1/31

Yesterday in class, we watched a video called "Guns, Germs, and Steel" and took notes on it. Here are the notes.

• Jarod Diamond - Biologist
• Studies birds in Papua New Guinea
• A man Jarod met asked him, "Why you white men have so much cargo (belongings), and we New Guineans have so little?"
• White men thought they were superior to these people
• New Guineans were thought to be less superior because their race
• Jarod disagrees with that theory!

• Civilizations that prospered and were successful had 3 things in common:
• Advanced Technology
• Large Populations - opportunities
• Well organized work force - made way for different jobs

• Where did inequality come from?
• find a time/place when inequality didn't exist

• Middle East
• 13,000 years ago far less arid
• people were always moving

In Papua New Guinea, there are still people living in the Rainforest like people did  40,000 years ago.

• Women do the gathering
• gathering is generally more productive than hunting
• Sego trees are a major part of what they eat
• Eat the part in the tree after the tree is cut down
• Not very healthy
• Sego doesn't store well
• Barley and Wheat grass - far more healthy than sego
• Grow naturally
• Middle East drought lasted over 1,000 years

• Ian Kite
• Place of site: Draa
• Believed to be a small village with 40-50 people
• First time people settled down
• 11,500 years ago, the villages started up
• They found a granary that was used to keep food stored
• First farmers in the Stone Age in the Middle East
• Domestication - crops are changed and controlled by humans

1/29

Today in Western Civilization we took our test on Mesopotamia. I was nervous for it because I wasn't in class when Mr. Schick taught the lessons and the power point. I was very happy when Mr. Shick told us that the test would be open blog because I didn't know how hard this test would be. I studied during almost all of my off mods just to enforce the studying that I did the last two nights. We usually have multiple choice tests which I got used to, but this test was a fill in the blank test. I don't think that made it any harder even though I'm not used to it. The essay questions were a little bit difficult but the rest was pretty easy, especially with being able to use our blog. I'm hoping I did well on it. Mr. Schick said he will grade them this weekend so hopefully I will see my grade on Monday.

1/28

Today in Western Civilization we went over what would be on the test tomorrow. I especially took some notes since I have not been in school for the past couple of days. Here are the notes I wrote.

Fertile Crescent

·      Good place to farm

·      Fertile soil

·      People decided to finally settle

·      Organized groups of people with laws and hierarchy

·      Eventually moved to Egypt with all of their skills

·      14,000 years ago there was a human race

·      Paleolithic Stone Age – first and earliest age

·      Neolithic Stone Age – new stone age with more advanced tools and skills

·      Agriculture Revolution – revolution with new tools and new ways to have an established town

·      New jobs were available such as making clothes, artisan

·      Women had low status’s in society

·      Women raised children

·      Men did most of the work

·      Some towns had as much as 40,000 inhabitants

·      Sumerians came up with cuneiform – a form of writing

·      They had gods and goddesses of nature and animals

·      Epic of Gilgamesh – world was flooded

·      (Noah’s Ark based on the Epic of Gilgamesh)

·      Ziggurat – Sumerian built stepped temples which were very big

·      Wandering Nomads drove herds of animals in many areas, especially to the south of Sumer in Arabia

·      King Hammurabi of Babylon

·      Hammurabi’s Code

·      Indo-Europeans were people who moved from Mesopotamia to India and Europe

1/25

Here are the notes that Sydney gave me from when I missed:

- prehistory: the period of time before written records.

- Paleolithic Age: second part of the Stone Age beginning about 750,000 to 500,000 years BC and lasting until the end of the last ice age about 8,500 years BC.

- Neolithic Age: latest part of the Stone Age beginning about 10,000 BC in the middle east

- Agricultural Revolution: a significant change in agriculture that occurs when there are discoveries, inventions, or new technologies that change production.

- cuneiform: denoting or relating to the wedge-shape characters used int he ancient writing systems of Mesopotamia, Persia, and Ugarit, survive mainly impressed on clay tablets.

- ziggurat: a rectangular stepped tower, sometimes surmounted by a temple.

- Indo-Europeans: a large, widespread family of languages, the surviving branches of which include Italic, Salvic, Hellenic, Celtic, Germanic, and Indo-Iranian, spoken by about half the world's population: English, Spanish, German, Latin, Greek, Russian, Albanian, Lithuanian, Armenian, Persian, Hindi, and Hittite are all Indo-Europeanlanguages.

Prehistory to Civilization (3000 - 1200 B.C.) 

Before Civilization: Prehistoric Era (Lo - 1) 

• Origins and
  "ages" of Human Beings 
• 200,000 years ago a human species emerged in southwestern Africa
• 14,000 years ago, worldwide human race existed 
• Paleolithic age is the earliest prehistoric age 
• Neolithic age was marked by tool making and the beginning of agriculture

Agricultural Revolution 

• Also know as the Neolithic Revolution 
• Population rose, because they could now care for the children 
• Hierarchies in village life, women had a lower status and were to do more domestic duties
• Invention of the wheel and plow made it possible to produce enough food for storage 
• Villagers were still polytheists, worshipped multiple nature, human and animal gods

The Earliest Cities: Mesopotamia (lo-2)

• District know as Sumer occupied the land between the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers. 
• Population increased due to new irrigation techniques 
• Cities and Towns were founded, some with as many as 40,000 inhabitants 
• Better food storage allowed for diversity in professions: priest, tradesmen, etc. 
• Sumerians invented the earliest form of writing called cuneiform
• Sumerians first divided the hour into sixty minutes and the minute into sixty seconds; they also organized a calendar based on moon cycles
• The Ziggurat was a Sumerian temple built on top of a “mountain” of earth
• King Hammurabi of Babylon created a series of laws known as “Hammurabi’s Code” - laws that included “an eye for an eye” and regulations of marriage, divorce, and punishments for all sorts of crimes

Mesopotamia: the expansion 

• Indo-Europeans were people from the grasslands of the Russian steppe who introduced the horse to the Near East
• The warlike Indo-European tribe known as the Hittites settled in Asia Minor
• The Hittites had a lucrative trade in metals and conquered nearly all of their neighbors, even threatening Egypt

Mesopotamia then .... 

1/23

I was not in class today because I am still sick.

1/22

I was not in class today because I am sick.

1/21

Today in Western Civilization was the first class in the second semester. When I got into class, I looked for a seat in the front because I feel like it is easier for me to pay attention if I sit in the front. I ended up sitting in Mckenna's old seat because it is in the front row and also closer to the front of the room. We had to make a new blog for this new class. We mostly spent the class trying to create our blogs which only some of us managed to do. There are a couple new people in this class but only two are new to Mr. Schick. I had trouble at first with making my new blog because it said "Page not found" when I clicked "New Blog." I got it to work by going onto the Human Geo website, going to my account there, and then clicking the "New Blog" button. For some reason, that worked. Then I sent my link to Mr. Schick so he could see if it worked and it did.