Professional Documents
Culture Documents
3000-1450 BC
Civilization spreads to rain watered
lands
• Ideas spread by trade and war.
• Plow enabled farming away from rivers.
• High culture spread across Europe
megalith religion- built Stonehenge in
England.
• Minoan Civilization (3000- 1400 BC) on
Crete and other Mediterranean Islands.
Spread of Civilization
Farming Nomads
Farming
Goats/horses
Mesopotamia
Iran
Nomads
Egypt Goats/ sheep
Persian Gulf
Nubia
Spread of Ideas
• By 2000 BC Mesopotamia was ringed by new
civilizations or developing civilizations like the
Hatti in Asia Minor and Canaanites in what is
today Syria, Lebanon and Israel.
• To develop civilization people needed to
produce a surplus of food and a way to transfer
the food surplus from the farmers to specialists.
• Not having to spend most of their time working in
the fields, specialists could develop skills
needed to produce writing, art, architecture,
religion and government.
Northern Europe
• First settlers were hunter-gatherers migrating out
of Africa.
• Knowledge of farming spread from Fertile
Crescent to Europe.
• Complex civilizations slower to develop in
Europe than in Fertile Crescent because plentiful
rainfall made large-scale irrigation projects
unnecessary.
• European farming communities remained small
for a long time before complex urban civilizations
developed.
• Megalith stones set up during Neolithic period in
Europe beginning about 4500 BC.
Carnac stones, Brittany France (Standing Stones)
Dolman, Ireland
“Megaliths”
Abraham and his family left Sumerian city of Ur about 1900 BC.
The Family of Abraham
• Abraham’s wife was Sarah
• Sons Isaac and Ishmael
• Jacob was son of Isaac (Also known as
Israel)
• Jacob had 12 sons.
• Joseph sold as slave by his brothers.
• Family settles in Egypt (c1850 BC)
Out on the Steppes
• Horse herders of steppe learned to use wheel and
developed light chariot.
• Combined chariot with composite bow and bronze
weapons and became deadly fighters.
• Rivalry between farmers and herdsmen: nomads
superior fighters but many more farmers.
• Chariot barbarians swarmed out of steppes (1700- 1400
BC) and over ran the civilized lands.
• Conquered civilizations in Mesopotamia (Kassites) ,
Egypt (Hyksos), Indus Valley (Aryans) and Yellow River
(Shang)
• Many invaders spoke Indo European Languages the
same as we do.
The Eurasian Steppe
EUROPE Siberia
Northern Forests
THE STEPPE
Asia
Minor
ASIA
Egypt THE STEPPE THE STEPPE
Mesopotamia
IRAN Himalaya
ARABIA Mountains
China
Indus
Valley
Celts
Scythians
Latins
Hittites
Myceneans
Aryans
Persians
1700-1400 BC
Anatolia
• Northern Asia Minor (now Turkey)
• Imported ideas from Mesopotamia; like
Cuneiform writing.
• Civilization began during the 19th and 20th
centuries BC.
• Several different ethnic (language) groups
together known as the Hatti.
• Indo-Europeans arrived and took over about
1700 BC. Became one people known as the
Hittites.
• Hittite leaders then organized projects to mine
metals and cut timber to trade with other
Civilizations.
Hittite
Empire >
Empire of
Hammurabi >
Egypt
Wall painting
Vase
c.1500 B.C.
Snake
. Goddess,
Crete
c.1600 B.C
Harvester Vase
c. 1500 B.C.
Minoan
double axe
“labrys”
Labyrinth means Hall of the Double Axe. Palace was huge with many
winding halls and passageways where people could get lost.. Labyrinth
legend. – minotaur in maze beneath Knossos palace killed by hero Theseus.
Fresco wall painting of bull leapers Knossos c. 1500 B.C.