What factors shaped the features of early trade routes in the eastern hemisphere?
Climate and location of routes, typical trade goods, and the ethnicity of the people involved.
What are the 4 most significant trade routes of the period between 600BCE and 600CE?
1. Eurasian Silk Roads
2. Trans-Saharan caravan routes
3. Indian Ocean sea lanes
4. Mediterranean sea lanes
What new technologies facilitated long-distance communication and exchange between 600BCE and 600CE?
Yokes, saddles, and stirrups permitted the use of domesticated pack animals.
What factors stimulated early exchanges along maritime routes from East Africa to East Asia?
Innovations in maritime technology and advanced knowledge of monsoon winds. Ex. Lateen sail and dhow ships.
What are the various forms of exchanges that took place between 600BCE and 600CE?
Trade goods, people, technology, religious and cultural beliefs, food crops, domesticated animals, and disease pathogens.
What crops spread from South Asia to the Middle East?
Rice and cotton.
What changes did the spread of crops encourage?
Changed in farming and irrigation techniques.
What religious and cultural traditions were transformed as they spread?
Christianity, Hinduism, and Buddhism.
The number and size of key states and empires grew dramatically by:
Imposing political unity.
What are the 6 key states/empires and their locations?
Southwest Asia: Persian Empire
East Asia: Qin and Han Empires
South Asia: Mauryan and Gupta Empires
Mediterranean: Phoenecia, Greek City-states, Hellenistic and Roman empires
Mesoamerica: Teotihuacan, Maya
Andean South America: Moche
What did the rulers of empires create to organize their subjects?
Administrative institutions
Two important elements of imperial administrations are:
1. Centralized government
2. Elaborate legal systems & bureaucracies
What regions hosted the most famous administrative institutions?
China, Persia, Rome, & South Asia
Name 4 ways in which imperial governments projected military power over large areas.
1. Diplomacy
2. Developing supply lines
3. Building fortifications
4. Defensive walls and roads
5. Drawing new groups of military officers and soldiers from the local populations or conquered peoples
What function did cities play in Afro-Eurasia and the Americas?
1. Centers of trade
2. Public performance of religious rituals
3. Political administration for states and empires
Name 2 important early imperial cities.
Rome & Teotihuacan
What did the social structures of early empires display? What groups were typically included?
Hierarchies / Included cultivators, laborers, slaves, artisans, merchants, elites, or caste groups
How did imperial societies maintain food production?
Relied on a range of methods such as peasant communities and slavery.
An important reason to produce surplus in imperial societies was:
To provide rewards for the loyalty of elites.
___________ continued to shape gender and family relations in imperial societies.
Patriarchy
What specific empires created difficulties they could not manage?
Roman, Han, Persian, Mauryan, and Gupta
What types of difficulties did Empires create that often led to their collapse/decline/transformation?
Political, cultural, and administrative
How did empire create environmental issues and what did these issues lead to?
Successive mobilization of resources led to environmental damage which resulted in social tensions and economic difficulties by concentrating too much wealth in the hands of elites.
What sorts of external problems did empires face?
Issues along the frontier such as threat of invasions.
What are 2 important examples of empires' external problem?
Rome: Problems with northern and eastern neighbors
Gupta: White Huns
The codification of the ________ scriptures further associated Judaism with monotheism.
Hebrew (Scriptures)
The Hebrew scriptures influenced the cultural and legal traditions of what area?
Mesopotamia
What trend influenced the Jewish diasporic communities in the Middle East? Which peoples were involved?
Conquest of Jewish states by Assyria, Babylonia, and Rome.
Sanskrit scriptures formed the basis of the __________ religions, which later became known as __________.
Vedic, Hinduism
What core beliefs did Buddhism preach? What scriptures were they recorded in?
Core beliefs: desire, suffering, and the search for enlightenment.
Scriptures: Sutras & other misc. scriptures.
Buddhism was, in part, a reaction to ____________.
The Vedic beliefs and rituals dominant in South Asia.
Emperor _______________ of _____________ supported the spread of Buddhism. Buddhism was also spread through
___________________________.
Asoka / Mauryan Empire / efforts of missionaries and merchants and the establishment of educational institutions.
The philosophical belief system of ___________ came out of China.
Confucianism
Confucianism's main goal was:
to promote social harmony by outlining proper rituals and social relationships.
What are the core beliefs of Daoism?
Balance between humans and nature.
What role did Daoism play in the development of Chinese culture?
It influenced medical theories and practices, pottery, metallurgy, and architecture.
Christianity drew on which religious tradition?
Judaism
Initially, Christianity rejected _______________ influences.
Roman & Hellenistic
Christianity initially spread through ____________, and later through the support of ____________________.
Efforts of missionaries and merchants through many parts of Afro-Eurasia / Emporer Constantine
What are the cored ideas of Greco-Roman philosophy/science?
Logic, empirical observations, and the nature of political power and hierarchy.
What role did belief systems play in social systems?
Affected gender roles:
Judaism & Christianity: encouraged monastic life
Confucianism: emphasized filial piety
What belief systems continued alongside the codified, written belief systems? Why did these persist outside of core civilizations?
Shamanism/Animism persisted because of their daily reliance on the natural world.
Which major art forms were influenced by belief systems? Which important examples are provided in the Key Concept outline?
Literature, drama, architecture, and sculpture. / Ex. Greek plays, Indian epics
