of the Nanking Massacre has been removed from textbooks; in
Russia under Stalin, history was rewritten to conform with communist party
doctrine; and in the United States the history of the American Civil War had been
censored to avoid giving offense to white Southerners. [34][35][36] This practice goes
back to the earliest recorded times. In Book Three of The Republic, Plato
recommends that citizens be taught lies in order to instill patriotism.
Words:
-History
-Historians
-Historiography
-World history
-Pseudohistory
-Herodotus of Halicarnassus
2.Prehistory
The term "prehistory" can be used to refer to all time since the beginning of the
universe, although the term is more often used to describe periods when there
was life on Earth and even more commonly, to the time when human-like beings
appear on Earth.[3] Prehistorians typically use a Three age system to divide up
human prehistory—whereas scholars of pre-human time periods typically use the
well defined Rock record and its internationally defined stratum base within the
geologic time scale. The three-age system is the periodization of human
prehistory into three consecutive time periods, named for their respective
predominant tool-making technologies:
Definition
Because, by definition, there are no written records from human prehistory,
dating of prehistoric materials is particularly crucial to the enterprise. Clear
techniques for dating were not well-developed until the 19th century. [4] The
primary researchers into Human prehistory are prehistoric archaeologists and
physical anthropologists who use excavation, geologic and geographic surveys,
and other scientific analysis to reveal and interpret the nature and behavior of
pre-literate and non-literate peoples. [5] Human population geneticists and
historical linguists are also providing valuable insight for these questions. [6]
Cultural anthropologists help to provide context of marriage and trade, by which
objects of human origin are passed among people, thereby allowing for a rich
analysis of any article that arises in a human prehistoric context. [7] Therefore,
data about prehistory is provided by a wide variety of natural and social sciences,
such as paleontology, biology, archaeology, palynology, geology,
archaeoastronomy, comparative linguistics, anthropology, molecular genetics
and many others.
Human prehistory differs from history not only in terms of its chronology but in the
way it deals with the activities of archaeological cultures rather than named
nations or individuals. Restricted to material processes, remains and artifacts
rather than written records, prehistory is anonymous. Because of this, the
reference terms used by prehistorians such as Neanderthal or Iron Age are
modern labels, the precise definition of which is often subject to discussion and
argument.
The date marking the end of prehistory, that is the date when written historical
records become a useful academic resource, varies from region to region. For
example, in Egypt it is generally accepted that prehistory ended around 3200 BC,
whereas in New Guinea the end of the prehistoric era is set much more recently,
at around 1900 AD.
Stone Age
Paleolithic
Map of early human migrations, according to mitochondrial population genetics.
Numbers are millennia before the present (accuracy disputed).
"Paleolithic" means "Old Stone Age," and begins with the first use of stone tools.
The Paleolithic is the earliest period of the Stone Age.
The early part of the Paleolithic is called the Lower Paleolithic, which predates
Homo sapiens, beginning with Homo habilis (and related species) and with the
earliest stone tools, dated to around 2.5 million years ago. [citation needed] Homo
sapiens originated some 200,000 years ago, ushering in the Middle Paleolithic.
Anatomic changes indicating modern language capacity also arise during the
Middle Paleolithic.[citation needed] The systematic burial of the dead, the music, early
art, and the use of increasingly sophisticated multi-part tools are highlights of the
Middle Paleolithic.
Mesolithic
The "Mesolithic," or "Middle Stone Age" (from the Greek "mesos," "middle," and
"lithos," "stone") was a period in the development of human technology between
the Paleolithic and Neolithic periods of the Stone Age.
The Mesolithic period began at the end of the Pleistocene epoch, some 10,000
BP, and ended with the introduction of agriculture, the date of which varied by
geographic region. In some areas, such as the Near East, agriculture was
already underway by the end of the Pleistocene, and there the Mesolithic is short
and poorly defined. In areas with limited glacial impact, the term "Epipaleolithic"
is sometimes preferred.
Regions that experienced greater environmental effects as the last ice age ended
have a much more evident Mesolithic era, lasting millennia. In Northern Europe,
societies were able to live well on rich food supplies from the marshlands
fostered by the warmer climate. Such conditions produced distinctive human
behaviours which are preserved in the material record, such as the Maglemosian
and Azilian cultures. These conditions also delayed the coming of the Neolithic
until as late as 4000 BC (6,000 BP) in northern Europe.
Remains from this period are few and far between, often limited to middens. In
forested areas, the first signs of deforestation have been found, although this
would only begin in earnest during the Neolithic, when more space was needed
for agriculture.
Neolithic
"Neolithic" means "New Stone Age." This was a period of primitive technological
and social development, toward the end of the "Stone Age." Beginning in the
10th millennium BCE (12,000 BP), the Neolithic period saw the development of
early villages, agriculture, animal domestication, tools and the onset of the
earliest recorded incidents of warfare. [9] The Neolithic term is commonly used in
the Old World, as its application to cultures in the Americas and Oceania that did
not fully develop metal-working technology raises problems.
Agriculture
The Americas may not have had metal tools until the Chavín horizon (900 BC).
The Moche did have metal armor, knives and tableware. Even the metal-poor
Inca had metal-tipped plows, at least after the conquest of Chimor. However, little
archaeological research has so far been done in Peru, and nearly all the khipus
(recording devices, in the form of knots, used by the Incas) were burned in the
Spanish conquest of Peru. As late as 2004, entire cities were still being
unearthed.
The cradles of early civilizations were river valleys, such as the Euphrates and
Tigris valleys in Mesopotamia, the Nile valley in Egypt, the Indus valley in the
Indian subcontinent, and the Yangtze and Yellow River valleys in China. Some
nomadic peoples, such as the Indigenous Australians and the Bushmen of
southern Africa, did not practice agriculture until relatively recent times.
Before 1800 AD, most populations did not belong to states. Scientists disagree
as to whether the term "tribe" should be applied to the kinds of societies that
these people lived in. Some tribal societies transformed into states when they
were threatened, or otherwise impinged on, by existing states. [citation needed]
Bronze Age
Ox-drawn plow, Egypt, ca. 1200 BC.
The term Bronze Age refers to a period in human cultural development when the
most advanced metalworking (at least in systematic and widespread use)
included techniques for smelting copper and tin from naturally-occurring
outcroppings of copper ores, and then smelting those ores to cast bronze. These
naturally-occurring ores typically included arsenic as a common impurity.
Copper/tin ores are rare, as reflected in the fact that there were no tin bronzes in
Western Asia before 3,000 BC. The Bronze Age forms part of the three-age
system for prehistoric societies. In this system, it follows the Neolithic in some
areas of the world.
The Bronze Age is the earliest period of which we have direct written accounts,
since the invention of writing coincides with its early beginnings.
Iron Age
In archaeology, the Iron Age was the stage in the development ferrous
metallurgy. The adoption of iron coincided with other changes in some past
societies often including differing agricultural practices, religious beliefs and
artistic styles, which makes the archaeological Iron Age coincide with the "Axial
Age" in the history of philosophy.
Paleolithic
c. 120,000 BP - Modern Homo sapiens appears in Africa.
c. 300,000 BP to 30,000 BP. Mousterian (Neanderthal) culture in Europe.
[10]
Mesolithic
c. 32,000 BP - Aurignacian culture begins in Europe.
c. 30,000 BP / 28,000 BC - A herd of reindeer is slaughtered and
butchered by humans in the Vezere Valley in what is today France.[14]
c. 28,500 BCE - New Guinea is populated by colonists from Asia or
Australia.[15]
c. 28,000 BP - 20,000 BP - Graveltian period in Europe. Harpoons,
needles, and saws invented.
c. 26,000 BP / c. 24,000 BC - Women around the world use fibers to make
baby-carriers, clothes, bags, baskets, and nets.
c. 25,000 BP / 23,000 BC - A hamlet consisting of huts built of rocks and
of mammoth bones is founded in what is now Dolni Vestonice in Moravia
in the Czech Republic. This is the oldest human permanent settlement
that has yet been found by archaeologists.[16]
c. 20,000 BP or 18,000 BC - Chatelperronian culture in France.[17]
c. 16,000 BP / 14,000 BC - Wisent sculpted in clay deep inside the cave
now known as Le Tuc d'Audoubert in the French Pyrinees near what is
now the border of Spain.[18]
c. 14,800 BP / 12,800 BC - The Humid Period begins in North Africa. The
region that would later become the Sahara is wet and fertile, and the
Aquifers are full.[19]
Neolithic
c. 8000 BC / 7,000 BC - In northern Mesopotamia, now northern Iraq,
cultivation of barley and wheat begins. At first they are used for beer,
gruel, and soup, eventually for bread.[20] In early agriculture at this time,
the Planting stick is used, but it is replaced by a primitive Plow in
subsequent centuries.[21] Around this time, a round stone tower, now
preserved to about 8.5 meters high and 8.5 meters in diameter is built in
Jericho.[22]
Chalcolithic
c. 3700 BC - Cuneiform writing appears and records begin to be kept.
c. 3000 BC - Stonehenge construction begins. In its first version, it
consisted of a circular ditch and bank, with 56 wooden posts.
Words:
-Prehistory
-Stone Age
-Paleolithic
-Three age system
-Human migration
-Agriculture
3.Human evolution
Human evolution, or anthropogenesis, is the origin and evolution of Homo
sapiens as a distinct species from other hominids, great apes and placental
mammals. The study of human evolution encompasses many scientific
disciplines, including physical anthropology, primatology, archaeology, linguistics
and genetics.[1]
The term "human" in the context of human evolution refers to the genus Homo,
but studies of human evolution usually include other hominids, such as the
Australopithecines. The genus Homo had diverged from the Australopithecines
by about 2.3 to 2.4 million years ago in Africa. [2][3] Scientists have estimated that
humans branched off from their common ancestor with chimpanzees - the only
other living hominins - about 5–7 million years ago. Several species of Homo
evolved and are now extinct. These include Homo erectus, which inhabited Asia,
and Homo neanderthalensis, which inhabited Europe. Archaic Homo sapiens
evolved between 400,000 and 250,000 years ago.
Carolus Linnaeus and other scientists of his time also considered the great apes
to be the closest relatives of human beings due to morphological and anatomical
similarities. The possibility of linking humans with earlier apes by descent only
became clear after 1859 with the publication of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of
Species. This argued for the idea of the evolution of new species from earlier
ones. Darwin's book did not address the question of human evolution, saying
only that "Light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history".
The first debates about the nature of human evolution arose between Thomas
Huxley and Richard Owen. Huxley argued for human evolution from apes by
illustrating many of the similarities and differences between humans and apes
and did so particularly in his 1863 book Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature.
However, many of Darwin's early supporters (such as Alfred Russel Wallace and
Charles Lyell) did not agree that the origin of the mental capacities and the moral
sensibilities of humans could be explained by natural selection. Darwin applied
the theory of evolution and sexual selection to humans when he published The
Descent of Man in 1871.[9]
A major problem was the lack of fossil intermediaries. It was only in the 1920s
that such fossils were discovered in Africa. In 1925, Raymond Dart described
Australopithecus africanus. The type specimen was the Taung Child, an
Australopithecine infant discovered in a cave. The child's remains were a
remarkably well-preserved tiny skull and an endocranial cast of the individual's
brain. Although the brain was small (410 cm³), its shape was rounded, unlike that
of chimpanzees and gorillas, and more like a modern human brain. Also, the
specimen showed short canine teeth, and the position of the foramen magnum
was evidence of bipedal locomotion. All of these traits convinced Dart that the
Taung baby was a bipedal human ancestor, a transitional form between apes
and humans.
The classification of humans and their relatives has changed considerably over
time. The gracile Australopithecines are now thought to be ancestors of the
genus Homo, the group to which modern humans belong. Both
Australopithecines and Homo sapiens are part of the tribe Hominini. Recent data
suggests Australopithecines were a diverse group and that A. africanus may not
be a direct ancestor of modern humans. Reclassification of Australopithecines
that originally were split into either gracile or robust varieties has put the latter
into a family of its own, Paranthropus. Taxonomists place humans,
Australopithecines and related species in the same family as other great apes, in
the Hominidae.
Before Homo
Evolution of apes
The evolutionary history of the primates can be traced back 65 million years, as
one of the oldest of all surviving placental mammal groups. The oldest known
primates come from North America, but they were widespread in Eurasia and
Africa during the tropical conditions of the Paleocene and Eocene.
With the beginning of modern climates, marked by the formation of the first
Antarctic ice in the early Oligocene around 30 million years ago, primates went
extinct everywhere but Africa and southern Asia.[citation needed] A primate from this
time was Notharctus. Fossil evidence found in Germany in the 1980s was
determined to be about 16.5 million years old, some 1.5 million years older than
similar species from East Africa. It suggests that the primate lineage of the great
apes first appeared in Eurasia and not Africa.[citation needed]
The early ancestors of the hominids (the family of great apes and humans)
probably migrated to Eurasia from Africa about 17 million years ago, just before
these two continents were cut off from each other by an expansion of the
Mediterranean Sea. Begun[10] says that these primates flourished in Eurasia and
that the lineage leading to the African apes and humans— including
Dryopithecus—migrated south from Europe or Western Asia into Africa. The
surviving tropical population, which is seen most completely in the upper Eocene
and lowermost Oligocene fossil beds of the Fayum depression southwest of
Cairo, gave rise to all living primates—lemurs of Madagascar, lorises of
Southeast Asia, galagos or "bush babies" of Africa, and the anthropoids;
platyrrhines or New World monkeys, and catarrhines or Old World monkeys and
the great apes and humans.
In the early Miocene, after 22 million years ago, the many kinds of arboreally-
adapted primitive catarrhines from East Africa suggest a long history of prior
diversification. Fossils at 20 million years ago include fragments attributed to
Victoriapithecus, the earliest Old World Monkey. Among the genera thought to be
in the ape lineage leading up to 13 million years ago are Proconsul,
Rangwapithecus, Dendropithecus, Limnopithecus, Nacholapithecus, Equatorius,
Nyanzapithecus, Afropithecus, Heliopithecus, and Kenyapithecus, all from East
Africa. The presence of other generalized non-cercopithecids of middle Miocene
age from sites far distant—Otavipithecus from cave deposits in Namibia, and
Pierolapithecus and Dryopithecus from France, Spain and Austria—is evidence
of a wide diversity of forms across Africa and the Mediterranean basin during the
relatively warm and equable climatic regimes of the early and middle Miocene.
The youngest of the Miocene hominoids, Oreopithecus, is from 9 million year old
coal beds in Italy.
Species close to the last common ancestor of gorillas, chimpanzees and humans
may be represented by Nakalipithecus fossils found in Kenya and
Ouranopithecus found in Greece. Molecular evidence suggests that between 8
and 4 million years ago, first the gorillas, and then the chimpanzees (genus Pan)
split off from the line leading to the humans; human DNA is approximately 98.4%
identical to that of chimpanzees when comparing single nucleotide
polymorphisms (see Human evolutionary genetics). The fossil record of gorillas
and chimpanzees is quite limited. Both poor preservation (rain forest soils tend to
be acidic and dissolve bone) and sampling bias probably contribute to this
problem.
Other hominines likely adapted to the drier environments outside the equatorial
belt, along with antelopes, hyenas, dogs, pigs, elephants, and horses. The
equatorial belt contracted after about 8 million years ago. Fossils of these
hominans - the species in the human lineage following divergence from the
chimpanzees - are relatively well known. The earliest are Sahelanthropus
tchadensis (7 Ma) and Orrorin tugenensis (6 Ma), followed by:
Ardipithecus (5.5–4.4 Ma), with species Ar. kadabba and Ar. ramidus;
Australopithecus (4–2 Ma), with species Au. anamensis, Au. afarensis,
Au. africanus, Au. bahrelghazali, and Au. garhi;
Kenyanthropus (3–2.7 Ma), with species Kenyanthropus platyops
Paranthropus (3–1.2 Ma), with species P. aethiopicus, P. boisei, and P.
robustus;
Homo (2 Ma–present), with species Homo habilis, Homo rudolfensis,
Homo ergaster, Homo georgicus, Homo antecessor, Homo cepranensis,
Homo erectus, Homo heidelbergensis, Homo rhodesiensis, Homo
neanderthalensis, Homo sapiens idaltu, Archaic Homo sapiens, Homo
floresiensis
Genus Homo
Homo sapiens is the only non-extinct species of its genus, Homo. There were
other Homo species, all of which are now extinct. While some of these other
species might have been ancestors of H. sapiens, many were likely our
"cousins", having speciated away from our ancestral line. [11] There is not yet a
consensus as to which of these groups should count as separate species and
which as subspecies. In some cases this is due to the paucity of fossils, in other
cases it is due to the slight differences used to classify species in the Homo
genus. The Sahara pump theory (describing an occasionally passable "wet"
Sahara Desert) provides an explanation of the early variation in the genus Homo.
H. habilis lived from about 2.4 to 1.4 Ma. H. habilis, the first species of the genus
Homo, evolved in South and East Africa in the late Pliocene or early Pleistocene,
2.5–2 Ma, when it diverged from the Australopithecines. H. habilis had smaller
molars and larger brains than the Australopithecines, and made tools from stone
and perhaps animal bones. One of the first known hominids, it was nicknamed
'handy man' by its discoverer, Louis Leakey due to its association with stone
tools. Some scientists have proposed moving this species out of Homo and into
Australopithecus due to the morphology of its skeleton being more adapted to
living on trees rather than to moving on two legs like H. sapiens.
These are proposed species names for fossils from about 1.9–1.6 Ma, the
relation of which with H. habilis is not yet clear.
The first fossils of Homo erectus were discovered by Dutch physician Eugene
Dubois in 1891 on the Indonesian island of Java. He originally gave the material
the name Pithecanthropus erectus based on its morphology that he considered
to be intermediate between that of humans and apes. [22] H. erectus lived from
about 1.8 Ma to about 70,000 years ago (which would indicate that they were
probably wiped out by the Toba catastrophe). Often the early phase, from 1.8 to
1.25 Ma, is considered to be a separate species, H. ergaster, or it is seen as a
subspecies of H. erectus, Homo erectus ergaster.
In the early Pleistocene, 1.5–1 Ma, in Africa, Asia, and Europe, some populations
of Homo habilis are thought to have evolved larger brains and made more
elaborate stone tools; these differences and others are sufficient for
anthropologists to classify them as a new species, H. erectus. In addition H.
erectus was the first human ancestor to walk truly upright. [23] This was made
possible by the evolution of locking knees and a different location of the foramen
magnum (the hole in the skull where the spine enters). They may have used fire
to cook their meat.
A famous example of Homo erectus is Peking Man; others were found in Asia
(notably in Indonesia), Africa, and Europe. Many paleoanthropologists now use
the term Homo ergaster for the non-Asian forms of this group, and reserving H.
erectus only for those fossils found in the Asian region and meeting certain
skeletal and dental requirements which differ slightly from H. ergaster.
H. antecessor is known from fossils from Spain and England that are
dated 1.2 Ma–500 ka.[24][25]
H. cepranensis refers to a single skull cap from Italy, estimated to be
about 800,000 years old.
Homo heidelbergensis
Homo neanderthalensis
Homo sapiens
Main article: Early Homo sapiens
H. sapiens ("sapiens" is Latin for wise or intelligent) has lived from about
250,000 years ago to the present. Between 400,000 years ago and the second
interglacial period in the Middle Pleistocene, around 250,000 years ago, the trend
in skull expansion and the elaboration of stone tool technologies developed,
providing evidence for a transition from H. erectus to H. sapiens. The direct
evidence suggests there was a migration of H. erectus out of Africa, then a
further speciation of H. sapiens from H. erectus in Africa. A subsequent migration
within and out of Africa eventually replaced the earlier dispersed H. erectus. This
migration and origin theory is usually referred to as the recent single origin or Out
of Africa theory. Current evidence does not preclude some multiregional
evolution or some admixture of the migrant H. sapiens with existing Homo
populations. This is a hotly debated area of paleoanthropology.
Current research has established that human beings are genetically highly
homogenous; that is, the DNA of individuals is more alike than usual for most
species, which may have resulted from their relatively recent evolution or the
possibility of a population bottleneck resulting from cataclysmic natural events
such as the Toba catastrophe.[38][39][40] Distinctive genetic characteristics have
arisen, however, primarily as the result of small groups of people moving into
new environmental circumstances. These adapted traits are a very small
component of the Homo sapiens genome, but include various characteristics
such as skin color and nose form, in addition to internal characteristics such as
the ability to breathe more efficiently in high altitudes.
H. sapiens idaltu, from Ethiopia, is a possible extinct sub-species who lived from
about 160,000 years ago. It is the oldest known anatomically modern human.
Homo floresiensis
Main article: Homo floresiensis
H. floresiensis, which lived from approximately 100,000 to 12,000 before present,
has been nicknamed hobbit for its small size, possibly a result of insular
dwarfism.[41] H. floresiensis is intriguing both for its size and its age, being a
concrete example of a recent species of the genus Homo that exhibits derived
traits not shared with modern humans. In other words, H. floresiensis share a
common ancestor with modern humans, but split from the modern human lineage
and followed a distinct evolutionary path. The main find was a skeleton believed
to be a woman of about 30 years of age. Found in 2003 it has been dated to
approximately 18,000 years old. The living woman was estimated to be one
meter in height, with a brain volume of just 380 cm3 (considered small for a
chimpanzee and less than a third of the H. sapiens average of 1400 cm3).
Use of tools
Using tools has been interpreted as a sign of intelligence, and it has been
theorized that tool use may have stimulated certain aspects of human evolution
—most notably the continued expansion of the human brain. Paleontology has
yet to explain the expansion of this organ over millions of years despite being
extremely demanding in terms of energy consumption. The brain of a modern
human consumes about 20 watts (400 kilocalories per day), which is one fifth of
the energy consumption of a human body. Increased tool use would allow
hunting for energy-rich meat products, and would enable processing more
energy-rich plant products. Researchers have suggested that early hominids
were thus under evolutionary pressure to increase their capacity to create and
use tools.[44]
It should be noted that many species make and use tools, but it is the human
species that dominates the areas of making and using more complex tools. A
good question is, what species made and used the first tools? The oldest known
tools are the "Oldowan stone tools" from Ethiopia. It was discovered that these
tools are from 2.5 to 2.6 million years old, which predates the earliest known
"Homo" species. There is no known evidence that any "Homo" specimens
appeared by 2.5 Ma. A Homo fossil was found near some Oldowan tools, and its
age was noted at 2.3 million years old, suggesting that maybe the Homo species
did indeed create and use these tools. It is surely possible, but not solid
evidence. Bernard Wood noted that "Paranthropus" coexisted with the early
Homo species in the area of the "Oldowan Industrial Complex" over roughly the
same span of time. Although there is no direct evidence that points to
Paranthropus as the tool makers, their anatomy lends to indirect evidence of their
capabilities in this area. Most paleoanthropologists agree that the early "Homo"
species were indeed responsible for most of the Oldowan tools found. They
argue that when most of the Oldowan tools were found in association with human
fossils, Homo was always present, but Paranthropus was not. [45]
In 1994, Randall Susman used the anatomy of opposable thumbs as the basis
for his argument that both the Homo and Paranthropus species were toolmakers.
He compared bones and muscles of human and chimpanzee thumbs, finding that
humans have 3 muscles that chimps lack. Humans also have thicker
metacarpals with broader heads, making the human hand more successful at
precision grasping than the chimpanzee hand. Susman defended that modern
anatomy of the human thumb is an evolutionary response to the requirements
associated with making and handling tools and that both species were indeed
toolmakers.
Stone tools
Stone tools are first attested around 2.6 Ma, when H. habilis in Eastern Africa
used so-called pebble tools, choppers made out of round pebbles that had been
split by simple strikes.[46] This marks the beginning of the Paleolithic, or Old Stone
Age; its end is taken to be the end of the last Ice Age, around 10,000 years ago.
The Paleolithic is subdivided into the Lower Paleolithic (Early Stone Age, ending
around 350,000–300,000 years ago), the Middle Paleolithic (Middle Stone Age,
until 50,000–30,000 years ago), and the Upper Paleolithic.
The period from 700,000–300,000 years ago is also known as the Acheulean,
when H. ergaster (or erectus) made large stone hand-axes out of flint and
quartzite, at first quite rough (Early Acheulian), later "retouched" by additional,
more subtle strikes at the sides of the flakes. After 350,000 BP (Before Present)
the more refined so-called Levallois technique was developed. It consisted of a
series of consecutive strikes, by which scrapers, slicers ("racloirs"), needles, and
flattened needles were made.[46] Finally, after about 50,000 BP, ever more refined
and specialized flint tools were made by the Neanderthals and the immigrant
Cro-Magnons (knives, blades, skimmers). In this period they also started to make
tools out of bone.
Modern humans and the "Great Leap Forward" debate
Until about 50,000–40,000 years ago the use of stone tools seems to have
progressed stepwise. Each phase (H. habilis, H. ergaster, H. neanderthalensis)
started at a higher level than the previous one, but once that phase started
further development was slow. These Homo species were culturally
conservative, but after 50,000 BP modern human culture started to change at a
much greater speed. Jared Diamond, author of The Third Chimpanzee, and other
anthropologists characterize this as a "Great Leap Forward."
Modern humans started burying their dead, making clothing out of hides,
developing sophisticated hunting techniques (such as using trapping pits or
driving animals off cliffs)[citation needed], and engaging in cave painting.[47] As human
culture advanced, different populations of humans introduced novelty to existing
technologies: artifacts such as fish hooks, buttons and bone needles show signs
of variation among different populations of humans, something that had not been
seen in human cultures prior to 50,000 BP. Typically, H. neanderthalensis
populations do not vary in their technologies.
Modern human behavior includes four aspects: abstract thinking (concepts free
from specific examples), planning (taking steps to achieve a further goal),
innovation (finding new solutions), and symbolic behaviour (such as images and
rituals)[citation needed]. Among concrete examples of modern human behavior,
anthropologists include specialization of tools, use of jewelery and images (such
as cave drawings), organization of living space, rituals (for example, burials with
grave gifts), specialized hunting techniques, exploration of less hospitable
geographical areas, and barter trade networks. Debate continues as to whether a
"revolution" led to modern humans ("the big bang of human consciousness"), or
whether the evolution was more gradual.[
According to the multiregional hypothesis, fossil and genomic data are evidence
for worldwide human evolution and contradict the recent speciation postulated by
the Recent African origin hypothesis. The fossil evidence was insufficient for
Richard Leakey to resolve this debate.[51]. Studies of haplogroups in Y-
chromosomal DNA and mitochondrial DNA have largely supported a recent
African origin.[52] Evidence from autosomal DNA also supports the Recent African
origin. However the presence of archaic admixture in modern humans remains a
possibility and has been suggested by some studies.
Out of Africa
According to the Out of Africa model, developed by Chris Stringer and Peter
Andrews, modern H. sapiens evolved in Africa 200,000 years ago. Homo
sapiens began migrating from Africa between 70,000 – 50,000 years ago and
eventually replaced existing hominid species in Europe and Asia. [54][55] Out of
Africa has gained support from research using mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA). After
analysing genealogy trees constructed using 133 types of mtDNA, researchers
concluded that all were descended from a woman from Africa, dubbed
Mitochondrial Eve. Out of Africa is also supported by the fact that mitochondrial
genetic diversity is highest among African populations. [56]
There are differing theories on whether there was a single exodus or several. A
multiple dispersal model involves the Southern Dispersal theory, [57] which has
gained support in recent years from genetic, linguistic and archaeological
evidence. In this theory, there was a coastal dispersal of modern humans from
the Horn of Africa around 70,000 years ago. This group helped to populate
Southeast Asia and Oceania, explaining the discovery of early human sites in
these areas much earlier than those in the Levant. A second wave of humans
dispersed across the Sinai peninsula into Asia, resulting in the bulk of human
population for Eurasia. This second group possessed a more sophisticated tool
technology and was less dependent on coastal food sources than the original
group. Much of the evidence for the first group's expansion would have been
destroyed by the rising sea levels at the end of the Holocene era. [57] The multiple
dispersal model is contradicted by studies indicating that the populations of
Eurasia and the populations of Southeast Asia and Oceania are all descended
from the same mitochondrial DNA lineages, which support a single migration out
of Africa that gave rise to all non-African populations. [58]
The broad study of African genetic diversity headed by Dr.Sarah Tishkoff found
the San people to express the greatest genetic diversity among the 113 distinct
populations sampled, making them one of 14 "ancestral population clusters".The
research also located the origin of modern human migration in south-western
Africa, near the coastal border of Namibia and Angola.
Genetics
Human evolutionary genetics studies how one human genome differs from the
other, the evolutionary past that gave rise to it, and its current effects. Differences
between genomes have anthropological, medical and forensic implications and
applications. Genetic data can provide important insight into human evolution.
Words:
-Human evolution
-Anthropogenesis
-Great apes
-Homo
-Homo Habilis
-Homo erectus
-Homo sapiens
4.History of Writing
The history of writing follows the art of expressing thought by letters or other
marks.[1] In the history of how systems of representation of language through
graphic means have evolved in different human civilizations, more complete
writing systems were preceded by proto-writing, systems of ideographic and/or
early mnemonic symbol. Language expresses thought, preserves thought, and
also suggests or creates thought. It has been considered obvious that, so long as
language is unwritten, it can accomplish these ends only in a very imperfect
measure. Hence it may well be supposed that, at a very early stage of man's
history, attempts were made to present in some way to the eye the thought which
spoken language conveyed to the ear, and thus give it visible form and
permanence.[1] However, this understanding does not necessarily go
unquestioned. True writing, or phonetic writing, records were developed
independently in four different civilizations in the world, namely Mesopotamia,
China, Egypt, and Mesoamerica.
Writing systems
Writing systems are distinguished from other possible symbolic communication
systems in that one must usually understand something of the associated spoken
language to comprehend the text. By contrast, other possible symbolic systems
such as information signs, painting, maps, and mathematics often do not require
prior knowledge of a spoken language. Every human community possesses
language, a feature regarded by many as an innate and defining condition of
mankind (see Origin of language). However the development of writing systems,
and the process by which they have supplanted traditional oral systems of
communication has been sporadic, uneven and slow. Once established, writing
systems on the whole change more slowly than their spoken counterparts, and
often preserve features and expressions which are no longer current in the
spoken language. The great benefit of writing systems is their ability to maintain
a persistent record of information expressed in a language, which can be
retrieved independently of the initial act of formulation.
Recorded history
The various kinds of writing which have been in use in different ages and in
different parts of the world may be classified in two great divisions, according as
the object of their inventors was to present the ideas to which they wished to give
visible expression directly and immediately to the mind, or indirectly, through the
medium of spoken language.[1] Scholars make reasonable definition between
prehistory and history with writing.[2] Scholars have disagreed concerning when
prehistory becomes history and when proto-writing became "true writing"; the
definition is largely subjective.[3] Writing, in its most general terms, is just a drawn
device to indicate a message and is composed of glyphs.[4]
1. Pictorial use, in which the character is designed to convey to the mind the
idea of the object it represents, and nothing more. This pictorial
representation sometimes stands instead of a phonetic name for the
object, but the most common use of it is to make the phonetic group of
characters more intelligible by being subjoined to them. Thus, to the
names of individuals the figure of a man is subjoined. [6]
2. Hieroglyphical writing is the symbolical, in which the object delineated is
not meant to convey to the mind the idea of itself, but of something
associated with it and suggested by it.
3. Phonetic writing, is really by far the most extensive. The greater part of the
characters are as truly letters as if the language were English or Greek;
syllable characters are the exception, not the rule.
In the ancient Egyptian inscription of any length it is found these three modes of
writing in use together, but with a great predominance of phonetic. For more, see
Egyptian hieroglyphs.
Developmental stages
The best known picture 'writing system of ideographic and/or early mnemonic
symbols are:
Literature and writing, though obviously connected, are not synonymous. The
very first writings from ancient Sumer by any reasonable definition do not
constitute literature — the same is true of some of the early Egyptian
hieroglyphics or the thousands of logs from ancient Chinese regimes. The history
of literature begins with the history of writing and the notion of "literature" has
different meanings depending on who is using it. Scholars have disagreed
concerning when written record-keeping became more like "literature" than
anything else and is largely subjective. It could be applied broadly to mean any
symbolic record, encompassing everything from images and sculptures to letters.
The oldest literary texts that have come down to us date to a full millennium after
the invention of writing, to the late 3rd millennium BC. The earliest literary
authors known by name are Ptahhotep and Enheduanna, dating to ca. the 24th
and 23rd centuries BC, respectively. In the early literate societies, as much as
600 years passed from the first inscriptions to the first coherent textual sources
(ca. 3200 to 2600 BC).
The Dispilio tablet markings (charagmata) Oracle bone script replica of the
dated around the final Middle Neolithic originals used in divination in Bronze
stage Age China.
[edit] Proto-writing
The history of human communication dates back to the earliest era of humanity.
Symbols were developed about 30,000 years ago, and writing about 7,000. The
early writing systems of the late 4th millennium BC are not considered a sudden
invention. Rather, they were based on ancient traditions of symbol systems that
cannot be classified as writing proper, but have many characteristics strikingly
reminiscent of writing. These systems may be described as proto-writing. They
used ideographic and/or early mnemonic symbols to convey information yet were
probably devoid of direct linguistic content. These systems emerged in the early
Neolithic period, as early as the 7th millennium BC.
The Vinča signs show an evolution of simple symbols beginning in the 7th
millennium, gradually increasing in complexity throughout the 6th millennium and
culminating in the Tărtăria tablets of the 5th millennium with their rows of symbols
carefully aligned, evoking the impression of a "text". The "Slavic runes"
mentioned by a few medieval authors may also have been a system of proto-
writing. The Quipu of the Incas (sometimes called "talking knots") may have been
of a similar nature. A historical example is the system of pictographs invented by
Uyaquk before the developed of the Yugtun syllabary.
The Dispilio Tablet of the late 6th millennium is similar. The hieroglyphic scripts
of the Ancient Near East (Egyptian, Sumerian proto-Cuneiform and Cretan)
seamlessly emerge from such symbol systems, so that it is difficult to say at what
point precisely writing emerges from proto-writing. Adding to this difficulty is the
fact that very little is known about the symbols' meanings.
The 4th to 3rd millennium BC Indus script may similarly constitute proto-writing,
possibly already influenced by the emergence of writing in Mesopotamia.
In 2003, tortoise shells were discovered in China, which had Jiahu Script carved
into them. These shells were determined as dating back to the 6th millennium
BC, via radiocarbon dating. The shells were found buried with human remains, in
24 Neolithic graves unearthed at Jiahu, Henan province, northern China.
According to some archaeologists, the writing on the shells had similarities to the
2nd millennium BC Oracle bone script.[9] Others,[10] however, have dismissed this
claim as insufficiently substantiated, claiming that simple geometric designs such
as those found on the Jiahu Shells, cannot be linked to early writing.
Bronze Age writing
From this there is but a step to the discovery of an alphabet, viz. the employment
of the same sign to represent not the combination of sounds forming the word,
but the initial sound. [11] It is true such correspondence cannot be traced through
the whole of the phonetic alphabet. But when considering how very imperfect is
the knowledge which even the most distinguished scholars possess of the
ancient language, it is fully warranted in putting aside this negative evidence, and
receiving the hypothesis just mentioned (such as that of Champollion with the
ancient Egyptian language), as furnishing a very probable explanation of the
origin of what may be called the alphabet.[1]
The original Sumerian writing system derives from a system of clay tokens used
to represent commodities. By the end of the 4th millennium BC, this had evolved
into a method of keeping accounts, using a round-shaped stylus impressed into
soft clay at different angles for recording numbers. This was gradually
augmented with pictographic writing using a sharp stylus to indicate what was
being counted. Round-stylus and sharp-stylus writing was gradually replaced
about 2700-2500 BC by writing using a wedge-shaped stylus (hence the term
cuneiform), at first only for logograms, but developed to include phonetic
elements by the 29th century BC. About 2600 BC cuneiform began to represent
syllables of the Sumerian language. Finally, cuneiform writing became a general
purpose writing system for logograms, syllables, and numbers. From the 26th
century BC, this script was adapted to the Akkadian language, and from there to
others such as Hurrian, and Hittite. Scripts similar in appearance to this writing
system include those for Ugaritic and Old Persian.
Egyptian hieroglyphs
Writing was very important in maintaining the Egyptian empire, and literacy was
concentrated among an educated elite of scribes. Only people from certain
backgrounds were allowed to train to become scribes, in the service of temple,
pharisaic, and military authorities. The hieroglyph system was always difficult to
learn, but in later centuries may have purposely made even more so, as this
preserved the scribes' position.[citation needed]
Various scholars believe that Egyptian hieroglyphs "came into existence a little
after Sumerian script, and ... probably [were]... invented under the influence of
the latter ...",[13] although it is point out and held that "the evidence for such direct
influence remains flimsy” and that “a very credible argument can also be made
for the independent development of writing in Egypt..." [14] See further Egyptian
hieroglyphs.
Chinese writing
In China, historians have found out a lot about the early Chinese dynasties from
the written documents left behind. From the Shang Dynasty most of this writing
has survived on bones or bronze implements (bronze script). Markings on turtle
shells, or jiaguwen, have been carbon-dated to around 1500 BC. Historians have
found that the type of media used had an effect on what the writing was
documenting and how it was used.
Elamite scripts
Anatolian hieroglyphs
Cretan scripts
Cretan hieroglyphs are found on artifacts of Crete (early to mid 2nd millennium
BC, MM I to MM III, overlapping with Linear A from MM IIA at the earliest). Linear
B has been deciphered while Linear A has yet to be deciphered.
Early Semitic alphabets
The first pure alphabets (properly, "abjads", mapping single symbols to single
phonemes, but not necessarily each phoneme to a symbol) emerged around
1800 BC in Ancient Egypt, as a representation of language developed by Semitic
workers in Egypt, but by then alphabetic principles had a slight possibility of
being inculcated into Egyptian hieroglyphs for upwards of a millennium. These
early abjads remained of marginal importance for several centuries, and it is only
towards the end of the Bronze Age that the Proto-Sinaitic script splits into the
Proto-Canaanite alphabet (ca. 1400 BC) Byblos syllabary and the South Arabian
alphabet (ca. 1200 BC). The Proto-Canaanite was probably somehow influenced
by the undeciphered Byblos syllabary and in turn inspired the Ugaritic alphabet
(ca. 1300 BC).
Indus scripts
Sequence of ten Indus signs discovered near the northern gate of the Indus site
Dholavira
The Middle Bronze Age Indus script which dates back to the early Harrapan
phase of around 3000 BC in Pakistan, has not yet been deciphered.[15] It is
unclear whether it should be considered an example of proto-writing (a system of
symbols or similar), or if it is actual writing of the logographic-syllabic type of the
other Bronze Age writing systems. Mortimer Wheeler recognises the style of
writing as boustrophedon, where "this stability suggests a precarious maturity".
Mesoamerica
A stone slab with 3,000-year-old writing was discovered in the Mexican state of
Veracruz, and is an example of the oldest script in the Western Hemisphere
preceding the oldest Zapotec writing dated to about 500 BC. [16][17][18]
Writing in Antiquity
In history of the Greek alphabet, the Greeks borrowed the Phoenician alphabet
and adapted it to their own language.[19] The letters of the Greek alphabet are the
same as those of the Phoenician alphabet, and both alphabets are arranged in
the same order. [19] Several varieties of the Greek alphabet developed. One,
known as Western Greek or Chalcidian, was west of Athens and in southern
Italy. The other variation, known as Eastern Greek, was used in present-day
Turkey, and the Athenians, and eventually the rest of the world that spoke Greek
adopted this variation. After first writing right to left, the Greeks eventually chose
to write from left to right, unlike the Phoenicians who wrote from right to left.
Greek is in turn the source for all the modern scripts of Europe.
A tribe known as the Latins, who became known as the Romans, also lived in the
Italian peninsula like the Western Greeks. From the Etruscans, a tribe living in
the first millennium BCE in central Italy, and the Western Greeks, the Latins
adopted writing in about the fifth century. The Anglo-Saxons began using Roman
letters to write Old English as they converted to Christianity, following Augustine
of Canterbury's mission to Britain in the sixth century.
With the end of the Western Roman Empire and urban centers in decline, literacy
decreased in the West. Education became the preserve of monasteries and
cathedrals. A "Renaissance" of classical education would appear in Carolingian
Empire in the 8th century. In the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium), learning (in
the sense of formal education involving literature) was maintained at a higher
level than in the West. Further to the east, Islam conquered many of the Eastern
Patriarchates, and it outstripped Christian lands in science, philosophy, and other
intellectual endeavors in a "golden age".
Modern writing
The nature of writing has been constantly evolving, particularly due to the
development of new technologies over the centuries. The pen, the printing press,
the computer and the mobile phone are all technological developments which
have altered what is written, and the medium through which the written word is
produced. Particularly with the advent of digital technologies, namely the
computer and the mobile phone, characters can be formed by the press of a
button, rather than making the physical motion with the hand.
The nature of the written word had evolved over time to make way for an
informal, colloquial written style, where an everyday conversation can occur
through writing rather than speaking. Written communication can also be
delivered with minimal time delay (e-mail, SMS), and in some cases, instantly
(instant messaging). Writing creates the possibility to break spatial boundaries
and travel through time, since a word normally spoken could only exist in the time
and space it is spoken in. It creates a certain immortality, that could not be
experienced without writing. Socially, writing is seen as an authoritative means of
communication, from legal documentation, law and the media all produced
through the medium. The growth of multimedia literacy can be seen as the first
steps toward a postliterate society.
Materials of writing
There is no very definite statement as to the material which was in most common
use for the purposes of writing at start of the early writing systems. [1] In all ages it
has been customary to engrave on stone or metal, or other durable material, with
the view of securing the permanency of the record; and accordingly, in the very
commencement of the national history of Israel, it is read of the two tables of the
law written in stone, and of a subsequent writing of the law on stone. In the latter
case there is this peculiarity, that plaster (sic, lime or gypsum) was used along
with stone, a combination of materials which is illustrated by comparison of the
practice of the Egyptian engravers, who, having first carefully smoothed the
stone, filled up the faulty places with gypsum or cement, in order to obtain a
perfectly uniform surface on which to execute their engravings. [1] Metals, such as
stamped coins, are mentioned as a material of writing; they include lead, [20] brass,
and gold. To the engraving of gems there is reference also, such as with seals or
signets.[1]
The common materials of writing were the tablet and the roll, the former probably
having a Chaldean origin, the latter an Egyptian. The tablets of the Chaldeans
are among the most remarkable of their remains There are small pieces of clay,
somewhat rudely shaped into a furm resembling a pillow, and thickly inscribed
with cuneiform characters.[21] Similar use has been seen in hollow cylinders, or
prisms of six or eight sides, formed of fine terra cotta, sometimes glazed, on
which the characters were traced with a small stylus, in some specimens so
minutely as to be capable of decipherment only with the aid of a magnifying-
glass.[1]
In Egypt the principal writing material was quite of a different sort. Wooden
tablets are indeed found pictured on the monuments; but the material which was
in common use, even from very ancient times, was the papyrus. This reed, found
chiefly in Lower Egypt, had various economic means for writing, the pith was
taken out, and divided by a pointed instrument into the thin pieces of which it is
composed; it was then fattened by pressure, and the strips glued together, other
strips being placed at right angles to them, so that a roll of any length might be
manufactured. Writing seems to have become more widespread with the
invention of papyrus in Egypt. That this material was in use in Egypt from a very
early period is evidenced by still existing papyrus of the earliest Theban
dynasties. As the papyrus, being in great demand, and exported to all parts of
the world, became very costly, other materials were often used instead of it,
among which is mentioned leather, a few leather mills of an early period having
been found in the tombs.[1] Parchment, using sheepskins left after the wool was
removed for cloth, was sometimes cheaper than papyrus, which had to be
imported outside Egypt. With the invention of wood-pulp paper, the cost of writing
material began a steady decline.
Words:
-Writing systems
-Proto-writing
-Cuneiform scripts
-Alphabets
5.Ancient history
Ancient history is the study of the written past[1] from the beginning of recorded
human history in the Old World until the Early Middle Ages[2] in Europe and the
Qin Dynasty in China.[3]
The period or era following these events includes the Imperial era in China[4] and
the period of the Middle Kingdoms in India;[5][6][7] The span of recorded history
altogether is roughly 5,000 years, with Sumerian cuneiform emerging from the
protoliterate period around the 30th century BC[8] being the oldest form of writing
discovered so far. This is the beginning of history, as opposed to prehistory,
according to the definition used by most historians.[9]
The term classical antiquity is often used to refer to ancient history since the
beginning of recorded Greek history in about 776 BC (First Olympiad). This
coincides, roughly, with the traditional date of the founding of Rome in 753 BC,
the beginning of the history of ancient Rome. Although the ending date of ancient
history is disputed, Western scholars use the fall of the Western Roman Empire
in AD 476,[10][11] or the death of the emperor Justinian I,[12] or the coming of
Islam[13] and the rise of Charlemagne[14] as the end of ancient European history.
The Roman Empire was one of the ancient world's most literate cultures, [18] but
many works by its most widely read historians are lost. For example, Livy, a
Roman historian who lived in the 1st century BC, wrote a history of Rome called
Ab Urbe Condita (From The City Having Been Founded) in 144 volumes; only 35
volumes still exist, although short summaries of most of the rest do exist. Indeed,
only a minority of the work of any major Roman historian has survived.
Historians have two major avenues which they take to better understand the
ancient world: archaeology and the study of source texts. Primary sources have
been described as those sources closest to the origin of the information or idea
under study.[19][20] Primary sources have been distinguished from secondary
sources, which often cite, comment on, or build upon primary sources.
Archaeology
Source text
Main article: Source text
Perhaps most of what is known of the ancient world comes from the accounts of
antiquity's own historians. Although it is important to take into account the bias of
each ancient author, their accounts, are the basis for our understanding of the
ancient past. Some of the more notable ancient writers include Herodotus,
Josephus, Livy, Polybius, Sallust, Suetonius, Tacitus, Thucydides, and Sima
Qian.
Chronology
Prehistory
Prehistory is a term often used to describe the period before written history. The
early human migrations[34] patterns in the Lower Paleolithic saw Homo erectus
spreads across Eurasia. The controlled use of fire from ca. 800 thousand years
ago occurred. Near c. 250 thousand years ago, Homo sapiens evolves in Africa.
Around c. 70–60 thousand years ago, modern humans migrate out of Africa
along a coastal route to South and Southeast Asia and reach Australia. About c.
50 thousand years ago, modern humans spread from Asia to the Near East.
Followed by c. 40 thousand years ago, in which Europe was first reached by
modern humans. By c. 15 thousand years ago, the migration to the New World
occurred.
In the 10th millennium BC, Invention of agriculture is the earliest given date for
the beginning of the ancient era. In the 7th millennium BC, Jiahu culture began in
China. By the 5th millennium BC, the late Neolithic civilizations saw the invention
of the wheel and spread of proto-writing. In the 4th millennium BC, the Cucuteni-
Trypillian culture in the Ukraine-Moldova-Romania region develops. By 3400 BC,
"proto-literate" Sumerian cuneiform is spread in the Middle East.[35] The 30th
century BC, referred to as the Early Bronze Age II, saw the beginning of the
literate period in Sumer and Ancient Egypt arise. Around ca. 27th century BC, the
Old Kingdom of Egypt and the First Dynasty of Uruk are founded, according to
the earliest reliable regnal eras.
The Bronze Age forms part of the three-age system. In this system, it follows the
Neolithic in some areas of the world. In the 24th century BC, Akkadian Empire[36]
[37]
In the 22nd century BC, the First Intermediate Period of Egypt occurred The
time between the 21st to 17th centuries BC around the Nile has been denoted as
Middle Kingdom of Egypt. In the 21st century BC, the Sumerian Renaissance
occurs. By the 18th century, the Second Intermediate Period of Egypt begins.
By 1600 BC, Mycenaean Greece begins to develop. Also by 1600 BC, the
beginning of Shang Dynasty in China emerges and there is evidence of a fully
developed Chinese writing system. Around 1600 BC, the beginning of Hittite
dominance of the Eastern Mediterranean region is seen. The time between the
16th to 11th centuries around the Nile is called the New Kingdom of Egypt.
Between 1550 BC and 1292 BC, the Amarna Period occurs.
The Iron Age is the last principal period in the three-age system, preceded by the
Bronze Age. Its date and context vary depending on the country or geographical
region. During the 13th to 12th centuries, the Ramesside Period occurred.
Around c. 1200 BC, the Trojan War was thought to have taken place.[38] By c.
1180 BC, the disintegration of Hittite Empire was underway.
In 1046 BC, the Zhou force, led by King Wu of Zhou, overthrows the last king of
Shang Dynasty. The Zhou Dynasty is established in China shortly thereafter. In
1000 BC, the Mannaeans Kingdom begins. Around the 10th to 7th centuries, the
Neo-Assyrian Empire forms. In 800 BC, the rise of Greek city-states begins. In
776 BC, the first recorded Olympic Games are held. The Ancient Olympic Games
origins are unknown, but several legends and myths have survived.
Classical Antiquity
Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history, with a
focus on the interlocking civilizations of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome.
World in 1.
9: Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, the Imperial Roman Army's bloodiest
defeat.
14: Death of Emperor Augustus (Octavian), ascension of his adopted son
Tiberius to the throne
29: Crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
68: Year of the four emperors in Rome
70: Destruction of Jerusalem by the armies of Titus.
World in 100.
117: Roman Empire at largest extent under Emperor Trajan
192: Kingdom of Champa in Central Việt Nam
Eastern Hemisphere in 200 AD.
200s: The Buddhist Srivijaya Empire established in the Malay Archipelago.
220: Three Kingdoms period begins in China after the fall of Han Dynasty.
226: Fall of the Parthian Empire and Rise of the Sassanian Empire
238: Defeat of Gordian III (238–244), Philip the Arab (244–249), and
Valerian (253–260), by Shapur I of Persia, (Valerian was captured by the
Persians).
280: Emperor Wu established Jin Dynasty providing a temporary unity of
China after the devastating Three Kingdoms period.
285: Emperor Diocletian splits the Roman Empire into Eastern and
Western Empires
World in 300.
313: Edict of Milan declared that the Roman Empire would be neutral
toward religious worship
335: Samudragupta becomes the emperor of the Gupta empire
378: Battle of Adrianople, Roman army is defeated by the Germanic tribes
395: Roman Emperor Theodosius I outlaws all pagan religions in favour of
Christianity
410: Alaric I sacks Rome for the first time since 390 BC
c. 455: Skandagupta repels an Indo-Hephthalite attack on India.
476: Romulus Augustus, last Western Roman Emperor is forced to
abdicate by Odoacer, a half Hunnish and half Scirian chieftain of the
Germanic Heruli; Odoacer returns the imperial regalia to Eastern Roman
Emperor Zeno in Constantinople in return for the title of dux of Italy; most
frequently cited date for the end of ancient history
The transition period from Classical Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages is known
as Late Antiquity. Some key dates marking that transition are:
293: reforms of Roman Emperor Diocletian
395: the division of Roman Empire into the Western Roman Empire and
Eastern Roman Empire
The beginning of the Middle Ages is a period in the history of Europe following
the fall of the Western Roman Empire spanning roughly five centuries from AD
500 to 1000. Aspects of continuity with the earlier classical period are discussed
in greater detail under the heading "Late Antiquity". Late Antiquity is a
periodization used by historians to describe the transitional centuries from
Classical Antiquity to the Middle Ages, in both mainland Europe and the
Mediterranean world: generally from the end of the Roman Empire's Crisis of the
Third Century (c. 284) to the Islamic conquests and the re-organization of the
Byzantine Empire under Heraclius.
In the east, four schools of thought were to dominate Chinese thinking until the
modern day. These were Taoism, Buddhism (which originated in India), Legalism
and Confucianism. The Confucian tradition, which would attain dominance,
looked for political morality not to the force of law but to the power and example
of tradition. Confucianism would later spread into the Korean peninsula and
Goguryeo[85] and toward Japan.
The history of science and technology in India dates back to ancient times. The
Indus Valley civilization yields evidence of hydrography, metrology and sewage
collection and disposal being practiced by its inhabitants. Among the fields of
science and technology pursued in India were Ayurveda, metallurgy, astronomy
and mathematics. Some ancient inventions include plastic surgery, cataract
surgery, Hindu-Arabic numeral system and Wootz steel.
Hannu was an ancient Egyptian explorer (around 2750 BC) and the first explorer
of whom there is any knowledge. Hannu made the first recorded exploring
expedition. He wrote his account of his exploration in stone. Hannu travelled
along the Red Sea to Punt. He sailed to what is now part of eastern Ethiopia and
Somalia. He returned to Egypt with great treasures, including precious myrrh,
metal and wood.
Ancient warfare
Ancient warfare is war as conducted from the beginnings of recorded history to
the end of the ancient period.
The earliest accounts of actual Ancient Warfare are mentioned in the great Indian
Hindu epic, Mahabharata which talks of a world war between Pandavas (and
their allies) and Kauravas (and their allies) in the battlefields of Kurukshetra,
located in modern-day Haryana state of India.
In Europe, the end of antiquity is often equated with the fall of Rome in 476. In
China, it can also be seen as ending in the fifth century, with the growing role of
mounted warriors needed to counter the ever-growing threat from the north.
The difference between prehistoric and ancient warfare is less one of technology
than of organization. The development of first city-states, and then empires,
allowed warfare to change dramatically. Beginning in Mesopotamia, states
produced sufficient agricultural surplus that full-time ruling elites and military
commanders could emerge. While the bulk of military forces were still farmers,
the society could support having them campaigning rather than working the land
for a portion of each year. Thus, organized armies developed for the first time.
These new armies could help states grow in size and became increasingly
centralized, and the first empire, that of the Sumerians, formed in Mesopotamia.
Early ancient armies continued to primarily use bows and spears, the same
weapons that had been developed in prehistoric times for hunting. Early armies
in Egypt and China followed a similar pattern of using massed infantry armed
with bows and spears.
The Zapotec emerged around 1500 years BC. They left behind the great city
Monte Alban. Their writing system had been thought to have influenced the
Olmecs but, with recent evidence, the Olmec may have been the first civilization
in the area to develop a true writing system independently. At the present time,
there is some debate as to whether or not Olmec symbols, dated to 650 BC, are
actually a form of writing preceding the oldest Zapotec writing dated to about 500
BC.[89] Olmec symbols found in 2002 and 2006 date to 650 BC [90] and 900 BC[91]
respectively, preceding the oldest Zapotec writing. [92][93] The earliest Mayan
inscriptions found which are identifiably Maya date to the 3rd century BC in San
Bartolo, Guatemala,[94][95].
Words:
-Old World
-Archaeology
-Classical Antiquity
-Ancient science and technology
6.Ancient Near East and
North Africa
The ancient Near East is considered the cradle of civilization. It was the first to
practice intensive year-round agriculture, it gave the rest of the world the first
writing system, invented the potter's wheel and then the vehicular- and mill
wheel, created the first centralized governments, law codes and empires, as well
as introducing social stratification, slavery and organized warfare, and it laid the
foundation for the fields of astronomy and mathematics.
Periodization
Ancient Near East periodization is the attempt to categorize or divide time into
discrete named blocks, or eras, of the Near east. The result is a descriptive
abstraction that provides a useful handle on Near East periods of time with
relatively stable characteristics.
4500 BCE
Early
- 4000 Ubaid period
Chalcolithic Chalcolithic
BCE
(Stone Age) (4500 BCE -
4000 BCE Ghassulian, Uruk period,
3300 BCE) Late
- 3300 Gerzeh, Predynastic
Chalcolithic
BCE Egypt
Bronze Age 3300 BCE
Early Bronze Protodynastic to Early
(3300 BCE - - 3000
Age I Dynastic Period of Egypt
1200 BCE) BCE
3000 BCE
Early Bronze Early Dynastic Period of
Early Bronze - 2700
Age II Sumer
Age BCE
(3300 BCE - 2700 BCE
Early Bronze Old Kingdom of Egypt,
2000 BCE) - 2200
Age III Akkadian Empire
BCE
2200 BCE
Early Bronze First Intermediate Period
- 2000
Age IV of Egypt
BCE
2000 BCE
Middle Bronze
- 1750 Middle Kingdom of Egypt
Age I
BCE
Middle Bronze
1750 BCE
Age Middle Bronze Second Intermediate
- 1650
(2000 BCE - Age II Period of Egypt
BCE
1550 BCE)
1650 BCE
Middle Bronze Hittite Old Kingdom,
- 1550
Age III Minoan eruption
BCE
Late Bronze 1550 BCE
Late Bronze
Age - 1400 Hittite Middle Kingdom
Age I
(1550 BCE - BCE
1200 BCE) 1400 BCE
Late Bronze Hittite New Kingdom,
- 1300
Age II A Mitanni, Ugarit
BCE
Late Bronze 1300 BCE (Dark Age, Sea Peoples)
Age II B - 1200
BCE
1200 BCE
Iron Age I A - 1150 Troy VII, Hekla 3 eruption
Iron Age I
BCE
(1200 BCE -
1150 BCE
1000 BCE)
Iron Age I B - 1000 Neo-Hittite states
Iron Age BCE
(1200 BCE -
1000 BCE
586 BCE) Iron Age II A Neo-Assyrian Empire
- 900 BCE
Iron Age II
900 BCE - Kingdom of Israel, Urartu,
(1000 BCE - Iron Age II B
700 BCE Phrygia
586 BCE)
700 BCE -
Iron Age II C Neo-Babylonian Empire
586 BCE
History
Early Mesopotamia
The Uruk period (ca. 4000 to 3100 BCE) existed from the protohistoric
Chalcolithic to Early Bronze Age period in the history of Mesopotamia, following
the Ubaid period.[1] Named after the Sumerian city of Uruk, this period saw the
emergence of urban life in Mesopotamia. It was followed by the Sumerian
civilization.[2] The late Uruk period (34th to 32nd centuries) saw the gradual
emergence of the cuneiform script and corresponds to the Early Bronze Age.
Elam
Ancient Elam lay to the east of Sumer and Akkad, in the far west and southwest
of modern-day Iran, stretching from the lowlands of Khuzestan and Ilam
Province. In the Old Elamite period ca. 3200 BCE , it consisted of kingdoms on
the Iranian plateau, centered in Anshan, and from the mid-2nd millennium BCE, it
was centered in Susa in the Khuzestan lowlands. The civilization endured up
until 539 BCE. The Proto-Elamite civilization existed during the time of ca. 3200
BCE to 2700 BCE when Susa, the later capital of the Elamites began to receive
influence from the cultures of the Iranian plateau. In archaeological terms this
corresponds to the late Banesh period. This civilization is recognized as the
oldest in Iran and was largely contemporary with its neighbour, Sumerian
civilization. The Proto-Elamite script is an Early Bronze Age writing system briefly
in use for the ancient Elamite language before the introduction of Elamite
Cuneiform.
The Amorites
The Amorites were a nomadic Semitic people who occupied the country west of
the Euphrates from the second half of the third millennium BCE. In the earliest
Sumerian sources, beginning about 2400 BCE, the land of the Amorites ("the
Mar.tu land") is associated with the West, including Syria and Canaan, although
their ultimate origin may have been Arabia.[3]. They ultimately settled in
Mesopotamia, ruling Isin, Larsa, and later Babylon
Map of the ancient Near East during the Amarna Period, showing the great
powers of the period: Egypt (green), Hatti (yellow), the Kassite kingdom of
Babylon (purple), Assyria (grey), and Mittani (red). Lighter areas show direct
control, darker areas represent spheres of influence. The extent of the
Achaean/Mycenaean civilization is shown in orange.
Assyria
Babylonia
Canaan: Ugarit, Kadesh, Megiddo, Kingdom of Israel
Hittites
The Hurrians lived in northern Mesopotamia and areas to the immediate east and
west, beginning approximately 2500 BCE. They probably originated in the
Caucasus and entered from the north, but this is not certain. Their known
homeland was centred in Subartu, the Khabur River valley, and later they
established themselves as rulers of small kingdoms throughout northern
Mesopotamia and Syria. The largest and most influential Hurrian nation was the
kingdom of Mitanni. The Hurrians played a substantial part in the History of the
Hittites.
Ishuwa was an ancient kingdom in Anatolia. The name is first attested in the
second millennium BCE, and is also spelled Išuwa. In the classical period the
land was a part of Armenia. Ishuwa was one of the places were agriculture
developed very early in the Neolithic. Urban centres emerged in the upper
Euphrates river valley around 3500 BCE. The first states followed in the third
millennium BCE. The name Ishuwa is not known until the literate period of the
second millennium BCE. Few literate sources from within Ishuwa have been
discovered and the primary source material comes from Hittite texts. To the west
of Ishuwa laid the kingdom of the Hittites and this nation was an untrustworthy
neighbour. The Hittite king Hattusili I (c.1600 BCE) is reported to have marched
his army across the Euphrates river and destroyed the cities there. This
corresponds well with burnt destruction layers discovered by archaeologists at
town sites in Ishuwa of roughly the same date. After the end of the Hittite empire
in the early twelfth century BCE a new state emerged in Ishuwa. The city of
Malatya became the center of one of the so called Neo-Hittite kingdom. The
movement of nomadic people may have weakened the kingdom of Malatya
before the final Assyrian invasion. The decline of the settlements and culture in
Ishuwa from the seventh century BCE until the Roman period was probably
caused by this movement of people. The Armenians later settled in the area
since they were natives of the Armenian Plateau and related to the earlier
inhabitants of Ishuwa.
Mari was an ancient Sumerian and Amorite city, located 11 kilometers north-west
of the modern town of Abu Kamal on the western bank of Euphrates river, some
120 km southeast of Deir ez-Zor, Syria. It is thought to have been inhabited since
the 5th millennium BCE, although it flourished from 2900 BCE until 1759 BCE,
when it was sacked by Hammurabi.
Mitanni was a Hurrian kingdom in northern Mesopotamia from ca. 1500 BCE, at
the height of its power, during the 14th century BCE, encompassing what is
today southeastern Turkey, northern Syria and northern Iraq (roughly
corresponding to Kurdistan), centered around the capital Washukanni whose
precise location has not yet been determined by archaeologists. The Mitanni
kingdom is thought to have been a feudal state led by a warrior nobility of Indo-
Aryan descent, who invaded the Levant region at some point during the 17th
century BCE, their influence apparent in a linguistic superstrate in Mitanni
records. The spread to Syria of a distinct pottery type associated with the Kura-
Araxes culture has been connected with this movement, although its date is
somewhat too early.[4] Yamhad was an ancient Amorite kingdom. A substantial
Hurrian population also settled in the kingdom, and the Hurrian culture influenced
the area. The kingdom was powerful during the Middle Bronze Age, c.1800-1600
BCE. Its biggest rival was Qatna further south. Yamhad was finally destroyed by
the Hittites in the sixteenth century BCE.
The Sea peoples is the term used for a confederacy of seafaring raiders of the
second millennium BCE who sailed into the eastern shores of the Mediterranean,
caused political unrest, and attempted to enter or control Egyptian territory during
the late 19th dynasty, and especially during Year 8 of Ramesses III of the 20th
Dynasty.[6] The Egyptian Pharaoh Merneptah explicitly refers to them by the term
"the foreign-countries (or 'peoples'[7]) of the sea" [8][9]) in his Great Karnak
Inscription.[10] Although some scholars believe that they "invaded" Cyprus, Hatti
and the Levant, this hypothesis is disputed.
The Bronze Age collapse is the name given by those historians who see the
transition from the Late Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age, as violent, sudden and
culturally disruptive, expressed by the collapse of palace economies of the
Aegean and Anatolia, which were replaced after a hiatus by the isolated village
cultures of the Dark Age period of history of the Ancient Middle East. The Bronze
Age collapse may be seen in the context of a technological history that saw the
slow, comparatively continuous spread of iron-working technology in the region,
beginning with precocious iron-working in what is now Romania in the 13th and
12th centuries.[12] The cultural collapse of the Mycenaean kingdoms, the Hittite
Empire in Anatolia and Syria, and the Egyptian Empire in Syria and Palestine,
the scission of long-distance trade contacts and sudden eclipse of literacy,
occurred between 1206 and 1150 BCE. In the first phase of this period, almost
every city between Troy and Gaza was violently destroyed, and often left
unoccupied thereafter (for example, Hattusas, Mycenae, Ugarit). The gradual
end of the Dark Age that ensued saw the rise of settled Neo-Hittite Aramaean
kingdoms of the mid-10th century BCE, and the rise of the Neo-Assyrian Empire.
Iron Age
During the Early Iron Age, Assyria assumed a position as a great regional power,
vying with Babylonia and other lesser powers for dominance of the region,
though not until the reforms of Tiglath-Pileser III in the 8th century BCE,[13][14] did it
become a powerful and vast empire. In the Middle Assyrian period of the Late
Bronze Age, Assyria had been a minor kingdom of northern Mesopotamia
(modern-day northern Iraq), competing for dominance with its southern
Mesopotamian rival Babylonia. Beginning with the campaign of Adad-nirari II, it
became a great regional power, growing to be a serious threat to 25th dynasty
Egypt. The Neo-Assyrian Empire succeeded the Middle Assyrian period (14th to
10th century BCE). Some scholars, such as Richard Nelson Frye, regard the
Neo-Assyrian Empire to be the first real empire in human history. [15] During this
period, Aramaic was also made an official language of the empire, alongside the
Akkadian language.[15]
The states of the Neo-Hittite kingdoms were Luwian, Aramaic and Phoenician-
speaking political entities of Iron Age northern Syria and southern Anatolia that
arose following the collapse of the Hittite Empire around 1180 BCE and lasted
until roughly 700 BCE. The term "Neo-Hittite" is sometimes reserved specifically
for the Luwian-speaking principalities like Melid (Malatya) and Karkamish
(Carchemish), although in a wider sense the broader cultural term "Syro-Hittite"
is now applied to all the entities that arose in south-central Anatolia following the
Hittite collapse — such as Tabal and Quwê — as well as those of northern and
coastal Syria [16].
The Achaemenid Empire was the first of the Persian Empires to rule over
significant portions of Greater Iran, and the second great Iranian empire (after the
Medean Empire). At the height of its power, encompassing approximately 7.5
million square kilometers, the Achaemenid Empire was territorially the largest
empire of classical antiquity. It spanned three continents, including territories of
modern Afghanistan, parts of Pakistan, Central Asia, Asia Minor, Thrace, many
of the Black Sea coastal regions, Iraq, northern Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel,
Lebanon, Syria, and all significant population centers of ancient Egypt as far west
as Libya. It is noted in western history as the foe of the Greek city states in the
Greco-Persian Wars, for freeing the Israelites from their Babylonian captivity, and
for instituting Aramaic as the empire's official language.
Religions
Ancient civilizations in the Near East were deeply influenced by their spiritual
beliefs, which generally did not distinguish between heaven and Earth.[18] They
believed that divine action influenced all mundane matters, and also believed in
divination (ability to predict the future).[18] Omens were often inscribed in Ancient
Egypt and Mesopotamia, as were records of major events.
North Africa
Carthage and the Berbers
Phoenician traders arrived on the North African coast around 900 BC and
established Carthage (in present-day Tunisia) around 800 BC. By the sixth
century BC, a Phoenician presence existed at Tipasa (east of Cherchell in
Algeria). From their principal center of power at Carthage, the Carthaginians
expanded and established small settlements (called emporia in Greek) along the
North African coast; these settlements eventually served as market towns as well
as anchorages. Hippo Regius (modern Annaba) and Rusicade (modern Skikda)
are among the towns of Carthaginian origin on the coast of present-day Algeria.
As Carthaginian power grew; its impact on the indigenous population increased
dramatically. Berber civilization was already at a stage in which agriculture,
manufacturing, trade, and political organization supported several states. Trade
links between Carthage and the Berbers in the interior grew, but territorial
expansion also resulted in the enslavement or military recruitment of some
Berbers and in the extraction of tribute from others. By the early fourth century
BC, Berbers formed one of the largest element, with Gauls, of the Carthaginian
army. In the Revolt of the Mercenaries, Berber soldiers participated from 241 to
238 BC after being unpaid following the defeat of Carthage in the First Punic
War. Berbers succeeded in obtaining control of much of Carthage's North African
territory, and they minted coins bearing the name Libyan, used in Greek to
describe natives of North Africa. The Carthaginian state declined because of
successive defeats by the Romans in the Punic Wars; in 146 BC the city of
Carthage was destroyed. As Carthaginian power waned, the influence of Berber
leaders in the hinterland grew. By the second century BC, several large but
loosely administered Berber kingdoms had emerged. Two of them were
established in Numidia, behind the coastal areas controlled by Carthage. West of
Numidia lay Mauretania, which extended across the Moulouya River in Morocco
to the Atlantic Ocean. The high point of Berber civilization, unequaled until the
coming of the Almohads and Almoravids more than a millennium later, was
reached during the reign of Masinissa in the second century BC. After
Masinissa's death in 148 BC, the Berber kingdoms were divided and reunited
several times. Masinissa's line survived until AD 24, when the remaining Berber
territory was annexed to the Roman Empire.
Increases in urbanization and in the area under cultivation during Roman rule
caused wholesale dislocations of the Berber society. Nomad tribes were forced
to settle or move from traditional rangelands. Sedentary tribes lost their
autonomy and connection with the land. Berber opposition to the Roman
presence was nearly constant. The Roman emperor Trajan established a frontier
in the south by encircling the Aurès and Nemencha mountains and building a line
of forts from Vescera (modern Biskra) to Ad Majores (Hennchir Besseriani,
southeast of Biskra). The defensive line extended at least as far as Castellum
Dimmidi (modern Messaad, southwest of Biskra), Roman Algeria's southernmost
fort. Romans settled and developed the area around Sitifis (modern Sétif) in the
second century, but farther west the influence of Rome did not extend beyond
the coast and principal military roads until much later.
The Roman military presence of North Africa was relatively small, consisting of
about 28,000 troops and auxiliaries in Numidia and the two Mauretanian
provinces. Starting in the second century AD, these garrisons were manned
mostly by local inhabitants.
Aside from Carthage, urbanization in North Africa came in part with the
establishment of settlements of veterans under the Roman emperors Claudius,
Nerva, and Trajan. In Algeria such settlements included Tipasa, Cuicul or
Curculum (modern Djemila, northeast of Sétif), Thamugadi (modern Timgad,
southeast of Sétif), and Sitifis (modern Setif). The prosperity of most towns
depended on agriculture. Called the "granary of the empire," North Africa was
one of the largest exporters of grain in the empire, which was exported to the
provinces which did not produce cereals, like Italy and Greece. Other crops
included fruit, figs, grapes, and beans. By the second century AD, olive oil rivaled
cereals as an export item.
The beginnings of the decline was less serious in North Africa than elsewhere.
There were uprisings, however. In AD 238, landowners rebelled unsuccessfully
against the emperor's fiscal policies. Sporadic tribal revolts in the Mauretanian
mountains followed from 253 to 288. The towns also suffered economic
difficulties, and building activity almost ceased.
The towns of Roman North Africa had a substantial Jewish population. Some
Jews had been deported from Judea or Palestine in the first and second
centuries AD for rebelling against Roman rule; others had come earlier with
Punic settlers. In addition, a number of Berber tribes had converted to Judaism.
Christianity arrived in the second century and soon gained converts in the towns
and among slaves. More than eighty bishops, some from distant frontier regions
of Numidia, attended the Council of Carthage in 256. By the end of the fourth
century, the settled areas had become Christianized, and some Berber tribes had
converted en masse.
Words:
-Early Mesopotamia
-Ancient Egypt
-Achaemenid empire
-Carthage
-Almohads
-Almoravids