Week Seven: Due October 10th

READ & BLOG ON Chapter 6 (Classical Era Variations)

Chapter Six: Commonalities and Variations 

CONTINENTAL COMPARISONS 

• Beginning in Africa, the fast movement of humankind subsequently encompassed  Eurasia, Australia, the Americas, and Pacific Oceania
• That revolutionary transformation of human life subsequently generated, in particularly rich agricultural environments of all three regions, those more complex societies that we know as civilizations are great social inequality
• The worlds human population was then distributed very unevenly across three giant continents. If these estimates are even reasonably accurate, then during the second wave of Eurasia was home to more than 80% of the worlds people

CIVILIZATIONS OF AFRICA

• Many of these differences grew out of the continents environmental variations
• Africa did, however, have one distinct environmental feature: bisected by the equator it was the most tropical of the worlds three sub continents
• Persistent warm temperatures cause the rapid decomposition of vegetable matter called hummus resulting in poorer and less fertile soil's and the less productive agriculture than in the most temperament Eurasia
• Those climatic conditions also sponsor numerous disease carrying insects in parasites

MEROË: CONTINUING A NILE VALLEY CIVILIZATION

• The kingdom was governed by an all powerful and sacred monarch, a position held on at least 10 occasions by women, governing alone or is corulers with a male monarch
• Queens appeared in sculptures as women and with a prominence in power equivalent to their male counterparts
• In accordance with ancient traditions such rulers were buried along with a number of human sacrificial victims
• The wealth and military power derived in part from extensive long-distance trading connections
• Declined in part because of deforestation caused by the need for wood to make charcoal for smelting iron

AXUM: THE MAKING OF A CHRISTIAN KINGDOM

• It's economic foundation was a highly productive agricultural that used a plow-based farming system unlike the rest of Africa which relied on a hoe or digging stick
• The interior capital city was the center of monumental building and royal patronage for the arts
• The most famous buildings were huge stone obelisks, which most likely marked royal graves. Some of them were more than 100 feet tall and at the time were the largest structures in the world hewn from a single piece rock
• Was introduced to Christianity in the fourth century. It's monarch at the time adopted the new religion about the same time as Constantine did in the Roman Empire
• Christianity maintained a dominant position in the mountainous terrain of highland Ethiopia and in the early 21st-century still represents the faith of perhaps 60% of the countries population

ALONG THE NIGER RIVER: CITIES WITHOUT STATES

• Apparent absence of a corresponding state structure
• Niger urban centers were not encompassed within some larger imperial system 
• Cities without citadels - complex urban centers that apparently operated without the coercive authority of the state
• These urban centers resemble the early cities of the Indus valley civilization where likewise little archeological evidence of centralized state structures have been found

CIVILIZATIONS OF MESOAMERICA

• Aztec and Inca empires 
• despite this diversity, Mesoamerica was also a distinct region, bound together by the elements of a common culture
• They practiced religions featuring a similar pantheon of male and female deities understood as a cosmic cycle of creation and destruction

THE MAYA: WRITING AND WARFARE

• Scholars of traced the beginnings of a Maya people to ceremonial centers constructed as early as 2000 B.C.E. in present day Guatemala and a region of Mexico 
• Their most well-known culture achievements emerged 
• Intellectuals developed a mathematical system that included the concept of zero and place notation and was capable of complex calculations
• Carved on stone and written on bark paper or deerskin books, Mayan writing recorded historical events, masses of astronomical data, and religious or mythological texts

TEOTIHUACÁN: THE AMERICAS' GREATEST CITY

• It was by far the largest urban complex in the Americas it in one of the six largest in the world
• Physically the city was enormously impressive, replete with broad Avenues, spacious plazas, huge marketplaces, temples, palaces, apartment complexes,  waterways, reservoirs, drainage systems, and colorful murals 
• You images of self glorifying rulers or individuals
• At least some of this political and military activity was no doubt designed to obtain either by trade or by tribute commodities from afar

CIVILIZATIONS OF THE ANDES

• Bleak deserts along the coast supported human habitation only because they were cut by dozens of rivers flowing down from the mountains offering the possibility of irrigation and cultivation
• Incas

CHAVÍN: A PAN-ANDEAN RELIGIOUS MOVEMENT 

• Small center had become town of 2000 to 30000 people, with clear distinctions between an elite class, who lived in stone houses, and ordinary people, with adobe dwellings
• This blended religious movement proved attractive across much of Peru and beyond
• Although some evidence suggests violence and warfare, no chavin empire emerged
• Instead, a widespread religious cult, erected on the back of a trading network 
• Provided for the first time and for several centuries a measure of economic and cultural integration to much of the Peruvian Andes 

MOCHE: A CIVILIZATION OF THE COAST 

• Their economy was rooted in a complex irrigation system, requiring constant maintenance 
• Governed by warrior priests
• Shaman rulers conducted ancient rituals that mitigated between the world of humankind and that of the gods
• They also presided over the ritual sacrifice of human victims which became central to the politico religious life
• The cultural achievements rested on fragile environmental foundations for the region is subject to dry out earthquakes in occasional torrential rains associated with El Niño episodes

WARI AND TIWANAKU: EMPIRES OF THE INTERIOR

• Provided a measure of political integration and cultural commonality for the entire Andean region
• Going out of ancient settlements these two states floors between 400 and 1000 CE one in the Northern Highlands and one to the south
• Both governments collected surface food and warehouses as an insurance against times of drought and famine
• Neither state controlled a continuous band of territory
• Little overt conflict or warfare occurred between the two empires

ALTERNATIVES TO CIVILIZATIONS: BANTU AFRICA

• Movement of people is generated from some 400 distinct but closely related languages
• Bantu expansion is not a conquest or invasion such as that Alexander great nor was it as massive been self-conscious migration like that of Europeans to the Americas in more recent times
• It was a slow movement of peoples but taken as a whole it brought to Africa south of the equator a measure of cultural and linguistic commonality

CULTURAL ENCOUNTERS

• The movement generated numerous cross-cultural  encounters

Week Six: Due October 5th

DUE OCTOBER 5:   READ Chapter 5 & BLOG ON the readings for this week
Chapter Five: Society and Inequality in Eurasia/ North Africa 

SOCIETY AND THE STATE IN CHINA

• Political power and immense social prestige of Chinese state officials, all of them male
• As the Han Dynasty established its authority in China around 200 BCE, its rulers required each province to send men of promise to the capital, where they were examined and chosen for the official positions on the basis of their performance

AN ELITE OF OFFICIALS

• Over time, this stream of selecting administrators revolved into the worlds first professional civil service
• Private schools in the provinces funneled still more aspiring candidates into this examination system 
• In theory open to all men, this system in practice favored those whose families were wealthy enough to provide the years of education required to pass even the lower level exams
• The examination system provided a modest measure of social mobility in an otherwise quite hierarchical society
• Those who made it into the bureaucracy entered a realm oh high privilege and great prestige 

THE LANDLORD CLASS

• Most officials came from wealthy families, and in China wealth meant land 
• This accumulation of land in seizable estates was a persistent theme in Chinese history, and one that was frequently, though not very successful, opposed by state authorities 
• The fate of individual families rose and fell as the wheel of fortune raised them to great prominence or plunged them into poverty and disgrace 
• The term scholar-gentry reflected their twin sources of privilege 

PEASANTS

• The vast majority of its population consisted of peasants, living in small households representing two or three generations 
• Such conditions provoked periodic peasant rebellions 
• Yellow Turban Rebellion
• Repeatedly in Chinese history, such peasant movements often expressed in religious terms, registered the sharp class antagonisms of Chinese society that led to the collapse of more than one ruling dynasty 

MERCHANTS

• Peasants were the solid productive backbone of the country, and their hard work and endurance in the face of difficulties were worthy of praise 
• Merchants were viewed as unproductive, making a shameful profit from selling the work of others
• Seen as a social threat

CLASS AND CASTE IN INDIA

• In both civilizations, birth determined social status for most people; little social mobility was available for the vast majority; sharp distinctions and great inequalities characterized social life; and religious or cultural traditions defined these inequalities as natural, eternal, and ordained by the Gods 

CASTE AS VARNA 

• The caste evolved from a racially defined encounter between light skinned aryan invaders and the darker hued native peoples
• The idea that society was forever divided into four ranked classes, or varnas, was deeply embedded in Indian thinking. 
• At the top were priests, followed by warriors and rulers, next was commoners, far below these was the servants 

CASTE AS JATI

• The many thousands of jatis became the primary cell of India's unique caste-based society 
• Marriage and eating together were permitted only within an individuals own jati
• With its many desperate, distinct, and hierarchically ranked social groups, Indian society was quite different from that of China 
• Being born into a particular caste was generally regarded as reflecting the good or bad deeds of a previous life 
• As caste restrictions tightened, it became increasingly difficult for individuals to raise their social status during their lifetimes
• India’s social system thus differed from that of China in several ways. It gave priority to religious status and ritual purity, whereas china elevated political officials to the highest of elite positions 

THE FUNCTIONS OF CASTE 

• Provided a substitute for the state as an integrative mechanism for Indian civilization 
• It offered a distinct and socially recognized place for almost everyone 
• Caste represented a means of accommodating the many migrating or invading peoples who entered the subcontinent 
• Allowed people to find a place within a larger Indian civilization while retaining something of their unique identity 

SLAVERY: THE CASE OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE

• A social institution with deep roots in human history 
• The class inequalities of early civilizations, which were based on great differences in privately owned property, also made it impossible to imagine people owning other people 

SLAVERY AND CIVILIZATION

• Slavery generally meant ownership by a master, eh  and possibility of being sold, working without pay, and the status of an outsider at the bottom of the social hierarchy 
• In sometimes and places, a fair number of slaves might be emancipated in their own lifetimes, through the generosity of religious convictions of their owners, or to avoid caring for them in old age, or by allowing slaves to purchase their freedom with their own funds 
• Varied considerably in the labor they were required to do 
• People could fall into slavery as criminals, debtors, or prisoners of war 

THE MAKING OF ROMAN SLAVERY

• Greco-Roman Society based on slavery 
• Aristotle- slaves by nature, should be enslaved for own good
• Vast majority prisoners of war
• Romans regarded their slaves as barbarians 

RESISTANCE AND REBELLION

• The slaves themselves rose to rebellion
• Spartacus 
• Haitian rebels sought the creation of a new society free of slavery altogether 

COMPARING PATRIARCHIES

• Women's subordination in all civilizations has been so widespread and pervasive that historians have been slow to recognize that gender systems has a history, changing over time 
• Restrictions on women were far sharper in urban based civilizations

A CHANGING PATRIARCHY: THE CASE OF CHINA

• Yang viewed as masculine and related to heaven, rulers, strength, rationality, and light
• Yin, the lower feminine principle, was associated with the earth, subjects, weakness, emotion, and darkness
• Men go out, women stay in 
• Three obediences - women's subordination to her father, then husband, and finally her son

CONTRASTING PATRIARCHIES: ATHENS AND SPARTA

• Athens has been celebrated as a major expression of democracy and rationalism, its treatment toward women was far more restrictive than that of the highly militaristic and much less democratic Sparta