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Final Exam
Review
33
Archaeology
Undergraduate 1
04/07/2015

Additional Archaeology Flashcards

 


 

Cards

Term

Definition of State 

 

(characteristics)

Definition
  • stratified social classes
  • politcally centralized gov.
  • market economy 
  • full-time craft specialization
  • taxation supports interior/exterior regulations
  • graded court system
  • variety of settlement types
Term

Empires 

 

don't last more than 200 years 

Definition
  • regional
  • expansionary
  • military 
  • economics 
Term
Where did state systems form?
Definition
  • Mesopotamia- Sumerian City States
  • Africa- Egyptian State Unification
  • Indus River- Harappan
  • China- Shang
  • Europe- Minoans- Greece/Roman
  • Mesoamerica (lowlands & highlands)
    Lowlands- Olmec- Maya
    Highlands- Teotihuacan- Aztecs
  • South America (lowlands & highlands)
    Lowlands- Moche- Chimu
    Highlands- Tiwanaku- Inca 
Term
Theories on State Formation
Definition
  • Karl Wittfogel- Hydraulic Irrigation Hypothesis
  • Malthus- Exponential Pop. Growth
  • Robert Carneiro- Pop. Growth- Warfare- Envir. Consumption
  • NeoMarxian- Class Conflict Models
  • William Rathje- Regional Trade Interactions
  • Multi Factor Approaches- accept various variables w/differing impacts in different areas leading to unique state formation trajectories
Term

Karl Wittfogel 

 

Hydraulic Irrigation Hypothesis

 

(Mesopotamia)

Definition
  • caused internal pressure-need more structure
  • people unequal to build systems
  • continue to maintain to ensure water is delivered
  • leads to stratification and development of a state
Term

Malthus 

 

Exponential Pop. Growth 

 

(J curve)

Definition
  • increases until carrying capacity reached, then levels off 
  • number of people  x  time 
Term

Robert Carneiro

 

Pop. Growth- Warfare- Enviroment Circumscription 

Definition
  • In areas of circumscribed agricultural land, population pressure led to warfare that resulted in the evolution of the state
  • Environmental circumscription occurs when an area of productive agricultural land is surrounded by a less productive area such as the mountains, desert, or sea. Migration is not possible. 
  • Leads to stratified social classes (winners & losers) within increasing pop. density environment 
  • Application of extensive agriculture would bring severely diminishing returns.
Term

NeoMarxian 

 

Class Conflict Models 

Definition
  • borgeoisie/capitalist class owners- proloteriat/working class- landless/non-owners
  • forced to exchange their labor for wages paid by capitalist employers
  • leads to political/economic stratified state systems 
Term

William Rathje

 

Regional Trade Interactions

Definition
  • resources distributed over landscape (salt, cocoa, obsidian)
  • need trade networks to distribute resources
  • control over trade leads to social, elites, politcal control-neomarxian process
  • homogenous= equal distribution
  • heterogenous= uneven distribution
Term
Multi Factor Approaches
Definition
  • accept various variables with differing impacts in different areas leading to unique state formation trajectories 
Term
Environmental Variables
Definition
  • Julian Steward & Leslie White
  • Cultural Ecology (utilize landscape)
  • Circumscription- increase growth (stratification)
  • population growth
  • class conflicts
  • warfare
  • trade
  • subsistence technologies- irrigation, crop complexes
  • religious systems
Term
Urban v. Regional State Systems
Definition
  • Urban- great concentration (Teotihuacan)
  • Regional- dispersed, lower pop. densities (Egypt)
Term

Mesopotamia

 

Sumerian City States 

Definition
  • 3,500-2,300 BC (about 500 yrs. AFTER agriculture)
  • 13 politcally independent cities (Ur & Uruk-best known)
  • Ziggurats(religious temples) surrounded by residential complexes
  • pottery wheels, wheeled carts, metalworking (no metals locally- cooper then bronze= copper/tin alloy), Cuneiform writing (5000 BC), politcal gods-kings over each city
  • Environment: irrigation river system, on alluvium fish, cattle protein sources, wheat, barely, millet, dates, olive tress, citrus fruits (etc. grown), Maritime trade control 
Term
Mesopotamia Variables in State Formation
Definition
  • irrigation/agriculture
  • population growth
  • trade, control over trade corridors
  • warfare- politcal power controls 
Term

Egyptian Civilization

 

(2,600- 1,570 BC)

 

overlaps Mesopotamia

Definition
  • influenced by Sumerians, considered an independent state formation process
  • Ecology: Nile River Vally Delta, surrounded by desert, 3 crops a year if irrigated, inedation brings soil- increases yields, wheat, barley, legumes, sheep, goats, pigs, fish, wildfowls, rushes, reeds, flax (linen)
  • never developed urban centers- response to ecology
  • Politically: Pharoah-ruler, god-king, power was total
  • exposed to multiple periods of unification and fragmentation, each time leading to a larger reunification, until Roman take-over= ends sequence
  • Period= fall apart
  • Kingdoms= unified 
  • hyergliphics
Term
Africa
Definition
  • Coastal States: Ghana, Mali, Songhay arose (AD 800-1,550) in response to gold, ivory, salt and slave trade
  • Great Zimbabwe (AD 1,100-1,500) was an internally formed state, that developed in response to gold, ivory, copper trade with Asia along east coast 
Term
Why did states develop later in Africa, and often in response to State trade elsewhere?
Definition
  1. Africa is rich in resources, gold, silver, iron, ivory, etc., ut these only defined as valuable by other states
  2. Sahara desert natural barrier
  3. Poor clay sols south of desert limited Agr. until mtals introduced, but the agr. developed on its own
  4. River, liek Niger, lacked flood regimes, and/or alluvial soils, making them less productive agriculturally 
  5. Diseases, malaria, tsetse fly, etc., limited areas of settlement during specific times of the year (nomadic)
  6. Thus, States founded on trade in luxury goods that other civilizations wanted 
Term

Indus Civilization 

 

Harappan (2,700-1,700 BC)

Definition
  • Environment: Indus River Valley, irrigation required, indundtations, crops: wheat, barely, dates, melons, peas, cattle, goats, sheep, pigs, fowls, elephant bones, likely labor
  • Size: larger than Pakistan today:many sites, many regional centers and 5 large cities, significant trade resources, ceadr, lapis, metal ore, ceramics
  • Structure: Harappa (smaller), Mohenjodaro (larger)
  • Cities: w/ water, sewage systems, residential districts, administrative centers
  • Ruler NOT GOD, rather economists
  • Trade: Key variable, trade seals indicate transportation of goods very large distances
  • Stratification: very wide range of social classes
  • Decline due to: flooding along indus, shifts in trade patterns, changes in rivers leading to rice cultivation along Ganges (1,500 BC), chronic deforestation/soil erosion, landform uplift altering river drainage
Term

Chinese Civilization 

 

(2600-1100 BC)

 

 

Definition
  • earliest cheifdoms known vis legends-warfare between many cheifdoms led to politcal unifciation of the 1st large regional state in China: Shang 1500 BC
  • Shang Dynasty Civilization ahd 7 capital cities, along Huang ho River, best know is Xiao-Tun. Also, massive royal cemeteries between 1500-1200 BC, some with over 1,000 sacrifical burials in attendance (upside down pyramid with a cross-tomb)
  • best known for: working mold process, likely fueld by constant warfare
  • Decline: Shang taken force by Zhou (1100-211 BC) who divided it into a series of independent holdings
  • by 221 BC, whole area re-unified by what became the Han Dynasty-they started the Silk Road trade with the west (iron added to bronze-technology)
  • Dynasty: Shang, Zhou, Han
Term
SouthEast Asia Civilization (AD 1-1500)
Definition
  • by 100 BC SE Asia composed of ranked, centralized cheifdoms, display, feasting ritual, ancestor worship all keys, constant politcal flux, no fixed boundaries, situation in all Mekong region
  • Lower Mekong: "Funan" port of 1000 rivers (Chinese name), tonle sap lake/plains (huge-small seasonal fluxuation-extreme), Homland to Khmer-speaking cultures, political situation volatile at best THEN
  • AD 1-Foreign sea traders enter the picture-monsoon trade w/ 6 month layover stays, traders spoke "Mwani" a polyglot lang., trade from china, india, SE Asia, to ROman Empire
  • Exchange of ideas as wekk as goods-India 200 BC Emperor Asoka, Buddhism, saw prosperity of Buddhism tied to sea trade
  • created stronger support for cheifdoms to control sea trade
  • AD 500: Tonle sap region starts to get unified as political/economic/religious center under God-Kings

Term

Angkor State 

 

(AD 802-1430)

Definition
  • Khmer Monarch Jayavarman 2nd merged kingdoms into single state with himself as supreme King/God
  • Developed bureaurcracy to oversee life of people: agr, warfare, tax collection, state religious ritual, judicial decisions, hospitals
  • organzied vast building projects in agr off season: Angkor Wat, symbolic Hindu world, over 1 million ppl lived there, documents indicate leavel of labor: 306,3711 ppl from 13,500 villiages worked on WAT, eating 38,000 tons of rice per year
  • Jayavarman 7th destabalized (high level corrupt) bureaucracy by assigning elite direct power in decisions. Ensuing corruption destabzlized state system.
  • When Jayavarman 7th died, buddhism preaching equality, poverty and abstinence took over. Warfare became endemic.
  • 1430-31 AD Angkor scaked by the Thai state, taken over by Thai, and later 1519, by Europeans
  • Pol Pot, Cambodia conflict "killing fields" (work rice fields), Angkor landmined during conflict, reconstruction slow 
Term
In Sum Asian State
Definition
  • developed in hydraulic systems
  • trade significant factor in state craft
  • form of politcal state craft varied widely:
    Harappa-merchants
    China- military
    Angkor- religion
  • All started with petty cheifdoms which unified
  • all dissolved via warfare, trade distruptions or ecological collapse into a period of petty local states
  • this pattern of unification- fragmentation- reunification-fragmentation, is a common one is state building world wide  
Term
MesoAmerican Civilizations Sequence
Definition

 

Lowland: Olmec, Maya

Highland: Teotihuacan, Toltecs, Aztecs

Term

Lowlands 

 

 

Definition
  • Gulf Coast and Yucatan- limestone Kurst
  • No rivers, wet, humid and swampy
  • Wet/Dry Seasons
Term

Olmec

(1500-500 BC)

 

Lowlands

Definition
  • "Mother of MesAmerican Civilizations"
  • Cheifdoms/State interface (evolved)
  • Shared rituals/symbolism over large region
  • Today believed: Olmec influenced civilization building a series of small kingdoms unified by shared rituals beliefs 
Term

Olmec Sites 

 

San Lorenzo & La Venta

Definition
  1. San Lorenzo (1250-1000 BC): dry farming and raised fields (agr. comp) along swamps, earthen mound platforms, carved colossal heads, olmec art style-weir-jaguars half human (likely hulicinogens-shaman)
  2. La Venta: on small island in swamp, 120m long rectangular earthen mound, intentionally destroyed around 400 BC, evidence of high warfare 
Term

Maya 

(0-900 AD)

 

Guatemala, Belize, Honduras 

Definition
  • ecology: hot semi-tropical forest, limestone kurst base, no rivers, rainfall highly seasonal (rainy/dry season)
  • cultural history: (300-900 AD) Classic Maya Civilization, height of politics, height of written system/calendar, warfare between sites 
  • decline: (900-1200 AD) best known-Copan, Honduras, pop. growth.carrying cap. limits, nucleated pop. near center-unstable, soil eroision/agr. simulation (John Wingard), pollen data (David Rue), deforestation (Elliot Abrams-agr landuse), settlement/chronology (Freter-ambrams), human remains (Rebecca Storey), Domestic Economy (Julia Hedon), politcal records (William Fash/Linda Schele)
Term
Highland Sequence- will start with true State systems
Definition

A. Teotihuacan (Basin of Mexico Highlands)

 

200BC-600AD

 

B. Toltecs (Tula)

 

700 AD-1000 AD

 

C. Aztecs (Tenochtitlan & Texcoco)

 

1200-1500 AD

Term

Teotihuacan 

(200BC-600AD)

 

Basin of Mexico Highlands

Definition
  • urban center (200,000 ppl) 
  • contact with Maya
  • Central part of the city-"Street of the Dead"
  • Pyramids of the Sun and Moon
  • Raised Field Agr. (Chinampas 3-4 crop per yr)
  • Unclear decline
Term

Toltecs

 

(700-1000 AD)

Definition
  • Tula
  • likely where most of Teotihuacan pop. went-they were taken over by
Term

Aztecs

 

1200-1500 AD

 

 

Definition
  • Sites: Tenochtitlan & Texcoco
  • along shallow lakes in the Basin of Mexico
  • Started wide scale Raised Fields along lakes
  • Wide scale warfare, empire building
  • major social stratification-capulli units
  • pop. disrupted by diseases, slavery, war, plagues
  • Spanish conquest 
Term

South American State Formation

 

Highland & Lowland 

Definition
  • Lowland: Moche & Chimu
  • Highland: Tiwanaku, Wari, Inca
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