MS. MARESMA’S HISTORY NOTES:
From Human Origins to African Bantu Migrations
Human Origins. Human evolution and successful survival is discussed primarily in
terms of increasing intelligence and ability to use tools and finally language. Migration of
humans out of Africa is also “a distinctively human trait.”Paleolithic and Neolithic foraging
(hunter-gathers) societies had relatively egalitarian social structures, including gender structures.
They were small and mobile communities composed of family groups. The foragers had
little need or ability to accumulate possessions or wealth, since they had to be so mobile.
Foraging communities produced ritualistic artwork such as the Venus sculptures and Lascaux
cave paintings which probably had both religious and decorative purposes in emphasizing the
importance of fertility and the hunt. Women were probably responsible for the domestication of
plants, and men for realizing the benefits of the domestication of animals.
The results of the agricultural revolution were profound: a dramatic growth of human
population that led to the creation of large population centers in urban areas; the development of
complex social structures and organization of an economy that developed specialized labor and
the accumulation of wealth in the form of land; the development of complex, urban-based
societies (“river civilizations”), many of which influenced or controlled large regions outside the
city borders because of the importance of trade.
Mesopotamia. Mesopotamia introduced to the idea of conquest with the expansion of
city-states into kingdoms and then regional empires. Surplus food and growing populations
allowed humans to settle permanently in large communities, but they inherited only a few
organizational ideas from village communal living. As workers could specialize in urban areas,
social distinctions (classes) became much more sharply defined than in Neolithic villages. Urban
living allowed for the accumulation of wealth and status through ownership of land, specialized
labor and trade, and military prowess.
Urban living necessitated the development of trade between rural and urban areas, and
then between urban areas themselves. Technological advances such as metallurgy (iron, bronze,
and copper) and wheeled vehicles facilitated trade and warfare as well. Mesopotamian
merchants engaged in trade with others in Arabia, Lebanon, Egypt, Afghanistan, and India.
Mesopotamian cultures developed written languages, which facilitated record-keeping, the
dissemination and codification of laws, and the accumulation of common cultural knowledge
such as histories and religions. It is important to emphasize that living in a “complex society”
was not the only option. Humans continued to live as nomads and continued to migrate.
The early Hebrews were Mesopotamian nomads who were influenced by surrounding
Sumerian city-states, but who favored monotheism. The nomadic Indo-European peoples, whose
homelands were probably the steppes of modern-day Ukraine beginning ca. 4000 B.C.E., spread
across the Eurasian grassland steppes with their domesticated horses. From 3000 to 1000
B.C.E., Indo-European nomads moved southwest into the plains of Anatolia (the Hittites) and
Greece; west into central, western, and northern Europe (Celts) ; east into western China; and
south into the Iranian plateau (Persians) and the subcontinent of India (Aryans). Indo-European
peoples brought their language, their horse-based military technologies, and their deities with
them, and these in turn became melded into the existing populations’ ways of life.
Shang & Zhou China. The most prominent of the early dynasties, the Shang (ca. 1766 to
1122 B.C.E.) and the early Zhou (1122 to 256 B.C.E.), should be used to compare with the
Mesopotamians, Egyptians, and Indus valley societies. The importance of the Yellow (Huang
He) River and the Yangzi (Chang Jiang) is; that they supported Neolithic agricultural surpluses
of rice and millet. East Asian peoples underwent the same process of gathering in farming
villages, then cities and small regional kingdoms as the other early societies in the eastern
hemisphere. The ubiquitous Indo-Europeans migrated to East Asia before the Shang (ca. 2000
B.C.E.), bringing with them bronze metallurgy, domesticated horses, and wheeled chariots. In
fact, Shang power against their many other city-state rivals seems to have been based on their
monopolization of the production of bronze (for weaponry) and their cavalry.
The Chinese peoples seemed to have little or no direct contact with western Eurasian and
African societies. They did have direct (maritime) contact with Southeast Asian farming
societies and Indian Ocean areas. This is a significant point to emphasize: the contact with
western societies was made through nomadic intermediaries. This system of using intermediaries
seemed to be remarkably efficient, in that fragments of Shang pottery have been found at sites in
Mohenjo-Daro. The Chinese developed in isolation from these other societies, and therefore
developed somewhat different social and political patterns. Of particular importance is the
Chinese tradition of veneration of ancestors. This contributed to a localized, family-based
religion, as opposed an organized religion or official priesthood-elite, and early Chinese societies
developed more “secular” traditions than other early complex societies.
The early Zhou also developed the political concept of the “mandate of heaven,” which
would justify or explain imperial powers and responsibilities for two millennia. The symbiotic
relationship between Chinese farmers (“settled” peoples) and northern and central Asian
nomadic peoples is particularly important, as noted above. Farmers, or those in “settled” villages
and cities, provided food, finished products, textiles, and metal goods to the nomads, who in turn
provided horses and traded goods from farther west. This relationship allowed the nomads to
raise horses but not have to lead a settled life in order to acquire food. It allowed the settled
societies to develop in a certain ignorance of other societies and also not privilege a merchant
class in their social structures.
Early North American & Mesoamerican Civilizations. Historians know much less
about early American complex societies than we do about Eurasian and African ones, in large
part because of the lack of written languages or the ability to decipher the ones that existed, as
well as the lack of archeological evidence. Humans migrated into North America approximately
15,000 years ago across the Bering land bridge that linked Siberia to Alaska, and gradually
moved south and eastward. Humans may have reached the Americas across the Pacific before
this time, but historians and archeologists do not have concrete evidence of this yet.
Humans were foragers as they migrated throughout the western hemisphere, and
remained so in North America until the Common Era, as far as historians know. Hunting,
fishing, and foraging communities were relatively small. In Mesoamerica and South America,
however, humans developed agricultural practices by ca. 7500 B.C.E. and established networks
of agricultural settlements and villages by ca. 2000 B.C.E. It is important to note that the
peoples of the early complex civilizations of Meso- and South America domesticated plants, but
there were no large mammals suitable for transportation in the western hemisphere, and the only
herding animals were the llamas and alpacas of the Andean regions. Humans provided all the
power.
The Olmecs were the cultural progenitors of the peoples of Mesoamerica. They cultivated
maize; had some sort of authoritarian ruling structure that could harness workers who were used
to for large-scale public works projects, such as large “ceremonial centers” (temple complexes,
not cities); maintained sophisticated calendars; and had ball games and rituals involving human
sacrifice. Understanding geographical realities is crucial for understanding early Andean
societies. Although they were exact contemporaries, the early societies in the Andean regions of
South America had no contact with those in Mesoamerica, probably because of those
geographical and transportation difficulties. By ca. 2000 B.C.E., there were many crops under
cultivation and large ceremonial centers were constructed throughout the region.
The first regional states, such as the Moche/Mochica, appeared ca. 200 B.C.E. These
were unusual in that they harnessed valley areas running from the Pacific up the western side of
the Andes, tying the peoples and the produce of coastal regions with the lowlands and highlands,
thus creating integrated economic zones. Once again, however, geography was an impediment
to larger-scale creations. No single state could surmount the terrain of the individual valleys and
create a regional kingdom or empire at this time.
Oceania. The early history of Oceania (Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands)
is about human migration to these seemingly remote and difficult-to-reach places on the globe.
They arrived by boats, made easier by lower water levels and less enormous expanses of open
water (at least 60,000 years ago when the earth was still engulfed in the remnants of the last ice
age). Humans were foragers then, and brought those survival skills with them to Australia and
New Guinea. Five thousand years ago, agriculture came to New Guinea via trade with
Austronesian-speaking Southeast Asians, and was then transported eastward to the Polynesian
Islands between ca. 1500 and 700 B.C.E. The peoples of densely populated islands like Samoa,
Tonga, and Hawaii then developed along the same complex political, social, and economic
traditions as their counterparts on the mainland continents.
Persia. The enduring political legacies of the Achaemenid dynasty of Cyrus and Darius
in particular were: a) the conquests that created the imperial landholdings; b) the pioneering
administrative organization of governors and satrapies, checked by military and tax collectors
and the imperial spies; c) standardization of taxes, coins, and laws; d) the construction of the
Royal Road(s), with courier, post, and travelers’ services; e) the massive public works projects
such as the qanat. Seleucus, heir to Alexander’s conquered Persia, continued the Achaemenid
administrative policies, as did the Parthians, who wrested control of Persia from the Hellenistic
Seleucids. And when the Sassanids toppled the Parthians, they too continued with the
administrative policies laid out by the Achaemenids.
Imperial social structures were more complex than those in simpler urban-based societies.
Large empires required trained bureaucrats, who became crucial to running the empire, and
challenged the existing warrior and clan elites for political prominence. At the bottom end of the
social structure was a large class of slaves who were either prisoners of war or enslaved to repay
a debt. Slaves were the property of individuals, the state, or a temple institution. Both free and
enslaved workers were used to help build and maintain the public works projects, especially the
roads and the qanats, the underground irrigation systems that allowed agriculture to flourish in
the parched region.
Persian agricultural surpluses, political stability, standardized coins, and good land and
sea trade routes all contributed to a vast commercial economy that linked lands from India to
Egypt. Ideas and, notably, religions from all these areas found fertile ground in the cosmopolitan
Persian empires. The new religion of Zoroastrianism (600s B.C.E.) combined Aryan polytheism
with concepts of a judgment of souls, a life after death in a hell or a paradise based on the
honesty and morality of one’s life. With imperial support, these concepts became popular and
would profoundly influence values to appear in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
Unification of China (Qin China). The end of the Period of Warring States (403-221
B.C.E.) sets the stage for the developments of a classical Chinese empire as well as the
foundation of Confucianism in China. The rise and fall of Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi make a
fascinating story, for the grand structures he commissioned also led to the extreme oppression of
the Chinese people and the downfall of his “dynasty” after only two rulers. Qin Shi Huangdi’s
imperial organization and military conquests can be easily compared to the Persian experiences.
The successor dynasty, the Han, continued the Qin patterns, albeit at a more modest pace
to keep the peasantry from revolting again. Han Wudi’s military expansions, however,
necessitated greater taxes and huge numbers of conscripted soldiers. As small farmers had to sell
their lands, agricultural lands became concentrated in the hands of a relatively small number of
wealthy landowners. Unequal land distribution was to plague Chinese politics and the economy
for centuries. The Silk Road was a major trade route during the Han rule.
Just as the Period of Warring States had given birth to the organized Qin, it also gave rise
to the philosophies of Confucianism, Daoism, and Legalism. Each of the three philosophies tried
to explain how to secure a peaceful and well-ordered society. Confucianism attempted this by
moral political service and adherence to a strict social hierarchy; Daoism by withdrawal into
individual goodness; and Legalism by clear laws and swift punishments to transgressors. The
foundations of bureaucratic centralization in China went hand in hand with the establishment of
universities in which to train the bureaucrats.
Confucianism became the dominant educational and political philosophy in those
universities, in large part because they had an established canon and curriculum dating from the
Zhou dynasty. For the next 2000 years, in order to become a government official in China, one
had to become a proficient scholar of Confucian philosophy and pass rigorous examinations.
Buddhism became another philosophy, a little closer to a religion than Confucianism, which was
prevalent in Han and post-Classical China.
An important theme is the complicated relationship between the northern nomadic
peoples and the peoples of the settled, agricultural Chinese empire. In the classical period, the
Xiongnu created an empire strong and organized enough to challenge Han Wudi (ultimately
unsuccessfully), although usually tactics such as paying tribute, or allowing untaxed trade, or
even marrying Chinese daughters to Xiongnu chiefs were enough to keep the peace. The Han
ruled for four centuries, but their control disintegrated due to a formidable array of internal
problems: uprisings of desperate and disgruntled peasants; competing elite factions who fought
each other in civil wars; disease outbreaks.
Greece. The political themes of this chapter are the influence of Minoan and Mycenaean
and even Persian societies on the later Greeks; the diversity of ways in which the Greeks ruled
themselves in their city-states (from kingdoms to limited democracies); and the powerful
regional influence the Greek/Hellenistic empire had on the Mediterranean basin. This continuing
influence developed from its international maritime trading network; the establishment of
colonies for both trade and the reduction of population pressure on the Balkan Peninsula; and the
conquests of Alexander the Great.
The themes that relate to a long-term influence of social structures include the existence
of slaves; a patriarchal gender structure that pervaded all aspects of Greek society; and
discussions about the equality and rights of citizens in a society (even though those citizens were
only male). Culturally, the Greek society left an enduring legacy with their philosophical,
scientific, and literary writings that spread south and eastward with the subsequent Hellenistic
empires and west and northward with the Roman empire.
Rome. The political themes are easy to identify: the definitions of and the explanations
for progression (or regression?) from republic, to kingdom, to empire. The imperial period is the
most important period to know. Administrative centralization, public works projects, military
expenditures, and heavy taxation were key features of Roman government. The theme of
territorial conquest by establishing colonies (something the Greeks did earlier), integrating
newcomers, and outright military aggression weaves together many other stories in Roman
history. The Roman economy expanded and specialized as the government gained control of the
whole Mediterranean basin by the reign of Augustus, and the resultant two centuries of the pax
romana facilitated both imperial and international trade.
Two of the distinguishing characteristics of the social structure of imperial Roman
society are its complexity and its inequalities. Like other classical societies, Roman society was
patriarchal and relied heavily on slaves. The increasingly wealthy entrepreneurs challenged the
old nobility for status, while the populations of urban poor became increasingly problematic.
Small farmers were increasingly marginalized as the large latifundia, with their specialized
agricultural production, absorbed their lands and monopolized production.
This complex, cosmopolitan empire was held together by Roman laws, language (Latin),
the Roman military, economic ties, and the worship of Roman gods and the emperors. The rise
of the Christianity happens during this time period. Roman culture, particularly what historians
call “high culture,” was essentially Greek. Wealthy Romans hired Greeks as tutors for their
children, who learned Greek literature, philosophy, and mathematics. Artistic and architectural
styles remained heavily Greek-influenced.
The Romans did not contribute much in the way of new scientific knowledge; their forte
was technology. From roads to aqueducts, mills to the coliseum, the Romans’ interests were
practical. As for “low culture,” the bread-and-circuses tradition can be discussed as a way to
pacify the urban masses. The Christians represent another part of the disaffected Roman
imperial population. The Romans objected to monotheism and declarations that the kingdom of
God was at hand, implying the end of the Roman empire, the disinclination to worship the
emperor, or even pay taxes to the empire. Rome eventually collapses due to economic,
militaristic and political issues. It then splits into the Byzantine Empire (East) and the Holy
Roman Empire (West). The collapse of the western Roman empire was due to the long-term
effects of deep-seated social and economic problems as well as external invasions, and the
probability that epidemics brought westward on the silk roads contributed to the weaknesses and
demoralization of the Romans.
The total collapse of the centralized government (law, military, taxes, road maintenance)
meant the collapse of urban societies throughout western Europe, leading to the localized feudal
political arrangements and the rural, manorial economy of the Middle Ages. Also point out that
the eastern Roman empire (called the Byzantine empire after 476) continued Greco-Roman
culture at a high level for the next 1000 years.
Early African Societies and Bantu Migrations. Agriculture and herding began in the
Sudan area of east Africa and spread to the Nile Valley and throughout sub-Saharan Africa. The
desertification of the Sahara ca. 5,000 B.C.E. is important due to the shift from nomadic societies
to agricultural ones in Africa as humans had to concentrate their efforts to survive in smaller
fertile regions along the Nile rather than the extensive grasslands (savannah or steppe) that
became the desert. Savannahs and even deserts are not necessarily impenetrable barriers.
Savannahs/steppes and deserts are like oceans in that those with the appropriate technology
(modes of transportation and navigation) can traverse them with ease. Hence the Arabic term
“sahel” to describe the savannahs at the edge of the Sahara Desert as a “coast” to be navigated
and traveled.
African complex societies were also built on agricultural wealth of river valleys and
developed similar institutions to regulate political, economic, and social order. Furthermore, the
wealth of the kingdoms served as incentive for invaders. Conflict and trade were central webs of
contact between urban societies as well as between nomads and urban settlers. The Egyptian and
Nubian cultures engaged in many types of cross-cultural interactions with each other, and with
Mesopotamian, Arabian, East African, and Mediterranean cultures. The south and eastward
migrations of the Bantu-speaking peoples from west Africa beginning ca. 3000 B.C.E. brought
agricultural and later, ca. 1000 B.C.E., iron-working traditions into sub-Saharan Africa. As with
the Indo-Europeans in Eurasia, Bantu migrations resulted in intermixing of populations, and the
establishment of Bantu languages and monotheistic religious traditions throughout the subSaharan region of the continent.
Compare African complex societies (Egypt, Nubia) to the Mesopotamian cities,
kingdoms, and regional empires in your Composition Notebook.