West Civ Notes

Today in West Civ. we started taking notes for the first time in this class. We are learning about the western world which consists of Europe and the Americas. Here are the notes we took.

-        Prehistory: before things started getting written down

-        200,000 years ago, human species first emerged

-        Paleolithic Age (Old Stone Age) hunter gathers

-        Neolithic Age (New Stone Age) *advanced tool making*

-        Agricultural Revolution: they went from nomads to permanent settlers

-        Hierarchies based on what job you had

-        Invention of the wheel and plow caused more efficient farming

-        Monotheists: one god

-        Polytheists: more than one god (sun god, rain god, wind god, etc.)

-        Fertile crescent-Mesopotamia- modern day Iran

a.      Sumer

1.     Located between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers

2.     Invented cuneiform (first writings)