World History and

Civilization
 History vs Prehistory
• Scholars define prehistory as events that
occurred before the existence of written
records in a given culture or society.
• History refers to the time period after the
invention of written records in a given culture or
society. History is the study of the past,
especially the past of human beings.
• Archaeologists have discovered written records
in Egypt from as early as 3200 BCE, which is the
accepted date at which history "begins" there.
• Written records give historians resources to deal
with that are more detailed in some ways than
other records, such as archaeological or
biological remains.
 World History
World History is divided into three:
1. Ancient Period
2. Medieval Period
3. Modern Period

Prehistory can be divided into three periods based on their principal tool-
making technologies. They are namely:

➢Stone Age,
➢Bronze Age and
➢Iron Age.
 Stone Age (2500000-40000)
This age is divided into three:
• Paleolithic (Old stone age): [Lower (2500000-200000), Middle
(200000-40000) and Upper (40000-10000)]

• Mesolithic (Middle Stone age)

• Neolithic (New stone age)
This era is marked by:
The use of tools by our early human ancestors
(who evolved around 300,000 B.C.) and
The eventual transformation from a culture of
hunting and gathering to farming and food
production.
 Paleolithic (roughly 2.5 million
years ago to 10,000 B.C.)
During this ages the man was:
➢ Nomad: he never live in the
same place and lives in caves
or small huts;
➢ Hunter (animals for food)
and collector (from plants)
➢ used basic stone and bone
tools, as well as crude stone
axes, for hunting birds and
wild animals.
➢ Invented to use fire
➢ Clothing was made from FUR
(skin of the animals)
It is a hunter-gatherer culture.
Mesolithic (about 10,000 B.C.
to 8,000 B.C.)
This period is characterized as:
✓ used small stone tools, now
also polished and sometimes
crafted with points and
attached to antlers, bone or
wood to serve as spears and
arrows.
✓ More advanced hunter-
gathering;
✓ Fishing
✓ often lived nomadically near
rivers and other bodies of
water.
✓ Rudimentary farms of
cultivation; Agriculture was
introduced during this time,
which led to more
permanent settlements in
villages.
Neolithic (roughly 8,000 B.C. to 3,000 B.C.)
This period is characterized as:
❖ Establishment of permanent settlement and had
permanent houses made by wood or bricks;
❖ Farming; After farming was developed in the Middle
East about 6500 BC, people living in tribes or family
units did not have to be on the move continually
searching for food or herding their animals.
❖ Once people could control the production of food and
be assured of a reliable annual supply of it, their lives
changed completely.
❖ People learned how to grow food
❖ Domestication of animals;
❖ Started to use cloths made by the skin of animals
(knitting)
❖ Emergence of Civilization;
❖ The family was the basic social unit, organized into
groups of 25-70 people or fewer.
 Bronze age (about 3,000 B.C. to 1,300 B.C.)
➢This period brought advances in architecture
and art, more villages and cities began to
form.
➢Organized government, law and warfare, as
well as the beginnings of religion;
➢Introducing Writings (started the ancient
history). Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia
(means "between rivers" in Greek. within the
Tigris-Euphrates river system. Iraq, Iran,
Turkey and Syria) were the first to develop
writing scripts;
➢Widespread migration and trade to sell or buy
things with coins;
➢Production of metal bronze;
➢Economic productivity
➢Skilled workers
 Iron Age (roughly 1,300 B.C. to 900 B.C.)
• Advances in architecture, with four-room homes, some
complete with stables for animals, joining more rudimentary hill
forts, as well as royal palaces, temples and other religious
structures.
• Early city planning also took place, with blocks of homes.
• Agriculture, art and religion all became more sophisticated, and
writing systems and written documentation, including
alphabets, began to emerge, ushering in the Early Period.
• Progress religious beliefs and practices with development of
society;
• Adaptation and mass production of iron tools and weapons with
technological innovation;
• New period in the development of history that begins with the
general use of iron continues into modern times;
• Most of the civilizations reached the end of prehistory during
the Iron Age;
 World Civilization
• Civilization is the stage of human social development and organization that is
considered most advanced.
• an advanced state of human society, in which a high level of culture, science,
industry, and government has been reached.
• the process by which a society or place reaches an advanced stage of social and
cultural development and organization.
• the society, culture, and way of life of a particular area.
• the series of changes involved in becoming civilized
• improvement of thought, manners, or taste;
• Many different elements must come together before a human community
develops to the level of sophistication commonly referred to as civilization. The
first is the existence of settlements classifiable as towns or cities.
 Characteristics of Civilization
Civilization is an advanced state of human society. It has seven characteristic.
1. Stable food supply
2. System of government
3. Highly developed culture
4. Written language
5. Social structure
6. Religious system
7. Advance technology

Mesopotamia and Egypt: 3100 BC

In about 3200 BC the two earliest civilizations develop in the region where southwest Asia joins northeast
Africa. Great rivers are a crucial part of the story. The Sumerians settle in what is now southern Iraq,
between the mouths of the Euphrates and the Tigris. Egypt develops in the long narrow strip of the Nile
valley.
Rivers offer two main advantages to a developing civilization. They provide water to irrigate the fields, and
they offer the easiest method of transport for a society without paved roads. Rivers will play an equally
important role in two other early civilizations - those of the Indus and of northern China.