1. Introduction to Ancient Near East
Class Syllabus
Historical Research
Location
Neolithic Near East

2. Historical Research (Keep in mind when studying)
What is historical research
Gathering facts v. understanding/explaining
How do historians explain?
Look for constants?
Provide balance for the constants.
Realize personal bias
Recognize that even universally accepted facts can be wrong
Picture Illustration (10)
What is historical research
Gathering facts v. understanding/explaining
How do historians explain?
Look for constants?
Human Nature
Ideas
Is history repeatable?
Provide balance for the constants.
Filters: philosophy, science, religion
Realize personal bias
Recognize that even universally accepted facts can be wrong

3. Prehistoric Times Sources
Social Studies Skills
Using Primary Sources
Define the following:
Primary Source-
A first-hand account of an event or an artifact created during the period of history being studied.
Secondary Source-
A record of the past, based on information from primary sources.
Prehistoric Times Sources
Primary Sources
Secondary Sources
Book about a time period
A reconstruction of an event or artifact
A second hand account
Art
Pottery
Diary
Cave drawings
Bones

4. Timelines
BC Means- Time period that means “Before Christ” or a time period before the
year zero.
BCE Means- Time period that means “Before Common Era” or a time period
before the year zero.
AD Means- Time period that means “Anno Domini” or a time period after the year
zero.
CE Means- Time period that means “Common Era” or a time period after the year
HINTS:
BC/BCE years- BC and BCE address the same time period-before the year zero.
AD/CE years- AD and CE address the same time period-after the year zero.

5. Why Study the Near East Beginning of Civilization
Understand Contemporary descendants
Understand the Old Testament
Beginning of Civilization
First government
wheel
Writing
Accounting
Agriculture and domestication of animals
metallurgy
Math
Astronomy
Time
Sail
Writing: The Sumerians developed one of the earliest writing systems in about 3,200 B.C. Although writing began as pictures, it quickly developed into a series of signs comprised of wedges and called “cuneiform” after the Latin word for wedge. Cuneiform was written using a reed or wooden stylus pressed onto the surface of a clay tablet. The earliest tablets are administrative records. However, cuneiform was soon used to record literary texts, such as the “Epic of Gilgamesh,” as well as for writings on other topics such as mathematics, astronomy, and medicine. Writing greatly facilitated the accumulation and transmission of knowledge between distant peoples and generations.
Mathematics: Symbols for numbers were among the signs on the earliest written documents. The Mesopotamians were sophisticated mathematicians and were the first to develop the idea of place value based on a number’s position in a sequence.
Time: The Mesopotamians were the first to divide time units into 60 parts. This concept lead to our 60-second minute and 60-minute hour.
Urban civilization: One of the world’s earliest cities was Uruk, which by the year 3,000 B.C. had an estimated population of 50,000. People living in cities developed specialized trades, such as metalsmithing and such professions as scribes.
The wheel: The ancient Mesopotamians were using the wheel by about 3,500 B.C. They used the potter’s wheel to throw pots and wheels on carts to transport both people and goods. This invention had an impact on ceramic technology, trade, and warfare in the early city-states.
The sail: The Mesopotamians made sails to harness the wind to move boats, and eventually sailed and traded as far away as what is now India.
Astronomy and astrology: From a very early time, the Mesopotamians had charted the movements across the sky of the sun, moon, planets and stars. They were able to predict celestial events, such as eclipses, using that knowledge. They also divided the night sky into 12 sections and named them for nearby constellations, the names of which come down to us through Greek and later Latin translations as the Zodiac.

6. Sources used for the Near East
Absolute v Relative Chronology
Archaeology
Artifacts
Historical (written)
Subjective nature of concurrent sources
After the fact
Absolute v Relative Chronology
Archaeology
Artifacts
Historical (written)
Subjective nature of concurrent sources
Only able to assign relative dates
After the fact
Use artifacts to corroborate validity and assign dates

7. Location of Near East Also called the orient (east) during Middle Ages
Asia Minor, Levant, Egypt, Arabia, Mesopotamia
Borders:
Aegean/Mediterranean Seas
Afghanistan, Pakistan, Black Sea, Caucasus Mountains, Caspian Sea, Turkmenistan, Nile cataract, Red Sea, Indian Ocean, Persian Gulf

9. Map
Know/Locate:
Israel, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Egypt, Taurus Mts, Zagros Mts, Black Sea, Caspian Sea, Mediterranean Sea, Persian Gulf, Red Sea, Tigris, Euphrates, Aegean Sea

10. Prehistory
Paleolithic
Neolithic
Chalcolithic

11. Before Civilization What is a civilization? Administration centers
Control of a specific territory
Specialized jobs
Status
Monumental buildings
Writing
Trade and Technology and Art
Where did they first arise?
Asia (Tigris/Euphrates)
Pakistan (Indus River)
China (Yellow River)
Egypt (Nile)

12. What terms do we use? Pre-History: before the written word
Paleolithic (Old Stone Age): Ancient Man until 10,000 BC
Neolithic (New Stone Age): Move to agriculture and a sedentary lifestyle 10,000- 3,000 BC
Cities develop during the Neolithic period
Civilization happens around 3,000 BC
Pre-History: before the written word
Paleolithic (Old Stone Age): Ancient Man until 10,000 BC
Transitional: 10,000-8,300 BC (Mesolithic or Middle Stone)
Neolithic (New Stone Age): Move to agriculture and a sedentary lifestyle 8,300- 5,800 BC
Chalcolithic: Cities develop , ,700 BC

13. Terms Con’t Bronze Age (Beginning of Civilization): 3,000- 1,200 BC
Collapse: 1, BC
Iron Age: BC
Each of these dates are only for the Near East- they are much different in other parts of the world
Technically
Bronze Age: 3,300-1,200

14. Paleolithic Old Stone Age Until about 10,000 BC
Culture: Learned patterns of action and expression (clothing, art, religion, food, languages)
History: passing down culture to next generations
Foragers: gathering plants and hunting animals
Moved with migrating animals
Some medicine (plants), effective plant/animal based clothing, plant tools, music, art, dance, and religions (grave goods)
Until about 10,000 BC or 8000
Derive the bulk of their day to day nourishment from wild vegetable food and feasted on meat at parties/festivals.
Fire used only around 10,000 BC when we see clay pots
Women gathered. Men hunted
Cave pictures.
Tools: made of stones, bones, wood, homes made from animal parts

15. Cave drawings in Lascaux, France about 35,000 years ago.

17. Moving into the Neolithic Period: Agricultural Revolution
New Stone Age
Sedentary Life Began c. 8,000 BC
Farming of plants and animals in Near East
Why the change?
Warmer weather
Made animals stay-put-they didn’t have to search for food or became trapped outside of new forest areas
Climate change altered types of wild plants
Allowed people to grow plants that were climate hardy
Food supply dependable
Different parts of the world began at different times!
Sedentary Life (began, causes, effects)
Began c. 11,000-8,000 BC
domestication of plants and animals in Near East
Causes:
Increase in temperatures
Ice receded allowing animals to move north or go extinct
Rainfall increased turning grasslands into forest areas also forcing animals to migrate and become less migratory
Northern Africa turned into dessert forcing people to find new land
People followed the animals and adapted to land that was forested and adapted to animals that didn’t migrate
Warmer weather and a sedentary lifestyle made possible agriculture
Agriculture and non-migratory animals reinforced a sedentary life
Fishing communities developed

18. Neolithic Era Two early cities (NOT civilization):
Called the New Stone Age: BC in Near East
Increases in new tools, pottery, weaving, religious artefacts, art, agriculture
Location in Near East:
Related village cultures Northern Syria
Asia Minor
Hills north and east of Mesopotamia
Two early cities (NOT civilization):
Jericho:
Jordan River
Settled many different times; New evidence
Matches Biblical account using different dates
Catal Hϋyϋk: Turkey
Called the New Stone Age:
Implies :new stone tools” but generally designates a move from hunting/gathering to domestication
Domesticated: sheep, pigs
Tools ground from flint like axes
Increases in new tools, pottery, weaving, religious artefacts, art, agriculture
Grew wheat, barley, lentils flax,
Basket weaving
Spindles made weaving occur
Houses: bricks and plastered rectangular houses, no windows, clay/stone for walls an dfoundation, timber posts, roofs made of tree trunks, hay, or clay
Coiled pots
Led to transition from Paleolithic to Neolithic:
BC in Near East
Cooking over fire
Increase in population size
More groups becoming sedentary
Climate change not universal
More arid climates/farmable (in the Levant)
Different cultures over the world developed independently
Settle in places with rainfall with good a good growing season
Levant:
China:
Sedentary: Cereal grans of barley and emmer 7000 BC
Semi-sedentary: Domestication of Sheep and Cattle 11bc-8bc
Sedentary lifestyle: 35000BC
Semi-sedentary: millet and rice 9,000 BC
Central America:
Semi-sedentary: squash, corn, beans by 6,500 BC
Location in Near East:
Sedentary: 2,000 BC
Jericho
Related village cultures Northern Syria, Asia Minor, and the hills north and east of Mesopotamia
H/G attracted to the sea c 9,000 BC
North of the Dead Sea
Early Settlement
Sedentary settlement 8,000-7,500 BC
Hunting still primary food source
Defensive ? Structures or thought to protect against landslides?
Large population
Later Jericho
Some crops domesticated
Different group
C 7,000-6,000 BC
Buidings rec.
Dead buried under houses
Religious shrine and fertility symbols
Severed head and displayed in the houses (ancestor worhip)
New Group in 5000 BC
Improved cooking
Crude shapes by lining baskets
Used pottery
No potters wheel until Bronze Age
Southern Plateau Turkey
7,000-5,600 BC (chatael hurick)
Burnt down
50 ft Tell
Textile production
Surplus of gathered goods
Farming of peas, lentils, wheat, and barley
Eating utensils
Rectangular buildings with no doorways
Traded in obsidian
Jewelry
Fertility Cult and Bull Cult
Painted art on walls

19. Life in the Neolithic Period:
Health
Declined as populations lived closer due to disease (animal and human waste)
Hard work clearing and cultivating land
Less variety and nutrition in diet
Sand/rock created abscesses in teeth
Stature declined due to nutritional deficiencies
Short life-span
Wealth
Increased as trade and specialization increased
Religion
Ancestor worship (decapitated heads found in “shrines”)
Deities: earth mothers and sky gods
Social Stratification
Wealth increase social inequality
Matriarchy v. Patriarchy
Kinship relationships bound communities together
Health
Declined as populations lived closer
Sand/rock created abscesses in teeth
Stature declined due to nutritional deficiencies
Short life-span
Wealth
Increased as trade and specialization increased
Religion
Social Stratification
Wealth increase social inequality
Matriarchy v. Patriarchy
Women were possibly more important prior to farming. They would gather, prepare and cook food. If meat was rarely served prior to the agricultural revolution, women would have had a more prominent role. After farming, men were primarily responsible for clearing fields thus relegating the women to the cooking and raising of families.