(PRE) Prehistory to 1200 Module Overview

Prehistory to 1200 Module Overview

Before we can begin diving into the material required on the AP Exam, we need to set the stage. The following module incudes information you will NOT be tested over, but is integral to understanding the information that comes later.

 

What is included in the tie between Prehistory and 1200?

The time before the development of writing is known as Prehistory. Humans developed stone tools about 2,000,000 years ago, beginning what is known as the Stone Age. The Stone Age can be divided into two basic periods: the Paleolithic era, or Old Stone Age, and the Neolithic era, or New Stone Age. The main difference between the Paleolithic and Neolithic eras is the development of agriculture. This transition from food gathering to food producing, i.e. agriculture, is known as the Neolithic Revolution. This transition allows for the development of permanent settlements in some areas. Domestication of both plants and animals plays a key role in the transition from food gathering to food producing. It is the Neolithic Revolution that allows the later development of civilizations. The term "civilization" refers to a complex society that develops because of its food surplus that exists from the development of agriculture. The first civilizations developed in several river valleys around the world: the Tigris-Euphrates River Valley, the Nile River Valley, the Indus River Valley, the Huang He River Valley.

By 1000 b.c.e., all the earliest civilizations were in decline. This decline created a "power vacuum" in those areas and many different nomadic groups, many highly organized with military prowess, rushed in to seize control. Some of these groups reached beyond the original river valley civilization borders to create the world's first empires. The empires brought stability and peace in the former river valley civilizations and from 1000 b.c.e. to around 500 c.e. established trade routes, economic systems, and spread religious ideas around the world. These new empires would also create some of the world's best and most renowned art and architecture, leading historians to call these civilizations, "Classical". Moreover, during this era, areas there were more isolated such as cultures in Mesoamerica, Japan, Polynesia and central Africa. By 500 c.e., however, all of the classical empires had weakened due to over extension, corruption and constant invasions from fierce nomadic groups. The collapse of the classical empires would usher in another far more violent stage of world history.

The Byzantine Empire maintained many of the traditions and systems that it had developed in the classical period as the eastern Roman Empire. With its capital at Constantinople, the Byzantine Empire relied on very centralized rule and a form of Christianity that would eventually develop into Eastern Orthodoxy to continue a powerful position and serve as a legitimate rival to the Islamic empire throughout much of the Post-Classical period.
 The second center of development in Europe was further west, as people were forced to recover from the nearly complete collapse of the Western Roman Empire.

 

Essential Questions

• What is the best definition for a civilization? What are common characteristics that one finds in most civilizations?
• Compare and contrast the four river valley civilizations. What do they have in common? How do they differ?
• What is the definition of 'empire'? How does this type of political organization differ from others?
• What were the fundamental belief systems underlying classical cultures in the Mediterranean, China, and India?
• Compare and contrast the major classical civilizations. Explain possible reasons why classical empires declined and collapsed. Are there any similarities among the cases?
• Analyze the changes and continuities in the political and cultural development of the Byzantine Empire.
• Analyze the changes and continuities in the development of the economy and political structures of Western Europe from 500-1450 C.E.

 

A Review of Time:

 

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