Video Transcript: Lesson One

 

Unit 01 01 Introduction and Early Mesopotamia

 Hello, welcome to the Christian leaders Institute World History 101 course. It's called the beginnings of civilization to 1500 ad that is 1500 years after the coming of Jesus Christ. That is a huge amount of time. And one of the things we'll talk about is when this history really begins, but here we are at the beginning. Welcome. My name is Rich Hamstra. It's my privilege to be the instructor for this class. And I look forward to exploring this course with you. Since this is Christian leaders Institute, I thought it was just right, if we began with a prayer, so will you please join me? Father in heaven, we give thanks to you for this day for this opportunity to study for the learning that we will encounter. And we give thanks that you out of all the peoples around the world, know and care for each one of us. We pray that you will bless us in this effort in the name of Jesus Christ, amen. So here we are in the world history course. For this beginning period, we're going to talk about introductory matters. And subjects we're going to cover include ones like, Why in the world should we study history? We're going to talk about our assumptions. We're going to wonder what does one study when one studies history? important topic is about what kind of sources are used for the study of history? We'll ask when does history began? And then we'll see some characteristics of early civilizations. These are all introductory matters, and there are more that we'll come to. But here's where we begin. So I think it's makes a lot of sense to say why study history is a part of your CI education. There are lots of ways we could answer that question. But here are a few things for you to know. One of the most important things that one learns when when studies history is to become aware of context. Context means that each person, each society, each culture comes in a unique time, a unique place, a unique circumstances. And for us to try and understand them. Apart from that context is inappropriate, we will inevitably not understand them. That's an important intellectual idea to grasp as well, that all knowledge comes in context, in a particular setting. So studying history helps us to really see that. The second thing is that it's important to increase our awareness of perspective. Each of us comes with our own perspective, each one of us comes with our own cultural background, our own language, our own family structure, our own experiences. And all of those feed into how we read how we see how we understand things. That's our perspective. Often we try to be objective, that means we don't have a certain perspective that we try to force on the evidence or on the data in front of us. The truth is, there is no such thing as true objectivity, we all bring our perspective, the way to try to be as objective as possible, is to be aware of what perspective it is we bring. Thirdly, I think the study of history helps us understand the human condition. There are lots of different ways to study history. You can study natural history, and study animal histories and study plant history. You can study rocks, you can study all sorts of things. This course is really about studying human development and human history. And I've reminded often of the Charles Dickens line, it was the best of times, and it was the worst of times, the study of history will show us both. And most of it is time that's very much in between. And finally, let me just point out that I as I look at history, and different civilizations, different cultures, different people, I am just impressed. I marvel at the variety of human solutions. We are all human beings are all confronted with basic issues, food, shelter, political organization, family structure, and there is no such thing as just one solution. People over the time have found not infinite, that incredible varieties, that teaches us about the human ability to adapt.

 

It teaches us about to human ability to invent. Some people talk about us humans, as being the creatures who make tools in order to make tools. I think that is one way to think about our adaptability and inventiveness. There are multiple ways to organize life, we're only going to touch on a few of them in this course. This slide is actually that lady in blue is my wife, she and I had the privilege of spending some time in so many museums in Europe, I think this is at the British Museum in London. And I put it in as to emphasize the notion of perspective, you can see just this picture, but without seeing it in the context of a person standing there, you would have no idea how huge it is and how monumental it is. It was intended to be that so that it would impress people, I believe this is from Persia, is the entrance way to the Kings Highway. And if you would see this great preacher, who was a representation of the king with the big beard, the body of a bull, and the Wings of Eagles, you will have a clearer understanding of who this king thinks he really is. perspective. It's very important to understand that when we study history, we come to certain assumptions. In the Western world, we understand that time moves in a linear way. That is, history goes from one event to the next to the next to the next year to year to year to year. Sometimes there's progress. Sometimes there's regrets. Sometimes we do well, and sometimes it's horrible. But time moves forward. Hare cleitus, who was a Greek philosopher back in the sixth century before Christ, He said, No man ever steps in the same river twice. For it's not the same river. And he's not the same man. No, he wasn't talking about history in that quote, but I think it really fits. It fits. Because we look at a river, it looks the same often. But you step in one place that water flows on, and you flow on in your life as well. That's our western way of looking at time and of history. Eastern people have often a very different way, we're going to talk about China and India. In those cultures, it's much more of a cycle, a great wheel, where they talk about reincarnation as a critical idea in their theology, where they talk about history repeating itself and going through its various stages. Hopefully, one can advance. But time goes round and round and round. I have to admit, here are some things that make up my assumptions. I'm a Westerner, I'm from the United States. That means I have a very much at linear idea of history. I live in the 21st century. I come from America, I was born here and raised in the Midwest. And that gives me a certain perspective of things I, I can only see it through that perspective. I'm a white person, not a member of the minority. And that certainly makes a big difference on how I understand and read the evidence before me. I'm no longer child. Little over 60 I'm male. Females, often women often read history in very different ways. important piece of that is that I'm a Christian. And so I when I look at history, I see not just the human condition, but I also hope that I can see God's hand at work. That's pretty hard to do often, but encourage you to consider that. And I've been a pastor for more than 30 years. I've served three different churches in Michigan and one two in Michigan and one in Ohio. And during that time, I've had the privilege of living with people in their great moments, baptisms and weddings and great occasions the birth of a child celebrations, and have walked with people through their darkest hours of illness and funerals often. Trouble I understand that life is not simple. I understand that life is not easily read

 

Often it takes that longer view, to see how God is working things out. Often it takes a longer view to see how history works. And often it takes that longer view to understand the patterns that do reoccur. That's all part of what I bring. And part of the assumptions that I have to be aware of when I look at history. So here's my challenge for you. Think about the things that make up your life. I could have mentioned some more, I've been married for almost 40 years, I have three sons, I have a brand new grandson, that has changed my point of view, amazingly. So look at the condition of your life, and realize that all of those factors weigh in, they color, how you will look at historical data. Be aware of that.

 

And be humble with that. Okay. Now, assumptions. Look, we've looked at assumptions. Let's ask the basic question, well, what does one study when one studies human history?

 

What is it we're looking at? Well, what we're mostly looking at are the stories and the values and the organizations, political and economic and agricultural organizations, we're looking at the various cultures, the kind of art that people produce, the kind of religions that they have. We're looking at the artifacts that are left behind. Some of those are monumental, like the picture earlier is a great king. But some are just very, very small. And if they can be significant, we're looking at these different things for the different human groups and individuals who have lived in the past. You know, history is often the story of how people order and make sense out of their experience. That's what we can observe is often about how they try to control or align or get along with the perceived greater forces, in their experience, the human condition is to realize, indeed, we don't control all and how do we adjust to that? How do we live with that? So we study these human created things, but not all, purposely created? How do we find out about history? What are the sources for studying human history? Generally, there are three that are pointing to primary sources, secondary sources, and environmental sources. We'll start with primary primary sources are those things that are directly left behind by past people like archaeological artifacts, which have to be carefully documented in the context. See that word again, in the context in which the object was discovered, writings are extraordinarily important. Again, they must be carefully understood in the context in which they were written, edited or produced. It is almost always true that the writings that we have, particularly the stories about what went on in their culture, their heroes and the like, were not written down in real time. They were not written down when things happen. Often they were written a generation or two or three or four or 10. Later. Well, must respect. Yes, there are stories about what went on in the past. But when they were written, and how they were written, also is an important context for them. They're written to address the people who lived in their world, not just tell a story from the ancient past. So that complicates matters, I know, but has to be understood. I thought I'd throw this in. I had opportunity. About 10 years ago. Oh, thank you. About 10 years ago, I had opportunity to spend some time in the summer in England, working at an archaeological site. Roman fort called our BIA is In South Shields, England right on the river time, it was the supply for it, supply depot for the truth sets, lived and built and manned Hadrian's Wall up there in the north. So as part of that archaeological work, we sat on the ground, use our little towels and scraped and scraped and scraped, very delicately, just a centimeter at a time, we would scrape a little bit off, I found this, these four stones, and called the lead archaeologist over and said, Is this anything before stones? And he said, Oh, yes, he was. He was Irish, though, yes. Oh, that's very important. He said, You have to take great care with that. He said, so you know, just scrape a little bit and scrape a little bit and call me over and scrape a little bit. So I spent two days sitting by these four stones, scraping, Just layer after layer off.

 

It turned out that what this is, is the stones were used, pushed into a timber, a posthole. A post. And on top of that post was built some sort of roof. For people probably because we found some iron filings and stuff around, probably some sort of iron shop was there. This was evidence of a a little building that had been built there. Didn't didn't seem very significant 10 years later to spend two days looking at that. But at the time, I was discovering history, very important. And then half a day is spent marking showing, measuring, using GPS to show exactly where that thing was. And they could use all of that data and piece it together and in the end have a very complete picture of what that settlement there at the fort look like. It isn't just enough to dig stuff up. You have to understand its context and record its context, in order to be able to interpret the thing itself is of importance. But it's the interpretation. That often is the key. Here's are just some other artifacts, things that are found commonly, nails are very common needles are very common buttons, buckles, rings, someone long ago, lost a ring and it was dug up 2000 Some years later. And here it is now, in a glass case. artifacts left behind. Tell us about the people. Those are primary sources. So is the written documents from the ancient world. And we'll come back to those. But let's go now to the secondary sources. Primary sources are always just that primary. They're the most important. But the secondary sources are significant as well. Almost all the readings that you will do in this course are indeed secondary sources. There are some primary ones, but most of the time is secondary. Secondary sources are what are the interpretations. They are what someone else has written or spoken about things in the past. They include textbooks, articles, lectures, this course, online comments, biographies, stories, things that other people have said about the past. That's a secondary source have to be careful with we have to say Do they respect the context? Do their knowledge, their perspective? Do they present all the data and not just what's convenient for their idea of what went on? Be careful with secondary sources. And yet they are extremely important. It has long been understood that the environment in which a person or a culture lives dramatically affects how they live, how their life has shaped what they think is important. So environment becomes a very important source for understanding if you cannot look at the nation of Greece, ancient Greece without knowing they lived on the C code. And so C power c trade is essential to them. You know this type of evidence is not purposely proven Produced by the people of the past. But it does relate to the physical or creation or natural world in which those people live. So, conditions like mountains, rivers, shorelines, forests, deserts, all of those, they require different ways that people adapt different solutions. In order for a culture to arise and to flourish, again, must take into account the context of a people's particular environment.

 

One of the things that historians note is that the ice ages that came and went over the northern hemisphere, in the last 25, to 30, to 40,000 years, tremendously affected the environment. You know, the Sahara Desert in northern Africa, used to be the savanna, it had rivers running through it, it was had trees, it had grass, there were cities built, people live there. And then there are significant changes as environment so that the Sahara dried up and became, well, the great desert that we know today. That has happened time and time. And time again, is a natural world. And those changes lead to often large migrations of people. And when people move from one place to another, as a large group, that changes the nature of civilization. One of the really exciting things going on in the study of history today is being done with the science of genetics. The genetics are used, particularly historically, to trace the various migrations. geneticists have a way of being able to mark how people have moved from one place to the next to the next to the next, who's related to whom, etc. And I point you to this link to the National Geographic production of the human family tree. Now in then, in this course, I'll recommend to you some YouTube videos to watch, and maybe some articles to read, there's a big difference for you, between what's recommended, and what is assigned. what's recommended is simply for you to explore. If you are a you are not held accountable for what's in that recommended material is something is assigned in the course like an assigned reading. You are held accountable for that. Okay, this one is recommended. Now, let's ask the question, when does history actually begin? Well, those of us who know Genesis would say, well, it's begins in the beginning. That's how the Bible starts in Genesis one. And there is a way in which that's true. Anything and everything that's come before us, is open to his historical investigation. Traditionally, however, and for the purpose of this course, we're going to have to refine that history begins. For this course, when groups of people began to use some sort of writing, or record keeping. The keeping of records is a true turning point in our human culture, human development. It gives us for one thing, a lot more recorded data for us to use, and we can see a more complete picture of their life. Generally, when historians talk about history and prehistoric, they aren't just talking about dinosaurs or something like that. But prehistoric means those times before and those cultures that do not have a written language in order to pass down history in a lot of ways, in an academic way, begins with writing. So, of course, we have to look at what the written word is about. Most often writing arose as a form of record keeping. bookkeepers were our first writers, and they became necessary when there was a division within a society of folks who own things, and people who produced and work for the people who own things. It becomes important for the owners to be able to have a way to say this jar of olive oil belongs to me. This bottle of wine is produced by my People, this is my land my

 

slave. So as culture as societies become diversified in their occupations and in their social levels, so generally, most early cultures have owners and workers and slaves. And then they have another group of people who are warriors, some who are farmers, some just small farmers, but some who own large farms that have other people farm for them. And then almost always, at the top, there develops a royalty, a royal family or royal group, and priests. As those groups diversify, it becomes more and more important to keep track of what belongs to whom. And that's how writing began, began as a means of bookkeeping, to say, This is my stamp, this is my seal. The number of people who knew how to write of course, was very, very small. We call them scribes. They were the they were the folks who were able to, to read what belongs to whom. And to make the marks on people, those marks we call the owners seal, or stamp, it's one of the really early reasons to create systems of markings, so that they could be identified by others. Just about all the earliest artifacts, earliest written artifacts that we have, are either seals like this, or they're lists of inventory of property, and trade goods, you know, this all belongs to this kind of tradesperson, this belongs to this one, and they all have his mark. That's how writing does. It again, implies an already existing diversified society, with personal ownership at a very high value. You know, before society got, societies become diversified like that, and stratified according to different social groups, there was different ways to be arranged in human communities. But once that diversification happens, we call that an ancient city. That is a civilization. Previously, folks were much more on the move, they weren't settled. In a particular place, there were the hunter gatherers who would, you know, maybe have some case situations that they would migrate from one place to another where the game was, there were the nomads and pastoralists who maybe would follow their herds of goats, or they would follow herds of reindeer or Yaks or whatever they would follow bison in the American West. But they wouldn't settle in one place. And in some places, particularly in tropical areas, there were the slash and burn harvesters, they would, they would cut down trees are cut down in area or burn it out and farm it as long as they could. But as soon as a land became depleted, they would move along. The coming of sustainable agriculture is one of the key characteristics of civilization. It really is what we might call essential. In order for people to stay in the same place, they had to know that next year, they could eat again, not just right now, but next year eat again. And so they began the cultivation of crops, almost always cereals of one kind or another. But of course, weather is unpredictable. And so whether you how would you know your crop was going to grow? How did you know you weren't going to have a famine? How did you know there would be enough rain or if there was a flood that you would be wiped out? Those are all those forces that they came to deal with over and over and people found vast numbers of ways, multiple different solutions for how to deal with those questions. But always the question would be, how are we going to eat tomorrow or next year? Cultivation of cereals real key to the beginning of human civilization. Suddenly the domestication of animals now that predates the cultivation of crops, as As a matter of fact,

 

however, in order for a city state to arise, it needed to have a consistent animal population. They needed to have meat, or fish, or sea, or food from the sea that contributed greatly to civilizations, diet and health, as well as what they could export. At one time, it was thought that irrigation was the essential element of the coming of a civilization. Well, I don't know that I would say essential, but I certainly would say it often irrigation is a key element to the sustainability of cultivation, and the establishment of a city. Whenever civilization. Being able to manage water is a key human issue. That's true today. As well, it was, as well it was back in the ancient world. I really like this picture of this fisherman. This goes back to ancient summers. Place that we'll get to. But what you'll observe in this picture, if you can see it clearly, is that he has them corralled, he has these fish pinned in a one is escaping. But otherwise, he has them in his circle, and he has a stick that he's able to stick in them and harvest them. Here is early use of the resources that are out there. There was it's called the agricultural revolution. As the last Ice Age, receded, and different parts of Asia, Africa, North America, South America, China, India, everywhere changed. When the ice receded, agriculture began to get a start, a lot of people will place it around the year 10,000 BC. That's called as part of the Neolithic Age. The Neolithic is a technical term meeting new rock. People were still using stone tools back then to farm to hunt. But they began to figure out how to raise those cereal crops, how to harvest them, how to plant them, so they come back the next year. That happened, that agricultural revolution came strongly in different places. But we have evidence that, for instance, in the Middle East, right around the year 1000 BC, wheat and barley is being consistently produced on a year to year basis. By the way, you'll see Middle East and then CA, that ca means around a little bit of Latin, okay, but it means around. In Greece, it was right around 6000 BC 2000 years later, but still, because the culture then allowed it and the environment that allowed it, wheat and barley became became very important in Egypt, it was around the year 5000 BC. That is about the time the Sahara is really drying up and people are moving out of the desert. And coming to the Nile River. South China and North India, it's also around 5000 BC, there is not wheat and barley, but it's rice that becomes the main cereal crop. And in Central Europe, around 4000. The Ice Age has the ice has receded enough that they can begin to farm wheat and barley in Mesoamerica. Mesoamerica is a term I'm going to try to use consistently to refer to Central America countries and in Purdue, Peru rather it's around the year 3000 BC, that we know that different crops are made not wheat, and barley or rice, but potatoes and maize. Maize is an early form of corn. So the cultivation of these cereal crops you see all come within about a five to 6000 year period of each other. A second very important part of the forming of civilization is what I'm going to call technological change. And one of the most significant technological changes is the coming of bronze. Before bronze is the Stone Age.

 

sophisticated tools, often very sharp. Flint can may be made as surge equally sharp is today's scalpels used in operating rooms. But they were out quickly, they broke easily, someone or someone's discovered along the way, that if you could mix in the right proportions, tin and copper, you could come up with a new metal. And that metal is called bronze. The earliest understanding and evidence we have is that bronze is discovered in the caucus mountains region. And I have to tell you, as I look at history and look at historical things, I see so many things coming out of that caucus mountain region. They were an inventive and imaginative and an intellectually and technologically advanced people in so many ways. Bronze probably comes from them. So you take that confluence, that coming together of sustainable agriculture, now they can have wheat that they can plant, year after year after year, and the early Bronze Age where they begin to use tools that lasted and were sharper and harder than the old stones, not harder. But that that lasted longer than the old stone tools. And lo and behold, what happens, city states begin to arise places like Sumur, Egypt, Greece, all have early beginnings around this age. This is simply a picture of actually, I don't think it's bronze, I think these are made out of iron. But along with the agricultural tools, of course, weapons are made. And war becomes not merely a clash of the various clans, that becomes nation against nation, people against people, country, against country becoming of weapons. So, let me just review a bit here are what I think of as four common characteristics of many, if not all, early civilizations, there has to be a sustainable agriculture. There is diversification of social and economic roles. You have owners, you have slaves, you have lawyers, you have priest, you have kings, etc. There's use of new technologies, very important, irrigation, and bronze. As Lastly, there is coming almost always, not in every culture, but in almost always there arises at that time, a creation of record keeping, that's going to be true in China and India. And in the least, and an Egypt where record keeping comes right along with the founding of the civilized places.

 

The rise of civilization comes sometime between 5003 1500 BC, we could look in all sorts of places around the world. But we have to select some for this course. And so here are the ones that we'll talk about. We'll talk about Mesopotamia, and India and China, Egypt, Peru, and Mesoamerica. That is Central America. You'll see those places highlighted with the blue circles on your map. They are diverse. Some have much connection with each other, particularly Mesopotamia, Egypt, and India. Were all in trade relations together from the earliest days. China comes into there very early as well. Of course, the cultures in Mesoamerica and in Peru are isolated. One of the things that means in the rest of the world, people knew how to use that basic tool called the wheel. No one knew about a wheel until the Europeans came in 1492 ad to North and South America. Those cultures built amazing things. They had amazing sculptures, amazing temples, amazing terrorist agriculture. but not the wheel. And that's fascinating. These are the cultures that we'll be looking at. Now, this is an important piece of introduction as well, particularly when we're talking about Asia and the Mediterranean basin. So here's your first reading assignment. This is one you'll be held accountable for. It's a brief article about the Indo Europeans or proto meaning early or first indo Europeans. Want you to note especially the part titled Introduction, through the section on culture. It's not, it's not long, but it's good reading. We don't know exactly when. But sometime around the year 3500, give or take a group of people, again, from the caucus mountains, began to move out. We don't know why was it because of war, or because of cultural trade? Was it because they had invented the wheel and found the wheel and began to use it, we don't know why. But for some reason, they began to spread in all directions, you'll see the purple area indicates the influence of these people, and their language and their basic language, which is called early proto European. These folks are tremendously significant in the development of so many cultures, the Indo European influence, it's a large group, they aren't it's not an ethnic group, in that they're all related biologically, by some sort of same race or ethnicity. It's not a racial group. It is a language, it is fundamentally a cultural and linguistic group. If you saw on a map, we'll just go back there influence goes all the way from the British Isles from Wales, down to Spain, all through Europe, up into the Scandinavia, all of Central Europe, much of Russia all the way to China, down to India, and back, all the way through the Middle East. These indo Europeans spread like wildfire, likely originated in the Caucasus Mountain region, between the blacks and the Caspian Seas, around 6000 BC, I'll correct that date around 6000 BC. They're called the proto Europeans, but around 303,500, they really migrated out of that area. Again, we don't know if they were refugees, if they were migrants, if they were conquerors.

 

There isn't a lot of evidence that they were warriors, or that military conquest was the main way they they moved, they moved with their families, they moved with our groups, and they brought that early indo European language structure with them, they went to India, and the Sanskrit language was powerful in India, history is all into this indo European influence. They went to China, they went south in the old Persian dialect, comes from rooted in Indo European, they went west into Europe, and so Greek and Albanian and Germanic and Celtic, and Anatolia, which is one of the many names who are what we today we call Turkey, the land of Turkey, and Atolla, Asia Minor, Turkey, all the same place. Every refers to that peninsula that sticks out there, in Asia, and even into they went north into parts of southern Russia and into the Baltics. So they, their influence got spread far and wide. Here are some of the important things that the Indo Europeans contributed to the cultures that they went to. And it is the case it seems like wherever they went, they began to dominate the local culture that they found there. They changed it. We'll see that most especially when we talk about India, but they are likely the group that domesticated the horse. You know, when we talk about the domestication of animals. It's a real continuum. Some historians suspect the dog may have been domesticated as many as 50,000 years ago. The dog has been with people and has been our best friend for a long long Time other animals came pigs, llamas, camels, donkeys, goats, and a lot of flowers, particularly geese, and chickens. All came one of the last ones to be domesticated is the horse. But these folks are in the caucus regions and then later the Indo Europeans, they seem to have the trick to domesticate the horse. And that gave them a huge advantage. And they also have contributed significantly, to how they can move out. So far, in so many directions. They also invented the wheel, again, huge change in human history, when suddenly you can put your heavy things on something that rolls and carries your burden for you. So they were a technologically advanced people, in terms of religion, they brought prior to the Indo European influence, nearly all religion was connected to the mother earth goddess. She goes by an infinite number of names. Most often, the name is Jia, which is just Earth, the mother earth goddess, the female principle of divinity, was worshipped by virtually every culture. The indo Europeans spread a different kind of religion, rather than worshipping Mother Earth, their main Gods was a God who was in the sky, we would say in the habits, their god was beyond this world, not this world. And this god it was conceived of as male. They brought a patriarchal system, into family dynamics into government into civilization, rather than the matriarchal which dominated is a period of time when the mother earth goddess was the primary deity that was worshipped. So there's a huge change in religion with indo Europeans and a huge change in family structure, and in social structure.

 

One of the characteristics of indo European cultures is that we love our heroes. We tell our stories of those historic people in the past, who did amazing things that you can go from India, they have stories of Buddha, for instance, or you can go to Greece and have stories of Hercules and Perseus or you can go into other places where you have stories of the great heroes and great gods who did things. And they, these stories are told, orally, later written, but they're told orally, generation after generation after generation, that sort of hero worship, the ideal idealization of a human being is very much a part of the Indo European influence. So they spread their root language and their cultural changes throughout most of the regions that we'll talk about in terms of civilization. Egypt is a real exception to that, as well, of course, is things in South and Central America. That concludes our first session together. In our second session, we'll dive in more specifically to some of the places where early civilization began. Thank you, and I hope you do well. We'll be seeing you very soon.