• About 10,000 years ago mankind began making a major mark in history by beginning to shape their environment in accordance to their needs by domesticating plants and animals, terracing hills, and draining swamps. This was the beginning of the agricultural revolution.

• The selective adaptation of corn took thousands of years before reaching Mesoamerica, showing the great deal of variation that can easily occur agriculturally. Many different areas were able to become domesticated and agriculturally stable quicker than others.

Advances in transportation facilitated trade and war advances such as chariot-driven peoples, the Hittites from Anatolia (pictured right) specifically, were adopted early on in Egypt and Mesopotamia due to their great advantages. Both this and metallurgy allowed for military innovation.

• Emergence of empires, beginning in 500BCE with the Persian and Greek empires, brought along advances in the way people practiced systematic knowledge in order for leaders to to have better organized power over their people—this included advances in astronomy, for calendar production and ritual practices, mathematics, for land surveillance, in writing and measuring systems, and in animism, the understanding of the spirituality in the world.

• Greek thinkers sought understanding of that of which was rational and nonreligious, and remained committed to expanding their knowledge of these things. Examples of these thinkers include the astronomer Thales, the scientist Democritus, and the mathematician Pythagoras. Aristotle was one of the most significant of these thinkers, with extensive writings on physics, astronomy, logic, the weather, etc.

• Paleolithic societies seem to attempt a connection with the spiritual through cave findings in deep dark areas depicting an attempted ceremonial connection with the a world beyond their own. (pictured right)

• Oftentimes part-times shamans entranced people in these ceremonies commonly with the aid of psychoactive drugs

•Apparently monotheistic with a creator deity and various spirits of the dead, while some approached

it more naturally within themselves.•Had a supposed strong female disposition, with a

Great Goddess, who was the center of regeneration and renewal of life. (pictured left)

• In Mesopotamia each small settlement had it’s own god represented by it’s own temple, or ziggurat, (pictured left) which dominated the whole town due to the people needing to work endlessly to service the powerful god. They often blamed the gods for their challenging lives which were often a result of an unpredictable, violent environment.

• Mesopotamians influenced the Hebrews by their “eye for an eye” policy which eventually led the Hebrews to their single deity, Yahweh, whom would influence Christianity and Islam.

•Egypt had a more rewarding environment, providing for them a more cheerful outlook on the world and on the afterlife. Osiris,

the god of the dead (pictured right) was an important figure and helped motivate to Egyptians remain accountable for their

actions in life in order to be blessed in death.•Beyond the pharaoh and his entourage, the possibility of a

blessed afterlife was more accessible in the New Kingdom, where people focused more on morality than status.

Roman rule when first under the order of an single king formed the Senate and encouraged upright moral behavior and keeping ones word in order to maintain

stability and rights for citizens. Caesar Augustus (pictured right) planned to retain this order during what he claimed to be the paxRomana, the Roman

peace. Soon after, in the fourth century C.E. the empire chose Christianity which spread rapidly.

In China Emperors were called the Son of Heaven and were said to govern the Mandate of Heaven. Yet, moral government was written for the empire by Confucius and his followers, becoming the official ideology of the empire.

Under the Sui dynasty Buddhism was accepted into the religious Chinese mix.

• The formation of human communities when agriculture was first discovered—people got along and interacted with neighboring communities with little social inequality

• Some agricultural societies gave rise to chiefdoms where an appointed chief would handle rituals, organized warfare, internal conflicts, etc. The largest known of these societies was known as Cahokia (pictured below), around 1100 C.E.

First civilization gave rise to a new level of social inequalities in wealth, status, and above all, power. Upper classes along with slavery were becoming norms and people were punished

based upon social status in civilizations such as Mesopotamia. Men were the ones taking on the powerful positions in society. More power was seeming necessary and states arose due to

needs for more organized regulation over the complex, densely populated cities, with irrigation and both external and internal conflicts. States became so powerful that inequalities were able

to be justified by religion or simply by force.

• The formation of the state into hierarchical empires 6,000 years ago was a large expansion in power. Empires can be described as simply states, political systems that exercise coercive power, but on a larger scale with more aggression, war, influence, and exchange with other states and people.

• Examples include the extremely powerful Persian Empire with their elaborate imperial centers, particularly Susa and Persepolis (pictured below). The Greeks were also very powerful, defeating the Persians in the Peloponnesian War with more than thirty city-states along with an incredible naval force.

The Roman empire flourished and gained immense authority under Caesar Augustus during the paxRomana, or the Roman peace and were known for their elaborate body of law. The Chinese Empire was stabilized under the Han Dynasty, who

consolidated the imperial state and was able to establish long-lasting political patterns and were known for their well-trained

officials to maintain their emerging bureaucracy. (pictured above)