First major graded assignment!

Group thing

Research --> presentation for 15 minutes (not more)

With Linda and Wiggo

Topic: Civilization

-Living in cities <--> living cities-

7 Innovative civilizations  - these are cities that just appear, they built up there civilization from the start by themselves.

• Mesopotamia  - Sumerians (3,300 B.C.E)

• Egypt -

• Indus - Harrapa (a river valley in India)

• China - Xia, Shang (Huang He, gula floden)

• Mesoamerica - Mayans (roughly Mexico today)
• Andean - Incas

• Niger - Jenne Jeno

1. Outline
2. Characteristics (maybe a style of dress, stile of art, something that is unique to your civilization) AMANDA
3. Significant event (pyramids or some kind of construction, war/battle for example)

4. Significant person AMANDA

5. Primary source (a written document from the time, produced during that time)

6. City plan (how the buildings are arranged in the city, what building is in the middle of the city? Which is the most important?)

7. Theories!

MESOPOTAMIA  

End the presentation with the conquer of

Written source (extract on SharePoint) --> Epic of Gilgamesh

A religious temple, a residence, the goddess Ishtar lived there.

Sources:

Timeline: http://www.ancient.eu.com/Mesopotamia/

Mixed: http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/cultures/mesopotamia_gallery_03.shtml

Theories:

Paul Wheatley

Cosmo-magical city theory - come together at one point… due to what?

• Water

• Food

Religious significance, something unusual like a really old tree or an odd structure of a rock, or a story of that it´s connected to that place. Once people start farming these places, thing are going to occur and this is the way that cities are formed around these places. Religious building in the middle of the city. The once that live there are like the religious leaders of the city.

Lewis Mumford

Criticisms of urbanization - once you live in cities, you get war.

• Urbanization leads to "continuous warfare"
• City states inevitably fight over (?)

Karl Marx

Criticisms of urbanization  - within the city, class struggle. The people got divided by their professions.

Gerda Lerner

Criticisms of urbanization  

There is evidence for this. The Venuses. She claims that women had a power within the cities. But cities lead to conflict and hen women loose power since men are better of fighting then women.

New evidence

·         Hobbit

·         Neanderthal

·         Denisovans

In your view which theory do these support and which theory do you feel best explains where we  come from.

Theories explained

http://www.suite101.com/content/out-of-africa-vs-the-multiregional-hypothesis-a218947

Hobbit

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3948165.stm

Neanderthal

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8660940.stm

Denisovans

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12059564

Out of Africa vs. the Multiregional Hypothesis www.suite101.com

There are two major competing hypotheses about the origins of Homo sapiens - the

The hobbit

The remains of Homo Erectus has been found on the Indonesian island of Java. Home Erectus has  then evolved and adapted to the environment of the small island. The hominid got smaller because of the adaption to the nature and the life on this island. This smaller hominid come to be called Hobbit. The hobbit supports the second theory "Multiregional hypothesis" because Indonesia is not a part of Africa. So it fits in with the theory about the spread into different locations in the world.

Out of Africa - erectus extinct before Modern arrives. (12,000 B.P)

The Neanderthal

This support both of the theories  in their own way. It support the first theory because in the article states with quotes that for example: Professor Chris Stringer, research leader in human origins at London's Natural History Museum, is one of the architects of the Out of Africa theory. He told BBC News: "In some ways [the study] confirms what we already knew, in that the Neanderthals look like a separate line.

"But, of course, the really surprising thing for many of us is the implication that there has been some interbreeding between Neanderthals and modern humans in the past."

New evidence have also come up like the fact that we now know that we have a genetic contribution from the Neanderthals. It says like this in the article: "John Hawks, assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the US, told BBC News: "They're us. We're them.

"It seemed like it was likely to be possible, but I am surprised by the amount. I really was not expecting it to be as high as 4%," he said of the genetic contribution from Neanderthals.

The latest research strongly supports the "Out of Africa" theory.

This article also in one way support the second theory. It supports it by the statement by Dr Hawks. He commented that the amount of Neanderthal DNA in our genomes seemed high: "What it means is that any traits [Neanderthals] had that might have been useful in later populations should still be here.

"So when we see that their anatomies are gone, this isn't just chance. Those things that made the Neanderthals apparent to us as a population - those things didn't work. They're gone because they didn't work in the context of our population."

This I think supports the second theory due to the fact that we in that theory evolved in different ways and adapted to the environment were we ended up (Africa, China and Europe). This made us all change a bit from each other but the breeding made us not totally grow apart.

Parts of both. Out of Africa = modern Grp arrives. Multi = DNA mixes.

The Denisovans

There have been findings in a Denisova cave in southern Siberia. From a tooth and a finger bone, scientists have been able to analyse DNA. These individuals belonged to a genetically distinct group of humans that were distantly related to Neanderthals but even more distantly related to us. This finding adds weight to the theory that a different kind of human could have existed in Eurasia at the same time as our species. This supports the second theory about the multiregional.