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

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

II. China

1. Han – 200 BCE – 220 CE

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

i. General Zhang Jian traveled across Central Asia

ii. Wu Ti = Warrior Emperor

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

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

  1. Wei – northeast
  2. Shu – west
  3. Wu – south and east
  4. 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)

  1. strong centralized

i. Promoted trade and communication

  1. After brief period of rule Alexander the Great330-321 BCE
  2. Regional lord – Chandragupta Maurya
  3. Powerful military
  4. Greatest ruler – Ashoka
  5. Successful warrior – converted to Buddhism
  6. Turned away from military conquest
  7. Disgusted by bloody victory over Kalinga
  8. 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

  1. Brahmins restored to traditional role – advisors/gurus

e. Control based on local lords

  1. Paid tribute for local autonomy
  1. One of the more peaceful/prosperous eras
  2. Around 450 CE Northern invaders brought Gupta empire to slow end
  3. Much order from caste system/Hinduism
  4. Exports
  5. Cotton cloth
  6. Ivory
  7. Metalwork
  8. Animals
  9. 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

  1. Single code of laws

2. Rome -The Foundation of Empire

A. Julius Caesar

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

B. Augustus

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

4. Created a new standing army under his control

  1. The imperial institutions began to take root

a. Continuing Expansion and Integration of the Empire

  1. 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

  1. 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

  1. Roman roads

a.Roman engineers as outstanding road builders

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

  1. Roman law

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

b.Principle: innocent until proven guilty

c.Judges enjoyed great discretion

  1. 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

  1. Urban decline
  2. Civil wars
  3. Barbarian invasions
  4. Frequent change of rulers
  1. Economy and society in the Roman Mediterranean
  2. Trade and Urbanization
  3. Commercial agriculture
  4. Owners of latifundia focused on production for export
  5. Commercial agriculture stimulated economic specialization and integration
  6. Mediterranean trade
  7. Sea-lanes linked ports of the Mediterranean
  8. Roman navy kept the seas largely free of pirates
  9. The Mediterranean became a Roman lake
  10. The city of Rome
  11. Wealth of the city fueled its urban development
  12. Statues, pools, fountains, arches, temples, stadiums
  13. First use of concrete as construction material
  14. Rome attracted numerous immigrants
  15. Aqueducts
  16. Roads
  17. Fortifications
  18. Buildings with arches
  19. City attractions
  20. Public baths, swimming pools, gymnasia
  21. Enormous circuses, stadiums, and amphitheaters
  22. Family and Society in Roman Times
  23. The pater familias
  24. A Roman family consisted of all household members living together
  25. Pater familias, or "father of the family," ruled
  26. Women wielded considerable influence within their families
  27. Many women supervised family business and wealthy estates
  28. Wealth and social change
  29. Newly rich classes built palatial houses and threw lavish banquets
  30. Cultivators and urban masses lived at subsistence level
  31. Poor classes became a serious problem in Rome and other cities
  32. No urban policy developed, only "bread and circuses"
  33. Slavery
  34. Slaves - 1/3 of Roman population
  35. Chained together in teams, worked on latifundia
  36. Spartacus's uprising in 73 B.C.E.
  37. Working conditions for city slaves were better
  38. Epictetus, an Anatolian slave, became a prominent Stoic philosopher
  1. Major trading patterns within and among Classical civilizations; contacts with adjacent regions
  1. China

1.Zhou

2.Qin

  1. silk cloth encouraged
  2. Roads constructed
  3. Forced labor to build thousands of miles

3.Han

  1. Trade along Silk Roads increased
  2. Economy strong – monopoly of silk production
  3. Downturn in agricultural production hurt
  4. Trade thrived
  5. Helped spread Buddhism
  6. Carried far more luxury items than culture
  7. 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

  1. Iron weapons, crossbows, cavalry warfare
  1. Han
  1. Paper
  2. Accurate sundials/calendars
  3. Broaden use of metals
  4. Agriculture improves
  5. ox-drawn plow
  6. collar to prevent choking

2. India

1. Mauryans

2. Guptas

  1. Classical Age of India
  2. Supported Hinduism led to revival in Hindu art, literature, music
  3. Great temples built
  4. Fashioning iron for many uses/weapons
  5. Guptas – enthusiastic patrons of Hindu culture
  6. High towered temples
  7. Lavish wall paintings – Caves of Ajanta
  8. Growth of Sanskrit as language of educated
  9. Inoculation of smallpox
  10. Sterilization during surgery/cleaning wounds
  11. Plastic surgery/setting of bones
  12. Astronomy – eclipses – identification of planets
  13. Classic Hindu temple – courtyards, paintings, sculptures
  14. Scientific/mathematic breakthroughs
  15. Pi, zero, decimal system
  16. 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

  1. Social and Gender Relations

A. China

1. Zhou

2. Xin

3. Han

  1. Traditions reinforced through strengthened patriarchal system
  2. Society further stratified
  3. Elite class – educated governmental bureaucracy
  4. Peasants
  5. Artisans
  6. Unskilled laborers, small number of slaves – mean people
  1. Themes
  2. Few live in cities – less than 10%
  3. Social hierarchy
  4. Confucius – five basic levels of relationships
  5. ruler/subject
  6. father/son
  7. elder brother/younger brother
  8. husband/wife
  9. friend/friend
  10. each relationship has set of duties/responsibilities between

superior/subordinate

  1. harmony the result of right conduct
  2. North – wheat, south – rice
  3. Fishing, hunting, forestry, tea growing main industries in mountain
  4. Tenant farmers – bulk of rural population – for landlords
  5. Power from court of emperor – implemented by scholar-gentry
  6. Hierarchy in Provinces
  7. Scholar-gentry landlords
  8. Military
  9. Artisans
  10. Landed peasants
  11. Landless tenant peasants
  12. Hierarchy in Capital
  13. Emperor, Officials, Eunuchs, Military, Artisans
  14. When crops failed
  15. Higher starvation, infanticide, lawlessness, peasant revolts
  16. Extended family
  17. Call on spirits of dead ancestors – advocates with gods
  18. Extended family most influential feature
  19. Multi-generational homes – respect to elders
  20. Patrilineal wealth – passed down to son
  21. Female identity extension of father/husband
  22. Family to family network of connections
  23. Business, social life, marriage
  24. Patriarchal – voice of authority for family – to government
  25. Taoist – yin/yang
  26. Assertive masculinity vs. gentle/submissive female
  27. Women could get power in court
  28. Favored concubine/wife
  29. Daughters not valued as much – female infanticide
  30. Sold as servants/slaves for debts
  1. India
  2. Mauryans
  3. United much of India after the death of Alexander the Great
  4. Collapsed due to demand for resources by the administrative and military complex
  5. Guptas
  6. Women saw rights diminished
  7. Declared minors in need of supervision by male
  8. Daughters neglected, infanticide
  9. Couldn’t participate in sacred rituals/study religion
  10. Couldn’t own property
  11. Child marriage became norm – girls six/seven
  12. Due to property issues in urban area
  13. Because of strict caste division, slavery not widespread
  14. Patrons of Hindu
  15. Return of Guptas solidified caste system
  16. Proliferated and evolved
  17. Brahmin – priestly class
  18. Kshatriya – warrior
  19. Vaishya – producing caste
  20. Shudra – servant caste
  21. Harijans – untouchables
  22. Not even a caste
  23. Do tasks that might “pollute” Hindu culture
  24. Waste products, butchering, carrying dead
  25. Further castes – jatil – subcastes
  26. India’s habitual political fragmentation
  27. Extremely varied Indian landscape
  28. Many different forms of economic activity
  29. Complex social hierarchy
  30. Many languages and cultural practices
  31. Sacred literature
  32. 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