Encyclopedia of Society and Culture in the Ancient World

Introduction xxvii

such as the hieroglyphs of Egypt and Mesoamerica, represent
people, places, and objects and the relationships among them.
Some writing systems are not understood, such as the script
used in the ancient civilization of the Indus Valley.
While documents may seem to provide very clear de-
scriptions of ancient life, they need to be regarded with some
caution. Th e ability to write was usually limited to a tiny frac-
tion of the population in any ancient society, so the writing
tells their story from their viewpoint, which naturally can be
expected to be biased. Th e majority of the population had no
representation among the literate, and thus they are known
to us only through their sites and artifacts. Documents also
may describe only a limited range of activities, such as royal
histories or mercantile transactions, and usually they do not
include discussions of everyday life.

climate and geography

Finally, scholars study information about the ancient envi-
ronment, which would include pollen and seeds that refl ect
ancient vegetation and climate; animal bones to see what
animals people hunted and herded; geological cores to study
events such as volcanic eruptions; and lines scraped into rocks
that show the advances and retreats of glaciers, which show
when the climate warmed and cooled. Small creatures such
as snails are very sensitive to changes in climate, and thus re-
searchers study how the numbers of diff erent species changed
over time to track changes in the environment around a site.
Understanding the environment and climate in which
ancient people lived enables researchers to comprehend why
settlements are located in particular places, how agriculture
and stock herding developed, what major events in the earth’s
history had an eff ect on human activity, and many other im-
portant aspects of ancient life. Although people could re-
spond to changes in the environment and climate in many
diff erent ways, knowing the earth’s history during the past
two million years is important for grasping the variation in
ancient ways of life.

AN OUTLINE OF WORLD

PREHISTORY AND

ANCIENT HISTORY

Although the scholars who study the ancient world focus on
many diff erent questions to guide their research, these ques-
tions can be grouped into several big areas. Th e following
sections represent an attempt to delineate the matters that
concern many researchers and at the same time to give a very
broad summary of the story of the ancient world. Th e entries
in this encyclopedia illuminate many aspects of these topics.

EARLY HUMANS AND ICE AGE SOCIETY

Aft er archaic humans developed from their hominin ances-
tors two or more million years ago in Africa, they spread to
Asia and Europe. On all three continents they lived in mobile
foraging bands. Palaeoanthropologists debate whether they

actually hunted or rather scavenged the carcasses of dead

animals, using stone hand axes and fl akes. In Eurasia the ice

age climate had a profound impact on their distribution and

settlement. Th ey developed the ability to make fi re, prob-

ably between one million and 500,000 years ago, as shown

by hearths at sites like Gesher Benot Ya’acov in Israel that are

about 780,000 years old. Early humans also learned to or-

ganize sounds into language. Between 200,000 and 100,000

years ago, anatomically modern humans emerged in Africa

and spread to Europe and Asia.

HUMAN DISPERSALS

Modern humans at the end of the last ice age made more

elaborate stone tools and also had a capacity for symbolic

expression, most vividly presented in the cave paintings in

France and Spain between 30,000 and 15,000 years ago. Th ey

also colonized Australia, probably around 60,000 years ago,

and the Americas, at least by about 15,000 years ago. Th us by

about 10,000 years ago every continent except Antarctica was

settled. Th e mammoths and other large animals that were

found in ice age environments disappeared, replaced by the

wild animals that we know today.

ADAPTATION TO MODERN CLIMATE

The end of the last ice age and the appearance of “mod-

ern” environmental conditions across the Northern Hemi-

sphere and Southern Hemisphere led to many changes to

human society. Rising sea levels cut off the Americas from

Asia, so there was no further known contact between the

Old World and the New World until the time of the Vi-

kings and Christopher Columbus. The replacement of mi-

gratory herd animals such as reindeer by territorial forest

animals like deer at temperate latitudes meant that people

began to settle down and stay longer in one spot. They be-

gan to build substantial houses and to cross water bodies

in dugout canoes.

SPREAD AND ADOPTION OF AGRICULTURE

One of the major consequences of settling down was the

use of certain very productive wild plants such as wheat,

barley, rice, and maize. Repeated human harvesting had

the effect of domesticating these plants, enabling people to

cultivate them to produce large quantities of edible food.

Domestication took place at different times in different

places: around 11,000 years ago in the Near East, about

9,000 years ago in China, and between 10,000 and 6,000

years ago in Central America, for example. In parts of the

Near East and Asia people changed their relationships

with animals, particularly cattle, sheep, goat, and pigs,

from one of hunting to one of herding. Animals became

livestock, which provided a continuous source of meat and

also eventually milk, wool, and power for pulling carts and

plows. From its core areas agriculture eventually spread to

become the primary way that people in most parts of the

world obtain their food.