Chapter 5 (Society & Inequality)

Chapter 5: Society and Inequality in Eurasia/North Africa, 500 b.c.e.–500 c.e.

I. Society and the State in China

• Exam system
• Entry into the civil service was based on passing a difficult exam on the Confucian classics
• the exam was open to all males, regardless of social status
• required years of study
• only those with access to enough wealth to spend time studying for the exam would succeed
• system favored the wealthy
• Land as wealth
• Land and agricultural production had been the major source of wealth in China for millennia
• most lands were worked and held by peasant families
• Peasants
• Pressures on peasants
• Rents
• taxes
• military service
• forced labor to the state
• floods and occasional crop failure
• Merchants were barred from certain economic activity by state monopolies or forced to loan money to the state

II. Class and Caste in India

• most Indians saw the caste division of society into four orders as timeless and the natural consequence of the world making up the body of a massive god named Purusha
• occupying the most unclean professions came to be known as “Untouchables.” 11
• Purity, pollution, and privilege
• The system was obsessed with ideas of elite purity and lower caste pollution
• Security and support
• The system provided not only an identity but a mechanism of social support and security for vulnerable or unlucky members of a jati
• Assimilation of new arrivals
• The flexible system allowed for the creation of a new jati for groups that might come into Indian society.
• Exploitation
• This system allowed the wealthy and powerful to rationalize the poorly paid labor of the lower social orders.

III. Slavery: The Case of the Roman Republic

• Slavery and Civilization
• “Social Death”
• Slavery is an age-old institution
• slaves are often described as having a social death as they typically have no rights and are deemed to be permanent outsiders to the society
• Wide diversity of types of slavery
• Throughout the world and throughout human history, there have been numerous forms of slavery, making generalizations difficult.
• Greek slavery
• the rate of slavery was much higher in the Mediterranean world than in India or China
• Slave ownership was widespread in Greece with tens of thousands of slaves living in Athens, the alleged cradle of democracy and individual liberty
• Vast scale of Roman slavery
• Rome also saw massive slave ownership, with the Italian peninsula having a slave population of between 33 and 40 percent
• Roman slavery was often concentrated in the hands of the very wealthy and large landowners who might run estates with hundreds of slave laborers.
• Prisoners, pirates, and orphans:
• War captives made up most slaves, but pirates and even abandoned children could be enslaved
• All levels of the economy:
• With so much cheap labor coming into Rome, slaves could be found in every sector of the economy, from manual labor in the fields to white-collar work in the cities or even in the gladiatorial blood sports of the coliseums

IV. Comparing Patriarchies

•  Yin and Yang:
• The traditional Chinese conception of the world stressed two primary forces
• opposite yet paired
• Confucian teachings:
• Obediences: Confucian teachings were explicitly patriarchal.
• women were taught to obey their fathers, their husbands, and the eldest sons when widowed
• Elite women, mothers and wives, and peasant
• Elite wives could influence their husbands, and concubines could influence their lovers and thus play a role in palace politics
• Mothers had some power within the home due to their age, and wives held more esteem than concubines
• Due to the economic demands of the agricultural lifestyle, peasant women found it very difficult to live up to Confucian ideals as they had to work in the fields alongside men
• Buddhism, Daoism, and pastoral peoples:
• After the collapse of the Han Dynasty, Confucianism was somewhat discredited and people found new ideas in Buddhism, Daoism, and the lifestyles of the pastoral peoples to the west and north. 

Chapter 4 (Culture & Religion)

Chapter 4: Culture and Religion in Eurasia/North Africa (500 b.c.e.–500 c.e.)

I. China and the Search for Order

• Legalist answer
• High rewards, heavy punishments
• Legalist principles:
• Human nature is naturally selfish
• Intellectualism and literacy is discouraged
• Law is the supreme authority and replaces morality
• The ruler must rule with a strong, punishing hand
• War is the means of strengthening a ruler’s power.
• The Confucian Answer
• Confucius, Analects, & Confucianism
• Moral example of superiors
• Education and state bureaucracy
• Government service required an entry test, heavily based on the Analects
• Filial piety and gender expectations

II. Cultural Traditions of Classical India

• South Asian Religion: From Ritual Sacrifice to Philosophical Speculation
• Vedas
• Brahmins, and rituals
• Early Indian texts originally passed down orally
• Various Indian religious texts
• Cycle of birth, death, and rebirth
• Life governed by consequences of actions (karma)
• Gender and the Laws of Manu
• Women came to be seen as unclean and inferior
• Laws of Manu enforced these judgments against women
• Young girls to marry older men
• Wives obedient
• Widows never remarry

III. Toward Monotheism: The Search for God in the Middle East

• Persian state support
• Achaemenid Dynasty
• Ahura Mazda versus Angra Mainyu
• Constant struggle between the forces of good and evil
• Human free will, struggle of good versus evil, a savior, and judgment day
• Judaism
• Migrations and exiles of a small Hebrew community

IV. The Cultural Tradition of Classical Greece: The Search for a Rational Order

• The Greek Way of Knowing
• Questions, not answers
• Socrates
• Plato
• Aristotle
• Rational and non-religious analysis of the world
• The Greek Legacy
• Alexander the Great spread
• Rome embraced
• Academy in Athens preserved Greek thought
• Greek learning in the Islamic world studied and built upon

V. The Birth of Christianity… with Buddhist Comparisons

• The Lives of the Founders
• Encounter with a higher level of reality
• Messages of love
• Jesus’ miracles and dangerous social critique
• Buddha didn't create social conflict
• didn't discuss the issue of gods

Chapter 12: The Worlds of the 15th Century

1. Chapter 12: The Worlds of the Fifteenth Century

I. The Shapes of Human Communities

• Paleolithic people: Australia, Siberia, parts of Africa and America. -> changed over time.
• Australia: Europeans arrived 18th century
• Usually small villaged based communities organized in therms of kingship relations.
• Created societies largely without oppressive political authority, class inequalities, and seclusion of women like in the common civilizations.
• Turkic leader: Timur, (West Uzbekistan) – brought immense devastation again to Russia, Persia and India
• Hosted a elite culture, combining Turkic and Persian elements
• Timurs conquest proved to be the last great military success of nomadic peoples in central Asia
• Their homelands were swallowed by the expanding Russia and Chinese Empires.
• After the Mongol rule in China and plague: population sharply reduced, destructiveness
• Ming Dynasty (1368-1645) Promoted Confucian learning
• Many dozens came back to give abundant gifts to emperor Yongle (zebras, giraffes, etc…)
• Emperor Yongle dies – no more expeditions (waste of money and resources for the next dynasty)
• In Europe: similar processes of demographic recovery, political consolidation, cultural flowering
• Western Europe escape the Mongol invasion, but the black death devastated Europe
• Europe fragmented – separate independent states. -> divided Christendom (Spain, Portugal, France, England, Italy…)
• Russia state centered (Moscow) emerged after Mongol invasion
• Renaissance (parallel to Ming Dynasty restoration of China)
• Renaissance writers and artists were men (great majority)
• Renaissance culture reflected the urban bustle and commercial preoccupations of Italian cities
• A new Europe.

II. Civilizations of the Fifteenth Century: Comparing China and Europe

• Europe was also launching expeditions 1415 (Portugal), farther down the west coast of Africa. (finance by the State and blessed by the Pope)
• Two expeditions marked major breakthroughs:
• 1492 Christopher Columbus funded by Spain and Portugal made his way to the Atlantic. = The Americas.
• 5 years later (1497) Vasco de Gama launched a voyage that took him to the south of Africa along the East African coast, across the Indian Ocean to South India.
• Difference of Chinese and European: Size
• Columbus captained 3 ships and a crew of 90
• Gama had 4 ships and 170 sailors
• Sheng He´s ships of 1000s
• Europeans were seeking the wealth of Africa and Asia (gold, spices, silk)
• European effort brought the worlds oceans and growing numbers of the world’s people under its control
• Zheng He’s voyages were so long neglected
• led nowwhere
• Europe initial expeditions
• smaller but promising
• were the first steps on a journey to world power.
• Europe had no unified political authority
• no power to order and end to its maritime outreach.
• China a single unified empire
• Europe had an interest in overseas expansion
• saw opportunity for expansion
• Europe’s monarchs eyed the revenue from taxing overseas trade
• Church foresaw the possibility of widespread conversion.
• Zheng He’s voyages were very shallow in official circles or elite
• were later opposed.

III. Civilizations of the Fifteenth Century: The Islamic World

• Islamic civilization fragmented into 4: Ottoman Empire, Safavid Empire (Iran), Mughal Empire (India) and Songhai Empire (Africa)
• Ottoman Empire lasted many centuries (14th to 19th centuries)
• was creation of Turkic warrior groups that migrated to Anatolia
• Ottoman empire extended its control to much of the Middle East, North Africa, and the lands of Black Sea and Eastern Europe
• Ottoman Empire was a state of enormous significance in the world of the 15th century and beyond.
• Huge in territory, long duration, incorporation of many diverse people, economic and cultural sophistication = a great empire in the world history.
• Otoman rulers to saw themselves as successors to the Roman Empire
• Europeans spoke fearfully of the “Terror of the Turk”
• The rise of Malacca, major Muslim port.
• demonstrated a blending of Hindu, Buddhist and Muslim traditions.

IV. Civilizations of the Fifteenth Century: The Americas

• The empire known to history as the Aztec state was largely the work of Mexica people
• semi nomadic from northern Mexico who had migrated southward by 1320 established on a small island in Lake Texoco
• Conquered peoples and cities were required to regularly deliver to their Aztec rulers impressive quantities of:
• textiles and clothing
• military supplies
• jewelry
• animal products
• Tenochtitlan
• great canals
• bridges
• causeways
• streets
• etc.
• pochteca obtained were slaves
• were destined for sacrifice in bloody rituals so central to religious life
• The sun was central to all life
• Aztec world viewed as cathastrophe
• The sun required the life giving force found in human blood
• Aztec state was to supply blood, largely through its wars of expansion and from prisioners of war
• who were destined for sacrifice
• Incas incorporated the lands and cultures of earlier Andean civilizations the Chavin, Moche, Wari and Tiwanaku
• The Inca empire owned all the land and resources divided in 80 provinces
• Each one with an Inca governor
• organized in hierarchical units of 50, 100, 500, 1000, 5,000 and 10,000 people
• headed by local officials, who were appointed by the Inca governor
• Incas to compared to Aztec tribute system, the Incas demanded labor service
• For particular skills, known as “chosen women” who were removed from their homes as young girls, trained in Inca ideology
• set to prodice corn beer, cloth
• later given as wives to men of distinction: wives of the sun
• The Inca and Aztec civilizations differed sharply in the political and economic arrangements
• GENDER PARALLELISM
• women and men operate in two separate but equivalent spheres
• each gender enjoying autonomy in its own sphere
• Incas men recognize descent from father and women from mother, while Aztec equally.
• Inca men venerated the sun
• women venerated the moon
• Aztec empire
• both male and female priests presided over rituals
• women exercised local authority under a title “female person in charge of people”\
• defined roles
• Incas
• male and female had political officials to help govern the empire.
• Men occupied the top positions in both political and religious life
• Male infidelity was treated more lightly than women
• Incas and Aztec empires expanded, military life, limited to men
• there was still always the importance of women.

V. Webs of Connection

• Even though, people in the 15th century lived in entirely separate and self contained communities, almost all were caught up to one degree in various and overlapping webs of influence, communication and exchange
• Christians and Muslims encountered each other directly in the Ottoman Empire, as Hindu and Muslims in the Mughal Empire
• Religion too linked far people from England to Russia, although there is a division of Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy.
• Buddhism largely vanished from parts of South Asian homeland but remained a link among China, Korea, Tibet and Japan
• Islam brought together people
• The pilgrimage to Mecca, Africans, Arabs, Turks and Indians gave birth to a common faith.
• Siberian furs were found in the Silk Road trading network
• Nigeria received horses brought overland from drier parts of the north
• Canoe commerce along waterways in Amazon and North America Orinoco rivers
• Coastal shipping in Caribbean along the Pacific coast
• People of Tonga and Samoa (Fiji) intermarried and exchanged goods.
• 15th century the balance was shifting- changing

VI. A Preview of Coming Attractions: Looking Ahead to the Modern Era, 1500–2012

• cultures and commerce linked people, none of those connections operated on a global scale.
• Global empires
• global economy
• global cultural exchanges
• global migrations
• global diseases 
• global wars
• have made the past 500 years a unique phase in human journey
• The core feature of such societies was INDUSTRIALIZATION
• rooted in sustained growth of technological innovations.
• Human ability to create wealth in shorts period of time.
• Economic and industrial revolution was an equally distinctive jump in human numbers affecting also species.
• People began to work for wages, to produce for the market
• Modern societies were generally governed by states that were powerful and intrusive than earlier states and empires
• mix of established religions and ideas
• values of modern science
• Tensions between the rich and poor within societies were now paralled by new economic inequialities among entire regions and civilizations
• Western Europe and North America became both a threat and a source of envy to much of the rest of the world
• Modern societies emerged and spread with destructive patterns of human life
• Europeans people created new societies all across the Americas and as far away as Australia and New Zeland
• Their languages were spoken and their Christian religion was widely practiced throughout the Americas and parts of Asia and Africa.

Chapter 3 (State & Empire)

Chapter 3: State and Empire in Eurasia/North Africa (500 b.c.e.–500 c.e.)

I. Empires and Civilizations in Collision: The Persians and the Greeks

• King of Kings: Cyrus & Darius Exercised absolute power over their subjects
• including life and death
• enjoyed a lavish lifestyle of elaborate rituals and palaces
• Claimed complete control over their entire domain and saw their centralized state as absolute
• Persian monarchs did not rule by force alone
• used an efficient system of regional administrators (satraps)
• respected the diverse cultures and religions of the many people they conquered.
• administrations set the pattern for some 1,000 years for the numerous successor regimes in the region
• postal system, forms of taxation, etc.
• Common identity as Hellenes
• sharing language
• religion
• rituals
• held the Olympics every four years celebrating their shared identity
• City-states: there was rivalry among many city-states
• had very different forms of organization
• Greeks were dynamic and expansive. expansion came about by waves of migration around the Mediterranean and Black Seas between 750 and 500 B.C.E.
• migrations spread Greek culture, language, and architecture
• Citizens and hoplites
• Greeks pioneered revolutionary political ideas such as viewing the individual as a participant of a larger state system, a citizen

II. Comparing Empires: Roman and Chinese

• was fairly weak and poor in early years; but conquered & incorporated neighboring territories throughout the Mediterranean and much of France, Britain & Spain as well as Egypt, Greece & Mesopotamia
• Changing gender norms
• power of the male head of the household
• many women found a less restricted life than they had known in the early centuries
• Empire building in China was not the creation of a new idea but an attempt to go back to the time of coherence and centralization of centuries past
• adopted the moralistic and scholarly ideology of Confucianism
• In Rome, past emperors were revered as gods
• In China, the emperors ruled in accordance with the spiritual force known as the Mandate of Heaven
• If the Chinese emperor did not rule well, the Mandate of Heaven could be lost and natural disasters and social upheaval might dispose the dynasty
• Rome and China dealt with foreign religions
• From east, Christianity, Persian, and Egyptian faiths entered the Roman empire
• faiths spread thanks to Roman transportation systems
• In China, Buddhism came from India and Central Asia via the Silk Roads
• faith gained adherents after the collapse of the Han dynasty
• Han state developed a strong and successful bureaucracy based on political and philosophical principles
• Romans relied on the aristocracy and military to piece various systems of rule together and create laws
• Romans desired good laws, the Chinese state wanted good men
• most fundamental reason for the collapse of Han and Roman was over-expansion

III. Intermittent Empire: The Case of India

• Indo-Europeans came into India
• there were several distinct and significant religious traditions that formed a common core that outsiders would come to call “Hinduism.”
• Maurya Empire
• first Indian empire
• inspired by contact with Persia and the Hellenistic kingdoms
• 50 million subjects and 600,000 infantry soldiers, 30,000 cavalry, 8,000 chariots, and 9,000 war elephants
• empire was not as long lived as Rome or Han
• Ashoka
• most famous Indian emperor 
• first a great conqueror but later converted to Buddhism
• Gupta Empire
• flourishing of art, architecture, and literature, commerce and the sciences
• great achievements
• spiritual movements
• astronomy

Chapter 2 (First Civilizations)

Chapter 2: First Civilizations: Cities, States, and Unequal Societies (3500 b.c.e.–500 b.c.e.)

I. Something New: The Emergence of Civilizations

• Civilization was global phenomenon much like agriculture, showing up in six different locations around the world, slowly extending across the world
• First civilizations emerged from 35oo B.C.E - 3ooo B.C.E in three places 
• Mesopotamia (Present day Iraq)
• Egypt
• Norte Chico (costal Peru)
• Later, three additional civilizations appeared
• Indus Valley
• China
• Olmec
• Start
• Originated with the Agricultural Revolution
• Roots in Chiefdoms where social ranking had already developed
• Though not all agricultural societies and Chiefdoms developed into civilizations which leaves other questions 
• Large scale irrigation projects might have been stimulus for early civilizations
• Warfare, trade and population density are other possible contributing factors
• Dense population increased need for competition
• Strong organized states won wars, and losers would be lower class
• First civilizations represented something much different than societies that came before
• Agricultural resources made cities possible
• Teotihuacan housed 2oo,ooo people 
• Urban society was impersonal b/c it wss impossible to know everybody
• relationships based on class were as important (if not more important) than villiage loyalty
• heavy degree of inequality began to develop

II. The Erosion of Equality

• Wealth, status and power brought inequalities
• As technology grew so did inequalities
• The greater wealth that was accumulated didn't necessarily spread it -- rather it clumped together
• Upper Class enjoyed a wealthy lifestyle with little physical labour
• Commoners represented the majority 
• included artisans
• lower level officials
• soldiers
• police
• servants
• farmers
• Their surplus production was
• Bottom of social hierarchy EVERYWHERE was slaves
• In all of the first civilizations were slaves -- prisoners of war, criminals and debtors, available for sale

• As first civilizations arouse, patriarchy emerged
• But why? 
• women more involved in secondary tasks
• women identified with home and nature -- women now associated with inferior dimension of human life (nature)? 
• warfare? military services restricted to men
• Female sexuality became limited
• Male had rights over women -- female slaves, concubines and wives were exchanged

• "A wife caught sleeping with another man might be drowned at her husband's discretion, whereas he was permitted to enjoy sexual relations with his female servants."
• "Rape was a serious offense, but the injured party was primarily the husband of the victim rather than the violeted woman herself" 
• Easier for men to get divorces than females
• Female goddess' became less significant as male creation gods became more important
• Patriarchy not the same everywhere
• In Egypt, women had greater opportunities than women in most of the world
• Were legal equals to men, able to sign their own marriage contracts, get divorces, sell land, own property and even have political power

III. The Rise of the State

• State solved many widely shared problems among the population
• However -- it also served to protect the privileges of the upper classes and demand commoners to work on large public projects
• State had the ability to force obedience
• Symbols of kingship associated with divine power
• Egypt, China, Mesopotamia all had kings that held sort of divine religious powers -- "gods established monarchy"
• A further support of state authority was the invention of writing 
• Writing served as a method of organization, accounting and communication
• Gave rise to literature, philosophy, astronomy, math and history
• Writing became major arena for social and political conflict
• Kings, high officials and their families lived in luxury ; attended by endless servants
• Elaborate burials, monumental palaces and pyramids conveyed the powers of the elite

IV. Comparing Mesopotamia and Egypt

• Both civilizations grew in river valleys, depended on the rivers to sustain their lands
• Egypt depended on Nile "that green gash of teeming life" which nurtured a rich agriculture
• The Tigris and Euphrates river supported Mesopotamian civilization but was "unpredictable" and often resulted in flooded crops
• Mesopotamia was more vunerable to  invasion
• Egypt was protected by the surrounding land and enjoyed a free security
• Culture was very reflective of their environment 
• Mesopotamian outlook on life viewed mankind as "caught in a disorderly world, subject to whims of capricious and quarreling gods, and facing death without much hope of a life beyond," 
• Egypt produced a more optimistic outlook rebirth of the sun daily, and river yearly assured Egyptians that life prevailed over death

• Mesopotamian civilization known as Sumer, organized in twelve + city-states, each ruled by a king
• Frequent warfare amongst these city-states
• Led to environmental devastation and vulnerability to outside forces
• Egyptian civilization began in 31oo B.C.E with the merge of several early states and chiefdoms into united territory 1,ooo miles along the nile
• For 3,ooo years they managed unity and independance
• Focus resided with Pharaoh 'god in human form"
• When changes of weather resulted in inconsistency with the Nile in 22oo the Pharaoh's lost credit and Egypt's strength slowly dissolved 
• Pharaohs never regained their power

• Interacted with one another 
• Step pyramids and writing system may have been inspired by Sumerian Models 
• Did long distance trade with one another
• Trading goods also caused cultural influences 
• Nubia borrowed many of Egyptian's religious and cultural practices
• In the Mediterranean egyptian influence is clear in the art, and greek culture drew heavily upon Egyptian influence as well
• Egypt and Mesopotamia were also influenced by neighbors -- the domesticated horse can from what is now Russia 
• Chariot technology was also borrowed

Chapter 1 (First Farmers), Sections: Breakthroughs to Agriculture to end of Chapter

Chapter 1 (Part 2): First Farmers

I. Breakthroughs to Agriculture

• the deliberate cultivation of particular plants as well as the taming and breeding of particular animals.
• new way of life replaced the earlier practices of gathering and hunting
• represented a revolutionary transformation of human life across the planet.
• Domestication; the taming, the changing f nature for the benefits of humans
• Dependence of both: animals to humans and humans to animals
• Intensification: getting more for less, food and resources. – growing populations.
• climate change
• changing gender patterns
• response to population growth
• local plants/animals were the key
• multiple places in Africa exploited different plants
• unique plants
• few animals

II. The Globalization of Agriculture

• Diffusion and migration
• Resistance to agriculture
• end of old ways of life?
• population increase
• environmental impacts
• Increased human impact on the environment
• negative health impacts
• Technological innovations
• Alcohol would become disruptive

III. Social Variation in the Age of Agriculture

• environmental factors
• mobility as a life-way factor
• conflict with settles communities
• social equality
• gender equity
• role of elders
• not force but charisma
• religious authority
• tribute

Chapter 1 (First Peoples), Sections: Out of Africa & The Ways We Were.

Chapter 1 (Part I): First Peoples

I. Out of Africa

A. Into Eurasia

• Human migration led to Middle East, then wast to Europe about 4o,ooo yrs ago , then east to Asia
• Images were left in cave paintings
• Bone needles, multilayered clothing, weaving, nets, storage pits, baskets & pottery all found as adaptions to Ice Age
• Underground dwellings made of tusk & bones for when caves & rock shelters were absent
• Venus figurines depicted female form (often exaggerated breasts, butt, hips and stomach -- probably to represent fertility) made from bones, antlers and baked clay

B. Into Australia

• 6o,ooo yrs ago humans came from Indonesia from Australia by boat
• When Europeans arrived in 1788, Australia's people were still practicing ancient ways of living
• These people focused on technological simplicity and a tradition known as Dreamtime
• This tradition was expressed in folklore, rock art & recounted the begining of things; how people came to inhabit earth, how we relate to animals
• "In this view of the world everything in the natural order was a vibration, an echo, a footprint of these ancient happenings, which link the current inhabitants intimately to particular places and to timeless events in the past" (p.17)
• Used song, dance, psychoactive drugs, stories, & rituals
• Each community was loosely connected

C. Into the Americas

• This part of the world was occupied much later than Australia b/c of the difficulty caused by the cold of Siberia
• First migrations occured somewhere between 3o,ooo & 15,ooo years ago. 
• Evidence of human activity in southern Chile 12,5oo years ago
• Clovis people -- first defined cultural tradition in Americas
• They were hunters of large animals, i.e mammoths & bison
• Flourished 12,ooo - 11,ooo years ago
• Clovis people disappeared around the time many large animals became extinct 
• People of the Americas began to pursue bison, some learned to live in the desert for small game and plants, others near the sea for birds and fish

D. Into the Pacific

• Last phase of human migration, occuring only about 3,5oo years ago
• Migrated by canoe and navigational skills
• These people already had agriculutral techology and carried plants and aniamls in canoes to colonize
• Settling in the previously unoccupied islands caused many animals to go extint, especially flightless birds

II. The Ways We Were

A. The First Human Societies

• Paleolthic societies were small (25-5o people)
• available technology permitted only a very low population density
• ensured an extremely slow rate of population growth
• Relationships were personal
• These bands of people were small and nomadic, moving in patterns to use the land to it's fullest potental
• Highly egalitarian societies -- they lacked the inequalities of wealth & power that came from the Agricultural Era
• No class differences, people were freer of oppression than any other human society
• Most people possessed similar skill sets (though men and women often had different tasks)
• Women were primarily food gathers, providing for 7o% of the diet while men hunted
• There were some rules in regards to distribution of meat,  incest & adultery as well as who could hunt in what territories.

B. Economy and the Environment

• Hunting & Gathering people often viewed as "primitive" however, anthropologists now note that these people worked fewer hours to meet their needs than agricultural or industrial societies -- and therefore had more time for leisure
• main economy
• They wanted or needed very little
• Llife expectancy was low, about 35 yrs on average
• living in the wild was dangerous
• These people shaped nature and the land with their own hands
• acted to alter the natural environment
• fires to encourage groth of particular plants
• Extinction of various animals followed fairly quicly after the arrival of humans
• Dangerous environment on the vagaries of nature
• Environmental disasters (volcano eruptions) didn't help for the population to grow

C. The realm of the Spirit

• Clear evidence of a rich ceremonial lifestyle
• Rock art suggests ceremonial spaces
• People often used psychoactive drugs during ceremonies
• Some societies were monotheistic, others saw many levels of supernatural beings, including a Creator Deity, territorial spirits, & spirits of the dead
• Cyclical view of time that drew on changing phases of moon & female fertility

D. Settling Down: The Great Transition

• major change of Paleolithic peoples occurred as the last ice age came to an end
• followed by a general global warming, that was a natural phenomena
• Plants & animals that had once been unable to flourish b/c of the Ice Age's chilly climate were now able to thrive
• Under the improved conditions human beings thrived
• societies became larger & more complex as people started to settle down into permanent residences
• inequalities slowly began to form
• Paleolithic societies in Japan known as Jomon, settled by the sea, creating some of the world's first pottery, dugout canoes, paddles, bows, bowls and tool handles from wood
• Bows & Arrows were invented separately in Europe, Africa & the Middle East, spreading later to the Americas
• Settling down marked a huge turning point in human history & placed a much greater demand on the environment
• Agricultural societies followed soon after