Module 2 Answer key 5
Answer key
Activity 2.1 The origins of agriculture
1. In general, hunter-gatherers not only work fewer hours per week in order to survive, but the work itself is not as labour-intensive as agriculture. As a result, hunter-gatherers are generally healthier than simple farmers.
2. In Childe’s hypothesis, the general drying of the climate after the last Ice Age forced hunter-gatherer groups into the ever-shrinking areas along the banks of the Nile, Tigris, and Euphrates Rivers or into oases in the hot, dry deserts. It was the proximity of humans to plants and animals in these small areas (juxtaposition) that led directly to the domestication of plants and animals. Eventually, climatic evidence showed that the drying posited by Childe did not occur. Moreover, Childe presumed that agriculture represented a better way of life and that, given the chance, the naturally progressive humans adopted this new lifestyle. In fact, putting people in close proximity to plants and animals would simply re-enforce their hunting and gathering behaviours.
3. In the population pressure hypothesis, the general warming of the climate at the end of the last Ice Age led to more abundant food supplies. This led to increasing population sizes among hunter-gatherer groups. Ultimately, population size began to outstrip the food supply. This crisis point was achieved in the nuclear zone about 10,000 years ago and resulted in people actively intervening with plants and animals in an effort to increase their food supply.
4. The nuclear zone theory tells us that before agriculture was adopted as a way of life, hunter-gathers living in the “nuclear zone” (a region at an elevation of between 300 and 1800 m above sea level that receives an average of 25-50 cm of rain per year) were already exploiting wild wheat and barley as well as wild sheep and goats.
5. With the stress of over-population (see population pressure hypothesis), humans living in the nuclear zone may have begun to intervene with plants and animals in very simple ways:
a) Breaking the soil with a stick to allow seeds to take root
b) Protecting plants from cold, rodents, and birds
c) Weeding
d) Selective hunting—hunting only males or older females
e) Watching over herds to protect them from predators
f) Leading flocks to fresh grazing areas
g) Eventually, through selective breeding of plants and herd animals, humans developed a symbiotic relationship with their plants and animals.
Activity 2.2 The rise of civilization
1. Irrigation. The Tigris-Euphrates and Nile river valleys are too hot and dry to permit agriculture dependent on rainfall. Irrigation—bringing water to the fields through canals—appeared around 5400 BC, as farming communities such as Chogi Mami appeared outside the nuclear zone (i.e., below 300 m above sea level). Without irrigation, agriculture could not have spread outside of the nuclear zone and ultimately into the river valleys.
2. The lack of natural resources, especially good stone and wood for use in construction projects, created a demand for raw materials. This stimulated trade and, during the Uruk period, the growing urban centres in southern Mesopotamia became trade hubs, drawing more and more people—merchants, professional traders. This led to the need for a recording system to organize and administer the trade network.
3. It should not be seen as a coincidence that the world’s first civilizations appeared in river valleys. The hyper-fertility of river valleys led to major population increases and social complexity. The general lack of raw materials stimulated trade, which developed into trade networks radiating out from urban centres. These networks required a more centralized organization and recording system.
Activity 2.3 The invention of writing
1. The increase in trade and agricultural activities made it hard to keep track of transactions and ownership.
2. Eventually, tokens were placed in clay balls (bullae) to keep the tokens together. Since the tokens could not be seen inside the balls, impressions were pressed on the outside of the clay ball to indicate the contents without breaking open the ball. But the impressions were not always clear, and this led to the practice of drawing the shapes of the tokens on the outside of the ball with a sharpened reed. Pictographs of this type eventually formed the basis of the first system of writing.
3. As the number of objects represented by pictographs grew, so did the number of pictographs that had to be memorized. This gave way to a conceptual change in which the pictographs came to represent sounds—syllables—instead of individual objects.
4. A syllabic system consists of groups of sounds with consonants and vowels grouped together. An alphabet is a system in which the vowels are separated from the consonants.
5. As central governments appeared and as the size of the bureaucracy grew, writing became an essential organizational tool. This pushed writing to develop from a cumbersome pictographic system to a more efficient syllabic system.
Activity 2.4 The first city-states
1. The Sumerians had surplus food but they lacked natural resources, forcing them to seek outside sources for raw materials. The flow of raw materials to the growing cities and surplus food available allowed some people to concentrate on activities other than growing food. These people became craftsmen, merchants, and traders. Trade sometimes requires a referee, and this role was filled by the temple, from which emerged a bureaucracy of scribes.
2. A city-state was made up of an urban centre (city), which controlled the land within 5-10 km around it. The urban centre was surrounded by a number of smaller towns and villages.
3. The temple was the spiritual and cultural centre of the city, and as it owned large tracts of land, it became a natural centre for the organization of the city-state. The temple-complex reflects this function with storage facilities, workshops, and administrative offices acting as a kind of early government centre.
Activity 2.5 The rise of kingship
1. Stories such as The Epic of Gilgamesh, in which conflict is the central theme, reflect the growing conflict during the Early Dynastic II period.
2. The belief that the son of the king was born of a sacred marriage between the king and the high priestess of the temple gave the ruler special status. Large donations to the temple also created a relationship of mutual dependence between the king and the priests.
3. The “Victory Stele of Eannatum” presents Eannatum as larger than his troops. He leads his men, who march in close formation, into battle. The troops march over the corpses of their opponents. On the reverse side, the god of Lagash, Enlil, catches the soldiers of Umma in a giant net. Enlil also uses a stone hammer (a mace) to bash in the head of Enkalle, the leader of Umma. The inscription claims that it was the god Enlil who instructed Eannatum to wage the war.
Activity 2.6 The royal cemetery of Ur: A reflection of royal power
The size of many of the royal tombs bears witness to the extensive work required. Moreover, the inclusion of retainers, servants, musicians, and soldiers in the burials (59 in the case of Meshkalamdug) who seem to have gone willingly to their deaths along with their master is an indication of the authority and prestige of the rulers of Ur. It is possible that these “victims” believed that they would have a much better afterlife by accompanying a member of the royal dynasty to the grave.
The goods reflect the authority of the rulers of Ur in two ways. First, the sheer amount of goods—bowls, weapons, and vases—as well as the materials used—precious metals such as gold and silver, and semi-precious stones such as lapis lazuli and carnelian—indicate the wealth of the rulers. Second, many of the goods carried ideological messages, most notably the “Standard of Ur.” This piece, which seems to show the hierarchy of Sumerian society, has the king himself as its focus on both sides.
Activity 2.7 Identifying areas of research
1. The two additional main areas of research in Lesson 1 are:
The origin of agriculture
The rise of civilization
2. The main area of research in Lesson 2 is the rise of kingship.
Activity 2.8 Formulating a research question
1. Possible research questions for Lesson 1 are:
Why did humans adopt agriculture?
Why did civilization emerge in the river valleys of Mesopotamia? Or: Was civilization an inevitable consequence of the spread of agriculture into the Tigris-Euphrates river valley?
Why was writing invented? Or: How does the development of writing reflect the growing complexity of society?
2. Possible research questions for Lesson 2 are:
Why did kingship develop during the Early Dynastic period in Sumer? Or: What factors led to the development of kingship in Sumer?
Activity 2.9 Identifying relevant sources
1. The answer is c. (a. literary texts appeared after the appearance of cuneiform; b. the alphabet was developed long after the appearance of cuneiform)
2. The answer is a. (b. the alphabet appeared long after tokens; c. writing systems are very general and tokens are not actually a system of writing)
3. The answer is c. (a. concise history books tend to be very broad with few interpretations; b. Britain was not involved with the events of Pearl Harbour; d. photographic books generally contain little actual information and few if any interpretations)
Activity 2.10 Spot the errors in a bibliography
The date of the Barbanes article is not in brackets and is not followed by a period.
The Barbanes article is in italics.
In the Oates article, the first author’s full name is given (Joan) instead of the initial.
The title of the book by Oates and Oates is not in italics and has incorrect capitalization.
In the bibliography, the book by Oates appears before the book by Kuhrt—this is not alphabetical based on the author’s last name.
The book by Kuhrt is in quotation marks instead of italics.
In Kuhrt’s book, the publisher appears before the place of publication (order reversed).
Reade’s name is given as first name last name instead of last name, first initial.
The word “Vol.” is given before the volume number, and the volume number is not in italics.
The page numbers are missing from Reade’s article.
Activity 2.11 Formulating a thesis
1. Possible research theses for Lesson 1 are:
Humans adopted agriculture as a result of population stress (or over-population) at the end of the last Ice Age.
Civilization developed in the Tigris-Euphrates river valley due to a combination of rich alluvial soil and the lack of raw materials. Or: The presence of rich alluvial soil and absence of raw materials made the development of civilization in the Tigris-Euphrates river valley inevitable.
Writing was invented as a means of keeping track of more and more complex trade relationships. Or: The development of writing reflects the growing complexity of society.
2. A possible research thesis for Lesson 2 is:
Kingship developed in Sumer as a result of the growing competition for farmland and trade networks between city-states.
Activity 2.12 Picking out a thesis from an introduction
1. “Therefore, Shakespeare portrays Brutus as a perfect man in an imperfect world.”
2. “…women had a much higher status in Egypt than in Mesopotamia.”
3. There is no thesis. The final sentence, “The ancient Greeks inherited much of their medical knowledge from the Egyptians but differed in one major way,” falls short of being a thesis because the answer, the one major way Greek medicine differed from Egyptian, is not stated.
4. “… the Assyrians, lacking any maritime know-how, needed the Phoenicians sea-traders in order to benefit from trade on the Mediterranean.”
5. “…great competition among Mediterranean states led to the development of the Roman Empire.”
KNOWLEDGE: The Civilizations of Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia 345-101-MQ (65.1)
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