Foundations: c. 8000 B.C.E. - 600 C.E.

What students are expected to know:

Major Developments

1. Locating world history in the environment and time.

Environment

Geography and climate: interaction of geography and climate with the development of human society

Demography: major population changes resulting from human and enviromnental factors

Time

Periodization in early human history

Nature and causes of changes associated with the time span

Continuities and breaks within the time span; e.g., the transition from river valley civilizations to Classical civilizations

Diverse interpretations

What are the issues involved in using "civilization" as an organizing principle in world history?

What is the most common source of change: connection or diffusion versus independent invention?

2. Developing agriculture and technology

Agricultural, pastoral, and foraging societies and their demographic characteristics

(Include Africa and the Americas, as well as Europe and Asia.)

Emergence of agriculture and technological change

Nature of village settlements

Impact of agriculture on the environment

Introduction of key stages of metal use

3. Basic features of early civilizations in different environments: culture, state, and social structure. In addition, students should know enough about two early civilizations to compare them.

Mesopotamia

Egypt

Indus Valley civilization or Harrapan civilization

Shang dynasty or Yellow River (Huang He) Valley civilization

Mesoamerica and Andean South America

4. Classical civilizations

Major political developments in China, India, and the Mediterranean

Social and gender structures

Major trading patterns within and among Classical civilizations; c ontacts with adjacent regions

Arts, sciences, and technology

5. Major belief systems

Basic features and locations of major world belief systems prior to 6()0 C.E.

Polytheism

Hinduism

Judaism

Confucianism

Daoism

Buddhism

Christianity

6. Late Classical period (200 C'.E. to 600 C.E.)

Collapse of empires (Han China, loss of western portion of the Roman Ermpire, Gupta)

Movements of peoples (Bantus, Huns, Germans, Polynesians)

Interregional networks by 600 C.E.: trade and the spread of religions

Major Comparisons and Snapshots

Compare major religious and philosophical systems including some underlying similarities in cementing a social hierarchy, e.g., Hinduism contrasted with Confucianism

Compare the role of women in different belief systems­Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, and Hinduism

Understand how and why the collapse of empire was more severe in western Europe than it was in the eastern Mediterranean or in China

Compare the caste system to other systems of social inequality devised by early and Classical civilizations, including slavery

Compare societies and cultures that include cities with pastoral and nomadic societies

Compare the development of traditions and institutions in major civilizations, e.g., Indian, Chinese, and Greek

Describe interregional trading systems, e.g., the Indian Ocean trade

Compare the political and social structures of two early civilizations, using any two of the following: Mesopotamia, Egypt, Indus Valley, Shang dynasty, and Mesoamerica and Andean South America