Chapter 1 Essay

Submitted By JordanJohnson
Words: 3421
Pages: 14

Chapter 1: Notes “The west” refers to Western Europe, but western Europe was the product of peoples and cultures who had lived around the Mediterranean Sea in antiquity, and eventually Europe exported its cultures to much of the rest of the globe. “West” us therefore as much an idea as a place. Civilization is in a way the largest unit within which anyone person might feel comfortable. It is an organizing principle that implied common institutions, economic system, social structures, and values that extend over space and time.. Culture. On one very general level it means high culture: the fire arts and philosophy. On another level, it mean the totality of expressions and behaviors that characterize a readily identifiable group of people in a specific place and time. Mesopotamia and Egypt were cultures within ancient Western civilization. Planet earth – 6 billion years old. Hominids/ Homo sapiens: were hunters and gatherers and lived in natural shelters such as caves and didn’t possess complex social structures. Invented crude stone tools, used fire, and probably developed speech. First stone tools were choppers and later hand axes pointed tools and scrapers, double faced blades. Span the Paleolithic period, the old stone age. Paleolithic Period- Discoveries in widely dispersed places: Homo sapiens had migrated across the eastern hemisphere and even the western hemisphere. Reaching the land bridge that connected Siberia and Alaska. People used more sophisticated tools such as fishhooks, bows and arrows and needles, began to express themselves in art Ice ages cave paintings of reindeer, bison ,rhinoceroses, lions and horses in Altamira, Spain, and in Lascaux and the Ardeche region of France date from upper Paleolithic (40,00-10,00 BCE) Are the earliest examples of human art The purposed of the paintings in Chauvin caves in the ardeche region remain a mystery. The paintings in Altamira and Lascaux were probably used as part of ceremonies and rituals before hunting. By painting numerous wild animals pierced with arrows the artist were attempting to ensure a successful hunt. Another type of upper paleothic art is seen in the carved female figurine found at willendork, Austria. Made of limestone the statue is faceless and rounded, may have been used as a fertility symbol and an image of a mother goddess, representing the creative power of nature. Mother goddess- mythological figure, appeared in many ancient cultures, beginning in Paleolithic times, approximately thirty thousand miniature sculptures in clay, marble, bone, copper, and hold have been uncovered at about three thousand sites in southeastern Europe alone. The supremacy of the mother goddess was expressed in the earliest myth of creation which told of the life giving and nurturing powers of the female. Mesolithic period – Middle stone age The Neolithic Revolution : Humans had to adapt to new living conditions when the last glaciers retreated from Europe during the Holocene (recent) epoch of geological time. The Mesolithic period (the middle stone age) while brief proved to be a decisive turning point. The most important development in human history, hunter and gatherers became farmers and herders this began the Neolithic period or new stone age . Homo sapiens became farmers and herders they gained knowledge about agriculture and developed wooden tools and other technologies for managing the processes. Stone tools became more advanced than in Mesolithic period and included knives and hammers. Along with the domestication of animals the animal drawn plow was introduced to Mesopotamia, thus increasing the yield of crops. After 3500 BCE the rise of these new technologies was incredibly rapid making this one of the most fruitful eras for change that the world has ever known. In transportation the changes included two innovations: the boat (with and without sails) and the wheel. In construction and building the discovery