• 5300 - 4100 BC
• Ubaid Pottery replaces Halafian in southern Mesopotamia
• Settlements are relatively small (1-2 ha)
• Irrigation

• 4100-3100 BC
• Uruk pottery replaces Ubaid pottery
• Settlements increase in size (10 ha)

• Elaborately crarved stone vessel on a pedestal ~1m high
• Three registers record scenes of domestic and religious life
• Lowest register depicts plants and animals
• Middle register is a procession of males carrying offerings of food and wine
• Top register portrays a ritual in which a goddess is presented with offerings of food

• A system that records sequences of words in durable signs
• In prehispanic Mesoamerica, writing was frequently used to record dynastic births, marriages, accesions, and deaths; to announce military victories; and to document political events

• A sign that has a specific meaning but can be expressed verbally in different ways 
• e.g., image of death of an individual could be verbally described in different ways

• Phonetic sounds may be represented by combination of symbols

• Period of cooling that occurred after the Medieval Warm period
• 1350-1850 AD

• Time of warm climate in the North Atlantic region (China) 
• 950 - 1250 AD

• A large stone monument
• Erected by farming societies from slabs and boulders
• Usually involved a burial area in or on the ground, surrounded by a chamber made of hug stones laid on top of one another without mortar
• Entire stone tomb then buried beneath a mound of earth to create an artificial cave

• Genetic material in the mitochonria of human cells that mutates at a relatively constant rate
• Because this type of DNA is inherited directly through the maternal line, it provides a continuous trial back into the past

Monumental Architecture

Angkor State

• Large ceremonial complex 
• After 550 AD, a series of kings tried to establish hegemony over as large an area as possible in the Mekong Valley
• Angkor state arose after 800 AD: one of the largest and most centralized of these South-east Asian polities 

Monumental Architecture

Aztec Civilization 

• Aztec Templo Mayor
• Aztecs were a state, and through conquests of neighboring peoples and polities, they had begun to establish an empire
  
  

Monumental Architecture

Chan Chan site

• Cuidadelas (little cities) (200-600 m on a side)in Chan Chan site
• Each surrounded by high adobe walls
• Included a large platform-court complex, as well as flat topped mounds and numerous smaller monuments and structures
• Later records name ten Chimu kings, corresponding  to the ten palatial compounds
• Upon succession, each new ruler built his own cuidadela to serve as headquarters and royal treasury
  
  

Monumental Architecture

Chichen Itza Site

• Puuc-style architecture at Chichen Itza
• Identifiable by a mosaic of limestone masonry covering a rubble core
• Large ball courts 
• Cenotes: natural well in the Yucatan that provides water for drinking and bathing
• Chac mool: life-size stone figure in reclining position with flexed legs and head raised and turned to one side
• During 10th century, Chichen Itza was the largest, most powerful Maya center in the region

Monumental Architecture

China

• An-yang was a large ceremonial and administrative center with monumental architecture surrounded by craft areas
• bronze foundries
• stone and bone workshops
• pottery kilns
• Palace was 60 m long (royal), with a ceremonial altar next to it. 

Monumental Architecture

Cuzco Site

• 1440 AD Pachakuti initiated the dramatic series of conquests that culminated less than a century later in a huge empire that streched over 4200 km from north to south
• An imposing fortress with massive masonry walls (the Sacsahuaman) was built on a steep hill (not fortified)
• John Rowe suggested that Cuzco was intentionally laid out in the shape of a puma with the fortress representing the animals head
• Temple of the Sun at cites center
• exterior walls (>50 m long) decorated with a thick gold frieze
• Frieze: a decorative band or feature, commonly ornamented with sculpture, usually near the top of a wall

Monumental Architecture

El Mirador site

• Three features dominate the West Group (defined by a stone wall and ditch to the south and east and by steep escarpments to the north and west)
• Central Acropolis 
• Tigre Complex
• Enormous pyramid 55 m high
• constructed primarily during the last centuries B.C.
• Monos Complex

Monumental Architecture

Hopewell Sites

• 100 B.C. - A.D. 400
• Mound building and long distance exchange intensified to the north in the Ohio River Valley about the time of the decline of Poverty Point in the Lower Mississippi Valley
• Elaborate earth works (some as large as 100 m or more in diameter) were constructed in shape of circles, squares, and pentagons
• Appear to have been sacred enclosures

Monumental Architecture

Mesopotamia

• Few exotic luxury items, no highly elaborate funerary contexts have been unearthed
• 4100-3100 B.C during the Uruk period showed the rise of monumental urban centers in accordance with social stratification

Monumental Architecture

Monks Mound Site

• Located at Cahokia site (largest Mississippian center)
• Site encompasses more than 100 earthen mounds in an ara ~13 sq km
• Central part consists of large plaza surrounded by the giant Monks Mound and 16 other earthern platforms and surrounded by an elaborate and massive wall
• Monks mound consisted of four platforms, with a large public structure and some related smaller structures and walls located on the summit

Monumental Architecture

Palenque site

• Temple of the Inscriptions
• Four story tower constructed by Kan Joy in veneration of his father
• Palace at Palenque, sits at the core of Palenque's complex of civic-ceremonial structures
• Sarophagus of Lord Pakal, shows inscriptions on lid
• Palenque was one of the earliest Maya centers to experience collapse
• One of the first sites to show increasing ties to Gulf Coast or central Mexicn elements

Monumental Architecture

Poverty Point site

• Motley Mound and Mound A
• constructed of basket-loaded dirt
• involved the movement of as much as 750,000 cubic meters of earth
• Poverty Point is a set of six concentric earthen ridges that form a large semicircle
• Another mound to the west more than 21 meters high and 200 meters long

Monumental Architecture

San Jose Magote Site

• A series of one-room structures, roughly 4x5 m in size, were constructed of pine post, walled with cane and clay and plastered with lime
• First was built around 1350 B.C., was continuously repaired and rebuilt on the same spot for centuries
• These buildings often were placed on flat-topped platforms of stone and adobe brick

Monumental Architecture 

South America

• Located at Chavin de Huantar site
• Chavin Horizon carvings
• Largest platform: the Castillo (New Temple) rises about 13 meters above the surrounding terrace
• Inside the old Temple, stands the Great Image (or Lanzon)
• carved prismlike shaft of white granite
• Each side was carvd in bas-relief, depicting a standing human figure with feline teeth and nostrils
• Base was set deeply into chamber floor and top fitted into a spce in the ceiling

Monumental Architecture

Tenochtitlan site

• Templo Mayor
• Shrines of Tlaloc and Huitzilopochtli sit atop 

Monumental Architecture

Tikal Site

• Four Temples 
• Temple of the Great Jaguar (Temple I)
• rises to 45 meters with its crowning roof comb
• Roof Comb: architectural feature, frequently carved with glyphs and figures, that is placed on the top of mesoamerican temples
• Has three high, narrow rooms with carved wooden beams spanning its door frames
• Dedicated in Late Classic period to Jasaw Chan K'awiil I
• North Acropolis 
• 100 x 80 m platform that was continually expanded between 200 B.C. and A.D. 550
• Central Acropolis
• Spreads over more than 1.6 ha and contains a maze of 42 multistory buildings with multiple rooms interspersed with internal courtyards

Monumental Architecture

 Tiwanaku Site

• Gateway of the Sun
• incorporated into a large rectangular raided plaform known as the Kalasasaya 
• portrays a central figure holding two scepters that end in the heads of condors
• One of the earliest known semisubterranean features in the region and presages the much larger sunken cours that occur later at Tiwanaku
• Mounumental architectural construction began during the first centuries A.D.
• Akapana: enormous stone-face, stepped platform mound
• 200 m on a side and 15 high

Monumental Architecture

Uruk Site

• Worls first monumental urban center
• Giant stepped pyramid (Anu Ziggurat)
• composed of a series of building levels, the earliest going back to 'Ubaid times. 
• Attained its maximum size at the end of the Uruk Period
• At the same time, the White Temple was built on top of the Anu Ziggurat

Primary States

• States that arise on their own (through competition among chiefdoms), and not through contact with other state societies

• A stone-masonry complex of adjoining rooms found in the American Southwest

• Mesoamerican societies developed thanks to the guidance of one overwhelmingly advanced group (the Olmecs)
• Olmec introduced deities, incipient theocracy, domination of serfs
• Sets up social structure; same system later takes over all Middle America

• Portray's the Olmec as just one of many emerging societies that simultaneously developed new symbols and cultural systems. 
• Adaptive autonomy and frequent competitive interaction of chiefdoms
• Accelerates useful technology and sociopolitical strategy in all reigons

• Excess amount; an amount remaining after the original purpose has been served or the original requirement met

• Built under the leader Shihuangdi
• 700,000 laborers from all parts of the country worked for 36 years on the project
• All the country's major waterways were reproduced in mercury within the tomb
• Burial tomb called Mount Li
• Carry real weapons
• No 2 looked alike 

• Regional Political institutions
• Populations in the low thousands to tens of thousands
• Integrate several local groups within a single polity
• Rich Environment (typically agriculture)
• Population density is high
• Intesive technology
• Hierarchical social organization
• changing warfare and territoriality
• Sacred ideologies