Global History, Academic Year 2021/22, International Studies
Web Description Debates
13.500- Development of agrarian societies Christian: Ted
5.000 BCE Talk
Chapter 1: Human Apprenticeship
Local Webs
Lecture:
Ch. 1+2
- control over fire (warmth, safety, food production)
McNeill: Changing
- Song, dance and art (group cohesion, group identity)
Lecture 2 Shape of World
- Speech and common meaning (development of languages, facilitating exchange,
History
communication)
- Complex tools and technology (commanding control over the environment where people lived,
protect oneselves by killing animals)
Summary:
Turchin: Theory
Reasons for Growth of Communities (general) of Imperiogenesis
1.advantages of living in a group (economic, epidemiological)
2.personal interests of leaders -> power
3. technology
Beginning: African savannas
-> versatile nutrition amongst early humans (hunting and plants, berries)
-> tools (stones and sticks) for protection and utility
-> discovery of fire for adaptability and changing environment; therefore Australia and rainforest
barely populated
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,Global History, Academic Year 2021/22, International Studies
● Communication: foundation of a social life and common strategy in weaponry (bows, arrows,
javelins)
● Language: interaction between individuals
● Song and Dance: dissolving disagreements, diminish negative effects of rivalry
● Improvement of humans -> extinction of animals (e.g. horses and camels in America)
● Weaponry: bows and arrows -> firing at targets
● Spiritual Guidance: experts communicating with higher beings; appeasing bad spirits
Human Achievements
-800 CE Inuit: whaling
-16000-13000 years ago: Magdalenian Cave (food storage, spiritual activity, cave art, tools,
instruments)
-15000 years ago: Natufian communities in Southwest Asia (building housing, domestication of dogs,
development of grain farming)
=> Communication = key for cooperation and expansion; settlement
Chapter 2: Shifting to Food Production, 11000-3000 years ago
Lecture:
Emergence of agriculture (domestication of plants and animals)
- end of last Ice Age <12 000 years ago
- Crucial element in emerging from human habituation
- Diverse agricultural crops around the world
- Humans started to control the seeds and planting
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, Global History, Academic Year 2021/22, International Studies
Opportunity: Risk:
- settlement, organization, solidarity - disease (people living closer -> bacteria,
(safeguard harvesting of food crops, task viruses from human to human)
specialization in food-growing cycle, - Warfare with non-settled groups
efforts to plant seeds and grow food (hunter-gatherer societies who are not
would benefit the whole community) invested in agriculture took opportunities
- Population growth (more food production to steal food storage, seeds, etc. ->
than needed, food storage, population tension!)
could be fed)
- Artefacts, astronomy - development
(implements to toil the soil or harvest;
seasons; measuring time)
Summary:
How did human webs develop in the particular period under consideration?
- domestication of animals, agricultural societies
- population growth
- epidemics
What were the new developments? Identify the dynamics of cooperation and competition.
- Two Societies
Sedentary/Agricultural Society: Wealth
- higher population density
- environmental adjustment (deforestation + burning land)
- surplus production -> social differentiation
- (animal related lethal diseases)
- cities with a government, military, priests
Nomadic/Pastoralist Society: Power
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