Chapter 5: Chapter Outline

1. Alternative Pathways and Ideas
1. During the first millennium B.C.E., societies on the edge of regional empires began to break from the dynastic regimes and forge their own paths
1. They experimented with new types of political and social organization
2. New ideas arose in these border societies
3. New ideas for warfare and expansion
1. Zhou China
2. Greece
3. Levant
4. Mexico
2. Second-generation societies borrowed from older communities, but they also came up with dramatic innovations that set them apart
1. Competition in warfare
2. Battles over ideas produced political and social innovations
3. Bold thinkers often lived in these societies
1. Confucius in China
2. Buddha in Indus Valley
3. Philosophers of the Greek city-states
3. The age of great ideas produced debate over what was best for humanity
2. Eastern Zhou China (770-221 B.C.E.)
1. During the first millennium B.C.E. China saw political and cultural innovations
1. Looked to the past for ideas about governing
1. Stressed elaborate court protocol and rituals
2. Importance of hierarchy of authority in family and state
2. After fleeing invaders, the Zhou established their capital in Luoyang
1. Spring and Autumn period (770-481 B.C.E.)
2. Warring States period (403-221 B.C.E.)
3. The spring and autumn Period
1. China was not politically unified-145 Zhou tributary states
2. Violence among states led to political and social changes
1. Regional states forged alliances and met for conferences under a ba (senior one)
2. New administrative units formed to conscript men for the army and collect taxes
3. Land ownership became merit based
4. Southern states of Chu, Wu, and Yue came to recognize Zhou culture.
3. Central states served as a buffer zone between the large peripheral states and ended up swearing allegiance to the peripheral states
4. Increase in political anarchy simultaneous with technological advancements.
1. New smelting techniques led to stronger iron swords and armor
2. Cheaper and better weapons shifted influence from central government to local authorities
3. Regional states built their own infrastructure improvements.
1. In 486 B.C.E., Wu state built the Grand Canal linking the Yellow River with the Yangzi River
2. Built by peasants pressed into labor by Zhou regional lords
4. The Warring States Period
1. Seven large territorial states emerged with more power than the central Zhou leadership
2. Wars between 500 and 400 B.C.E. led to the downfall of the Zhou dynasty
3. Qin emerged as the strongest state and replaced the Zhou dynasty in 221 B.C.E.
4. New types of states craft emerged as warring states negotiated treaties, fought battles, and traded with each other
5. Despite the chaos of the time, many of the fundamental beliefs, values, and philosophies that became the foundation for later dynasties developed
5. Innovations in State Administration
1. Many states reorganized their administrative structures
1. Created administrative districts with various officials
2. Registration of peasant households
1. Helped with tax collection
2. Facilitated army conscription
3. Monitored rural population and punished those who did not comply
3. Officials were drawn from the shi
1. Called gentlemen or superior men by Confucius
2. Partners of the ruler in state affairs
3. Paid salaries in grain or gold
4. Shang Yang of Qin most successful minister
1. Carried out wide-ranging reforms for the Qin state
6. Innovations in Warfare
1. Armies became larger and relied on a mass infantry made up of conscripted peasants led by professional officer corps
2. New weapon technologies
1. Crossbows
2. Siege warfare
1. Counterweighted siege ladders (cloud ladders) used to scale urban walls
2. Tunnels dug under walls
1. Defenders filled tunnels with smoke
2. War campaigns lasted years, not seasons
3. Commanders plotted strategies by assessing what troops were best fitted for types of campaigns
7. Economic, Social, and Cultural Changes
1. Warring states spurred China's economic growth
1. Agricultural revolution
1. Population explosion
2. Growth in population led to environmental changes
1. Fuel needs led to deforestation
2. Erosion of fields
3. Fewer animals to hunt
2. Reform during Spring and Autumn period gave peasants land
1. Productivity increased with new technologies
1. Crop rotation
2. Iron plowshares pulled by oxen
2. Surplus agricultural products were traded for market goods
1. Early coins helped with trade
3. Continued reform during the Warring States period
1. Strong military
2. Better infrastructure such as roads, walls, forts, and towers
3. Used military management to build public works projects
4. Economic growth led to higher level of cultural sophistication
1. Elaborate palaces and burial sites
2. Rewards for soldiers and government officials
5. Economic change did not promote gender equality
1. Male-centered kinship groups grew
2. Contact between men and women became more ritualized and codified
6. Chinese material culture reveals changes during this time as more common people had access to formerly elite-only objects
8. New Ideas and the "Hundred Masters"
1. Loss of status led political elites to seek new ways to gain prominence
1. Intellectual creativity and important teachers emerged
2. Confucius best known
3. Philosophy known as the Hundred Schools of Thought
2. Confucius taught hundreds of students and acquired 70 core disciplines
1. He left no writing of his own
2. Followers transmitted his teaching after his death
1. The Analects
3. Confucius set out a new moral framework for government that emphasized merit over birthright as well as perfection of moral character
4. His ideas departed from those of past centuries
3. Mohism (teachings of Mozi) was a competing school of thought
1. Mozi emphasized practical concerns of good government
2. Opposed wars of conquest
3. Main appeal was to city dwellers
4. Daoism
1. Stressed the dao (the way) of nature and the cosmos
2. The ruler who interfered the least in the natural processes of change was the most successful
5. Legalism/Statism
1. From the writings of Xunzi
2. Need strict moral code and laws to keep people, who were innately bad, in line
3. Scholars and the state became inseparable and became a lasting tradition in Chinese society
1. Speculated on issues of governance
2. Promoted the use of writing, a fundamental tool of statecraft
3. This period was fundamental in empire building for the Chinese dynasties
3. The New World of South Asia
1. The Rise of New Polities
1. Significant political and social transformation began about 600 B.C.E. with the expansion of the Vedic peoples eastward to the mid-Ganges plain
2. Brahmans, upper-class priests and scholars, led way to changing the new lands
3. Agricultural reforms led to the emergence of towns that gave way to territorial states
4. The Sixteen States period led to quarrels over territory but no unified state emerged
5. Buddhism challenged the authority of Vedic sacrifices
2. Two major types of states
1. Hereditary monarchs
2. Small, elected elites or oligarchies
3. Two types of leaders emerge in the city-states
1. Kshatriya, a type of aristocracy
2. Raja (king)
1. In some city-states they were elected officials who ruled collectively
2. Often the rajas came from low-status clans
3. Folk tales reveal that some rajas tried to raise their status through marrying women of high-status clans
4. Expansion of the Caste System
1. Various city-states shared caste system
2. Economic changes led to the expansion of the caste system beyond the three tiers (Brahmans, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas)
3. Shudras were tenants/peasants in the agricultural economy
1. Denied the "twice-born" ceremony
2. Remained outsiders in the Brahman-dominated society
4. Shudras developed their own social hierarchy known as the jati
5. Other jati emerged as labor specialized
6. Each jati had its own ritual status, depending on trade
5. New Cities and Expanding Economy
1. Agricultural surpluses led to the need for markets
2. Cities rose up where markets appeared
1. Little city planning
2. Good sanitation
3. Little archaeology because of continuous inhabitation
1. Taxila one city excavated in twentieth century
3. Rural households moved to the city and served as brokers between farms and markets
4. Bankers emerged, financing trade and industry
5. Less affluent took up trades in craftwork
1. Traders and artisans formed guilds to regulate trade and support families
2. Guilds eventual transformed into jati
3. Guild leaders wielded financial influence in the cities
6. Traders and bankers created coins and determined value
7. Many new professions emerged in the cities
8. Despite the rigid caste system, more social mobility was possible in the cities
9. Poverty led some to seek work in the cities
1. Cities more financially unstable
2. Created a new caste of those who did least desirable jobs
3. "Untouchable" caste kept cities clean and healthy
4. Dissatisfied with their lot, "untouchables" sought ways to challenge the status quo imposed by the Brahman priests
6. Brahmans, Their Challengers, and New Beliefs
1. Fearful of changes wrought by urban life and literacy, the Brahmans looked for a way to reestablish order
1. Endowed kings with divine power
2. Gods selected Manu and promised him rewards
2. Emphasis on divine kingship created tensions within South Asian society
1. Brahman claim to moral authority caused resentment in the oligarchic republics
2. New kinds of thinking raised challenges to the Vedic past
7. Dissident Thinkers
1. Dissident South Asian thinkers challenged Brahman religious institutions
1. Refused to recognize Vedic gods
2. Vedic and non-Vedic challenges
1. Upanishads
8. Mahavira and Jainism
1. Ideas of Jainism popularized by Vardhamana Mahavira (c. 540-468 B.C.E.)
1. Religious doctrines emphasize asceticism over knowledge
2. Believed every living thing had a soul
3. Became a religion of traders and citydwellers
2. Strict nonviolent doctrine influenced later South Asian thinkers
9. Buddha and Buddhism
1. Siddhartha Guatama (Buddha-the "Enlightened One") directly challenged traditional Brahman thinking
2. He denied the elaborate cosmology of the Brahmans
3. His background influenced his ideas
4. His teachings can be summarized as the Four Truths
1. Life, from birth to death, is full of suffering
2. All sufferings are caused by desires
3. The only way to rise above suffering is to renounce desire
4. Only through adherence to the Noble Eightfold Path can individuals rid themselves of desire and the illusion of separate identity and thus reach a state of contentment, or nirvana
1. Eightfold way includes three categories: wisdom, ethical behavior, and mental discipline
5. Simple, clear teachings were very appealing to non-Brahmans
6. Delivered his dissident message in colloquial dialect of Sanskrit
1. Attracted many followers who formed a group of monks known as sangha
2. Buddha and followers preferred to preach in cities
3. Buddhism offered people an alternative to the Varna system
4. Common Cultures in the Americas
1. Early inhabitants of America lived in dispersed villages. Some contact took place over time, especially where travel by canoe was possible
1. Did not have domesticable animals
2. Wheel was not used for hauling or transportation
2. The Chavín in the Andes (1400-200 B.C.E.)
1. Lived in the Andes Mountains of present-day Peru
2. Around 1400 B.C.E., united around a shared belief system
3. Societies organized vertically because of their mountain homes
1. Valleys gave them tropical and subtropical produce
2. Maize and other crops grew further up the mountains
3. Highlands produced potatoes, and llamas were raised for wool and fertilizer
1. Llamas could be used for carrying packs but not people
4. By 900 B.C.E. Chavín created advanced textiles, carvings, and metalwork
1. Limited trade network to areas outside the mountains
5. Overall much diversity within the Chavín but shared an artistic tradition motivated by devotion to gods
1. Spiritual capital was Chavín de Huantar, in present-day northern Peru
1. Priests communicated with gods through the use of hallucinogenic drugs
2. Chavín made pilgrimages with tribute to the temple
6. Chavín created devotional cuts that focused on wild animals, such as jaguars, serpents, and hawks, as representatives of spiritual forces
7. Created the first great art style of the Andes
3. The Olmecs in Mesoamerica
1. First advanced civilization emerged around 1500 B.C.E. in central Mexico
1. Olmec meant "inhabitants of the land of rubber"
2. First-generation, small-scale community trying to create new political and economic institutions
1. Formed themselves into a loose confederation of villages
2. Traded with each other, shared a common language, and worshiped the same gods
3. Eventually the small villages came together into a single culture that spread its beliefs and influence throughout the surrounding region
4. During village life, most Olmecs practiced subsistence farming
1. Raised maize, beans, squash, and cacao
5. Trade networks developed between villages for surplus produce, ceramic and precious goods used for ritual purposes
4. Cities as Sacred Centers
1. Religious and secular hubs used by surrounding hamlets
1. Specialized buildings such as earthworks, platforms, palaces, and plazas
1. Vassal labor built massive central platform at San Lorenzo
2. Courtyards contained sculpture and artificial lagoons
2. No large permanent population
3. Worship of gods took place in the primary cities
1. Huge pits were used for giving offerings
4. Olmec art reflected both the natural and supernatural
1. Were-jaguar common figure in art
5. Ceremonial life revolved around agriculture and rain cycles
5. Cities as Athletic Hubs
1. Ball courts part of every city
1. Game played with a hard rubber ball
2. Players memorialized in statuary
3. Possible actual or ritualized sacrifice of players
2. Olmecs practiced human sacrifice and ritual warfare
6. Humans, Nature, and Time
1. Olmec cosmology based on the relationship between natural and supernatural worlds
2. This belief led to investigation of the natural world
1. Faith and science intertwined
7. A World of Social Distinctions
1. Olmecs had a complex social hierarchy
2. Priests and chieftains dominated the highest social order
3. Though not outright militaristic, the Olmec culture did become widespread in the region
1. A merchant class seems to have been heavily involved in the export-import business
8. The Decline of Urban Centers
1. Not clear why the Olmec culture declined
2. No single explanation accounts for the abandonment of the religious centers
3. Olmec heritage was transmitted and influenced other Mesoamericans as new cultures came to prominence
5. Common Cultures in Sub-Saharan Africa
1. Certain geographic regions emerge as population centers
1. Nile Valley most populated
2. Climate changes divided the rest of the continent
1. Sahara Desert
2. Sahel
3. Sudanic savanna region
4. Western and central African rain forests
3. Distinct ways of life emerged in each area
2. Meroe: Between Sudanic Africa and Pharaonic Egypt
1. Meroe most developed of the Sudanic kingdoms
1. Historically known as Nubia
2. One of the only areas known to peoples outside of Africa
1. Had been in contact with and conquered through its history by Egypt
2. Also had strong connections to sub-Saharan Africa
3. Meroe established in the fourth century B.C.E.
1. Influenced by pharaonic culture
1. Wrote with hieroglyphs
2. Erected pyramids
2. To prove autonomy from Egypt, moved capital 300 miles upstream
3. Thriving center of production and commerce
4. Walled city contained monumental buildings
3. West African Kingdoms
1. Settlements established along Niger River by Mande peoples such as the Jenne and Gao
2. Nok culture established in the sixth century B.C.E.
1. Taruga saw early iron smelting
2. People moved from stone to iron use
3. Their technology and commodities spread east and west
4. People from Nok migrated into central African rain forests to farm
5. Nok best known for terra-cotta figurines discovered in the 1940s
3. Iron tools led to improved farming techniques
1. More food could be grown
2. Supported larger communities
3. Population increases from 400 B.C.E. to the new millennium
6. Warring Ideas in the Mediterranean World
1. Violent upheavals and chaos created new ways of organizing second-generation societies.
1. Seaborne peoples of the Mediterranean basin shared common traits
1. Carried goods and ideas that they shared
1. Maritime technology
1. New ships and sails allowed for faster and easier sailing
2. Homer's Odyssey recounts maritime adventures
2. Phoenicians sailors may have circumnavigated African continent and may have traveled even farther
3. General Hano wrote of his adventures on West African coast in 500 B.C.E.
2. A New World of City-States
1. With order restored in the ninth and eighth centuries B.C.E., independent, self-governing city-states were created
1. City-states characterized by family-based associations of citizens who ruled collectively
2. Commercial centers managed exchange and trade
2. Self-Government and Democracy
1. Known as qart (Phoenician), polis (Greek), or civitas (Roman)
2. Not run by elites or by a strong central authority
3. "Citizens" of the city-states governed themselves and selected their leaders
4. Self-government took many forms
1. Ruled by popularly approved chief called a tyrannos (tyrant)
2. Rule by a few wealthy and powerful citizens called oligoi (oligarchies)
3. Rule by all free adult males called a demokratia (democracy)
4. City-states composed of adult male citizens, other free persons, foreign immigrants, and unfreed persons
5. Only adult free males had full- citizenship rights
6. Each city-state decided how to govern itself and make laws, so there was much variety among them
3. Families as the Foundational Unit
1. Small family unit (oikos, household) most important social unit
2. Male centered; men ruled over household (wife, children, and slaves)
3. Women had little public role
1. Those who carried on conversations in public were labeled hetairai (courtesans)
4. Spartan women exception
1. Exercised alongside men
2. Held property in their own right
4. Competitions and War
1. Much competition and violent rivalries within the city-state
2. Sparta the exception because of its social organization of discipline and military order
1. Sparta had no coined money or chattel slavery
2. Considered very unusual by other city-states
3. Rivalries took the form of athletic competition
1. Olympic games staged first in Olympia, Greece in 776 B.C.E.
4. Frequent wars among the city-states over land, trade, religion, and resources happened
1. Constant warfare helped in the development of better military equipment and battle tactics
1. Blocklike infantry formation known as the phalanx (Greek)
2. Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C.E.) longest and most destructive fought between Athens and Sparta
3. Wars among city-states made them stronger against external forces
1. Athens able to defeat Persia in fifth century
3. Economic Innovations and Population Movement
1. Free markets and money-based economies
1. Developed open trading markets and a system of money
1. Used coins rather than barters or gift exchange
2. Coinage also used in Vedic South Asia and Zhou China
2. Trade and Colonization
1. Search for commodities and resources led to widespread trade
2. Trade led to establishment of new city-states along western Mediterranean and the Black Sea
3. Seaborne communication helped to spread a common culture, especially among the wealthy
1. Decorated chariots, elaborate armor, high-class dinnerware, elaborate houses, public burials
2. Alphabetic script
3. Market-based economy
4. Private property
3. Humans for Sale: Slaves and Slavery
1. Human beings were bought and sold in a system of chattel slavery
2. Used for labor, especially in dangerous or exhausting tasks
3. Slaves became an essential part of the new city-states
4. Trade network that developed make it easier to buy and transport slaves
1. Black Sea area became the main source for slaves for 2,000 years
5. Slave trade a very profitable business for entire Mediterranean
4. Encounters with Frontier Communities
1. Peoples to the north and west remained isolated and change came slowly
2. City-states exerted influence with their growing trade networks
3. Tribal peoples often raided the city-states for wealth and commodities
1. Greeks mockingly called them barbaroi (barbarians) because they could not speak the Greek language
2. As Mediterranean empires grew powerful, the tribes' people were imported as slaves
4. New Ideas
1. Without a monarchy, priestly rule, or other authority, ideas and beliefs were free to rise, circulate, and clash
2. Naturalistic science and realistic art
1. Rather than seeing deities as controlling everything, inhabitants of city-states saw humans with more control of their environment.
2. Art reflected naturalistic view of humans and their place in the universe
3. Early art showed humans, objects, and landscapes as artists saw them to be
4. Later artwork depicts humans in an idealized way, especially the nude
1. Public nudity in art and everyday life showed a sharp break from older moral codes
2. Artists signed work
1. Vase painter Exekias
2. Sculptor Praxiteles
3. Poet Sappho
3. New Thinking and Greek Philosophers
1. New thinkers influenced by ideas from Southwest Asia
2. Many broke from looking at the role of gods and instead looked to nature itself
3. Many had radical ideas that sound somewhat modern and included atomic theory, digital world, and religious relativity
4. Public debate of ideas was done by philsophoi (philosophers)
5. By fifth century B.C.E., debates focused on humans and their place in the world
6. Following a time of intense warfare, debate turned to trying to describe an ideal city
1. Three generations of Greek thinkers tackled that question and others relating to the human experience and governance
1. Socrates (469-399 B.C.E.)
2. Plato (427-347 B.C.E.)
3. Aristotle (384-322 B.C.E.)
7. Conclusion
1. Former civilizations in the four great river-basin areas gave way to second-generation societies that borrowed or invented new ways of organizing their societies
2. Warring states in China and Mediterranean as well as dissident thinkers in South Asia developed alternative ways of thinking about governance
3. Isolated from other societies, Olmecs developed their own complex societies that would later influence future civilizations such as the Maya
4. Africa saw the emergence of new second-generation cultures at Meroe and the Nok people
5. Around the Mediterranean Sea, new social forms took shape in city-states that led to far-reaching ideas about the role of citizens in their own destiny