The Encyclopedia of world history: ancient, medieval, and modern, chronologically arranged

3540 Pages·2001·8.57 MB·English

by  Peter N. Stearns

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CONTENTS · SUBJECT INDEX · BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD
The Encyclopedia of World History. 2001.

Table of Contents

Page 1

I. Prehistoric Times
A. Introduction
1. History and Prehistory
2. The Study of Prehistory
a. Archaeology as Anthropology and History
b. Culture and Context
c. Time and Space
d. Finding and Digging up the Past
e. Analysis and Interpretation
f. Subdividing Prehistoric Times
g. Theoretical Approaches to Prehistory
B. Prehistory and the Great Ice Age
C. Human Origins (4 Million to 1.8 Million Years Ago)
D. Homo Erectus and the First Peopling of the World (1.8 Million to 250,000 Years Ago)
1. Homo Erectus
2. Fire
3. Out of Africa
E. Early Homo Sapiens (c. 250,000 to c. 35,000 Years Ago)
1. The Neanderthals
F. The Origins of Modern Humans (c. 150,000 to 100,000 Years Ago)
G. The Spread of Modern Humans in the Old World (100,000 to 12,000 Years Ago)
1. Europe
2. Eurasia and Siberia
3. South and Southeast Asia
H. The First Settlement of the Americas (c. 15,000 Years Ago)
I. After the Ice Age: Holocene Hunter-Gatherers (12,000 Years Ago to Modern Times)
1. African Hunter-Gatherers
2. Asian Hunter-Gatherers
3. Mesolithic Hunter-Gatherers in Europe
4. Near Eastern Hunters and Foragers
5. Paleo-Indian and Archaic North Americans
6. Central and South Americans
J. The Origins of Food Production
K. Early Food Production in the Old World (c. 10,000 B.C.E. and Later)
1. First Farmers in the Near East
2. Early European Farmers
3. Egypt and Sub-Saharan Africa
4. Asian Farmers
L. The Origins of Food Production in the Americas (c. 5000 B.C.E. and Later)
M. Later Old World Prehistory (3000 B.C.E. and Afterward)
1. State-Organized Societies
2. Webs of Relations
3. Later African Prehistory
a. Egypt and Nubia
b. West African States
c. East and Southern Africa
4. Europe after 3500 B.C.E.
5. Eurasian Nomads
6. Asia
a. South Asia
b. China
c. Japan
d. Southeast Asia
7. Offshore Settlement in the Pacific
N. Chiefdoms and States in the Americas (c. 1500 B.C.E.–1532 C.E.)
1. North American Chiefdoms
2. Mesoamerican Civilizations
a. Olmec
b. Teotihuacán
3. Andean Civilizations
a. Beginnings
b. Chavin
c. Moche
d. Tiwanaku
e. Chimu
O. The End of Prehistory (1500 C.E. to Modern Times)

The Encyclopedia of World History, Sixth edition. Peter N. Stearns, general editor. Copyright © 2001 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Maps by Mary Reilly, copyright © 2001 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
CONTENTS · SUBJECT INDEX · BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD
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I. Prehistoric Times
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CONTENTS · SUBJECT INDEX · BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD
The Encyclopedia of World History. 2001.

I. Prehistoric Times
A. Introduction
1. History and Prehistory

Human beings have flourished on Earth for at least 2.5 million years. The study of history 1
in its broadest sense is a record of humanity and its accomplishments from its earliest
origins to modern times. This record of human achievement has reached us in many
forms, as written documents, as oral traditions passed down from generation to
generation, and in the archaeological record—sites, artifacts, food remains, and other
surviving evidence of ancient human behavior. The earliest written records go back about
5,000 years in the Near East, in Mesopotamia, and the Nile Valley. Elsewhere, written
history begins much later: in Greece, about 3,500 years ago; in China, about 2,000 years
ago; and in many other parts of the world, after the 15th century C.E. with the arrival of
Western explorers and missionaries. Oral histories have an even shorter compass,
extending back only a few generations or centuries at the most.
History, which remains primarily though not exclusively the study of written documents, 2
covers only a tiny fraction of the human past. Prehistory, the span of human existence
before the advent of written records, encompasses the remainder of the past 2.5 million
years. Prehistorians, students of the prehistoric past, rely mainly on archaeological
evidence to study the origins of humanity, the peopling of the world by humans, and the
beginnings of agriculture and urban civilization.
Archaeology is the study of the human past based on the material remains of human 3
behavior. These remains come down to us in many forms. They survive as archaeological
sites, ranging from the mighty pyramids of Giza built by ancient Egyptian pharaohs to
insignificant scatters of stone tools and animal bones abandoned by very early humans in
East Africa. Then there are caves and rock shelters adorned with ancient paintings and
engravings, and human burials that can provide vital information, not only on biological
makeup but also on ancient diet and disease and social rankings.
Modern scientific archaeology has three primary objectives: to study the basic culture 4
history of prehistoric times, to reconstruct ancient lifeways, and to study the processes by
which human cultures and societies changed over long periods of time. Archaeology is
unique among all scientific disciplines in its ability to chronicle human biological and
cultural change over long periods of time. The development of this sophisticated
approach to the human past ranks as one of the major scientific achievements of this
century.
Archaeology, by its very nature, is concerned more with the material and the 5
environmental. It is basically an anonymous science, dealing with generalities about
human cultures derived from artifacts, buildings, and food remains rather than with the
individuals who appear in many of the historians' archives. But by using complex
theoretical models and carefully controlled analogies from living societies, it is
sometimes possible for the archaeologist to gain insights into prehistoric spiritual and
religious life, and into the great complexities of ancient human societies living in worlds
remote from our own.

The Encyclopedia of World History, Sixth edition. Peter N. Stearns, general editor. Copyright © 2001 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Maps by Mary Reilly, copyright © 2001 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
CONTENTS · SUBJECT INDEX · BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD
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I. Prehistoric Times > A. Introduction > 2. The Study of Prehistory
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The Encyclopedia of World History. 2001.

2. The Study of Prehistory
a. Archaeology as Anthropology and History

In contrast to classicists and historians, prehistoric archaeologists deal with an enormous 1
time scale of human biological and cultural evolution that extends back at least 2.5
million years. Prehistoric archaeology is the primary source of information on 99 percent
of human history. Prehistoric archaeologists investigate how early human societies all
over the world came into being, how they differed from one another, and, in particular,
how they changed through time.
No one could possibly become an expert in all periods of human prehistory. Some 2
specialists deal with the earliest human beings, working closely with geologists and
anthropologists concerned with human biological evolution. Others are experts on stone
toolmaking, the early peopling of the New and Old Worlds, or on many other topics, such
as the origins of agriculture in the Near East. All of this specialist expertise means that
archaeologists, whatever time period they are working on, draw on scientists from many
other disciplines—botanists, geologists, physicists, zoologists.
Prehistoric archaeologists consider themselves a special type of anthropologist. 3
Anthropologists study humanity in the widest possible sense, and archaeological
anthropologists study human societies of the past that are no longer in existence. Their
ultimate research objectives are the same as those of anthropologists studying living
societies. Instead of using informants, however, they use the material remains of long-
vanished societies to reach the same general goals. Prehistorians also share many
objectives with historians, but work with artifacts and food remains rather than
documents. In some parts of the world, such as tropical Africa, for example, prehistoric
archaeology is the primary way of writing history, since oral traditions extend back only a
few centuries, and in many places written records appear no earlier than the 19th century
C.E.
The Encyclopedia of World History, Sixth edition. Peter N. Stearns, general editor. Copyright © 2001 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Maps by Mary Reilly, copyright © 2001 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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I. Prehistoric Times > A. Introduction > 2. The Study of Prehistory > b. Culture and Context
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The Encyclopedia of World History. 2001.

b. Culture and Context

Anthropology, and archaeology as part of it, is unified by one common thread, the 1
concept of culture. Everyone lives within a cultural context—middle-class Americans,
Romans, and Kwakiutl Indians of northwestern North America. Each culture has its own
recognizable cultural style, which shapes the behavior of its members, their political and
judicial institutions, and their morals.
Human culture is unique because much of its content is transmitted from generation to 2
generation by sophisticated communication systems. Formal education, religious beliefs,
and daily social intercourse all transmit culture and allow societies to develop complex
and continuing adaptations to aid their survival. Culture is a potential guide to human
behavior created through generations of human experience. Human beings are the only
animals that use culture as their primary means of adapting to the environment. While
biological evolution has protected animals like the arctic fox from bitterly cold winters,
only human beings make thick clothes in cold latitudes and construct light thatched
shelters in the Tropics.
Culture is an adaptive system, an interface between ourselves, the environment, and other 3
human societies. Throughout the long millennia of prehistory, human culture became
more elaborate, for it is our only means of adaptation and we are always adjusting to
environmental, technological, and societal change.
The great Victorian anthropologist Sir Edward Tylor described culture as “that complex 4
whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other
capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.” Prehistoric
archaeologists prefer to define culture as the primary nonbiological means by which
people adapt to their environment. They consider it as representing the cumulative
intellectual resources of human societies, passed down by the spoken word and by
example.
Human cultures are made up of many different parts, such as language, technology, 5
religious beliefs, ways of obtaining food, and so on. These elements interact with one
another to form complex and ever-changing cultural systems, systems that adjust to long-
and short-term environmental change.
Archaeologists work with the tangible remains of ancient cultural systems, typically such 6
durable artifacts as stone tools or clay pot fragments. Such finds are a patterned reflection
of the culture that created them. Archaeologists spend much time studying the linkages
between past cultures and their archaeological remains. They do so within precise
contexts of time and space.

The Encyclopedia of World History, Sixth edition. Peter N. Stearns, general editor. Copyright © 2001 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Maps by Mary Reilly, copyright © 2001 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
CONTENTS · SUBJECT INDEX · BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD
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