1. Legacy of the Ancient World

2. Pre-Greek Accomplishments
Agriculture, irrigation, animal domestication
Calendar
Metallurgy: Mining, smelting, metal-work, casting
Ceramics
Glass-making

3. Why Agriculture?
Hunter-gatherer lifestyle provides ample food with minimal effort and ample leisure
Cultivation may be more dependable
Agriculture leads to:
Greater population density
Social Stratification
Urbanization

4. Prerequisites for Agriculture
Most plants have no use as food
Mediterranean climate beneficial
Seeds can survive long dry spells
Perfect for storage
Selective breeding
Self-fertilization
Wind pollination and animal dispersal means uncontrollable offspring
Single mutations of desirable traits (Almonds vs. Oaks)

5. Animal Domestication
Taming = training a specific animal to behave as desired
Domestication = changes in animal genes to permanently instill desirable traits
Do we really care if a rabbit is tame or domesticated?
Ability to tolerate human proximity
Dominance Hierarchy that humans can co-opt

6. Obstacles to Animal Domestication
Inability to tolerate human proximity (gazelles)
Chronically bad temperament (zebras)
Dangerous (bears)
No dominance hierarchy (deer)
Extremely territorial
Herds are territorial and won’t mix
Won’t mate in captivity (cheetahs)

7. Animal Domestication Self-Domestication
Humans create a modified environment around habitations
Humans gather food and vital nutrients like salt
Unconscious selection for low fear factor
Hormonal changes: more frequent mating, mottled coats, juvenile features, floppy ears
Have we ever deliberately domesticated any animal?

8. Ancient metallurgy
Ancient metals: Au, Ag, Cu, Pb, Hg, Fe, plus Sn and Zn in alloys
How discovered?
Campfire Theory - not hot enough
Pigments? Possibly
Need heat for a long time, plus lack of oxygen, plus experimenting
Best bet: Pottery kilns

9. Bronze and Iron Bronze is an alloy of copper and tin
Where did the tin come from?
How was the alloy discovered?
Iron: Not better than bronze, but cheaper

10. Pre-Greek Accomplishments
Architecture
Stone cutting, dressing, sculpting
Arches
Post-and-Lintel
Corbelled
Circular (only in Old World, except for Inuit igloo)
Truss-unknown until Middle Ages-requires timber

11. Pre-Greek Accomplishments
Simple machines
Wheel
Lever (wheel + lever = pulley)
Wedge (inclined plane, screw)
Heavy Woodworking
Catapults
Shipbuilding

12. Greek Technology and Science
Major traditions
Ionian--mercantile, experimental.
Pythagorean-mathematical but mystical
Athenian schools: Plato, Aristotle, Socrates,
Emphasis on logic, deduction, idealization
"Golden Age" - Pericles ca. 450 B.C.
Hellenistic - exported during and after Alexander the Great (d. 323 B.C.)

13. Alexander’s Empire

14. Good Guys and Bad Guys? Ionians speak most clearly to us today, but-
Science often has a faith in whole numbers that Pythagoras would recognize
Scientists idealize all the time. Plato would find much familiar
Where would science be without logic and deduction?
It wasn’t Aristotle’s fault that people put him on a pedestal

15. Why the Greeks never developed modern science
They weren’t trying to become us!
It wasn’t clear that meticulous observation of nature would lead anywhere
They were asking different questions, e.g., why is there cause and effect?
They had all the elements but nobody ever synthesized them.

16. The Etruscans
Fairly sophisticated people, with expertise in iron working and extensive trade contacts.
Link between the Greeks and the Romans.
A couple of tidbits from the Etruscans: the letter F and the "Roman" numerals V, L and D.
For several centuries Rome was ruled by the Etruscans, but the Romans overthrew the Etruscans and eventually absorbed them.