The Neolithic Revolution

8,000 BCE

The first Agricultural Revolution

Revolution Acrostic

• Read the “Historical Context” handout….• Your table group will be assigned one letter of the word REVOLUTION.

• For your letter think of a word or short phrase that summarizes the reading.

• The word or short pharse must start with the letter you were given from the word REVOLUTION.

Brainstorm at your groups.

• Assign one recorder.• Assign one time keeper.• Assign one task master.• If you had to pick one thing that distinguishes domesticated plants and animals from their

wild ancestors and relatives (that clearly divides all domesticated flora and fauna from all wild species), what would it be?

• Compare ideas.• Pick the most significant distinguishing characteristic of domestication.• Explain why it is the most significant.

Make a T-chart

• At your tables everyone creates a t-chart in a new note.• Label it Neolithic Revolution.• Divide your table in two groups.• Discuss the following, taking bulleted notes for each idea:

• Do the advantages of having domesticated animals outweigh the disadvantages?• Explain.

• Please make sure when you discuss and debate your understand if the other person is speaking from the present day or from 9,000 years ago. Its okay to discuss both.

Read

• Please read and take traditional outlined notes on the Bulliet handout.

Neolithic Revolution Notes

‘Out of Eden’

• As we watch this episode to Guns Germs and Steel, please respond to the questions.

Be the first to practice Domestication.

• Read and highlight the handout labeled “student handout 1.1”• Write a set of diary entries describing daily events relevant to you, as well as your

acts and feelings and those of people in your household. You may take the voice of any member of society.• (Of course, students could not really have made diary entries 10,000 years ago because

writing had not been invented!)

• Discussion: In what ways would your life at that time have been harder, and in what ways easier, than your life today? Consider, among other things, demands on your time, skills, mind, and feelings. • standard of living and quality of life

Food Security

• Decide what you and your group would have to do in order to gain more reliable control over your food supply. Refer to handout 1.2.

• Describe, step by step, the actions that would have to be taken, given the resources of people, technology, and ideas you have available.

• What important questions (five) do you have regarding how to gain more reliable control over your food supply that are left unanswered by the information in Student Handout 1.2?

• How would the answers to your questions help? Could your questions be answered today? If so, what now allows us to do so?

Complex Societies Emerge

• What was there in the way of life of the group described in this lesson's Student Handout 1.1 that set the stage or prepared the way for the more complex way of life (often called civilization). that is characterized by accumulation of surpluses, complex division of labor, the organization of humans into increasingly large groups, unequal power distribution, and large-scale building?

What is a complex society?

Comparing Societies

• Create a t-chart in notability. Call it “complex societies”

• Read and highlight handout 2.1-2.4

• One one side of the chart make notes about the society from 10,000 years ago and on the other side make notes about the society from 9,000 years ago.

• Highlight the changes/aspects in society that you think most important.

Important Conclusions AP World History Themes

• What important conclusions can be drawn from the information in the handouts (1.1 and 2.1 etc.)• Please consider the following:

• Political organization

• Economic organization

• Social organization

• Systems of ideas

• What is your evidence?Discussion:• Rate,, how reliable you consider each of your conclusions to be on a scale of 1-10, with 10 being the most reliable (ashes

inside their houses were found only inside a fired clay box, so they must have known how to control fire) and 1 the least reliable (since no special ways to dispose of human waste were found, they must have used it to fertilize their crops).

• What important questions would you want to ask about the way of life in this time and place for which the evidence is lacking? Why do you think these questions are important?

Optional

• List all the problems you can think of that were solved by the practice of agriculture, and how agriculture solved them. Then list all the new problems that arose as a result of the practice of agriculture. Make sure you do not overlook possible political, economic, social, moral/ethical/religious and technological problems.

• a) Discussion • i. In what ways, if any, were the kinds of new problems different from the kinds of old problems?

• ii. Did one set of problems affect more people? Did it affect them more seriously (life and death as opposed to inconvenience)? Did it affect them more of the time?

Neolithic RevolutionMap Final

• Creating on a word document