The first empires, spiritual revolutions, the Middle Ages and Europe's rise.

Age of Empire

The first empires which laid the foundations for the modern world.

From the Assyrians to Alexander the Great, conquerors rampaged across the Middle East and vicious wars were fought all the way from China to the Mediterranean. But this time of chaos and destruction also brought enormous progress and inspired human development. In the Middle East, the Phoenicians invented the alphabet, and one of the most powerful ideas in world history emerged: the belief in just one God. In India, the Buddha offered a radical alternative to empire building - a way of living that had no place for violence or hierarchy and was open to everyone.

Great thinkers from Socrates to Confucius proposed new ideas about how to rule more wisely and live in a better society. And in Greece, democracy was born - the greatest political experiment of all. But within just a few years, its future would be under threat from invasion by an empire in the east...

The Word and the Sword

Continuing charting the story of human civilisation and plunge into the spiritual revolutions that took the world between 300 BC and 700 AD.

This was an age that saw the bloody prince Ashoka turn to Buddhism in India; the ill-fated union of Julius Caesar and Egypt's Cleopatra; the unstoppable rise of Christianity across the Roman Empire and the dramatic spread of Islam from Spain to Central Asia.

Each dramatic story pits the might of kings and rulers against the power of faith. But Andrew Marr discovers that the most potent human force on the planet came from the combination of faith and military power. Both Christianity and Islam created new empires of 'the word and the sword'. 

Into the Light

The Middle Ages when vikings explored and pillaged.  

After the collapse of the Roman Empire, Europe went into the so called Dark Ages. This was a period of intellectual darkness and economic regression that occurred in Europe following the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. One of the Vikings greatest talents were settling down (we know this from written records). Vikings explored and pillaged from Northern Europe to England, Iceland and North America. But they also laid the foundations of powerful new trading states - including Russia (the Vikings were called the Rus, and therefore named it Russia). The leader Oleg asked representatives from different religions to convince him into their religion, and as he chose Greek orthodox that religions would affect things such as architecture (how the buildings looked like)

This was also the Golden Age of Islam. They pushed forward in e.g. math by counting the size of the planet by the angle of the sunlight. The knowledge of ancient civilizations from India, Persia and Greece were built upon by Islamic scholars in Baghdad's House of Wisdom, and the knowledge was passed on to the Christian kingdom of Europe.

When Ghengis Khan defeated his opponents, instead of offering them disgrace, he offered brotherhood. This united the people and grew a bigger, stronger army.

He expaned his empire across northern China which gave him new technology with weapons. He later expanded his Mongol empire to the largest empire of history, and by taking over Islamic cities the Christian Europe could grow – thanks to his victories making the silk roads open to outsiders.

This made new possibilities Marco Polo to explore China, and new possibilities to trade. E.g. Cairo traded gold with the great empire of Mali, which later was traded into Europe.

The new ways of building, new paintings, new money and new confidence was found, and would later be known as the renaissance. This in particular grew from the greatest city states of northern Italy: Genoa, Venice, Pisa, Florence, and Milan with great people such as Leonardo Da Vinci.

By exploring the conquests of Ghengis Khan, the adventures of Marco Polo and the extraordinary story of an African King - the wealthiest who ever lived – we find out how Europe emerged from the so-called 'Dark Ages' and used influences from around the world to rise again with the Renaissance. 

Age of Plunder

Europe's rise from piracy to private enterprise.

The explosion of global capitalism began with Christopher Columbus stumbling across America while searching for China. While Europe tore itself apart in religious wars after the Reformation, the Spanish colonised the New World and brought back 10 trillion dollars' worth of gold and silver.

But it was Dutch and English buccaneer businessmen who invented the real money-maker: limited companies and the stock exchange. They battled hand-to-hand to control the world's sea trade in spices, furs and luxuries like tulips. In the 145 years from 1492 to 1637, European capitalism was born and spread across the globe.

Djenne-Djeno

The ancient city Djenne Djenno is a rather unknown ancient civilization compared to e.g. Egypt which almost everyone has heard of. But Djenne Djeno isn’t only unknown, it’s also kind of special compared to the other civilizations you’ve heard of.

Timeline:

People first settled here permanently in about 250 B.C.E. until around 1000 C.E. The reason why people now could start settle here is because the river Niger (which the city is build nearby) due didn’t any longer have high land that regularly escaped inundation (översvämning). The climate around the Niger was different that what it is today, they could because of the shallow lakes and grassy plains have farmers. This made it possible for them to produce rice which is revolutionary - But we’ll get to more of that later on!
Other ancient civilizations might have extinct because of war, however that’s not the case for Djenne Djeno. It is believed that around 1000 C.E. the environment became markedly drier and simply not possible for them to live there any longer.

City plan:

Djenne-Djeno is the oldest known west African city. The city was built up of many groups of huts made of mud-brick which is quite advanced. The huts were placed in groups where the husband lived in a large hut in the middle, while his wives (yes, wives in plural) lived in smaller huts surrounding this one. Djenne djenno had an area of 80 acres surrounded by a massive wall! None of the larger settlements in this area had had this. The wall was three meters wide, four meters high and had a perimeter of 2 km! By 1000 CE, there were fifty thousand people living in the city. We don’t have any pictures of the city plan, but imagine 50 000 people living peacefully within a surrounding wall. This is next to a river, fields for farming and huts outside the walls that’s for production of iron (we’ll get to that later).

Characteristics:

While there were many groups of huts, there was no central, powerful building. There wasn't any palace or any religious temple of any kind, despite the fact nearly all ancient cities are based around these monuments of power.

They use of domesticated plants and animals, in other words they now raised e.g. sheep and goat which they could get meat, fur and milk from.

As we mentioned, the people of djenne djenno produced rice. It simply had the perfect ground for rice to be produced.

Terracotta:

We don’t have any primary source in form of written languages instead we have this little terracotta statue that our group became really fond of so we named him Ben. Ben here is special for Djenne Djeno while Djenne Djeno was famous for its terracotta productions. However, the interesting thing about Ben is his face expression. 

("Ben")

If we look closer it looks like he’s thinking about something and that the thought is weighting him down. Maybe he is thinking about his girlfriend that left him the other day or maybe he just dropped his lovely rice cake on the ground and now he can’t eat it. In Djenne-Djenno and at the many related neighbouring sites in the Inner Niger Delta archaeologists have found terra-cotta sculptures of human and animal figures: men riding horses or entwined by serpents, figures sitting or kneeling, their bodies covered with what looked like blisters or welts.

However, what all these terracotta statues have in common is that they all look very sad. We don't know why they look sad, but by discussing it in the group we believe that it perhaps has something to do with their hard everyday life of harvesting and so on, or maybe even more interesting; with their religion. Perhaps they made these figures sad because it was related to something depressing, like when a person dies, then maybe they buried these statues with the dead. Well, we don’t know what is making Ben, here, sad or what he’s thinking of and that’s what makes it interesting because he looks sad and no one knows why, not even the scientist can figure out why he looks so down. Scientists and our group of course have had to come up with theories based on the little information that we have and we can’t really prove these theories because we have no written record to base it on. So it is all a big mystery really.

Our other primary sources are:

Cotta clay beads. The beads appear to be spindle whorls, from the deserts of Niger.  Someone has carved two lines (as you can see on the pictures) in one of them but the others are in excellent condition. Scientists don’t know what these beads were used for but considering the shape and they have been formed very preciously we presume they might have been some sort of jewelry.

They also made these old and unusual terracotta beads. The origin of these beads is uncertain, but it is believed they are from Djenne Djeno and they were used to weigh down fishnets.

Once again we can draw the conclusion that Djenne Djeno is a very mysterious city and at the same as it might seem annoying it is preciously that mystery that makes it so interesting.

Evidence has been found and architects believe that the first settlers knew how to manufacture iron – revolutionary! There has been found workshops on the periphery of the Jenné-Jeno settlement which were used for smelting. It may have been that the smelting process was either too secret or perhaps considered too dangerous to be done in the city itself. These workshops appear to have been so sacred or ceremonial area. In other words, this place was also used for offerings of terra cotta statuettes of human and animal forms.

After smelting, the iron was brought into the city to be forged into tools which would replace stone tools and ornaments such as jewelry. It is also believed that they used these new tools for fishing in the river Niger. This iron is probably possible to produce because of the climate, in other world the hot African sun.

The residents of Jenne Jeno had a lot of contact with other cultures which can be seen in the fact that they have similar terracotta statues in other civilizations such as the Nok people. The rice, raised cattle and iron the city had was probably also used for trades of goods for e.g. gold and copper.

THEORIES

Theories:

So, are the theories of Wheatley, Mumford, Lerner and Marx applicable to Djenne-Djeno? However, for some of them this is due to lack of evidence.

Wheatley argued that ancient cities must have a religious center which had control over the economy and administrable activity, maybe with a religious leader and perhaps some future predictions.
Djenne Djeno, on the other hand, had no religious center. They had religion, but it was centered on ancestral worship. They also didn’t have religious leaders, as there is no evidence of hierarchy. Nor did they preform any sort of magic and by that we do not mean pulling-a-rabbit-out-of-a-hat-magic, but predictions of the future. For a civilization to consist with Wheatley’s theory the people of the civilization also had to preform some sort attempt to communicate with some sort of gods, but Djenna Djeno didn’t have that kind of religious belief. We also haven’t found any evidence of the city having some sort of religious buildings such as temples to please the gods. So we can draw the conclusion that Wheatley’s theory does not fit our civilization.

There is no evidence of warfare or conflict during the span of Jenne Jeno, therefore we discredit Mumford’s theory that urbanization leads to continuous warfare. People either had to be SLAUGHTED for this theory to be true or have any religious reasons to fight. However djenne djenno have no evidence found of conflicts/ warfare, no mass graves found, no weapons found and no written records of war found. The only toold found are the ones used hunting, fishing and agriculture.

Karl Marx theorized that when we move into cities – we change and get a hierarchy in society. Also that the different groups of the society would conflict.
We have evidence that there’s different groups such as farmers, blacksmiths (metal workers) and probably fishermen:  but there’s no sign of conflict between them. There’s also no evidence of hierarchy, for example building, graves and architects have found and believe that all households had almost the same amount of wealth if you go by the size of the huts and the value of the goods found in them.

Lerner claimed that the subordination of women began in societies when conflict became an important part of suburban life and strong men began being valued higher than women who did not have the same physical capability. However, as we mentioned earlier, there is no evidence of such conflict in Jenne Jeno. If the theory states and confirms Mumfords theory that patriarchy rose because of armed conflicts which women were unable to participate in and therefor lost power, then the theory doesn’t fit it because there is no evidence of conflict and we must therefore discard her theory because of lack of proof. Though, we can be fairly certain that women had a secondary role in the civilization seeing as the polygamic (one man with many wives) family constellation focused on a patriarch (big centered hut) with several wives (smaller surrounding huts). 

From what we have said, we can draw the conclusion that Jenne Jeno was a very unique society.

Story of how a day for a Djenne-Djenno civilian could look like:

"One beautiful day, a young Jenne-Jeno civilian woke up with the sunrise - before the hot sun had struck with full force. Sitting up in the bed, he started to look around the hut where he lived and started yawning and stretching. He got up, dressed for the coming day and was now up and ready for a new day of hard labor to begin.

When he got out of the very characteristic building for this period: the mud-brick hut, he could see his three wives waving and wishing him a good morning from their three separated huts that surrounded his great hut. He waved happily back to his wives, reminding himself how incredibly handsome he must be to have such three gorgeous wives greeted him every morning.  He left his house and wives as he starts walking to his job.

You see, his father wanted him to be the greatest blacksmith in town. However, this young man had other dreams. So he simply followed them and became what he always wanted to be – a rice farmer. Funny thing is: farming rice would become a very unique, significant event that took place in Jenna Jeno. He wanted to work on the fields, use awesome tools to grow large amounts of rice every day. In fact, he grew so much rice that he didn't even need to keep it all. With the rice he had left over he was able to trade it whenever merchants came to town. He usually traded his rice for some gold and copper, so he could get his wives some beautiful jewelry they could decorate themselves with.

At the end of the day he returned home where his wives had made him his ordinary dinner: Fish they’ve got from a friend that works as a fishermen at the river Niger by the village, along with some rice and goat milk. Happy as he is, he returned to his hut tired after a long day and fell asleep with sweet dreams.

And so his life continued, day after day, year after year until…. He one day died. On the day of his funeral, all his friends and wives gathered in his hut to say goodbye. Then they put some of his favorite terracotta statues with him as they buried him under his hut.

The End"

The 7 innovative civilization, theory & criticism

Common elements in Mesopotamia, Indus and Egypt.

Monumental architecture:

• Religious belief, gods (tempels, bath house, pyramids,)*

• Appeared near rivers (flood banks and fertile)

• Written language (Hieroglyphs, trading not readable though, cuneform)

• Social Hierachy/ leader (pyramid, slaves, kingslists in stonecarving, different statuses, government)

• Exchange of goods (mesopotamia network) - get resourses they can't produce where they live
  BUT NO SUCH THINGS AS FINANCIAL PROFIT! Didn't do it for profit.

• Agriculture - irrigation system (bevattningssystem)*

*Civil Loyalty

All of a sudden huge building. They orginize differently.

Orginizing people to get irrigation system. Alla they are build on an irrigation system. They have brought togheter 100 of people, constructing project. Enought food then to make all of the stuff above happened.

Without orginizing people, wouldnt have that.

People see them selves as citi citisens now, how people see them seleves changed. The civil loyalty. People see themselves as a part of a city than a tribe.

From tibe to city

Innovative civilization PP

The first cities

Innovation or diffusion

In cronological order:

• Mesopotamia in iraqe
• Nile in egypt
• Indus in india paquistan
• Huhang he in eastern china
• Mesoamerica in modern mexico
• Andies in west coust south america
• *Niger central west africa

These 7 are special because they appear out of nowehere, original, not influenced by any other civilization. Very first cities are in mesopotamia. They are totally Unique!

Other civilization had been difused, like the greks. They're influenced by mesopotamia and egypt.

*get the map on the PP*

Theory and criticism

• Analysis is based on taking these 4 theories and testing weather they fit our civlilazation!

• The cosmo-magical city

 he Tried to find a pattern

The center of all these acient city these's a religius center!

Before the cities excisted, people would have visitet that location. A great meeting for the hunter-gatherer people. Would meet here like 1/year. Had a ceremony and place had religiois significanse. They were fertile, fresh water (these nice places) and you met all the other poeple in the area there, they got a religious significans!

While they're there meeting other groups they exchanged siblings (?)

These religious center performed some kind of magic. Not pulling a rabbit out of a hat, but perfomed some kind of show to predict the future. The magic tried to commiunicate with the cosmos, with the gods. Performing magic to communicate with the gods.

Not only had they religious centers, they seemed to controll all economic and administral activity. Contolls pretty muc everything in that city.

Administrivy buildings, not only religoius center but controled also! In research!

• Lewis mumford

Agrees with weathlys theory, but argues that the cities as they grow they would overlapp one an other. That would create compitition, wich would lead to warefare. That goes from the very firt cities until today. The cities grow they grow together, and they go to war together. Part of the theory. It you finns the prcens or war theres proof of contines warfare, then mumfus does fit.

The type of warefare, because of the relious, the warfare horrible. The power and religion makes a distructive mix

The religios is worse than the other kinds because if you fight for religious belief you tend to be fanatical (9/11 exemple) mixing religio and war is not a good thing. At this time you'll hear about cities that are defeated and population completely exicuted.

• Gerda lerner

She argues the beginning of cities start the segregation of women. The upper paeolithic woman had high statues, but here women loose out. Because momfurds idea (cities lead to warefare) and warefare ipotant part, men contoleld the political power. When you defended your cities successfully, when they return they get status! That's men, and their power raises as they can fight. Women loose power.

• Karl marx

Political philosofer. Before political philosofer, historican analyst

Citie society starts to split up to different groups. Everyones a gatherer, hunter and so on. But now people specialize in different taskt. People now work with e.g. metal the whole day. (not farming in morning and metal in evning) only one task! Priests, administrators (people that can write), slaves. Society now have splitted into different groups.

He also says these different groups had to be conflicting!

Evidence of conflict!

The Natufians - world first farmers

The earliest agriculture originated from the Middle East - The Fertile Crescent to be more specific. It’s geographically from Israel to Iraq. It originate at that location because they discovered a huge family of plants, the grasses. This gave a vast supply of grain.

A tool invented by the Natufians was the sickle. Archeologist found traces of wild grass on them and therefore they think these tools were used to harvest and cut grass is big amounts.

Because of the ice age, the earth became more fertilizable that provided more resources. So the Natufians didn’t only adapt by making new tools – they also instead of travling around all the time now settled down in one place! They no longer had to “follow the food”, but could make food at one place!

In The Fertile Crescent around 1000 families lived in this area with approximately 25-50 people in each village. 

One person could now in 3 weeks harvest enough food for a family for an entire year.

Another advantage with grain compared to other food was that it did not decay and it last for decades if you kept it dry! You could now store your food for a longer time!

But they did not only live on cereals. They also lived on many animals like gazelle, goats, wolf, fox, crab, hare, cat and many birds.

So the Natufians had mortars to treat the grain, but what’s fascinating about their mortars is that they were  decorated. The mortars were not just lumps of clay; they had a form of structure and shape. They also had carvings and a sheer size – the size is another proof for their settling as bigger more complex things made out of rock is not easy to carry with you. They were more complex in a way that they had several holes that they mashed the seed in.

For storeage they first had leather bags. Later, they also stored their grain in a big circular building. They digges the walls 2 m down in the ground and stored the food there for many people (for many people shows a signs of cooperation and thinging in a more civilized way.

It’s hard to know socially how the the Natufians had it, but it is believed that they had a more giving than individual perspective in things (once again how they stored their food) because now they had small groups that relied on each other.

Tragically the Natufian way of life only lasted for 2 500 years. The glaciers came back and turned the fresh water to ice, the number of animals decreased and simply made the world colder and more dry. This was called The Younger Dryas and was an environmentally catastrophe.

The Younger Dryas forced the Natufian to make a change. Since the environment changed they had to abbandon their settlements. They separated into small groups and started to look for a new resettlement since the wild plant and food they once relied on weren’t there anymore.

But luckily they found a new place - a fertile plain called Lake Galilee in the Jordan valley. This becomes the test of human adaptation as they will attempt to survive here. When the Dryas eventually is over – their location is becoming warmer and perfect for farming. They’ve now invented a whole new way of life.

It’s hard to say if farming was easier than hunter gathering since this now made it easier for them to settle down, have larger families, storage food and have a more advanced civilization – but on the other hand archeological have found evidence of hard work. Knee and shoulder bones were now heavily deformed and they had strain injuries.

In this new location they believe that food such as nuts were hard to reach. There were wild nuts growing in the surrounding hills, and the Natufians were located around the water (the water was the main reason they decided to resettle there). However archeologists have found burnt seeds in their fireplaces. The seeds found burnt are though bigger than the natural varieties. Therefor the Natufians must have choosen and collected the best grains in shape, size, structure  and then planted them near where they lived. By doing this they made it much easier to harvest and build up population. The cereal are much more productive, however they are also more time counseling. This made their lives less carefree.

They also have an even larger kit of specialized tools (for their harvest process).

Remember, the most important to remember and learn from this post is that THEY NOW HAVE SETTLED DOWN! For reals. They now have small communities and more children. To explain why they have more children is simply because they now can afford to feed more people (and more people equals more help to harvest). Before hunter gatherers had to carry their kids wherever they went when they moved around all the time, so they simply could have no more kids than they could carry.

But more people demand a more organized structure – this is when leaders were born and needed! With socially institutions and large communities – the society now needed leaders to emerge control.

Some other special things with these people are they burials – their rituals and beliefs are now gone. But they had a ceremony. The dead bodies (often died by injury) were buried in the houses. They dug a hole in the ground and burried them under the fire place. It was a sacret place. They placed a huge stone on top of the body, added the treasures of daily life. The huds found a new meaning and were constanly repaired. 

They also made ornaments like beautiful necklaces made out of shell and carved teeth

To sum up: 

The Natufians simply made human progress possible! They change the way of life. They had everything they need in one place, food to rely on for a long period of time. In other words, there's a reason to stay at one place now. People now build shelters that would last for years.

They also took one step further in technology by:

Inventing the sickle for harvesting,

Used smooth stones for sling shot, three stones connected by cords, spire heads to hunt.

Gazell toe bones for ornaments

It lasted 10 000 BP to 8000 BCP after the Younger Dryas. 

There were now experimental gardens as the climate is warm again, which later develop full grade gardens.

This all happened because after the ice age there was a lot of water that sank into the ground and made the ground fertilizable. Because of this they developed e.g. tools so they could take advantage of these new resources and people now people choose agriculture!

Their lives changed as they instead of living a normadic or seminomadic life they settled for one place and started farming. More advanced houses and tools were made so they stayed at the same place. However not only did the material thing changed, but also our personalities and behaviors. We for example started to protect out ground more from enemies, we started to have people in charge (leaders) to have a functional society, hierarchy. If this wouldn’t have happened, one might assume that we still today would adapt ourselves to the surrounding instead of the opposite.

Some final Pros and Cons with what the Natufians did:

Pros: community size, leaders, private property (pottery, metals, textiles), control food supply practiced all over the world.

Cons: harder work (damaged bones) so they’re deformed by the labor they have to do, changed and damage the environment in the whole planet and lead to inequality and war.

Women - higher status?

It is said that during this time, the women had a higher status and more power.

Let's take a deeper look into that!

Men:

• It is assued that the men were the hunters, because of their physical capability. The hunting brought in mainly meat that supplied 30% to the collection of food. Because of the hunting, they had periodically traveling - they sepperate from the main group to hunt.

Women:

Cecause the women were the ones carrying the babies, they shouldn't be put in danger. Therefor the women were the gatheres!

• Gathering brought in 70% of the food supplies. Examples given are grains, pulses, wild vegetables, wild fruits, shell fish (High in protein and Omega3, good for the barin!) and fire woods!
• Women always at center of community - Because of the mens periodically traveling - the women had to make the decisions in the community!
• Child rearing, passing of cultural traditions! They decide what cultural decisions they want to pass on and shape the next generation!
• There was also an absence of conflict because there's no economic benefit of that.

One more piece of evidence:

Venus of willendorf 

About 30 000 BP. This is the most famous image of a human. These are nomadic statues! What's even more fascinating is that all these images that are found during this time are in the shape of a woman. It's an icon of prehistoric art. 

Venus of lespuge -  Excisted about 30 000 BP to 10 000 BP. 188 of these statues have been found!

They all have certain charachteristics in common:

• All Female
• Featureless faces
• Thin arms over breasts
• No feet
• Protruding genitals
• Large breasts and hips

Some featues of the sates can be analyzed. The facelessness  of the figurine for example gives them an  anonymity, which suggests that it may have been  not just a statue of one women - but representing all women during this time.  

I also belive the arms resting on her breasts are suppose to give a calm, confident feeling. For instance, if a man was to be sculptures during this time I think it would have been made with some indication of their hunting (like more aggressive or holding a weapon)

The fact that it doesn't have any stabil feet to stand on might suggest that these statues were carried around with the humans.

As earlier mentioned, women has been seen as more powerful during this time because of e.g. their influence on the children and supplying more food than the men.

So going through trouble of making women instead of men might show they had more power. So from the evidence given in this post, I therefor belive that women during this time had a higher status than the men.

Stone Age Paradise

50 000 BP - 10 000 BP

During this time, there's e.g. different roles of gender, economic system and society. However, it has been called the stone age paradise. 

Stone Age ParadiseWhy idealized the Stone Age? Simply because it has being pointed to be a paradise!

• Absense of major conflict (no evidence of war that took place) If it happened, it would have been mass graves, dead bodies left behind, burried. You would have find evidence of that. No human injury. Very little evidence of major conflict in the Stone Age.
• But logical! Hunter gatherer, nomadic, and semi nomatic - what would they gain by fighting with each other? --> Nothing!

Nomadic - you don't live in the same place the whole year., you travel e.g. with the animals to another place. 

Semi nomadic - live on 2 places, one in the summer and one in the winter.

Sami people is an example os nomadic living people - the follow their reindeers.

When do we start fighting? --> When they stop being nomadic and start agriculture, and want to gather more land! A matter of life and death to defende that piece of land!

• Egalatarian Society
• People are equal (--> hint the burrials)

• Female Power
• It is women that has the highest status.
• Hunter gatherer 

• Economic system!!! Something unique to the stone age, doesn't happen today and probably not in the future.

The late Stone Age

As we talked about in the earlier post, there's dirrefent theories of the human evolution. But, something happened and a weird behavior that appeared 50 000 BP.

Let's dig deeper into that!

50 000 BP is a part of the stonge age --> upper paleolithic (late stone age)

Characteristics of the stone age:

·         Economic system based on hunting and gathering. Plants or hunt animals.

·         Due to the hunting and gathering we move around a lot to follow the animals or specific plant. So we are either nomadic (you don't live in one place, you travel e.g. with the animals to another place. You don't live in the same place the whole year.) or semi-nomadic (lives on two places, one in the summer and one in the winter.)

·         People made tools out of stone, wood (and later bone)

·         Absence of:

o    Pottery  -they take clay and make animals of it to decorate it (artistic use) but NO PRACICAL USE!

o    Metals - not avaialble yet either, don't have that technology

o    Farming - don't plant crops, don't have any animals that they demasticated (don't have any agricultiral techonology)

o    Domesticated animals look abbove

There's been a mathematical formula for the community units, how they lived.

                                                                                 25 (1/19 of a tribe)

A family of five can’t provide for themselves, so they go together with other people to supply everything they need. But when they reproduce, they form a Tribe (a tribe is a community of 475 -19 groups of 25) so they switch pepple inbetween these to not harm the DNA.

Collonize on another planet, (NASA for ex. to make healthy DNA) must have 5x5x5 people (125!)

There's tribes today such as the sand people of South Africa --> They didn't need to change or adapt or use new techniqe and therefor just stayed the same.

The great leap forward: behaviour revolution

50 000 BP homo sapiens modern changed - behavior revolution (or the great leap forward) 
BIG change.

5 areas in which the behavior change occurs:

·         Rapid Technological Advancement (which continues develope)

·         Burial

·         Art - being produced for the first time

·         Self decorated - for the first time

·         Religion - Most controversioal

Technology:

• Mousterian - 

Neandethals and Homo Sapien Modern used these tools.

Relatively easy to make : flint and another stone and strike it. You "Nap it" and a little bit of flint breakes of until it's a sharp blade. About 20  napps, takes a few minutes to make. General purpose tools - one tool for many different tasks.

Moustiran tools - stayed around for 90 000 years. THE SAME for 90 000 years. Doesn't develope.

• Aurignacian 

This is MUCH more complex! It's can't be the same animal that made it! Something has occured in the brain to make this new technology! Didn't change first for 90 000 years, and then really advanced.

It's about 100 napps - delicate little cuts, took hours or even days to produce!

They are more specialized - different jobs, different tools! A whole renge of tools and use tool kits (!!!!!)

One brilliant thing - eargonomic (thought about to make it easy and comfortable to use)! Not only practical use with a sharp blade - but it's also a handle or such to make it easier to hold.

These you don't use once and throw away (like the one before)  - you might even pass these on because it's so much work behind it. ESCPECIALLY you pass the knowledge how to make it on! It's a skill.

HUGE jump forward! 90 000 years the same and THEN change!!! HUGE leap forward!

It doesn't end here, we get more and more advancement!

• Solutrean 

There's a whole new techique in manifacturing these. You dont only nap - you use pressure! You can produce really shaprt, really light thin blade. (thinner than your finger)

More complexer.

A brilliant idea, A HANDLE ATTACHED TO THE AX! Somebody  invented that! Once they do that - even more efficient! Not only handles on ax heads - but spears! Attaching a blade to a wooden handle making it a spear.

• Magdalenian 

Finally - the magdalenian!

The great innovation is they don't use stone. They use bone - and bone has to be carved. In order to carve it requeres a great deal of skill which probably is passed on for genereations - and you need a set of tools to carve and make these new tools.

More afficient fisherman! FISHERMAN! As a harpune or even fish hook on a fish line.

Amazing feature  - not only practical use but they decorate it!!!!!!!! Suggest a great deal of sofistication!

---> these ideams makes us see our selves and our behavior.

The important thing in this is that it doesn't just develope one - it changes and continues to change!!!

Upper paleolitical burials:

A man was found in Russia - the band around his head made from beans - stung onto lether stings and several of them on his head. Also beads across his cheast, ancles, armes and so on.

When first excavated - thought it was high status (rich, important) 
But when they dig up other graves from same area - they all have these beads. All people from this community has beads. CHILDREN has even more beads than the adults. So owerwhealmingly - stonge age burial suggest it isn't anyone with high status. They all (graves) are uniformed - there's no one that sticks out.

A drifferent  part of the world would have a differend decoration, but community the same. Very little sign of status!

All burrial throught Europe and Aisa all contain grave goods! Burried with purpuse, items, or decoration, or food, animal or part of animal (BUT GOODS!) burried with them!

They all also contain red ochre - it's a natural die that you find in earth - licquid form of iron (to dye clothes and the skin and so on) but all stone age burrial contained red ochre. Powder form and put it over the humans (ritual thing)

This means it's a equal society (probably believe in after life.)

There are 3 exceptions - 2 are shammon (religious) and have different burrial pattern than the others. 
BOTH of them are female!

Femal religious figures! Overwhelmingly thought, they all are uniformed.

Art:

Cave painting or portable art (=scratched into stone or bone or wood or shaped clay or scratching into clay - and it's small enought to carry with.)

Portable art is the oldest - they spend every day making tools, same skills is required to make tool as it is making portable art.

Talanted work of art, capture of movement are really impressive. It's very few examples of human in the cave paintings, most are of animals - HORSE most common figure! They theorised that it was the most common. It's the right size for a human to hunt, it's not agressive. Doesn't have horns on the head to hurt you.

They put a hand on the stone, put red orchre in the mouth
and spit on the hand so the hand was formed in to the wall-

Self decoration

Red ochre is used - produces a nice color - on the skin and in your hair. Solid evidence is that they used beads - got a hole drilled in it so you can have a tread through.

Every community different type of beads. Diffrent regions use different type of beads - Shells, precious stone from mountain for ex.

But shell beads in the mountain and  precious stone from mountain on the cost --> they traded their beads with each other.

Upper paleolithic religion

Controversial! Occurs in the mind, so it's diffiult to proof. A bead means they self decorated themselves. But we can't prove a bead was for a religios purpose.

Making sense of their wold:

·         Anthropomorphic imaginary - Animal acting in a human way

·         Animal woreship - Takes a lot of time and effort - must be religious.

·         Animism - all object has some kind of spirit in it.

·         Apotropia - things that protect you from evil - e.g. the turky's "evil eye" - put on the airplanes to protect the planes from storms. "Dream cachers" caches all the bad dreams.

·         Ancestor worship - a group of stone age people in the middle east - build hoods they lived and sleept in half the year, and in the center of the hoods there's a grave. They just dig a whole and continue to live on the grave. Continued for several 100 years --_ but then they. Continued to burry in home and then they dig up the skull and display the scull in the living room

Questionable theory

·         Assumtion

·         Anthropological studies (is the best theory. They go there and study their living. "maybe that's how they thought"