1/30/15

Today in class we watched a movie called Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond. Jared Diamond is a scientists who grew up loving birds. The movie took place in Papua New Guinea, a country whose citizens still living like hunters/ gathers. They still will like this because they are secluded. The people are not starving, not unhappy, and are satisfied with what they have. 

There were two important questions in the part tat we watched that Mr.Schick told us to write down.

• What separates the haves from the have nots? 
• Why do white men have so much cargo and we New Guineans have so little? 

The New Guineans can not believe how much cargo that Americans have compared to them. They can't believe that there are canned meat and goods, and boxed cereal. When whites people visited before they took advantage of the New Guineans and made them think that whites are genetically better. Diamond believes that New Guineans are very intelligent in they way that they live. The can go out into a forest and build a shelter in 15-20 min. Something we couldn't do.

 

There are three reasons why some civilizations have progressed? 

• Advanced technology 
• Large populations 
• Well-organized work force 

1/29/15

Today in West Civ we took our first test of the semester. I thought that the test was pretty easy and I think that I did a good job on it. Mr.Schick let us use our blogs which I think helped me out because I had a lot of the answers to the test on my blog. I feel like most peoples blogs helped them with the test. Everyone was glad when Mr.Schick told us that it was going to be an open blog test. I think that this will help boost our classes total test percentage.

1/28/15

Today in West Civ class we reviewed for our test that is tomorrow. We went over the power point that we talked about earlier this week. We talked about what we needed to know for the test. Here is what we talked about:

-200,000 years ago a human species emerged in southwestern Africa
-Prehistory is the time when things were not written down
- Earliest prehistoric age is the Paleolithic Age
-Neolithic Age was marked by the advanced tool making and beginnings of agriculture.
-The Agriculture Revolution was a shift from itinerant hunting/gathering to more permanent settlements centered on agriculture.
-Populations rose due to increased ability to care for young children
-Invention of the wheel and plow made it possible to produce enough food for storage.
-Mesopotamia was where Iraq, Iran and Syria are now.
-Sumer was the first civilization (located between the Tigris and Euphrates River)
-Sumerians invented the earliest form of writing, known as "cuneiform"
-World's first (surviving) epic was Sumerian "Epic of Gigamesh" told of the great flood.
-King Hammurabi of Babylon created a series of laws known as "Hammurabi's Code"
-Indo-Europeans were people who expanded away from the fertile crescent and introduced the horse to the near east.

1/27/15

Today in West Civ, Veronica brought in cookies for the class. I thought that they were pretty good. In class today we talked about Hammurabi's Code. I saw that in a lot of the codes that if you did a thing that was really bad you were killed. I also noticed that men were more respected than women. If a someone did the same thing wrong to a man and a women they would get punished more severely than when they did it to the women. Also, Mr.Schick moved our test from wednesday to thursday.

1/23/15

Today in West Civ we continued to talk about Mesopotamia. We talked about how the Sumerians organized a calendar and divided an hour into 60 minutes, and a minute into 60 seconds. We also talked about King Hammurabi of Babylon and the series of laws he created known as "Hammurabi's Code." Here are the other things that we talked about during class. 

More on Mesopotamia

• A pantheon of Sumerian gods and goddesses emerged, with many of the deities representing the natural element of the world.
• The world's first (surviving) epic was the Sumerian "Epic of Gilgamesh," which told of a great flood.
• Sumerians first divided the hour into sixty minutes and the minute into sixty seconds; they also organized a calendar based on moon cycles.
• The Ziggurat was a Sumerian temple built on top of a "mountain" of earth.

Civilization in Mesopotamia

• Wandering nomads drove herds of domesticated animals in many areas, especially to the south of Sumer in Arabia
• King Hammurabi of Babylon created a series of laws known as "Hammurabi's Code" - laws that included "an eye for an eye" and regulations of marriage, divorce, and punishments for all sorts of crimes

The Expansion of Mesopotamian Civilization

• Indo-Europeans were people from the grasslands of the Russian steppe who introduced the horse to the Near East.

1/22/15

When and where did human beings first emerge?
Humans began to emerge 200,000 years ago in southwestern Africa.

Why did the period known as "prehistory" end?

The period known as prehistory ended when people started to write things down.

What made the rise of civilization possible?

Living in a permanent shelter/area and agriculture made the rise of civilization. It allowed the women to nurture young children.

Name some early technological innovations.

Some early technological innovations were the plow, the spear, and the wheel.

How did hunter/gatherers live?

Hunter/gathers were nomadic, meaning they moved from place to place. They followed the animals, their main food source, living in caves or under some branches no keep them out of the heat or rain.

prehistory  
the time before tings were written down

Paleolithic Age
the earliest prehistoric age (Old Stone Age)

Neolithic Age

marked by the making of tools and the start of agriculture (New Stone Age)

Agricultural Revolutionthe shift from hunting/gathering to more permanent settlements centered on agriculture (beginning in southwestern Asia)also known as the neolithic revolution

cuneiform
the earliest form of writing

First Day of Western Civilization

Today was our first day of the second semester and our first west civ class. We have a couple of kids that joined our class and some that left but most of them are the same as our human geo class. Today we took the class to set up blogs for everyone. This took up most of the class because the internet wasn't working that well like usual. Today in class I also took my last human geo test because i wasn't in class on Friday to take. I thought that it was pretty easy. I can't wait to see how our west civ class is going to turn out.