LECTURE ONE OUTLINE AND CHAPTER ONE KEY TERMS

CHAPTER ONE KEY TERMS

Paleolithic Food Gatherers
Neolithic Farmers
MESOPOTAMIA: Enuma elish
SCANDANAVIA: Odin
CHINA: Pan Ku
Venus Figurines
Clovis Culture
Fertile Crescent
Bantu Migration
Catal Hoyuk

 

Introduction to course: syllabus, expectations, etc.

WHY WORLD HISTORY?

THE WAY THIS COURSE WORKS:

LECTURE ONE:

ANIMALITY AND THE ORIGINS OF HUMAN CULTURE:

I. EARLY HUMANS:

A. Paleolithic Food Gatherers:

(2,000,000-9000 B.C.E.)

Oldowan 2.6 million to 1.7 million years ago vs.

Acheulean 1.65 million to 250,000 years ago

Paleolithic Religious Belief: Gobekli Tepe

B. The First Neolithic Farmers

(9000-4000 B.C.E.)

 

REGION       MAIN PLANT CROPS         DATE

Southwest Asia   wheat and barley             10-9000 B.C.E.

China     rice, millet             8000-6000 B.C.E.

New Guinea     taro, yams, banana         7000-4000 B.C.E.

Sub-Saharan Africa     sorghum         3000-2000 B.C.E.

Mesoamerica     maize, beans, squash          3000-2000 B.C.E.

Andes   potato, manioc         3000-2000 B.C.E.

Eastern N. America     squash         2000-1000 B.C.E.

 

WHY WAS FARMING STARTED IN SO MANY PLACES IN SUCH A SHORT TIME SPAN?

 

Catal Hoyuk

II. MYTHICAL CREATION STORIES:

What are the essential elements of your creation story?

SOME EXAMPLES OF ANCIENT CREATION STORIES:

1. EGYPT: Re

2. CHINA: P'an Ku

3. SCANDANAVIA: Odin

4. HEBREWS: Adam and Eve

5. MESOPOTAMIA: Enuma elish

6. NATIVE AM.(CHIPPEWA-OJIBWE): Mother Earth, and Lakota “Rabbit Boy”

III. CONCLUSION:  What does it all mean?         

Cave art and the human animal:

Sulawesi, Lascaux, Chauvet, Altamira, even Australia


WHAT IS THE SYMBOLIC MEANING OF ANIMALIZATION?

“We love nature the less humanly it behaves,

and art when it is the artist‘s escape from man,

or the artist‘s mockery of man,

or the artist‘s mockery of himself.” 

(F. Nietzsche, The Gay Science, §379)