End of last ice age 14,000 BCE First potter’s wheel 6,000 BCE Agricultural development reaches West Africa 10,000-5,000 BCE Era of Neolithic Revolution 7,000 BCE Transition to use of bronze 4,000 BCE Rise of Catal Huyuk 2,000 BCE Hunting and gathering – Means of obtaining subsistence by human species prior to the adaptation of sedentary agriculture; normally typical of band social organization. Neolithic Age – The New Stone Age between 8000 and 5000 BCE; period in which adaptation of sedentary agriculture occurred.
Culture – the integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends upon the capacity for learning and transmitting knowledge to succeeding generations. Band – A level of social organization normally consisting of 20 to 30 people. Matrilocal – of or relating to a housing pattern or custom in which a married couple lives with or near the wife’s parents. Catal Huyuk – Early urban culture based on sedentary agriculture in modern southern Turkey.
Bronze Age – the period of ancient human culture characterized by the use of bronze that began between 4000 and 3000 B. C. and ended with the advent of the Iron Age. Slash and burn agriculture – A system of cultivation typical of shifting cultivators: forest floors are cleared by fire and then planted on. Hammurabi – The most important ruler of the Babylonian empire: responsible for codification of law. Indo-Europeans – a member of the people speaking an unrecorded prehistoric language from which the Indo-European languages are descended.
Civilization – a relatively high level of cultural and technological development; specifically: the stage of cultural development at which writing and the keeping of written records is attained. Nomads – members of a people who have no fixed residence but move from place to place usually seasonally and within a well-defined territory. Homo sapiens – The human species that emerged as most successful at the end of the Paleolithic period. Agrarian Revolution – Chinese Civil War Matrilineal – relating to, based on, or tracing descent through the maternal line.
Neolithic Revolution – The transition from hunting and gathering communities and bands, to agriculture and settlement. Domestication – to bring into domestic use Babylonians – A native inhabitant of ancient Babylonia. Harappa – Along with Monhenjo-daro, major urban complex of the Harappan civilization. Mesopotamia – region SW Asia between the Tigris & the Euphrates extending from the mountains of E Asia Minor to the Persian Gulf. Paleolithic – of or relating to the earliest period of the Stone Age characterized by rough or chipped stone implements. Savages – uncivilized people.
Neanderthals – A hominid known from skeletal remains in Europe, northern Africa, and western Asia that lived from about 30,000 to 200,000 years ago. Natufian complex – The first Neolithic settlement. Pastoralism – Social organization based on livestock raising as the primary economic activity. Jericho – City of ancient Palestine near site of modern Jericho. Social Differentiation – Social class like slave or king. Ideographs – Pictures used to tell a story. Shang Dynasty – First Chinese dynasty for which archeological evidence exists; capital located in Ordos bend.
