World History: Midterm

By Alexis Apgar

The Last Ice Age70,000 BCE – 10,000 BCE

The Agricultural Revolution coincided with the end of the last Ice Age At the end of the Ice Age human migration across the earth began

Gradual shift from:Nomadic lifestyle settled, stationery lifestyle.Hunting/Gathering agricultural production and domestication of animals.Transition to agriculture: 11,000 – 8,500 B.C.E.

The Neolithic Age

10,000 BCE – 4,000 BCE “Neolithic” “New Stone” Age

The Agricultural Revolution8,000 BCE – 5,000 BCE

Agriculture developed independently in different parts of the world.

AdvantagesSteady food suppliesGreater populationsLeads to organized societies

CostsHeavily dependent on certain food crops (failure=starvation)Disease from close contact with animals, humans, and wastePopulation growth prevents return to the hunting and gathering life.

Advantages & Costs of Agriculture

First CivilizationsThe first civilizations were developed :

• Because of the need to organize large-scale irrigation projects

• Population density created competition, warfare, and trade.

States were established, ranked officials employed by the king,to coordinate and regulate the complex city communities.

Effects of the New Civilizations

• The Sumerians were the first in record to have a written language.• Writing served an accounting function and gave weight and specificity to orders, regulations, and laws. • Slavery began they were prisoners of war, criminals, or debtors but their children could become free people.• Patriarchy also took place because the labor became more physically demanding with plows and herding large animals

and also due to warfare.

The Persian Empire• Persian conquests under the rule of monarchs Cyrus and then Darius expanded Persia’s rule from Egypt to India.

•In order to gain their followers and official’s support of conquered territories Persian kings upheld local religious cults.

•Cyrus allows Jews to return to Jerusalem after being exiled in Babylon.

• Persians try to expand into Greek territory only to be defeated by the Greeks in the Greco-Persian Wars.

The Greek Empire

• Phillip II of Macedonia conquered Greece and united it but was killed before he could attack the Persians. • Phillip’s son Alexander the Great at the age of twenty led the expedition against Persia. • Alexander’s conquered much of Asia and Egypt only to die before returning to Greece. • Alexander’s conquests were most important in terms of world history for the spread of the Hellenistic era. •One of Alexander’s conquests was the city Alexandria in Egypt that became the city of the world creating a lighthouse and the great Alexandria museum and library.•For the first time knowledge was gathered.

The Collapse of EmpiresThe collapse of these Empires happened because they got too big, too overextended, and too expensive to be sustained by the available resources, and no fundamental technological breakthrough was available to enlarge these resources.

The effects of imperial collapse decline of urban life, a population decline, less area under cultivation, reduction of international trade, and insecurity for the common population.