Seasonal Movement

o Finding new resources and being mobile with seasons

o Where to be at right time and place to harvest enough food to survive

Small Group Size

o Natural resources are less dense than agricultural resources

 oThe way to adapt was by living in small groups o About 50 people average

Flexible group size

o Map onto resources so when they are abundant groups can be bigger and when they aren’t reduce their group size

Leadership by achievement

o Leaders get people to fulfill important roles

o Leader may lead, but follower doesn’t have to follow

o Need leaders who can lead effectively for the well-being of the group

o No hereditary leadership

Equal access to resources

o Leaders don’t control resources

o All groups have equal access to means of production

• Communal ownership of territory

o Group owns land communally and manages it communally and passes it down to generations

Limited private property

o Not much property to call your own

Low rate of population growth

o Keeping population low

• They knew how to plant seeds and change the environment to increase yields

• Children go from being a burden to an asset in agriculture o Birthrates skyrocket

• More labor put into agriculture, the more you get out of it

• More labor put into hunting-gathering less output do to decrease in amount of animals

• Burned areas to improve yields

• Burn off area for plants to sprout, which mammals feed on which increases their ability to kill animals Tended stands of nut bearing seeds

• Managing of certain plant resources Irrigated dense stands of key plants Followed migratory herders of mammals and culled the herders

Increased work load

o   Agriculture is a lot more work than hunting-gathering.

o   Clearing field through slash and burn and then plant seeds.

o   A typical work-week for a hunter-gatherer is about 10-15 hours; simple agriculture takes 30-40 hours

Had to begin clearing fields

Osteoarthritis

    o   Joint pain

Decline in dental health

o   Shorter life span

o   More arthritis

o   More stress related illnesses

o   Ground up rock in flour, grain, etc. broke down teeth

o   Carbohydrates caused caries

 Sedentary life

o   Increased risk of disease

o   Water supply polluted

    §  Intestinal disease

Less diverse diet

o   Eating same thing day in and day out

Fortified villages rose and people fought over resources

Advantages

·         Less disease

·         Less scarcity

        §  b/c of lower rate of population growth

        §  Less change for warfare

·         Longer life san

·         Less dental health problems

  Disadvantages

·         Less productive

·         Less predictability

·         Less defendable

Advantages

·         Less disease

·         Less scarcity

        §  b/c of lower rate of population growth

        §  Less change for warfare

·         Longer life san

·         Less dental health problems

  Disadvantages

·         Less productive

·         Less predictability

·         Less defendable

• Genetic Engineering (1): from cultivation to domestication. Selecting seeds from desired traits. Also selectively breed animals. o Teosinte and Corn. Corn and ancient ancestor. Corn has to be grown, there is no such thing as wild corn.

• Environmental Engineering (2). Example, Peru. Prehistoric people completely transform river valley by constructing thousands of terraces. Converted steep environment into lush fields.

• Challenges

o Finding earliest domesticates 

o Reconstructing prehistoric food

Ways of Analyzing the health of prehistoric people

• Macrobotanical Analysis : down to stems and seeds again o Collecting flotation samples

 Collect 5-10 liters of dirt. Then you float it. Once the dirt is agitated all the plant material floats to the top and skim it off into a bucket. Light Fraction: the part that floats off the top. Analysis: sorting with a microscope. Seeds from flotation is tiny.

 Key challenge

• Distinguishing wild seeds from domesticated ones

• Microbotanical Analysis: Pollen and Phytoliths. Collect about a cup of soil.

• Faunal Analysis: Animal species at Abu Hureyra. Shift from hunting gazelle to herding sheep o Wild and domesticated Cattle

• Analysis of Human Remains o Health and diet o Infectious diseases

o Teeth and Diet

o Carbon Isotopes

 Tells when peoples diets changed

• Artifact analysis

o Agricultural tools

 Sickle Blades

 o Processing Cooking implements

• Middle East: Egypt and Mesopotamia (7,800 BC in Late Neolithic B) o Wheat, Barley, and Goats • Sub-Saharan Africa

• Africa o Cattle, Coffee, Sorghum, & African Rice • China o Yangtze and Yellow Rivers o Rice and Millet

• New Guinea o People and Mountains o Taro Root o Sugarcane > Burning Sugarcane

• Mesoamerica: Highland Mexico o Corn, beans, squash • Andean South America: Peru o Potatoes o Llamas & Alpacas (4000 and 2000BC) o Guinea pig(around 3000BC) o Chili Pepper o Quinoa (high altitude grain)

• Eastern U.S. o Chenopodium, Sunflowers, and Iva

• Population pressure

o As population grew eventually population in certain areas reached a point where the population could no longer be supported by natural resources

• Climate Change

o In the Pleistocene Holocene transition climate change caused the amount of food that is available from wild resources declined

• Social Theories

o Agriculture is the result of politicians and people striving for power and needing a surplus in order to build their political “campaign”

Replace brittle rachis with semi-tough rachis

• Hangs on when harvested

Increased grain size

• More wheat

How long to produce semi-tough rachis?

• Random mutation introduced semi-tough rachis

• Occurs 1 in every 10 million seeds

• In small plots of land, likely to occur in 2 to 20 years

How long to produce domestic grain?

• With cutting of near-ripe wheat and use of virgin fields o 20-30years

• How?

o Wild seeds were deliberately planted Selection of seeds for replanting led to domesticated grains

Three Centers

• North America

   o Eastern North America

       Gourds around 8000bc

       Other crops by 2500 to 2000bc

       Corn introduced AD1 to 400

       Arrived in the Southwest 1200BC

• Mesoamerica

   o Beans

   o Squash

   o Gourds

   o Chiles

   o Avocados

   o Turkeys (Mexico and all around New World)

   o Teosinte and Maize

• Andean South America

  o South America

     Potatoes (Peru and Bolivia)

     Tubers

     Oca (almost like sweet potatoe)

     Ulluco

     Andean Chile Peppers

     High altitude grains (Quinoa)

     Fruits of Peru

        • Chirimoya

        • Pacay

     Wild ancestor

        • Guanaco

     Guinea pig

     Ducks

     Peanuts

     Sweet potato & Manioc

     Cotton

     Avocados (Peru and Mesoamerica)

     Highlands

        • Llamas between 4000 & 2000BC

     Coast

     Guinea Pigs and Crops by 3000bc

 Early 1960s

 Goal: To Understand the process that led to the origins of agriculture

 Richard “Scotty” Mcneash did this project

  Tehuacan Valley, Central Mexico

 Surveyed valley and recorded 450 sites

 Selected about a dozen of sites to dig to find progress from first hunter gatherers of valley through to domestication

 Coxcatlan Cave: Excavated 12 sites

 Abejas Cave o Transition to sedentary farming took 1000s of years

 Coatepec

    o Pleistocene big game hunters o Early Holocene mobile foragers

 Wet season, macrobands

 Dry season, microbands

 When did farming begin? (According to project)

    o Gourds 8,000 BC to 6,000BC o Beans and squash 5,000BC

    o Corn 3600BC o Sedentary villages 2000BC to 1000 BC

 Project wrapped up in Mid-1960’s

o Did food shortages drive people to agriculture?

Site: Guila Naquitz

 Did climate change cause the shift to agriculture?

• Foragers re-adapted to the early Holocene long before the shift to agriculture

• The Process: Four stages of Development

o 1) Adaptation to Holocene climate

o 2) Modification of environment

o 3)Genetic manipulation of weedy annuals

o 4)Sedentary agriculture

• How to investigate this Question?

o 1) Computer landscape (GIS)

 Abundance, density, and yields of food

o 2) Computer simulation of a hunter-gatherer population

 Capable of learning and experimenting

 Capable of evaluation efficiency of seasonal schedule

 Results of simulation

• Resulted in hunter-gatherers exploiting same resources as Guila Naquitz hunter-gatherers

• Took 200 annual cycles to achieve this schedule o Seasonality and Schedule

 How did early agriculture fit into seasonal schedule of the mobile foragers?

 Adding agriculture to the schedule

• Added cultivation to the choices available at Guila Naquitz

• Simulated hunter-gatherers choose cultivation of weedy

• Easily fit into annuals schedule

• Why add Agriculture to the seasonal schedule? o Cultivation reduced search time and increased predictability

 10,000 to 300 BC

 Early ceramic styles

• Jomon earliest ceramics in the world (10,000BC)  Equivalent to Mesolithic in Europe and Archaic in North America

 Jomon Pottery

• Source of South American pottery?

• Betty Meggars proposed that Jomon fisherman went to Ecuador and learned pottery. Not widely accepted…Could have happened the other way around

 Nittano (Jomon Village)

• Turned to villages with global warming

• All nearly located near ocean

• Consist of mounds of trash

• Make use of hardwood

 Seasonal-Round

• Marine resources

o Fish large part of diet

 Freshwater, near shore, offshore

• Plants o Identified 180 different edible plants

o Nuts, seeds

• Wild game

o Deer, wild boar

 Stone Artifacts

• Used baited pits to lure boar into pits

• For hunting and butchering wild game

 Polishing stones and wooding tools

• Grinding stones for grinding nuts and seeds

• Wedges

 Canoes

• Offshore fishing

Rice (7500BC) – Yangtze River Valley

Millet – Yellow River

o    Technological and morphological descriptions

·         four steps

§  Selection of raw materials

§  Manufacture

§  Decoration

§  Firing

Typologies (standardized)

Basic forms of bowls or cups for example

Can tell how used

Context

Way the artifacts relate to each other/are positions

Things found in association with each other

Artifacts can also tell us about the people

Residue analysis

Use-wear analysis

iconographic

Pictures that tell how pots were used 

Ethnographic

                                  Looking at modern day and historic decedents and seeing how they use pots

 Selection of raw materials: Clay, Tempering, Preparation of clay

 Manufacture: Coiling, Modeling, Paddle & Anvil, Molding, Wheel.

• Manufacture Techniques o Modeling – shaping clay o Coiling – coil shapes into worm-like shape and add to pottery

o Paddle & Anvil – Using a tree stump or another shape (anvil) to hammer (paddle) the clay into its shape

o Molding – put wet clay inside of already hardened mold to create a shape o Wheel – using a wheel to move clay and hands to shape clay

 Decoration: Punctuated, Incised, Painted, Stamped, Engraved.

• Incised or engraved – take a stylus to create a small design on the clay

• Stamped – use a pattern or paddle pattern to stamp clay

• Painted - paint

• Punctuated -

 Firing: Oxidized, Reduced.

• Oxidized – more oxygen gets to pots (gains electrons)

• Reduced – less oxygen gets to the pots (loses electrons)

• Tempering: mixing sediments in

• Temper: sediments being mixed in

• Temper is used to strengthen the pottery so it is less likely to break

o Modeling – shaping clay

o Coiling – coil shapes into worm-like shape and add to pottery

o Paddle & Anvil – Using a tree stump or another shape (anvil) to hammer (paddle) the clay into its shape

o Molding – put wet clay inside of already hardened mold to create a shape

o Wheel – using a wheel to move clay and hands to shape clay

 Decoration: Punctuated, Incised, Painted, Stamped, Engraved.

• Incised or engraved – take a stylus to create a small design on the clay

• Stamped – use a pattern or paddle pattern to stamp clay

• Painted - paint

• Punctuated -

o Chronology.

o Human activities in specific contexts (specific association with ceramics).

o Scale of the social composition of human groups (scale of production).

o Dietary characteristics of human groups (residue analysis).

o Trading networks.

o Sourcing.

o Styles.

First wave of colonization of the Pacific

 60,000 to 40,000 BC, first people came by boat from Indonesia

 New Guinea, Australia, & Solomon Islands

 First wave of colonization ends at the Solomon Islands

Second wave of colonization of the Pacific

 1600 and 1000 BC

 Eastern Melanesia and Fiji

 Western Micronesia, by various groups

 Ends at Mariana Islands, Western Carolina Islands, and Fiji

Third Wave of colonization

 AD 400 to 1000, Polynesia and Micronesia

 Hawaii, AD 600

 Tahiti and Marquesas Ad 500-600

 Easter Island AD 500

 New Zealand AD 1000

• ALL Pacific colonized by AD 1000

o Best estimate is Taiwan, an island off of China

o Polynesians were farmers and sailors

o Polynesian brought banana to Madagascar and spread to Africa

o Different culturally, genetically, and linguistically o Group of Polynesians sailed to west and ended up in Madagascar

o Series of crops and animals allowed them to survive

    Taro, yams, breadfruit, bananas, pigs, chickens, dogs, fishing

    Rich in marine resources (farm fishing)

o Boats

    Used stone tools to cut down hardwood trees

    Used chisels and axes to cut out hardwood planks

    Drill holes in hardwood planks and take a rope and sew the planks together

    Sails were woven from shredded Palm fibers sown together

o How fast were their sailboats?

    12-24 nautical miles an hour

o Types of boats

   Micronesian

      • Micronesian Outriggers: canoe built out of planks tied together by ropes; with a buoy; has a single sail

    Polynesian

      • Polynesian Outrigger

      • Double canoe boats o Larger number of passengers

      • Double-canoe cargo ships o Used to haul cargo out of Pacific

      • Double haul war canoes o 118ft double canoes holding up to 50 soldiers

o Sixty minutes in a degree

o If you are slightly off by a degree you miss the island completely

o How did they gain a sense of direction?

   Navigation by stars

     • Know what star rises over the island and how  it relates to the degree the sun is at

   Navigation by sun

o How do they compensate for currents that push them off track?

   As you go from one current to another you have to shift to another star

   To remember this they gave each island its own song; each navigator has a different song, and the song tells you when to shift and what star to shift to

   Developed maps

      • Palm and Shell Map

      • Navigation Schools

    Maps are used to teach students how to navigate to different islands

    Older, more experienced men would teach younger students how to navigate (songs, maps, stars, etc.)

    Only men could become navigators

    Reading Swells

      • Sometimes, the clouds block out the stars, then they used transatlantic swells

      • When swells hit coastlines they turn into waves

      • Dock your boats at an angle across a swell and put your foot in the water to feel the swells

     • The Blind Navigator

   Lay down on platform and close eyes to try to feel swells

    Penis Navigating

    Navigators would use mental device like medication

    Had to stay awake and be alert whole time

o Used clouds and birds that were about 20-40 miles from islands

o Transatlantic swells hit coastlines and coast causes disturbance in wave

o They read disturbances

 Coring of floodplains and basins

§  Take out cores and get history of environmental change

§  Pollen analysis

  ·         Farmers cut down trees

  ·         Slash and burn reduce pollen

          Rise in density of charcoal

§  Charcoal analysis

§  Sediment analysis (soil erosion)

Faunal remains from archaeological sites

§  Looking at series of trash deposits

§  Can monitor species extinction

§  Can see change in frequency of other species

§  Presence of extinct species

§  Changes in frequency of species

Mangaia

 Surrounded entirely by a reef

 Sustains a much lower population density

 256 people per square mile of farmland

 Did the environmental change in Mangaia occur throughout the Pacific

   o Easter, Pitcairn, & Henderson Islands

   o Overpopulation, deforestation, species extinction

   o Population collapse, cannibalism, & social chaos

Tikopia

 Recent volcano, in which peak of volcano collapsed

 More than 800 people per square mile of farmland

 Shellfish, bird, fish extinction… but recover

What happened to Tikopia?

• Initial period similar to Mangaia

• Population growth

• Deforestation

• Soil erosion

• Switched to tree crops: systematically reforested the land

• What happened next?

• Shift to orchard crops

• Reef management by chiefs

• Population control

• Ideology of zero pop. growth

• Achieved sustainable production

What happened at Mangaia

• Colonization

• Rapid population growth

• Slash and burn farming

• Start agriculture

• Deforestation

• Soil erosion, large areas unproductive for crops

• Because of deforestation

• Shift to irrigation farming

• Because of soil erosion

• How did the environment on Mangaia change

• Extinction of many speices, land birds

• Extinction,13 of 22 bird species

• Decline in fishing yields

• Population collapse

• Political chaos, warfare, cannibalism

• Fighting for areas of resources

Why was history of these two islands so different?  Tikopia

• Smaller size may have helped create a cooperative ethic

• Avoided notion of “us and them”

• Human actions & decisions matter

• Ability to influence daily lives of people

• Small group of people in society gain power and use resources to keep power

• Everyone (except a few thousand) are under control of state
 

• Convinces through educational systems and media
• Fear of punishment
• Coercive (power/sanction)
    Threat of a sanction
    Control of police and military
    Jail
    Fine
• Economic power
    Control of resources
    Tax money
    Property
• Use resources

·         Ideological

§  Media

§  Schools/education system

·         Coercive

§  Military

§  Police

§  Threat of a sanction

§  Jail

§  Fine

·         Economic

·         Resources

·         Tax money

·         Property

Chiefdoms

o Regional

   Prior to chiefdom villages were scattered across landscape

   With chiefdoms, one village controls other villages

   Hereditary positions of leadership (ex. Samoan child chief)

       o Many chiefs in a Cheifdom

   Hierarchy of leaders

      • Top: paramount chief --- Below: Sub-chiefs

      • Sometimes 3 level of chiefs

   Paramount chiefs, district, and local chiefs

      • Kaua’I: A Hawaiian Chiefdom

      • Political Hierarchy of Chiefs

  o Chiefdoms have social hierarchies (inequalities)  

   Elites and Commoners

      • Chiefs collect tribute from commoners and lowers level chiefs

      o Ex. Temple mound, Oaxaca

      o Mounds and Plaza at Cahokia (East Saint Louis)

   o Chiefs do not retain a lot of their tribute for their own use

   o They use it usually for public work

What are the traits of states?

 States have governments

    • Permanent Institutions of leadership and rule

    • At least 4 levels of rulers (hierarchy)

 States independently formed from chiefdom

 In chiefdoms leaders have some amount of power but not the power leaders do in states

 Ex. Settlement Hierarchy: Zapotec State, Oaxaca, Mexico (transformation from chiefdom to state)

 State Capitals

    • Monte Alban – ceremonial government center created as capital : Built by leaders of state

 States are Bureaucratic

    • Specialized administrative structures

    • Use of systems of record keeping

o Tax keeping

o Law keeping

 Most written languages have their origins from creation of a state

 States create laws

    • Rulers use positive and negative sanctions to maintain control

    • Regulations about your life enforced by political leadership

    • State could punish you if you do not follow laws

 With first states around the world accounts of violence are found

 Human sacrifice

 States have territories

    • They are organized on the basis of land, not just kinship

   • Boundaries form

 States have standing armies or police forces

   • To apply and enforce sanctions

   • States conquer and control territory by force

 State tax people

    • States collect goods and labor 

    • Rather than paying tribute to chief

    • Paying percentage of harvest or waiver (one family member works for state)

 States have class

    • States are socially stratified

    • Rich people and poor people

• Pristine state emerges from an existing chiefdom without the interaction of other states

• Secondary states emerge around a pristine state in reaction in order to protect themselves from the expansion of those pristine states

Seven major centers of early state formation

 Mesopotamia - pristine– gave rise to other states of region

   • Present day Iraq

   • Zaggarut at Ur-namma

 Egypt - Pristine

   • Pyramids at Giza (2589-2532 BC)

   • Hieroglyphic writing

 Africa – Secondary State

 Indus Valley – based on control of trade routes

   • Harappan Ship

   • Urban Centers

 China – Pristine

   • Great wall of China

   • Emperor Zheng’s Tomb, Qin Dynasty (First Chinese Emporer)

      o 1,000s, terra-cotta statues o 700,000 laborer worked on tomb, palace, & temples

 Mesoamerica (Mexico)

   • Teotihuacan

 Andean South America – Pristine - (Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia)

Functionalist Theories - Chiefdoms & states were solutions to social or environmental problems o

Internal Conflict Theories – States developed from class conflict

 Needed to protect wealth so created states to maintain states and class structure

Warfare Theories – States developed by conquest  Ex: village conquers one village then the conqueror goes on to conquer another

o Settlement Pattern Analysis

 Cheifdoms and states are regional

 Ex: Middle Uruk Phase Settlements: Distribution of sites by size and type

 Ex: Susiana Settlement Hierarchy

 Ex: Rosario Phase

o Analysis of Monumental Architecture

 States collect tax to build temples, palaces, and monuments

o Household archaeology

 Chiefdoms and states are socially stratified

 Ex: Emperor Zheng’s Palace, feline mural, mural of Quetzal, Zolalpan Apartment Complex: occupied for 100s of years

o Analysis of craft production and exchange

 States control the economy: Workshops, sourcing raw material, trade networks

 Ex: Tripod vessel, fineware pottery, flint knives, stone mask, ceramic molds and adornos

o Iconography and Writing

 States kept records and used propaganda

 Iconography: artwork that expresses ideas that can be read

 Ex: Hieroglyphics, proto-siva seal, early writing, murals

o Bioarcheology and Mortuary Analysis

 Analysis of burials and grave goods

 Ex: Tomb of King Khaswkhemwy Abydos, 2686 BC, Emperor Zheng’s tomb, sacrafices at An-yang,

o Cities and Ceremonial Centers

 Urban Planning

 Mapping urban centers and studying their layout  Ex: Teotihuacan

 Hot, dry desert

 Swamps & rivers

 No forests

 Flood & mud: Floods deposit mud on land

 Absence of stone, metal, hardwood: Any rock found has been carried there by humans

 Change in Sea level: Ocean rising, polar ice caps melting o Susiana Plains

 Mountain valley

 Arid

o Irrigation, high productivity: a lot more can be produced out of irrigated land

o Arid

o Circumscription: resources are highly bounded: if you lose the irrigated land you are forced out into the desert: as important as surplus: raises control

o Agricultural surplus & political control: needed surplus to support political control

Ubaid Period, 5500 to 3800 BC

 No evidence of occupation before ‘Ubaid

 Introduction of irrigation

 Formation of first chiefdoms

 First settled by small villages around 5500BC o Uruk Period, 3800 to 3100 BC

 Formation of first states

 First writing

o Major Ubaid Phase Sites

o Rise of Towns

    Two towns, Ur and Eridu

       • Several thousand people

    Many small villages

       • Few hundred people

    Two-tier settlement hierarchy

o Rise of Temples

    Development of temple complexes in towns (ex. Temple Sequence, Eridu)

    Record keeping Systems

       • Development of “tokens”, prewriting (ex. Tell Abada Artifacts)

    Emergence of elites

       • At Erida and Uruk, several larger residences around temples (ex. Large residence at Tell Abada)

       • No elaborate burials

    Finance and Control

       • System of “staple finance”

o Pay tax in form of food

• Ideological power

• Control of agricultural land and temples

o Record Keeping

o Emergence of Elites

o Finance and control

·         First writing

·         Social and political changes

·         Formation of first states

·         Ur and Eridu continue to be occupied

·         Large towns, small towns, & villages

·         Priest residences & palace

·         Center of government

·         Hereditary leaders

·         Royalty and mobility

·         Development of classes

      ·         Rulers, priests (probably hereditary), traders (brought in raw materials), craftsmen (turn organic materials into fine objects)

·         Inventions, writing (Cuneiform) & copper (artifacts; source in Turkey, brought in by traders)

     ·         System of seals from Tepe Gawra into wax or clay

     ·         Means of recording transactions

       ·         Currency in grain and beer

       ·         bartering

    ·         Developed into pictograms & script

    ·         Fist written documents 3,400 BC, Uruk Phase

·         Means of maintaining state record

o Began as tokens and seals; means of recording transactions (ex. Jar Seal and Stamp Seal)

o Development of Sumerian Writing

    Developed into pictograms & script

    First written documents 3,400 BC, Uruk Phase

    Means of maintain state record (ex. Clay tablets from Uruk)

    Record of Sale of land

o The Rise of Literature

    Developed into a means of recording stories and poetry

    World’s first literature, Sumeria (Gilgamesh Epic)

    600-700 symbols First alphabet, by 1,000 BC

Susiana Plain Chronology

o Susa A, 4400 to 3800 BC

 First chiefdoms (same time as Ubaid)

o Uruk, 3800 to 3100 BC

 First states

   • Summerian Civilizaton (3000BC)

o 10 to 15 city-states (Sumeria and Susiana Plains)

o Trading colonies in upper Tigris and Euphrates Rivers

o Development of a “world economic system”

   • Akkadian Kingdom (2500 to 1990 BC)

o Conquered Sumeria in 2112BC

 North of Sumeria

 Early leader of Sargon

o Established far reaching trading empire o Ur – capital of Sargon

   • Babylon and the Assyrian Empire

o Babylon

 City state conquers Ur in 1990 BC

 Hamurabai

o Assyrian Empire (1356-539BC)

 Conquer fertle crescent

 Defeated by Persian Empire

Functionalist Theories

o Chiefdoms & states were solutions to social or environmental problems

Internal Conflict Theories

o States developed from class conflict

   • Warfare Theories o States developed by conquest

       o  Logistical challenge: location; getting right amount of materials/supplies/resources at the right time (tools; food; housing; manpower)

o    Engineering challenges

        must be completed before the pharaoh dies

o Social challenges

o    How did everyone agree to do this?

o    Question of power

·         Ideology

·         Reason

·         Religion

§  Pharaoh is a god

·         Economic power

§  To obtain logistics

o    System of taxation

·         Economic control (to collect resources and labor)

o    System of laws and police

·         Coercive power (in order to force taxation)

·         Punishment/threat

o    Divine kingship & cults of the dead

·         Belief system that makes building pyramids necessary

·         Not slaves; hired/paid by state

·         Worship of dead Pharaoh

§  Pharaoh needed tombs for afterlife

o More than 95% of Egypt is desert

o Irrigation farming

 River fed by monsoon rains

 Rains for 6 months a year

 Nile: Annual flooding

 Floods bring sediments from Africa and renew soil every year: results in high yields year in and out o Lower (Nile delta) and Upper Egypt (rest of Nile)

 Nile Delta and the Mediterranean

   • Fishing and trade very abundant at one point

   • Fishing good source of protein

   • Seaports facilitated trade Delta is now retreating because it isn’t being renewed

·         Surplus

·         Sustainability

§  No fall off in production

·         Control

§  In desert

§  Irrigation systems

·         Can shut people's water off

§  Circumscription

·         Resources highly bounded

·         Irrigated land next to deserts

·         Ability for control

·         Those who can control agricultural system can control water

·         Arid desert

·         Annual floods

·         Narrow zone of forest & marsh along river

·         Small camp sites located along the river

·         Small family bands

·         Living on wild resources

·         Moving with flood

§  Water rises/sets; 6 month fluctuations

§  Ponds and lakes

§  Result: very easy to catch fish

·         River fish/catfish

·         Aquatic plants

·         (edible roots; nut grass)

·         Increased moisture (seasonal rain)

·         Savana became area of grassland, lakes, & river valleys

·         Herds of gazelle & wild cattle

o    8,000-6,000 BC

o    Western desert

o    Domestication of herd animals

·         Cattle

·         Sheep and goats from middle East

·         Weather shift (after Yunger Dryas)

·         6,000-5,000 BC

·         Sahara begins to dry

·         Many hunter gatherers abandon area, head east to Nile or to sub-saharan Africa

·         Onset of modern climate conditions

                                ·  Early farming villages on Nile by 5,000 to 4,500 BC

• Predynastic - from villages to chiefdoms. 
• Small states by 3100BC. 
• Formation of political centers. 
•  Emergence of Elite. 
• Economic specialization - trade and craft

Dynastic - unification of upper and lower Egypt

• First Pharaoh
• State of religion - pharaoh represents God on earth

·         State as a solution to overpopulation

o    State needed for irrigation?

·         NO, Egypt based on simple, small scale irrigation systems that could be easily maintained

o    War and conquest

·         Possibly, but not definitely

o    Social stratification/economic control

·         Ex: modest tombs to elaborate funerary complexes and then temples/pyramids

·         Public architecture celebration of leadership

Community of 15 families

Domestication of the cat

Early Pottery

What are economic, coercive, and ideological power bases?

·         Ideological

§  Media

§  Schools/education system

·         Coercive

§  Military

§  Police

§  Threat of a sanction

§  Jail

§  Fine

·         Economic

·         Resources

·         Tax money

·         Property