I. Mesoamerica and Andean South America

Foundations: c. 600 B.C.E.–600 C.E.

Major Developments

I. Mesoamerica and Andean South America

1. Culture

a. lacked knowledge of wheel

b. Olmecs/Maya – pyramids/temples

c. Polytheistic

d. Cultural diffusion – maize, terraced pyramids

1. Calendars

2. Ball game on a court

3. Quetzalcoatl – god who would return to rule world in peace

e. Mayan reached height in 300 CE

1. system of writing – pictographs

2. value of zero

3. astronomy – predicted eclipses

4. length of year within a few seconds

2. State

1. small city-states – ruled by kings – fought against each other

a. Prisoners of war – slaves/sacrifices to gods

2. lack of pack animals/geography prevented communication

3. Inhabitants cooperated for irrigation systems

4. Rugged terrain of Andes prevented central gov’t from organizing

3. Social structure

a. Elite class of rulers/priests vs. commoners and slaves

4. Geography – not in valleys of major rivers

1. smaller rivers/streams near oceans

2. no large animals/beasts of burden – llama biggest animal – human labor

II. China

1. Qin – after Era of the Warring States – 221-202 BCE

Shi Huangdi – “First Emperor” > dictatorial
Cracked down on Confucians
As it expected benevolent and nonviolent rulers
Defeated rival states
Standardized legal practices
Forced organization of labor
name applied to country
Unified country by conquering warring feudal states
Abolished feudalism
Instituted centralized gov’t that would be model
one of briefest dynasties
Major precedents
Strong emperor
Large Bureaucracy
Expanded territory to Vietnam
Defensive wall – Great Wall
Shows empire well organized, centralized, brutal
Weights, measures, coinage standardized
Silk cloth encouraged
Established uniform laws
Legalism – state sponsored alternative to Confucianism/Taoism
People are basically evil – must be kept in line w/ strict laws
Rule cruel/autocratic
Refused to tolerate any dissent
Dissent in book > burned
Dissent in scholar > killed
Heavy taxes for peasants
Overburdened peasants revolted and overthrew in 207 BCE
Empire fell
upon death of Shi Huangi as his son was a weak ruler
Corruption within government
Attacks by non-Chinese from across the frontiers
Frustrations of hungry peasants
Subversive ideas of Buddhism

II. China

1. Han – 200 BCE – 220 CE

Governmental bureaucracy grew stronger
Effective administration, postal service, tax-collecting
Territory expanded to Central Asia, Korea, Indochina
Under Emperor Wu (140-87 BCE) expanded furthest

i. General Zhang Jian traveled across Central Asia

ii. Wu Ti = Warrior Emperor

Chinese civil service exam
Excellent communicators/highly educated
Test lasted for days
Open to everyone, but only wealthy could afford to prepare
Bureaucracy highly skilled
Time of peace settled across China
Threat of Huns not as significant as in Europe
Government oversaw iron production
Government sponsored and maintained canals, irrigation
Name “Han” still used to refer to people
Main goal – unification of China
Reestablished Confucian philosophy
Two million ethnic Chinese moved to northwestern region to colonize imperial frontier
Expanded territory west to Turkistan
Internal struggles for power destabilized
Leading exports - Silk
Innovations
Horse collar
Watermill
Crossbow
Taxes grew to high
Peasant uprising 184 BCE
Yellow Turbans – secret society – anti-Han support
Ended dynasty – led to Three Kingdoms
Outside invaders made it tough to protect borders
Similarities to Han and Roman empires
Large and powerful
Conquests plus effective administration
Next 350 years state of chaos

2. Three Kingdoms (220-265 CE) – three domains

Wei – northeast
Shu – west
Wu – south and east
Balance – two kingdoms balance out third

a. Wei grew more powerful – reunited in 265

3. India

A. Agriculture

1. Upto 3 harvest a year due to high rainfall from the monsoons

1. Aryans (1500 BCE)

a)Lighter skinned Aryans + Darker skinned Dravidians

b)About 600 BCE – divided into 16 states

c)At first establish warrior aristocracy/enslaved Dravidians

2. Maurya Empire (321-185 BCE)

strong centralized

i. Promoted trade and communication

After brief period of rule Alexander the Great330-321 BCE
Regional lord – Chandragupta Maurya
Powerful military
Greatest ruler – Ashoka
Successful warrior – converted to Buddhism
Turned away from military conquest
Disgusted by bloody victory over Kalinga
Preached nonviolence/moderation

c. Building projects undertaken

d. Admired for justice and attempts to create harmony between religions

e. collapsed due to attacks from outsiders

f. large, efficient bureaucracy

g. maintain order, collect taxes, build infrastructure

3. Gupta Empire (320 to 550 CE)

a. ruled through central gov’t allowed village gov’ts power

b. Advantageous alliances and military conquests

c. More decentralized/smaller – “golden age”

d. Firm supporters of Hinduism

Brahmins restored to traditional role – advisors/gurus

e. Control based on local lords

Paid tribute for local autonomy

One of the more peaceful/prosperous eras
Around 450 CE Northern invaders brought Gupta empire to slow end
Much order from caste system/Hinduism
Exports
Cotton cloth
Ivory
Metalwork
Animals
Collapsed in 550 CE after invasion by the Huns of Central Asia

4. Mediterranean

1. Persian Empire – Cyrus the Great – system of provinces w/ governors

Single code of laws

2. Rome -The Foundation of Empire

A. Julius Caesar

Marius's nephew, favored liberal policies and social reform
Gained fame by sponsoring public spectacles
Conquered Gaul, became more popular
Seized Rome in 49 B.C.E.
Claimed the title "dictator for life," 46 B.C.E.
Social reforms and centralized control
Assassinated in 44 B.C.E.

B. Augustus

Octavian, the nephew of Caesar, brought the civil conflict to an end
The Senate bestowed upon him the title Augustus, 27 B.C.E. Augustus's administration after 31 BCE
A monarchy disguised as a republic
preserved traditional republican forms of government
took all the power into his own hands

4. Created a new standing army under his control

The imperial institutions began to take root

a. Continuing Expansion and Integration of the Empire

Roman expansion had decisive effects in Gaul, Germany, Britain, and Spain

a.Romans sought access to resources

b.Local elite began to build states and control resources

c.Cities emerged: Paris, Lyons, Cologne, Mainz, London, Toledo, Segovia

The pax romana

a.Meant "Roman peace," lasted for two and half centuries

b.Facilitated trade and communication from Mesopotamia to Atlantic Ocean

c.Growth of commerce

Roman roads

a.Roman engineers as outstanding road builders

b.Roads and postal system linked all parts of the empire

Roman law

a.Tradition: Twelve Tables enacted in 450 B.C.E.

b.Principle: innocent until proven guilty

c.Judges enjoyed great discretion

Roman Republic –

1. Senate from patrician class, two consuls, tribunes protect interests

2. Most positions by aristocrats

3. Essential economic activity based on agriculture

vi. Roman Empire

1. Bureaucrats – civil servants

a. Captured areas – provinces, but a bit of self-government

b. Single Roman Law Code throughout

2. Extended citizenship to most conquered populations

3. Established a provisional administration and sent a senator to oversee

4. Decline after military leader armies were loyal to them not the state

5. Under the Principate, Roman law came largely from the emperor himself

6. Splits into Eastern & Western Empire

a, New capital in Eastern Empire in 324 CE in Constantinople

7. Two wars with Carthage

vii. Third Century crisis

Urban decline
Civil wars
Barbarian invasions
Frequent change of rulers

Economy and society in the Roman Mediterranean
Trade and Urbanization
Commercial agriculture
Owners of latifundia focused on production for export
Commercial agriculture stimulated economic specialization and integration
Mediterranean trade
Sea-lanes linked ports of the Mediterranean
Roman navy kept the seas largely free of pirates
The Mediterranean became a Roman lake
The city of Rome
Wealth of the city fueled its urban development
Statues, pools, fountains, arches, temples, stadiums
First use of concrete as construction material
Rome attracted numerous immigrants
Aqueducts
Roads
Fortifications
Buildings with arches
City attractions
Public baths, swimming pools, gymnasia
Enormous circuses, stadiums, and amphitheaters
Family and Society in Roman Times
The pater familias
A Roman family consisted of all household members living together
Pater familias, or "father of the family," ruled
Women wielded considerable influence within their families
Many women supervised family business and wealthy estates
Wealth and social change
Newly rich classes built palatial houses and threw lavish banquets
Cultivators and urban masses lived at subsistence level
Poor classes became a serious problem in Rome and other cities
No urban policy developed, only "bread and circuses"
Slavery
Slaves - 1/3 of Roman population
Chained together in teams, worked on latifundia
Spartacus's uprising in 73 B.C.E.
Working conditions for city slaves were better
Epictetus, an Anatolian slave, became a prominent Stoic philosopher

Major trading patterns within and among Classical civilizations; contacts with adjacent regions

China

1.Zhou

2.Qin

silk cloth encouraged
Roads constructed
Forced labor to build thousands of miles

3.Han

Trade along Silk Roads increased
Economy strong – monopoly of silk production
Downturn in agricultural production hurt
Trade thrived
Helped spread Buddhism
Carried far more luxury items than culture
Government sponsored and maintained canals, irrigation

4. Silk Road

a. Chariot warfare, mounted bowmen and the stirrup spread

b. Spread Buddhism

5. Scythians

1. Fearsome horse archers who lived in portable felt huts – yurts

2. India

1. Aryans

2. Mauryans

a.Promoted trade and communication

b.Ashoka creates roads with rest areas for travelers

c.Roads connected with the Silk Roads

d.Wealthy through trade

3. Guptas

a. Traded ideas – “Arabic” number system

4. Indian Ocean Trade

a. Mariners were multilingual and multiethnic group

b. Ships took advantage of the monsoon winds

c. SE Asia ports had better access to fresh water and permanent settlements

5. Africa

a. trans-Saharan trade routes used camels

b. traded salt

c. trans-Saharan trade connected North and South Africa

d. People moved into the Sahel region due to climate change in the Sahara

e. Metallurgy developed iron smelting

f. Most languages came from the Bantu family

1. Arts, sciences, and technology

1. China

1. Zhou

a. Iron Age

2. Xin

a. Modernized army

Iron weapons, crossbows, cavalry warfare

Paper
Accurate sundials/calendars
Broaden use of metals
Agriculture improves
ox-drawn plow
collar to prevent choking

2. India

1. Mauryans

2. Guptas

Classical Age of India
Supported Hinduism led to revival in Hindu art, literature, music
Great temples built
Fashioning iron for many uses/weapons
Guptas – enthusiastic patrons of Hindu culture
High towered temples
Lavish wall paintings – Caves of Ajanta
Growth of Sanskrit as language of educated
Inoculation of smallpox
Sterilization during surgery/cleaning wounds
Plastic surgery/setting of bones
Astronomy – eclipses – identification of planets
Classic Hindu temple – courtyards, paintings, sculptures
Scientific/mathematic breakthroughs
Pi, zero, decimal system
numerical system – called “Arabic” due to traders

3. Africa

1. Evidence of Saharan history shown by a vast number of rock paintings & engravings

2. “Great traditions”

a. written language, common legal & belief system

b. Ethical codes

Social and Gender Relations

A. China

1. Zhou

2. Xin

3. Han

Traditions reinforced through strengthened patriarchal system
Society further stratified
Elite class – educated governmental bureaucracy
Peasants
Artisans
Unskilled laborers, small number of slaves – mean people

Themes
Few live in cities – less than 10%
Social hierarchy
Confucius – five basic levels of relationships
ruler/subject
father/son
elder brother/younger brother
husband/wife
friend/friend
each relationship has set of duties/responsibilities between

superior/subordinate

harmony the result of right conduct
North – wheat, south – rice
Fishing, hunting, forestry, tea growing main industries in mountain
Tenant farmers – bulk of rural population – for landlords
Power from court of emperor – implemented by scholar-gentry
Hierarchy in Provinces
Scholar-gentry landlords
Military
Artisans
Landed peasants
Landless tenant peasants
Hierarchy in Capital
Emperor, Officials, Eunuchs, Military, Artisans
When crops failed
Higher starvation, infanticide, lawlessness, peasant revolts
Extended family
Call on spirits of dead ancestors – advocates with gods
Extended family most influential feature
Multi-generational homes – respect to elders
Patrilineal wealth – passed down to son
Female identity extension of father/husband
Family to family network of connections
Business, social life, marriage
Patriarchal – voice of authority for family – to government
Taoist – yin/yang
Assertive masculinity vs. gentle/submissive female
Women could get power in court
Favored concubine/wife
Daughters not valued as much – female infanticide
Sold as servants/slaves for debts

India
Mauryans
United much of India after the death of Alexander the Great
Collapsed due to demand for resources by the administrative and military complex
Guptas
Women saw rights diminished
Declared minors in need of supervision by male
Daughters neglected, infanticide
Couldn’t participate in sacred rituals/study religion
Couldn’t own property
Child marriage became norm – girls six/seven
Due to property issues in urban area
Because of strict caste division, slavery not widespread
Patrons of Hindu
Return of Guptas solidified caste system
Proliferated and evolved
Brahmin – priestly class
Kshatriya – warrior
Vaishya – producing caste
Shudra – servant caste
Harijans – untouchables
Not even a caste
Do tasks that might “pollute” Hindu culture
Waste products, butchering, carrying dead
Further castes – jatil – subcastes
India’s habitual political fragmentation
Extremely varied Indian landscape
Many different forms of economic activity
Complex social hierarchy
Many languages and cultural practices
Sacred literature
Bhagavad-Gita

1. States and Empires in Mesoamerica and North America

A. The Toltec and the Mexica (Aztec)

1) Teotihuacan reasons for collapse is unkown

2) Postclassic periods – Toltecs & Aztecs

3) Toltecs emerge in the 9th & 10th centuries after the collapse of Teotihuacan

a. Established large state, powerful army mid-10th to the mid-12thcentury

b. Tula was the Toltec capital city & center of trade

c. Maintained close relations with societies of the Gulf coast & the Maya

4) Toltec decline after 12th century

a. Civil strife at Tula, beginning in 1125

b. Nomadic invaders after 1175

5) Arrival of the Mexica (or Aztecs) in central Mexico mid-13thcentury

a. Warriors and raiders

b. Built capital city, Tenochtitlan (modern Mexico City), c. 1345

c. Developed productive chinampas style of agriculture

6) 15th century, Aztecs launched military campaigns against neighboring societies

a. Conquered & colonized Oaxaco in SW Mexico

b. Made alliance with Texcoco and Tlacopan

c. Built an empire of 12 million people, most of Mesoamerica

7) Controlled subject peoples with oppressive tribute obligations

a. Empire had no bureaucracy or administration; local administrators enforced tributes

b. Allies did not have standing army

c. Tribute of 489 subject territories flowed into Tenochtitlan

B. Mexica Society

1) Most info comes from Spanish sources, recorded after conquest

2) Mexica warriors were the elite at the top of rigid social hierarchy

a. Mostly from the Mexica aristocracy

b. Enjoyed great wealth, honor, and privileges

3) Women had no public role, but were honored as warriors’ mothers

a. Mexican women active in commerce and crafts

b. Primary purpose to bear children: women who died in childbirth celebrated

4) Priests also among the Mexica elite

a. Read omens, presided over rituals, monitored ritual calendar

b. Advisers to Mexica rulers, occasionally became supreme rulers

5) Most of the Mexica were either cultivators or slaves

a. Cultivators worked on chinampas (small plots of reclaimed land) or on aristocrats’ land

b. Paid tribute and provided labor service for public works

c. Large number of slaves who worked as domestic servants

6) Artisans and merchants enjoyed prestige

a. Artisans valued for skill work, especially luxury items

b. Trade could be profitable, but also risky

C. Mexica religion

1) Mexica deities adopted from prior Mesoamerican cultures

2) Ritual bloodletting common to all Mesoamericans

a. Human sacrifice to Huitzilopochtli

b. Large temple at the center of Tenochtitlan, thousands of skulls

c. Mayas practiced human sacrifice in the Yucatan peninsula

D. Peoples and Societies of the North

1) Pueblo and Navajo: large settled societies in American SW

a. Agriculture and irrigation

b. By about 700 CE, began to build stone and adobe buildings

2) Iroquois peoples: an agricultural society in the eastern woodlands

a. Five Iroquois nations emerged from Owasco society, 1400 CE

b. Male/female roles

3) Mound-building peoples in eastern N America

a. Built enormous earthen mounds for ceremonies and burials

b. Largest mound at Cahokia, Illinois

c. 15-38,000 people lived in Cahokia society in 12th century

d. No written records: burial sites reveal existence of social classes and trade

4) Anasazi lived in cliff dwellings

E. Mayas

1) Practiced terraced landscaping and irrigation

2) Used a lunar calendar of 344 days with 13 months of 28 days with an extra month added in once very four years

3) Women were central to the religious and economic life of every home

4) Had a form of hieroglyphic inscriptions

F. The Coming of the Incas

1) Kingdom of Chucuito dominated Andean South America after the 12th century

a. Cultivation of potatoes; herding of llamas and alpacas

b. Traded with lower valleys; chewed coca leaves

c. Andean civilizations were isolated and mountainous

2) Chimu, powerful kingdom in the lowlands of Peru before ca. 1450

a. Irrigation networks; cultivation of maize and sweet potatoes

b. Capital city at Chanchan had massive brick buildings

3) The Inca settled 1st around Lake Titicaca in the Andean highlands

a. Ruler Pachacuti launched campaigns against neighbors, 1438

b. Built a huge empire stretching four thousand kilometers

4) Inca ruled as a military and administrative elite

a. Use of quipu for record keeping

b. Capital at Cuzco, which had as many as 300,000 people by 1500