Prologue:
A lot of history has transpired
and has been recorded since the last time I took a history class, so reading
the first two chapters felt like new information. Not to say, that I didn’t
remember bits and pieces, but like the lag of time we saw from the Paleolithic
Era to the Neolithic Era, there just hasn’t been a lot of change/educating over
the past 15 years when it comes to history for me. I really enjoyed the way our
book and our class last week, reviewed the cosmic calendar. Basing the cosmic
calendar on a year really helps you grasp the timeline in which the earth
formed and the evolution of everything. It is amazing to think we were not
formed until December 31st , in the last hour. The perspective is
powerful and one that I had no observed before. We are seconds old, I wonder
what comes next. I love how Strayer
refers to “the emergence of life from the chemical soup of the early planet.” (Ivii)
I also have really appreciated the environmental concerns in the book and as
Strayer says beautifully, “We have recently gained access to the stored solar
energy of coal, gas and oil, all of which have been many million years in the
making, and have the capacity to deplete these resources in a few thousand
years.” (Ivii) Wow, extremely powerful when you look at it that way.
Chapter 1 – 2
It was interesting to
review these two chapters, starting with the 23 species of human and seeing the
overlap of the homo species was particularly interesting to me. I guess this
was a fact, which somewhere I must have been made aware, but never put a lot of
thought into it. Species very similar to us learned how to use fire and make
stone tools, we learned from these species and like many species we pushed them
into extinction. We too, emerged in Africa, where we resided from approximately
150,000 years before beginning to migrate 100,000 YA, known as the Paleolithic
Era or “the old Stone age”. Made up of a
period of 250,000 years this period makes up 95% of our species time on this
planet and only 12% of the people lived during this time.
Next we moved into the Neolithic
Era “New Stone Age”, known also as the Agricultural Revolution, where we saw
the first settling down and sewing roots. This period was much shorter, only about
17,000 YA, but the human population doubled. We see corn being cultivated and
huge advancement for human beings made. Even though we are seeing amazing feats
like corn going from 1inh to 6 inch when farmed we could not have made these advancements
without the work of our gathering and hunting ancestors that went before us. It
was their gathering of wild grains and rice and their constructing of micro-blades
that lead us into the agriculture revolution. Although, horticulture varied region to region
it was a very simple technology of digging stick or hoe. We saw settlement size
increase, shrines being built and the foundation of civilization being laid. I
appreciated the statement made by Strayer, “Regarded as a gift from the gods,
beer, like bread, was understood in Mesopotamia as something that could turn a
savage into a fully human and civilized person.” (39) Being the psych major
that I am, this really made me think. We know that stories have been used to
explain natural disaster, when the science wasn’t there to explain what
happening, but how did we explain mental illness. Because with some mental
illness, alcohol will turn a savage into a civilized person. Maybe the mental
ill or eccentric if you like, were the shaman and medicine men of ancient time.
In Chapter two we move
into discussion about civilization, which only started happening about 3,500 YA
beginning of Mesopotamian, Egyptian, and Norte Chico civilizations. And, if I
am interpreting the text correctly, in Egypt women used to have more right and
hold more of a place in society, then they do today. Amazing and sad at the
same time. Strayer writes “Chinese
civilization, more than any other, has experienced and impressive cultural
continuity from its earliest expression into modern time.” (67) Somehow this
make complete sense to me, and you still see the history and the culture being
respected and honored today in China.
Mesopotamian society has
placed a huge role; we saw the pastoral societies define a religion. The life
of Muhammad shows us through the stories and history the society and the role
of chiefdom in Mesopotamia. Of course,
we had the Epic of Gilgamesh, to help
explain what was happening in the world and it was being explained with the
ideas of gods and was quite cynical about the happening of the time.
I also really appreciate,
how Strayer has conflict with using the term “civilization” to define and era a
change in the way we lived 3,500 YA, because common practice states and is referring
to a somewhat superior being and society. As we know, we may have learned new
skills through cultural advancements, but we are the same people defined by the
term civilization or not.
