THE FIRST COMMUNITIES
VILLAGES AROUND THE WORLD
SURPLUSES BOOST DEVELOPMENT
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Agricultural development improved.
Farmers produced surpluses (more than
needed to survive)
o Surpluses included food and
materials for cloth and other
products.
Surpluses helped villages survive during
bad seasons.
SIMPLE VILLAGES GROW MORE COMPLEX
A CHANGING WAY OF LIFE
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PEOPLE DEVELOP DIFFERENT SKILLS
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Eventually not everyone had to raise food
in villages.
People began specializing in different skills.
o Potters: Made items to carry food
and store water.
o Weavers: Created cloth from
cotton, wool and flax.
 Potters and weavers
would trade their items
for food.
o Shamans: holy people who
interpreted natural events like rain
or fire.
 Shamans eventually
became priests in the first
cities.
KEY POINTS: As people began living in villages for
longer periods of time, work became specialized and
people traded with one another.
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Extra food/supplies meant more people
could live together.
Surpluses led to increased populations
and trade.
o Villages began trading with each
other.
Specialized workers spent years training
their skills. They were called artisans.
o Types of artisans
 Potters
 Weavers
 Carpenters
 Tool makers
 Cloth makers
Specialization led to development of
social class (people with similar
customs).
As villages grew, the need for laws and
leadership arrived.
o People developed early forms of
government.
KEY POINTS: Simple villages became more
complex as population grew. As villages
became larger, the need for more supplies and
better ideas came. Life in complex villages was
more varied than in simple villages.
LIFE IN A COMPLEX VILLAGE
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Complex villages may have had up to
5,000 people (very large for that time).
Technology was still in early stages.
CATAL HUYUK
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Ruins are 8,000 years old with
population of around 5,000 people.
Located in Turkey
People lived in clusters of permanent
buildings.
Houses had similar floor plans.
Other buildings served as shrines for
religious ceremonies.
Catal Huyuk has lots of evidence of
specialized workers as well as trade
and a unique culture.
KEY POINTS: Catal Huyuk is an example of
what a complex village would have been like
8,000 years ago. This type of village shows the
complete transition of hunter-gatherer
societies to community living.