HISTORY_8                                                                                                                                      

Holocene Epoch (it is the current Epoch)

  • Mesolithic: 10,000 B.C. started in the Palestine region
    Throughout more than ninety percent of its history, Homo sapiens lived in small bands as nomadic hunters-gatherers. Proper history began somewhere between 8500 and 7000 B.C. when humans in the Fertile Crescent in Mesopotamia began the systematic husbandry of plants and animals: agriculture (produce more than what was needed and keep food under lock and key). This spread to neighboring regions, and also developed independently elsewhere, until most Homo sapiens lived sedentary lives in permanent settlements as farmers.
  • Neolithic: 8,000 B.C. food raising in the Near East. Jericho: a fortified town with 2,000 inhabitants

  • Chalcolithic period: 4,500 BC (addomestication of animals). Cities: Ur (24,000 inhabitants), Ugarit, Eridu, Sidon.
    Earth was ready to see the first civilizations, implying:
    1. firmly organized states which had definite boundaries and systematic political institutions, under political and religious leaders (assembly of the citizens, a priest, a king)
    2. distinction of social classes
    3. economic specialization (agriculture was the job of 80-90% of the population)
    4. conscious development of the arts and intellectual attitudes (Babel Tower, roads, massive irrigation channels)

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