Chapter 1 Vocabulary

Mesopotamia

a region in the eastern Mediterranean. It was located where Iraq is today and parts of Iran, Syria, and Turkey. The term comes from the Greek phrase "between two rivers". It was located between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The area that it was located in was referred to as the Fertile Crescent.

Neolithic Revolution

a change in human civilization where people went from hunting and gathering to cultivating crops and domesticating animals. This revolution allowed from people to form permanent settlements, which led to social classes and the rise of civilizations. It happened in 10,000 B.C.E.

Raja

a chieftain that rules over a tribe. It means "king" in Sanskrit. They were chosen by prowess, because they were meant to lead their tribe in battle. They had no priestly functions or religious authority.

Mandate of Heaven

a concept that someone's can be given the right to own something because a deity says so. It was used by the Shang to conquer the Zhou in China.

Civilization

a form of human culture which includes the defining characteristics of urbanism; technological, industrial, and social change; long-distance trade; and new methods of symbolic communication.

Pharaoh

a king who is also a god. The term comes from the Egyptian word for "great house". They administered Egypt according to set principles known as maal, which was an ideal of order, justice, and truth. The god provided them with absolute power.

Bronze Age

the period between 3100 and 1200 B.C.E. in the Near East and eastern Mediterranean. During this time, people discovered how to combine tin and copper to make a stronger and more useful metal called bronze.

Indo-European

is another word for the term Aryan which was used for a widespread language group; which includes Greek, Latin, the Romance and Germanic languages, the Slavic tongues, and the Indo-Iranian languages.

Diffusion

is the spread of the elements of culture to another region or people

Upanishads

known as the latest Vedic texts. They are most concerned with speculation about the universe. They said that Brahman was extended to refer to the Absolute.

Harappan

the Indian subcontinent's earliest literate, urban civilization that arose in the valley of the Indus River sometime after 2600 B.C.E. and was trading with Mesopotamia by about 2300 B.C.E. It is also known as the Indus Valley culture.

Paleolithic Age

the earliest period of human culture which dates from over a million years ago to about 10,000 B.C.E. The earliest use of tools can be dated back to this age. During this period, men hunted for meat, and woman gathered fruits and vegetables. People learned how to use tools and control fire.

Hieroglyphs

the first writing system to appear in Egypt in about 3000 B.C.E. The writing system means "sacred carvings" in Greek. It was used for many years for many different languages. It was used well into the medieval age.

Vedas

the holy texts of Vedic Aryan civilization, which dates back to 1500 B.C.E. They were founded by the Aryans many years after the Vedic Aryan civilization ended.

Mesoamerica

the land that spans from the central part of modern Mexico to Central America. The region features a lot of geographical diversity. Archaeologists divide Mesoamerica into three broad periods: Pre-Classic (2000 B.C.E.-150 C.E.), Classic (150-900 C.E.), and Post-Classic (900-1521 C.E.).

Aryans

the nomadic Indo-European immigrant people who founded the Vedic Aryan civilization and the Vedas

Culture

the sum total of the ways of living built up by a group and passed on from one generation to another. It is learned, not inherited, so it goes through a lot of rapid changing which helps to spread culture throughout the world.

Cuneiform

the writing system that was invented by the Sumerians. The word comes from the Latin word cuneus, which means "wedge", because of the wedge-shaped marks people made by writing on clay tablets with a cut-reed stylus. It has several thousand characters. Some of them stand for sounds, and others stand for words.

Mahabharata and Ramayana

were two classical Indian epics that were set in the Epic Age. They were probably written between 400 B.C.E. and 200 B.C.E., but they refer to older events. The Mahabharata is the world's longest epic poem, and it's about the rivalry between two Aryan clans. The Ramayana tells the adventures of King Rama.