The Civilization of Man and Agriculture

Natalie Angier’s ‘‘Furs for Evening, But Cloth was the Stone Age Standby’’

Clive Ponting’s ‘‘Crops and Animals’’

David Rindos’s ‘‘Symbiosis, Instability, and the Origins and Spread of Agriculture: A New Model’’

question: 1.What are the differences between primary sources and secondary sources? Please provide some examples of primary and secondary sources from this week’s readings.

question2: Why did humans abandon a life of hunting and gathering for agriculture? How did the adoption of farming transform human society?

2.

reading materials:

From Sumerian Civilization:

The Code of Lipit-Ishtar

The Nippur Murder Trial and the ‘Silent Wife’

Excerpts from The Epic of Gilgamish

From Egyptian Civilization:

Excerpts from The Amarna Letters

Excerpts from the Egyptian Book of Instructions

From Chinese Civilization:

Ancestor Worship from the Shi Jing

And, we have a secondary source:

‘‘The First River-Valley Civilizations, 3500-1500 B.C.E’’ by Bulliet et. all.

question 1: Please use the secondary source and compare the three river valley civilizations (Egyptian, Mesopotamian, and Indus Valley) and state the differences and similarities between the three. Please cite the secondary source as (Bulliet et al, 34)

question2: Focus on one thing that you learn from Professor Anooshahr’s lectures about the River Valley Civilizations. Then, find evidence for that from the primary sources. (In other words, take one statement from the lectures, then prove it with evidence from primary sources)