The Neolithic ("New Stone") Revolution, or the Agricultural revolution, was when groups of people moved from nomadic lifestyles to agricultrual lifestyles and town and city life, between the years from aproximatelty 8000 B.C.E. to 3000 B.C.E.
The differences between nomadic and agricultural societies was not the only difference between moving around or staying put. When people stayed on a piece of land, they started to believe it as their home. If someone drank from their waterhole or built a house on their hill, they would think those people are invaders pr intruders, not neighbors.
As agricultural societies became more complex, organized economis, governmental structures, and reliegious organizations began to emrge to keep things as predictable and orderly as possible. Suddenly there was society, or the beginning of what we'd call civilization.
If everyone has to farm to have enough food, a great civilization won't develop. If a certain number of farmers can provise a surplus of food, then other people on the community are free to build, invent, and creat tool, art, and institutions.
As civilization grew, people built roads connecting one town to another. They used stones they unearthed from the ground to build increasing large buildings and monuments. Animals began to be used not only as a direct sourse of agricultural labor.
When people figured out how to combine copper with tin to creat an even harder metal, bronze, the building of civilizations was well on its way. This development was so significant that it was called the Bronze Age.
Sumerians were the first to inhabit Mesopotamia, whi literally means "land between the rivers" the rivers were the Tigris and the Euphates. Sumerians developed a form of writing known as caneiform. Sumerians also developed a twelve month calender and a math systen based on the unit sixty. Sumerians were polytheistc, meaning they worshipped more than one god. They believed when disaster struck, it was because the gods were angry.
The city of Akkad rose to dominate the region when the Sumerian city-states declined. But in 1700 B.C.E.. Akkad was pverrun by a new powerhouse in Mesopotamia; Babylon. But babylon quickly fell due to invasions of the Kassites and then the Hittites. By 1500 B.C.E., the Hitties dominated the region, especially because they learned how to use iron in their weapons.
Because enws traveled fast, and different groups of people adopted and adapted to another groups idea, Assyrians had learned to use iron, the very technology the Hittites used to defeat them. This enabled them to establish a capital at Nineveh and eventually build an empire that swept across the entire Fertile Cresent.
In spite of their power, within a few hundred years, the Assyrians were defeated by the medea and the Chaldeans, The Chaldean king, Nebuchadnezzar rebuilt Babylon as a showplace of architecture and culture. He extended it, but like all the civilizations before it, the new Babylon was doomed to fall. A new civilization; the Persian Empire, developed into a major world force.
The Persians established a big empire that, by 500 B.C.E., stretched from beyond the Nile Rover Balley in Eqypt around he eastern Mediterranean through present-day Turkey and parts of Greece, and then through present-day Afghanistan.
Ancient Egypt was reorganized into different kingdoms. There were three ones - Old, Middle, and New - and that it was during the New Kingdom that the ancient Egyptian civilization reached its height. By 1400 B.C.E., it stretched from the upper Nile River Valley through the eatern Mediterranean regions od Palestine and parts of Asia Minor. By 1100 B.C.E. and for the next thousand years, ancient Egypt fell into decline, and both the Assyrian Empire and the Persian Empire conquered parts of this once great civilization. Later, the Greeks occupied Egypt, and eventually the Romans completely absorbed Egypt into their Empire.
Whenever a civilization became powerful ad properous, it attracted a lot of attention and envy from its neighbors, who wanted a piece of that action. This was usually the breeding grounf for invasions. By the time it came under attack, the wealthy civilization was often so big it couldn't adequetely protect all its borders, so over a period of time it bagan to weaken.
From aproximately 2500 to 1500 B.C.E., the ancient Indus valley civilization stretched for more than 9-- miles along the Indus River in what today is northwestern India. Sometime around 1900 B.C.E., the cities of the Indux Valley were abandoned, for reasons unknwon today. All that it known it that, by 1500 B.C.E., the civilization crumbled with the arrial of the Aryans.
Shang China rose in the Hwang Ho rover Valley (Yellow River Valley). At its height Shang controlled large parts of Northern China and was militarily quite powerful. The Shang Dynasty controlled the Yellow Rover Valley from around 1600 to around 1100 B.C.E. Arounf 1100 B.C.E., the Shang were ousted by Wu Wang, who established the Zhou Dynasty, though they maintained many of the traditions and customs developed under the Shang Dynasty. The Zhou ruled China for nearly 900 years, longer than any other Dynasty.
In the Americas, two early civilizations existed: the Olmec, in what we know today as Mexico from 1200 to 1400 B.C.E., and the Chavin in the Andes from 900 to 300 B.C.E. They are unique in that they didn't develop in rover valleys, as did all the other major early civlizations.
Beginning around 1500 B.C.E., farmers in the Niger and Benue Rover vallleys in West Africa, began migrating south and east, bringing their languages, and knowledge of agricultural and metallurgy. This migration, usually referered to as the Bantu migrations, continued over the course of the next 2000 years. It is generally believed that the migration was spurred by the climatic changed, which madde the area now known Sahara Desert too dry to live in. Jenne-Heno is believed to be the first sub-Sharan Africa. Beginning as a small fishing settlement around 250 B.C.E. and reaching eurban size in 400 C.E., Jenne-Jeno is unusualy because although it reached urban density, its architecture suggests that it was not hierarchially organized society. Instead, it is believed that it was a unique form of urbanism comprising a collection og individual communtities.
From about 300 B.C.E. to about 800 C.E., Mayan civilization dominated present-day southern Mexico and parts of Central America. The Mayans were made up of city-states, a;; of them were ruled by the same King. The Mayans, like the Egyptians, were pyramid builders. and wrote using hieroglyhics.
The Mauryan Empire was founded by Chandragupta Maurya, who unified the smaller Aryan Kingdoms into a civilization. But it was his grandson, Ashoka Maurya, who wouyld take the empire to its greatest heights. Ashoka converted to Buddism when he was disgusted and filled with remorse for a very violent and bloody vicotry his forces claimed over the Kalinga in Southeast India. For the rest of his reign, Ashoka preached nonviolence and moderation. After Ashoka's death in 232 B.C.E., the Mauryah Empire begna to decline reapidly, primarily due to economic problems and pressure from attackes in the northeast. But between 375 and 415 C.E., it experianced a revival under Chandra Gupta. This empire was mpre decentralized and smaller than its predecessor, but it is often referred to as a "golden ag" because it enjoyed relative peace and saw significant advances in the arts and sciences. The Gupta Dynasty collasped under pressure from the White Hans in 550 C.E.
Unlike the Zhou Dynasty before it, the Qin Dynasty was extreme;y short. It lasted little longer than a decade. The Qin Dynasty is the empire that connected separate fortification walls that eventually became the Great Wall of China. The empire was incredibly well-organized and territorial. It fell only a year after the emperor's death, at the hands of the peasants, who resented th Qin Dynasty's heavy-handedness.
During the Han Dynasty, the Huns, a large group from Northern Asia, invaded territories extending from China to Eastern Europe. But the Huns were much more succesful in Europe than China.
The Persian wars united all the Greek city-states against their mutual enemy, Persia. Much of Athens was destoyed in these wats, but Greece held on and the wars ended in a stalemate. Two huge victories by the Greeks, one at Marathon, and the other at Salamis, allowed Greeks to maintain control of the Aegean Sea. With Persia held back, Greece was free to enter into an era of peace and properity, which it often called the Golden Age of Pericles. Athens and Sparta, as leaders of their respective alliances, became incresingly fearful and envious of each other's power. After years of increasing tensions, a trade dispute involving the city of Corinth pushed Athens and Sparta into the Peloponnesian War in 431 B.C.E. Although they could have, Sparta didn't destroy Athens out of repect for the defeated city's former role in the Persian War. The Spartans were weakened from the warm so much that it became vunerable to outside aggression. The Maccedonians, under the rule of Philip Macedon, who reigned from 359 to 336 B.C.E., invaded athens from the north and conquered the region.
The Romans, after defeating Carthage, also fought the Gauls to the north and the Spaniards to the west. To maintain their vast empire, the Romans built an extensive road network and aqueducts, and greatly enlarged their navy. Buy as they grew, the situation in and around Rome was becoming unsettled, and for three reasons. First, because farmers were being displaced and moved into the bigger cities that were already so full to burst that the farmers couldn't find jobs to support themselves. Second, because the Roman curency was devalued, causing high-rate inflamation. And third, politcial leaders began to fight amongst themselves. It is said that internal decay, in combination with external pressure, that broughtabout the fall of the Roman Empire. The sheer size of the empire and the huge expense of maintaining it coupled by the succession of weak - or just plain bad - leaders, and a series of epidemics, are all factors that caused the empire to collaspe.
