1. What’s history?

The word ‘HISTORY’ comes from the Greek words; histo, meaning know this / seen this,
historeo, meaning learning something by inquiry. The ancient Greeks understood the
essence of history; historical knowledge must be based on evidence (‘which has been
seen’). It isn’t one story but several; there’s a need to compare different evidences and
each must be checked for errors.
History has many meanings:
- It is the account of past events in sequence of time, the story of mankind; what has
happened to and has been done by humans.
- It is a part of our identity, all that is preserved or remembered about the past. History is the
study of the past, which is extending to the present.
- It is the study of origins, causes and consequences, relationships that can be connected to
the present.

BASIC THEMES IN HISTORY

Actually, historians investigate the past. Investigating the past and linking it to the present, i.e.
finding common ideas/themes is like assembling a jigsaw puzzle. To make it easier, historians
use themes to show patterns in history. There are some basic themes that can be found in the
development of human communities:
1. Co-operation and conflict
Co-operation means that members of a group work together to achieve a common goal.
Conflict means that rival groups harm or even destroy each other to achieve their goals.
Co-operation and conflict have played a major role in shaping history. Co-operation and
conflict cause peace and war, which have always had an important impact on historical
development.
- A basic question in history is what the causes and consequences of war and peace are.
2. The impact of ideas
History examines a number of ideas that have given rise to political (e.g. democracy),
economic (e.g. socialism) and religious movements (e.g. the Reformation).
- Democracy is the belief that people have a right to make their free political choices. It
was in ancient Athens that democratic ideas took shape.
 - Socialism started as an economic reform idea when the working class demanded to have
an equal share in the society’s wealth. It developed into a political movement when the
workers demanded equal political rights.
- The Reformation was the movement to purify and reform the Roman Catholic Church to
make it more just and cheaper.
3. Economy and history
Social and political movements have roots in economy, as it is the foundation society, politics
and culture are built on. All human societies have developed different answers to the three
basic questions of economy:
- What goods and services should be produced?
- How to produce them?
- How to distribute them?
Accordingly, different economic systems have been developed during the course of history:
- hunter-gatherer, slave-holder, feudal, capitalist, socialist etc.
4. Social institutions
Besides the economic system, social institutions just like family, education, religion and
government characterise societies. Each society has produced a distinctive pattern of social
institutions to provide the basic needs of the community:
- to raise new generations to replace the old,
- to train the young and teach them the norms and values of society,
- to maintain order and security,
- to provide food and shelter.
It is also among the tasks of historians to study the reasons why people have sometimes
changed their institutions.
5. Technology and history
Technology refers to the skills and tools that were used during the course of history to meet
people’s needs. From the first stone tools to modern computers, technology has been a critical
factor in promoting social changes.
6. Cultural development
The wisdom of philosophers and thinkers, the masterpieces of writers and artists crown the
achievements of any civilization. History devotes particular attention to the golden ages that
have greatly contributed to human civilizations.
- When a human civilization was at its peak politically and economically, it induced great
cultural achievements as well.
7. Human-environment interaction
Since the dawn of civilization, people have been affected by their environments. At the same
time, people in turn have modified their environment. This theme shows how people affected
their environment, what the relation between people and land was.
8. Individuals and history
People’s needs, achievements and decisions form history. History is made by individuals.
The great deeds, achievements and important decisions of some individuals, historical
figures, have often played a decisive role in affecting the course of history.
5. Continuity and change
Human life is short while religions, ideas, institutions and problems can be the same and often
endure for hundreds or even thousands of years. Historians recognize the importance of
continuity, thinking historically you can see that the present is the extension of the past.
However, historians are also aware that society is perpetually undergoing social changes.
Studying the interaction of continuity and change is a fascinating aspect of studying history.

REPRESENTATION OF TIME:
Historians work within the dimension of TIME and PLACE. Time tells WHEN and place
tells WHERE people lived and certain events occurred. To visually represent time, historians
often use time lines and to visually represent place they use maps.
- In the entire history, events happened on a particular date or during a certain period of
time. Dates allow historians to place events in correct sequence of time.
- Nonetheless, different groups of people used and still use different calendars.
Christian Era / Common Era is now used all over the world but originally it was used by
Europeans and Americans i.e. the western civilizations.
Christian chronology starts with the birth of Christ. Our dates fall into two groups:
BC = Before Christ e.g. 44 BC AD= Anno Domini e.g. AD 1222
(before the birth of Christ) (‘in the year of our Lord’)
Jews use a chronology that goes back to the creation of the world (according to the biblical
record): 3761 BC. This means now, in 2003 they are in ………………. In the Byzantine
concept the creation of the world goes back to 5494 BC. Today they are in the year of
…………….. Muslims start their chronology from AD 622, Muhammad’s run, when the
Islam was founded so they write ……………. now. In ancient Greece the beginning of history
was counted from the first Olympic games in 776 BC. Rome started its calendars in 753 BC
when the city was traditionally founded.
In the Middle Ages people often numbered their years only by the reigns of kings, e.g. in the
fifth year of King Richard I. Revolutions can also change calendars: during the French
revolution the calendar was changed: 1792 was named the 1st year and they even gave the
months new names: e.g. ‘Thermidore’, ‘Brumaire’

Besides numbering individual years, historians also group years into useful divisions:
- A DECADE is 10 years.
- A CENTURY is 100 years.
- A MILLENNIUM is 1.000 years.
History can also be divided into broader periods of time; ages or eras. The basic periods of
history are:
- Prehistory (14 million years BC – 3000 BC)
- The Ancient Times (3000 BC – AD 476)
- The Middle Ages (AD 476 – 1492 / 1640)
- The Modern Age (1492 / 1640 – 1917)
- Contemporary history (from the 20th century on)

AUXILIARY SCIENCES OF HISTORY:

The work of historians is like that of detectives; on the basis of evidences they study past
events, causes and consequences, check for errors and try to be as objective as possible. For
evidence historians use artefacts, spoken account and written account. It is the work of
archaeologists to find artefacts and to determine their age. Comparative linguistics and
ethnography can help historians to interpret spoken accounts like legends, folk traditions, folk
tales and poetry. However, the most important type of evidence for historians is the written
account. They study legal and economic documents, charters, codices, books etc.
 In their work of investigating the past, historians are helped by different sciences, the
so-called auxiliary sciences:
- ARCHAEOLOGY(régészet) – the study of the past by the scientific analysis of things
that people left behind, like:
- artefacts (objects made by men, especially useful thing (e.g. tools, coins, pottery,
jewelry, weapons, ships and other vehicles)
- features (buildings; shelters, houses, castles, palaces)
- ecofacts (seeds, bones and skins), which are also called fossils (traces of animals,
e.g. bones and plants hardened by the minerals of the soil)
Archaeology provides evidences – archaeologists call them finds – for historians. Their
method is excavating archaeological sites where there may be a lot of finds. The site’s history
is revealed in layers, the deeper the layer where the evidence is found, the older it is. It’s very
useful in studying prehistory, which is a long period without written records. Real history is
counted only from the era of writing (cc.3500 BC); what’s before that is prehistory.
Nevertheless, prehistory was much the longest period in the history of mankind. If we
consider the history of mankind 12 hours, the Prehistoric Age lasted for 11 hours and 59
minutes (!!!).
How to determine dates without written records?
Relative dates can be determined by digging through layers or comparing items from different
sites. Absolute dates can be determined by the Carbon 14 method. C 14 changes slowly into
regular carbon after the creature dies. C 14 shows how long ago something died. Layers of
clay and tree rings can also provide evidence, which helps to determine time.
- ANTHROPOLOGY (embertan) – studies the development of human body, mind and
the way societies and cultures are organized. It can find clues about food, tool-making,
housing, the social relationships between the members of the society living together on
the basis of tools and other artefacts, bones and other ecofacts.
- PALAEONTOLOGY (őslénytan) – deals with fossils of extinct animals and plants.
- GEOGRAPHY (történeti földrajz) – can give information about location, i.e. where a
certain place exists or existed on earth and about climate, weather conditions and
vegetation.
- CHRONOLOGY (időszámítás) – can help in making calendars, finding the correct date
of events. Dionysius Exiguus, a Roman abbot, who lived in the 6th century AD, was the
founder of Christian chronology. However, he used the inaccurate earlier chronology to
calculate the date of birth of Christ, which became the zero year.
- COMPARATIVE LINGUISTICS (összehasonlító nyelvészet) – can help in reading
texts, finding the clue to unknown languages by tracing similarities between related
languages.
- PALAEOGRAPHY (írástan) – deals with the development, the history of writing. It
studies the different types of writing, just like cuneiform writing, hieroglyphs, Hebrew,
Chinese, Arabian characters etc.
- ETHNOGRAPHY (néprajz) – can provide information about the life and life-styles of
societies studying the folk traditions of different cultures.
 2. The evolution of mankind

I, DARWIN’S EVOLUTION THEORY

Evolution means the gradual development of the characteristics of plants, animals and
humans over many generations.
The scientist who first explained the evolution theory was Charles Darwin. His book entitled
‘The Origin of Species’ was published in 1859 and caused a huge scandal, as the evolution
theory was contrary to the official creation theory universally accepted at that time. The most
important ideas in Darwin’s evolution theory are the following:
1. The living world is changing rather than static.
2. This process is gradual and continuous; there are no sudden changes, jumps.
3. All living creatures share a common ancestor.
4. The mechanism of evolution is through natural selection; only the best can survive.

II, (About 55 million years ago primitive mammals appeared. The ancestors of the first
primates lived on the trees and were suited to the challenge of the forest.
About 25 million years ago the first monkeys and apes appeared, they were the most highly
developed primates. DRYOPITHECUS (monkey living among trees) appeared in Asia,
Africa and Europe.)
14 - 10 million years ago the common ancestors of the first hominids and modern apes
evolved. They were given the name RAMAPITHECUS, the earliest fossils were found in
Northern India - hence the name - China, the Balkans and in Hungary – Rudabánya.
- They occasionally used tools but they did not know the fire. They lived in small groups
and having no speech they only used primitive, non-verbal communication.

III, 5 - 3 million years ago the first HOMINIDS appeared. A hominid was a man-like
creature, which was not yet a man but the ancestor of humans.
AUSTRALOPITHECUS (Southern Ape)
First discoveries were made in Tanzania and in Kenya. As the creatures that can be certainly
called our ancestors (i.e. the hominids) evolved in Africa, we often say that Africa was the
‘cradle of mankind’. Australopithecines walked upright, which had many advantages:
- It provided better vision and it was threatening for other animals.
- The position of the body changed, which freed the ‘hands’.
  They used and occasionally made tools.
- They did not know the fire; they ate raw meat, fish, vegetables, gathered eggs, seeds,
and small animals. Australopithecines, however, represented another strain in the
development of the human race; they were not direct progenitors.
Australopithecines were not the only hominids living at that time. The other species of
hominids, which could more successfully adapt to changes than Australopethecines, were
given the family name HOMO (the Latin word for human, man). Being human had some
biological and social criteria:
1. Walking upright made it possible for the hominids to use their forelegs as hands and
thus to use and make tools. The new position of hominids provided the possibility to
develop legs and feet, hands and fingers similar to humans.
2. The hominids could use their hands or tools instead of their teeth. The upright position
of the body made it possible to balance the skull on top of the spine/backbone.
 Due to the new position of the body, the size of teeth and that of the muscles that
fixed the head became smaller.
 It provided more space for the brain.
3. To make use of these favourable biological changes a social criterion was needed;
WORK=tool-making. Although several animals use tools occasionally, it is a unique
characteristic of humans to make tools. Humans are the only animals to use one set of
tools to make another.
4. Using and making FIRE was also an important social factor in becoming human.
Whereas all animals are afraid of fire, humans could use it to ease their survival. It
enabled them to provide light in the dark and frighten wild animals away, to keep warm
(Ice Age), to roast meat, to harden the tips of wooden tools and weapons and later to
smelt metal.

IV, 4 - 2 million years ago HOMO HABILIS (‘handy man’) evolved.

This type was found in Africa, Olduvai Gorge (Tanzania). The remains of ‘Lucy’ – a young
female Homo habilis found there – are 3.5 million years old. The brain size of Homo Habilis
was about 750 cm3, twice that of a modern chimpanzee.
- Animal bones found together with fossils of Australopithecines and Homo habilis prove
that these hominids were meat-eaters, probably more often scavenging than hunting. It
is an important factor in the development of humans, as eating meat made it possible for
the hominids to develop faster than their plant-eating relatives, the apes.
 - There is no evidence that Homo habilis knew the fire.
- They were more manlike than Australopithecines and, as their name suggests, they were
toolmakers: their typical tool was the chopper, the oldest stone tool which fitted into
the hand and had a pointed end for cutting. The ‘handy man’ discovered that flint was
the most suitable material to make tools by chipping, as regular flakes came off when
chipped.
 This highly developed tool-making culture of the Homo Habilis represented the
beginning of the PALAEOLITHIC (or PEBBLE) CULTURE = Old Stone Age.

V, About 2 million years ago HOMO ERECTUS (‘upright man’) appeared. They originated
in Africa, spread as far as Java, China (near Peking 50 people’s remains were found) and
Europe, where significant fossils were found in Germany (Heidelberg). In Hungary an almost
complete skeleton of a Homo erectus was discovered in Vértesszőlős, which was named
Samu). The size of their brain was about 1000 - 1200 cm3, their height was about 150 cm,
they lived for 20-25 years.
- The Ice Ages had a huge impact on evolution; only those species could survive who were
able to adapt to the changed climate. As ice caps covered most of the northern hemisphere,
coolings and warmings took place from time to time far from the ice itself. During the
glacial periods the forests disappeared to be replaced by open steppes and tundra, where
there were no edible plants for hominids but plenty of grass where big herds of animals
grazed.
 Humans had to learn to hunt, thus the life of Homo erectus was dominated by gathering
and hunting. Hunting was the first specialized skill; big game hunting appeared, the
‘upright man’ hunted mammoth and woolly rhinoceros. They needed new skills and tools
and some kind of speech had to exist to transmit ideas, express special calls during
hunting and pass on knowledge.
- The characteristic tool was the stone hand-axe made by chipping and flaking and the
wooden spear which made hunt from a distance possible.
- The greatest cultural advance however was the coming of fire: Homo Erectus learned to
manage fire the importance of which were the following:
- It gave warmth, light, thus providing safety (people could occupy caves).
- Harder tools could be made (the tips of tools could be hardened).
- A new way of cooking and a new diet appeared (eating became easier and safer).
- Fire bought people together (passing on knowledge around the fire helped the
 formation of communities).
- There is evidence of home bases/encampments where bigger groups of Homo erectus
lived together and work had to be divided. Fire ‘specialists’ appeared, taking care of the
fire could have been the responsibility of the elder. A distinction between males and
females appeared which meant specialization in work.
- According to the simplest division of work women and children stayed in the home
base and gathered fruits, nuts, berries, roots, eggs, oysters, snails… Men went hunting
animals. Probably though, gathering provided the majority of food. It was also the work
of women to educate children, infancy was prolonged and children became more
dependent on their parents, who taught them all their skills and knowledge of the world.
 Survival no longer depended only on genetic mutation and natural selection but also
on culture and tradition.

VI, 250,000 - 50,000 BC HOMO SAPIENS (‘wise man’) lived, which is also known as
Homo sapiens neanderthalensis. The first fossils were found near Düsseldorf in the
Neanderthal Valley, hence the name. This species spread from Western Europe to China and
the Near East. In Hungary fossils were found at Érd, Tata, Subalyuk. Their brain size was
about 1300-1400 cm3, they were much more capable, mentally more advanced than their
predecessors.
- They appeared just before the last and toughest Ice Age. Trying to cope with the ice they
became cave dwellers and they were able to light fire. The caves generally looked
south, had skin curtains in winter, they were smoky and smelly from the rubbish and the
places further from the fire were damp.
- The Ice Age hunters invented the lance with stone tip with the help of which they could
hunt big games from a distance making hunting more successful. Speaking was
advanced which enabled them to discuss hunting tactics and co-operate during the hunt.
They mastered a new technique of making tools; made better-shaped tools and not only
the core but also the flakes were used producing blades, scrapers, knives.
- They buried the dead, which was the beginning of abstract thinking and that of
religious rituals, perhaps they believed in another world.

VII, 50,000-40,000 BC HOMO SAPIENS SAPIENS (‘Crô-Magnon man’/’modern man’)

appeared. The first remains were found in France, Crô-Magnon, hence the name. In Hungary
Cave Szeleta, Istállóskő, Lovas (where red paint was mined) are the sites where ‘modern
man’ was discovered.
They also spread to America (35,000 BC) and Australia (30,000 BC). The Neanderthals died
out around 30,000 BC and another strain of Homo sapiens, the Crô-Magnon men seem to
have replaced them.
- It was a fully modern man with an appearance similar to us: they were 160-180 cm tall,
their brain size was about 1500 cm3. No other species spread so widely in the world.
Human beings belong to the same species having four major groups:
- Negroid,
- Caucasoid/Europid,
- Mongoloid,
- Veddo-Australid.
- The life-style of the modern man was dominated by hunting, fishing, gathering with
emphasis on big-game hunting, they hunted mammoth, reindeer, bison, and wild horse.
They used bow and flint-tipped arrows, i.e. the first machine, which was superior to
spear and lance.
- They made a variety of flint, ivory and antler tools. Flint blades were fitted to wooden or
stone tools and weapons. Fishhook, harpoon and needle to make fishing net were
invented by the ‘Crô-Magnon man’.
- New type of man-made dwellings appeared made of bones/tusks (because of lack of
wood) covered with skin.
- The first art appeared in Western Europe, evidences were found in Lascaux Cave in
France and in Altamira Cave in Spain. Cave paintings aimed at ensuring the success
of hunting – hunting magic was the main reason for the oldest works of art. In caves
artists used artificial light, they painted with natural pigments; black, yellow, white and
red. They also made statuettes, clay figures of animals (totemism), and of women, which
represented fertility, e.g.Venus of Willendorf found in Austria.

Characteristics of Stone Age Society:

Primitive communities appeared where private property did not exist. It was a society of
equals as there was a special kind of equality within the community (with the distinction of
male and female and group leaders), work was divided on the basis of sex.
Periods of the Stone Age: Palaeolithic Age (Old Stone Age) – 4 million-10,000 BC,
Mesolithic Age (Middle Stone Age) – 10,000-6,000 BC, Neolithic Age (New Stone Age) –
6,000-3,000 BC.

3. The Coming of Agriculture

I, Neolithic Revolution
After the period of Mesolithic culture (the period of gradual changes) by 6,000 BC the New
Stone Age/Neolithic Age arrived with dramatic/revolutionary changes. Many of the
discoveries that form the basis of modern life took place in the Neolithic Age. In the
Palaeolithic Age people lived a hunting-gathering way of life, so they consumed the food that
nature provided but this life-style was changed significantly in the Neolithic Age.
- The hunting and gathering way of life served people well for hundreds of thousands of
years but it had one great weakness. Hunters and gatherers needed large areas of land to
provide reliable food supply. As the number of people in the world slowly increased, less
and less land was available for each group and prehistoric people faced the threat of
hunger.
 The land in its natural state could not support that many people.  New ways of living had
to be found, revolutionary discoveries needed to be made!
The decisive step was when people started to grow and harvest crops and to tame and master
animals. The ability to grow plants and to raise animals meant that people could control
their sources of food, which was such a dramatic change that the term ‘farming revolution’ is
used to describe it.
 As this greatest ever advancement of mankind was the most characteristic change in the
Neolithic Age, this farming revolution is also referred to as the ‘Neolithic revolution’.
The main changes in life-style first appeared, the first inventions were made in the so-called
Fertile Crescent (Nile delta, Palestine, Levant, Anatolia, Iran, territories from the Caspian to
Mesopotamia), but these changes took place in different times at different places. The end of
the Ice Age brought great changes in the climate, which changed the fauna and flora, too. The
region of the Fertile Crescent was then well wooded, full of games, it had good rainfall and
fertile soil so people found advantageous circumstances to start farming there.

II, Farming
Farming was probably discovered by chance (the seeds were dropped when people were
gathering the grain). Some sort of farming may have begun while people were still nomads
living a hunter-gatherer way of life.
Because prehistoric women did the work of gathering plant foods, they must have known a lot
about how plants grew. That’s why many archaeologists think women were the first
farmers.
- By 10,00 BC people were harvesting wild grasses in Asia Minor, by 7,000 BC planting
and cultivation appeared in the Levant and Mesopotamia. The ancestors of later cereals
were wild wheat and barley. First farmers were mobile cultivators using slash-and-burn
agriculture.
- As centuries went by, fields were used again by re-cultivation. Thus farmers became more
tied down to one place. New crops appeared: wheat, barley, peas and lentils, which were
easy to store dried.
- People also learned not to eat up all the seeds they harvested but to save some for planting
next year. Stored crops liberated people from the rigidities of nature.

III, Domesticating animals

To keep livestock was another revolutionary event of the time. Domestication is the process
of taming animals and breeding them in captivity. First people rounded up wild animals with
the help of dogs, the first domesticated animals (which were probably also used during
hunting) and kept them in herds.
- Later they learnt how to breed them in captivity. The first animals to be raised by men
were sheep and goats, which were kept for food, skin, wool, bone, antlers, milk …
- With the invention of the wheel some animals, especially horses, were raised for the first
time not for their meat but as draught animals; for riding and carrying things.

IV, The First Crafts

With the production of food more people could be fed without themselves taking part in the
growing of plants and raising of animals. In other words, with the invention of agriculture
technological specialisation became possible. Different craftsmen appeared who could
devote all their time to making manufactured goods, as they did not need to produce their own
food, they could exchange their products for food.
- Pottery was one of the first crafts. With the coming of agriculture people faced the
problem of storing the food and they also needed to protect their harvest from dampness,
insects, mice and rats. As clay was available everywhere near water, people learned to
make pottery jars, which were superior to earlier containers of wood or basketry and
were easier to make than stone containers.
- Soon people discovered that they could make smoother and rounder shapes with a
potter’s wheel than simply moulding the clay with their hands. People also learned to
harden the clay firing it in ovens.
- Weaving was also an ancient craft as probably first each village household made its own
clothing. Woven fabric, textile was a Neolithic discovery and the spinning wheel and the
loom were Neolithic inventions as well. Sheep provided wool, plants like cotton or flax
provided fibre to spin into thread, to weave into cloth then to sew into clothing.

IV, Technological development in the New Stone Age

In the Fertile Crescent around 5,000 BC farming villages could produce agricultural surplus,
i.e. more food than actually needed which could be stored ( POTTERY) and exchanged for
other types of food (TRADE) or manufactured goods (CRAFTSMANSHIP). Drought and
desiccation, however, could easily destroy food supplies so the threat of famine was the prime
mover of early history. Basic economic changes in early societies helped to improve life:
a, Farming required a new kind of technology, different from that of hunting and gathering.
People needed new tools for working the crop fields; they needed hoes, later ploughs to
loosen the soil for planting, sickles to harvest the grain and grinding tools to make the
grain into flour. The invention of the plough, a farming tool with a cutting blade which
could be drawn by animals, largely contributed to the production of agricultural surplus
b, The way of making tools from stone also changed; ground and polished stone tools
replaced the ones made by chipping and flaking. With the new method harder stones could
be used, more durable and stronger stone tools could be made, just like stone axes for
clearing the woods.
c, Irrigation was a system of supplying cultivated land with water. Irrigation required co-
operation for ditching, building of irrigation channels, which could be performed only
under social organization → legitimised authority appeared.
d, Trade evolved as surplus enabled people to establish economic relations within and
between cities and exchange goods of different kind. The invention of the wheel greatly
 enhanced the development of trade.
e, The coming of metallurgy was a technological change of great importance. However, this
change overlaps into the age of civilization.
- 4th - 2nd millennia is called the Copper Age. Copper was the first metal worked by
people as it is the only pure ore that could be worked simply by hammering.
- 2nd – 1st millennia is called the Bronze Age. People realized that blending tin and
copper resulted in a stronger metal alloy, bronze.

V, Villages and cities

The number of humans rose as a result of the rise in food production. Agriculture required a
more settled way of life as people stopped wandering far from the fields where the crops grew
best. The continuous occupation with growing crops required permanent settlements -
buildings of greater solidity using mud bricks were built.
 Several permanent shelters; houses were built on the same site, that’s how villages
evolved. 10-30 families, the members of the same clan, lived in a village.
- The area of the Fertile Crescent could provide a fairly dense population so the first farming
villages grew into towns and cities.
The continuous occupation of the same settlement became normal. Some were farming
villages that grew up in areas of fertile soil. Others developed as centres of trade. However, all
such settlements needed a steady supply of water, therefore, most early settlements were
founded by rivers, lakes or near a spring or stream. As the inhabitants owned wealth and felt
the need to protect it, they built ditches, later thick walls around their village. More and more
people moved within the safe walls, that’s how the first towns, cities evolved.
- E.g. Jericho on the River Jordan is an example of how a village evolved into a city.
Before 9,000 BC it was a farming village having ditches for protection. Archaeological
finds prove that the later city had walls around and was rebuilt several times.
- E.g. Jarmo in today’s Iraq is a good example of an early farming village. It dates from
about 7.000 BC. The village was made up of 25 mud houses. The archaeological finds in
Jarmo reflect the long transition from a hunting and gathering way of life to one of
herding, and farming.
- E.g. Catal Hüyük in Anatolia is an example of how a trade centre evolved into a town.
Founded in a place where people mined obsidian (a smooth, dark volcanic stone) it was
already a flourishing town at around 6,000 BC. It had a busy trade not only with the
 minerals mined there but also with finished goods; skilful stonecutters could make good
value sharpened axes, knives, bowls, bracelets and beads. Its society was differentiated
based on wealth and occupation, different jobs appeared. Special houses built of mud
bricks were built there; with several thousand inhabitants Catal Hüyük was a large town.
 With the appearance of large towns and cities, the age of early civilizations had begun.

VI, Differentiated societies

Favourable geographical setting, highly developed culture and the revolutionary changes in
the way of life provided the circumstances in which civilization could appear. It meant a
settled way of life, more differentiated human societies with more belongings, the wealth
being produced by people who could master their surroundings and survival.
 Civilization is an advanced stage of human social development with government, written
language, a high level of art, religion and science. It is the interaction of human beings in
a very creative way.
As economy became very complicated and technological development accelerated, to manage
the economic life of a settlement required a well-organised society, thus primitive societies
started to disintegrate. The complicated affairs of a city had to be regulated by someone, so
groups evolved to which people gave obedience and loyalty and whose responsibility was:
- to supervise harvesting and storing crops,
- to administer trading,
- to organise defence.
The production of food was much dependant on nature (weather, flooding…), to be successful
organised co-operation was needed. People had to do communal work building the irrigation
system, storehouses, temples etc.
- The leaders of the communal work, who organised it, were doing so on behalf of the
community/society and the others being dependent on them became the subordinate
layer of society.
 No longer was there equality within society.
The differentiated societies had several different social layers:
1. The upper layer of society with political power and privileges, whom the other layers
of society obeyed, evolved into the aristocracy with inheritable privileges. They were
the kings, priests and the highest-ranking officials, i.e. the leaders of the community
in military, religious and political affairs. They made up the highest level in society
 as they possessed the expensive bronze weapons, they represented supernatural
powers, had special knowledge and could read and write.
2. Farmers, craftsmen and merchants made up the layer of the common people. From
among them, wealthy merchants ranked highest. However, the vast majority of
ordinary people, who worked with their hands in fields or workshops, were
subordinate to the leaders of the community, i.e. the state.
3. At the lowest level of society were the slaves. Some slaves were foreigners who were
captured in wars and became prisoners of war. Others were debt slaves, who were
sold into slavery as children to pay the debts of their impoverished parents.
Differentiated society is a common characteristic of all civilizations. There is no civilization
without at least two social layers: the rich and the poor. It was the price mankind had to pay
for civilization.
- Civilizations established states. The state meant the community of people under social
organisation living in the same territory. It organised the communal work, upheld the
order of society with laws put down in writing, defended the people from enemies and led
the fight in wars.
- In the Ancient East despotic kingdom was the form of state, meaning that the king or
king-priest had unrestricted power. As the people could only explain the power of their
ruler with his supernatural origin, they worshipped the king as a god. That’s why despotic
kingdoms of the Ancient East are often referred to as deity kingdoms.