Marshall High School Mr. Cline Western Civilization I: Ancient Foundations Unit One BB What is Civilization?
Human societies change over time, and while they don't do this in a uniform way, there are some observable similarities. We are going to talk about traditional ways historians categorize human history and see what that means. Humans have a lot of history. A lot. I mean, have you ever tried to study absolutely all of human history? It's practically impossible to do. So, as historians, we take some shortcuts and try to find ways to organize historical moments by shared trends. Growing up is hard. You go through mood swings, growth spurts, phases of awkwardness. Frankly, it's not always enjoyable, and not everyone grows up the same way. Some people peak early, others are late bloomers, some grow up with ease, others with difficulty. To help ourselves understand what it means to grow up, we categorize different phases of life. adolescence. Teenagers. adulthood. Retirement. Well, human societies aren't much different. Many change in similar ways over time, and so it's helpful for us to organize them into ages. As a species designed for tool-making, technologies define our lives, now and throughout history. These categories are used more for academic purposes; it's not like people woke up one day and realized they were in a new period.
The date ranges on these periods can also vary drastically because people in different places developed new technologies at different times; just because one group started using a new tool doesn't mean everyone did. However, these categories can be pretty useful when trying to tackle the huge amount of information that is human history. Now, this isn't a perfect metaphor because while humans have to change as an unavoidable part of nature, cultural and technological change are voluntary. There is no law of nature which says that people have to adopt new technologies, or even that they should. This being said, let's look at some of the common changes across the world and see what humanity has looked like across the ages. Stone Ages Let's start at the beginning, as humans first evolved roughly 2 million years ago. The first 98 percent of humanity's history is virtually unrecorded. Known as prehistory, or the Stone Age, most of what we know is not from written accounts, but from the tools our ancestors used to survive. Our ancestors recorded very little of their existence during prehistory. Writing simply didn't exist as we know it today.
Stone Ages We call this period the Stone Age because many of the tools from that time were made from stone - but they were also made from flint, bone, and antler. These tools are one of the few things - besides some fossils - that have survived the 700,000 years since humankind fashioned its first axe and flint. The Stone Age is divided into three periods: the Paleolithic period, the Mesolithic period, and the Neolithic period. Each of these periods is based on the sophistication of the tools our ancestors made. During the Paleolithic period, they made very simple tools. By the end of the Neolithic period, tools and their usage had become more complex and specialized. The first period, the Paleolithic, means 'Old Stone Age'. The Paleolithic Period People across this time period lived in small bands of nomadic hunter-gatherers.
At the time, the climate of the earth was very different from today. It was much colder. There weren't as many plants, and animals had to travel to find food. So did people - they had to follow the animals since they relied chiefly on animals for food. Stone Ages The Paleolithic Period During this period, people survived as hunter-gatherers, hunting wild game and supplementing their diets with gathered wild berries, nuts, and fruits. Animals eaten for food were also used for tools, for clothing, and for shelter. No part of the animal went unused. The Paleolithic era began with the evolution of humans, but actually ended at different points around the world because its end is characterized by the development of new lifestyles, which was not a uniform process. No one's really sure just how long this period lasted, but archaeologists have theorized people used simple tools as early as 700,000 years ago. Populations were small and scattered. Some archaeologists believe there were no more than one million people worldwide at any one time during the Old Stone Age. If this seems like a lot of people, compare it to our current world population of 7 billion. People stayed in small groups and hunted, gathered, and lived together.
They developed more sophisticated tools, using bones for fishhooks and deer antlers for digging. They sometimes used bones to make spears so they could more efficiently hunt wild animals. Stone Ages The Mesolithic Period This is why people of the Paleolithic period were nomadic and never settled in one place for long. The Paleolithic first began to wane near 13,000 BC around the Mediterranean Sea, where warmer climates resulted in an abundance of natural foods growing around the region. We call this the Mesolithic, or 'Middle Stone Age'. The Mesolithic period (the Middle Stone Age) began when the last ice sheet over Great Britain melted. It was then that large areas of vegetation and woodland began to grow, but the people of this period still depended on animals for food and were still nomadic. They often camped temporarily near water sources, and their tents were made of animal skin or of thatched leaves. Like the people of the Paleolithic period, many of the Mesolithic period were hunter-gatherers. They hunted wild game and collected wild nuts, fruits, and berries.
This is precisely what they did, often settling near rivers, which provided water and fertile soil. Stone Ages Though they hunted deer, wild pigs, wild cattle, and horses, fishing was also an important part of the Mesolithic diet, and the people of this period developed canoes and paddles to more easily catch fish. The Mesolithic ended when people realized that the reliable grains of the region could be domesticated and harvested year-round, meaning they didn't have to move. The Neolithic Period The development of sedentary, or non-mobile societies characterizes the beginning of the Neolithic or, you guessed it, the 'New Stone Age'. It was during the Neolithic period - also known as the New Stone Age - that humans learned to farm. Humans began to develop this skill roughly 10,000 years ago, and it made a huge difference in lifestyle. Now humans were no longer so dependent on animals for food, and could settle in one place for a while.
Stone Ages Humans also learned to tame animals - probably because they were quick to learn that animals could be used to do much of the work on a farm. Though the family was chief to survival, communities eventually began to form. Humans had to develop new and more sophisticated tools to farm effectively, and they also learned to specialize roles and tasks. During the Paleolithic and Mesolithic eras, roles weren't specialized. Everyone gathered food. With farming, humans learned that specializing tasks yielded better and greater results. One family might have farmed while another might have taken care of the animals, and yet another would have been responsible for the making and upkeep of tools and pottery. Humans still traveled, but not as often as before. Because there was more food available, populations began to grow. Tiny communities grew into villages, which eventually grew into civilizations. Language became more sophisticated, and so did the homes that people lived in.
Stone Ages The Neolithic Period As more advances took place, life changed. These changes were rapid compared to those of the Paleolithic period. Around the Mediterranean, the Neolithic began around 8,000-6,000 BC The first Neolithic societies around the Mediterranean developed in the Middle East, the first in Asia were in China and India, and the first in the Americas were in the Valley of Mexico and the Andes Mountains. There is evidence that our ancestors believed in animism, a belief that all living things have spirits. Cave drawings left to us show that our ancestors believed in the supernatural, and believed that when something died, its spirit did not, but simply moved to another place. Some communities even had elaborate rituals for burying their dead. As human societies made the shift from nomadic to sedentary, agricultural life, other changes occurred.
Copper is relatively easy to mine, smelt, and work, and in many places it was the first metal to be used for tools, jewelry, arts, and weapons. For one, the ability to plant and harvest crops meant for the first time there could be a surplus of food, and not everyone needed to be involved in food production. Some people could be full-time artists, or healers, or politicians, or inventors. The next major age in human history occurred when some of these inventors realized that the soft copper they found could be refined into a much stronger metal. The Chalcolithic The previous three ages are collectively known as the 'stone ages,' and were defined by technologies made of, well, stone. But we don't use stone tools as often today. You may have noticed. At one point human societies switched to the use of metal. Like the transition out of the Paleolithic, this was not an immediate change, and we've got another period of transition here called the Chalcolithic, or Copper Age.
The Bronze Age is generally considered to cover the time frame of roughly 2,300 to 700 BC. The Chalcolithic occurred around the 3rd millennium BC. The Bronze Age was characterized by the rise of bronze tools, as well as cultural developments like systemized writing and math. This term is something of a misnomer, since advanced civilizations in the Americas (who had less access to the copper and tin needed to make bronze) rarely utilized the metal but still managed to create advanced systems of math, philosophy, and in the case of the Mayans, writing. Human societies fully turned towards the use of metal in the Bronze Age. During the Bronze Age, people learned to mix copper and tin to create a stronger metal, bronze, and used it everywhere they could. But, bronze wasn't the only change in this era. New technology meant better agricultural practices, and societies grew much larger, forming the first true kingdoms and empires. Things like writing, philosophy, mathematics, and international trade appeared.
Now, look around you. How many things do you see that are made of bronze? Probably not a lot, and that's because human societies kept looking for better and stronger materials, leading around 1200-1000 BC in the Mediterranean to the development of iron. The Iron Age is the fourth of the traditional ages of human history, characterized by (of course) the use of iron, but also further technological and cultural expansion. Bronze is swell, but not a perfect metal. So, people kept innovating, and eventually found better ways to process metal, making iron. The Iron Age saw stronger, more efficient tools that again redefined agriculture, as well as the arts and warfare. Military empires, armed with iron weapons, fought for control of trade routes. Artists, armed with iron tools, carved marble and other materials into astounding sculptures. The Iron Age began around 700 BC, but its end date is contested because people used iron for millennia.
So, where do we go from there? However, the social and cultural changes of the Iron Age waned by around 450 AD, so that's what we'll use as the end of this era. Societies grew larger and more complex, substantial armies fought to expand the borders of growing empires, and writing grew from a system of record-keeping into an artistic tradition of true literature. This traditional 4-tiered system of human history was developed in the early 19th century by Danish researcher Christian Jürgensen Thomsen, based on ancient Greek and Roman categories of history, and while it can be useful, it is problematic. As we've talked about, not every society followed this same path. There's also the question of where the Iron Age ends. After all, there is no recognized Steel Age or Internet Age. There are, however, a few other terms you may hear to describe ages in human history.
In the 1300s, the Mongol Empire conquered China and opened up all of Eurasia to a massive set of trade routes known as the Silk Roads. For one, a Classical age refers to a pinnacle of cultural production, general in an ancient society, that set foundations for the growth of that civilization. The Medieval age most often refers to the post-classical world, or that after the Classical civilization had fallen, which in Europe refers to the fall of Rome. The collapse of the mighty empires of the Iron Age led to the start of the Middle Ages. (Medieval in Latin) The Middle Ages were defined by kingdoms, not empires, who existed in near-perpetual states of war, but also by new technological advancements. Wrought iron, an even stronger kind of iron, became widespread and with this material came things like horseshoes, cannons, and clocks. The Middle Ages lasted from roughly 450 to 1400 AD. The Renaissance
The Renaissance Money, ideas, and people swept around the world, and new city-states emerged with economic dominance. This was the Renaissance. We often associate this period with the massive development of the arts, but there were also some dramatic technological changes. Boats, telescopes, compasses, and clocks all improved, and many people took to the sea to find new trade routes. (Ever heard of Christopher Columbus?) For this reason, many also call this the Age of Exploration. Whatever you call it, it lasted from around 1400-1750 AD. The Industrial Age Finally, many researchers do look to the Industrial Revolution as a moment of key change.
The Industrial Age Finally, many researchers do look to the Industrial Revolution as a moment of key change. Nations are said to be 'industrialized' after having developed economies based around machine-assisted production, and to this day many people use this as a term for analyzing a new age in human history. In the 18th century, innovators caught up in a philosophical movement called the Enlightenment started creating machines that could produce perfect scientific experiments. It wasn't long before these machines became larger and more complex. They were first powered by steam, then electricity, but industrial technology reshaped the world in every way. The first Industrial Revolution kicked this off around 1750, and the Industrial Age lasted until about 1950.
Ages of Humanity Now, let s discuss the advancement of man through these categories up to the point where we may be able to say Western Civilization began The Information Age After World War II, new technologies began to emerge based around the use of this new thing called a computer. Since then, computers changed how people communicated, making things possible that were never imaginable before. Most historians call this the Information Age, since communications technology really drives the industry. This is where we are today. So, what's next? The Laser Age? Space Age? Hologram Age? Only time will tell. Perhaps future historians will talk about the digital age, or the social media age, or the Waste-All-Of-Their- Time-On-The-Internet Age. We'll see. While human history is a big topic, historians have found ways to categorize it based on the dominant technologies of different ages. And that's a lot of history in a little amount of time. See why we need these categories?