Web Explorations

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Chapter 1: From Human Prehistory to the Early Civilizations

Web Explorations

This activity contains 20 questions.

Human Prehistory: An Exhibition

This site offers a discussion of the views of Charles Darwin and others on human evolution and a "walk" through the principle archeological record of early mankind.

http://users.hol.gr/~dilos/prehis/prerm5.htm

Questions for exploration:

How does this site illuminate the role of art in human prehistory?

How does this site add to your understanding of the construction of early urban centers?

To create paragraphs in your essay response, type at the beginning of the paragraph, and at the end.

Don Johanson and Lucy

Explores the discovery of the remains of Lucy, which offer insight into the biology of early humans.

http://www.mrdowling.com/602-lucy.html

Questions for exploration:

Who was Lucy? What do we know about early man because Don Johanson found her?

Could Early Human Species Have Co-existed?

To create paragraphs in your essay response, type at the beginning of the paragraph, and at the end.

The Stone Age

This site examines technological change in early human history.

http://www.bergen.org/technology/stone.html

Question for exploration:

What technological changes mark the passage of humans from the Paleolithic to the Mesolithic and on to the Neolithic Ages?

To create paragraphs in your essay response, type at the beginning of the paragraph, and at the end.

The United States: 16,000 Years Ago: an Exhibit by the Illinois State Museum

This exhibit investigates the prehistory of the American Midwest.

http://www.museum.state.il.us/exhibits/larson/LP_extinction.html

Question for exploration:

How can it be said that human beings may have contributed to the extinction of the mammoth?

To create paragraphs in your essay response, type at the beginning of the paragraph, and at the end.

Flints and Stones

A guided tour of real life in pre-historical times.

http://museums.ncl.ac.uk/flint/shaman.html (or menu.html)

Question for exploration:

How does your shaman guide describe the environment, home life and ceremonies of early mankind?

To create paragraphs in your essay response, type at the beginning of the paragraph, and at the end.

Chauvet Caves: Paleolithic Cave in the Ardeche Region of France

These sites, the former an introductory essay, illuminate one of the primary sources of early human art, the cave paintings at the Chauvet caves in France.

http://www.france.diplomatie.fr/label_france/ENGLISH/SCIENCES/CHAUVET/cha.html

and http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/data/2001/08/01/html/zm_20010801.6.1.html

Question for exploration:

Why are the finds at the Chauvet Caves significant?

To create paragraphs in your essay response, type at the beginning of the paragraph, and at the end.

Nippur: Sacred City of Enil

A Virtual Visit to the Mesopotamian city of Nippur

http://www-oi.uchicago.edu/OI/PROJ/NIP/Nippur.html

Questions for exploration:

Why can it be said that Nippur was different from other ancient cities of Mesopotamia? What ceremonies took place there? How does the city’s relationship with Christianity reflect its past? How did it achieve its special status? What other ancient cities did it resemble and what characteristics does it share with them?

To create paragraphs in your essay response, type at the beginning of the paragraph, and at the end.

Epic of Gilgamesh

This site examines the Epic of Gilgamesh as history and as literature.

http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/MESO/GILG.HTM

Questions for exploration:

Viewed as literature, what are the themes, structure and worldview expressed in Epic of Gilgamesh? What relationship between God and humanity is revealed by the story of the great flood?

To create paragraphs in your essay response, type at the beginning of the paragraph, and at the end.

Indian and Chinese Medicine

This site illuminates early Indian and Chinese medical traditions.

http://www.itmonline.org/arts/ayurherb.htm

Questions for exploration:

What aspects of Chinese medical tradition made its way to the Islamic world and hence on to Europe? What does the term Ayurveda mean? According to the Charaka Samhita, medicines fall into three types. What are they and how do they reflect a traditional worldview? Would you find such an approach to medicine useful today? What Chinese doctor gave one of the earliest diagnoses of smallpox?

To create paragraphs in your essay response, type at the beginning of the paragraph, and at the end.

The Babylonians

http://www.cultureofiran.com/ancient_medicine.php

This site examines medicine and surgery in ancient western Asia.

Question for exploration:

How does Hammurabi’s Code of Law indicate that medical and surgical practices were centuries old by the writing of the Code in approximately 1800 BCE?

To create paragraphs in your essay response, type at the beginning of the paragraph, and at the end.

Babylonian and Egyptian Mathematics

An exploration of the mathematical achievements of the Babylonians and Egyptians.

http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/history/HistTopics/Babylonian_and_Egyptian.html

Questions for exploration:

Why can it be said that the Babylonians’ calculating skills were in some ways more advanced that our contemporary mathematical systems? How did they figure time? What was major disadvantage suffered by Babylonian mathematicians? In what significant way was Egyptian mathematics different from Greek mathematics?

Why were Egyptian and Roman numerical systems ill suited to mathematical calculations, such as multiplication?

To create paragraphs in your essay response, type at the beginning of the paragraph, and at the end.

The International Museum of the Horse

This site offers an exhibit on the legacy of the horse.

http://www.imh.org/imh/exh1.html

Questions for exploration:

Scroll down below the historical outline to find the text that will supply the answers to the following questions: How did Cro-Magnon man originally view the horse? When did the first four-wheeled wagon appear? What did King Tutankamen hunt from his chariot? What made the Scynthians so powerful and why should we be grateful for the forms for dress they adopted? How did horsemen change the history of China?

To create paragraphs in your essay response, type at the beginning of the paragraph, and at the end.

Daily Life in Ancient Egypt

A brief overview of daily life in Egypt

http://www2.sptimes.com/Egypt/EgyptCredit.4.2.html

Questions for exploration:

What were the roles of women, the view of marriage, and the place of cosmetics in the daily life of ancient Egyptians?

To create paragraphs in your essay response, type at the beginning of the paragraph, and at the end.

The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World

This exhibit offers an examination of what were considered to be the seven wonders of the ancient world as conceived by pre-modern Europeans.

http://ce.eng.usf.edu/pharos/wonders/

Questions for exploration:

What are the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World? What element did all these sites have in common? Which of them survives to this day? What other sites would be considered for this status?

To create paragraphs in your essay response, type at the beginning of the paragraph, and at the end.

Collapse: Why do Ancient Civilizations Fail?

This site offers an accessible comparative approach to the study of the decline of civilizations.

http://www.learner.org/exhibits/collapse/mesopotamia.html

Questions for exploration:

Why did Mesopotamian civilization decline? Can its decline be related to that of the Anasazi, or were the causes of decline entirely different? How can the decline of Mesopotamia be linked to a possible decline of agriculture in the United States?

To create paragraphs in your essay response, type at the beginning of the paragraph, and at the end.

Around the Indus in 90 Slides

This site offers a tour of the ancient civilization of the Indus Valley via slides; each slide is provided with a descriptive commentary. An accompanying analytical essay provides interpretive material and gives thrust to the tour's narrative.

http://www.harappa.com/indus/slideindex.html

Questions for exploration:

How do the remains of the civilization of the Indus Valley reflect other early urban civilizations? In what ways are they unique? How do the slides and the essay accessed at this site suggest contacts between the Indus and other cultures via trade?

To create paragraphs in your essay response, type at the beginning of the paragraph, and at the end.

Harappan Seals

This superb site examines the use and meaning of the clay seals that were used in ancient northwest India. The site includes a slide show and other features.

http://www.harappa.com/seal/seal1.html

Questions for exploration:

What type of markings were found on the seals? What is their meaning as suggested here? Click on "full text" option at the bottom of this page or type in http://www.harappa.com/seal/sealtext.html. Using the text provided, summarize the current debate over the meaning of the seals. Does it suggest possible Harappan influence in the culture of Indo-European speaking people in India?

To create paragraphs in your essay response, type at the beginning of the paragraph, and at the end.

HinduKids Universe

A site designed to introduce Hindu customs to young people.

http://www.hindukids.org/namaskar.shtml

Question for exploration:

Why do Hindus place their palms together in their customary gesture of greeting or salutation?

To create paragraphs in your essay response, type at the beginning of the paragraph, and at the end.

The Yellow River Basin

This site offers an essay that explores why the Yellow River basin is called the Cradle of Chinese Civilization.

http://www.cis.umassd.edu/~gleung/history/cradleen.html

Questions for exploration:

Why is the Yellow River basin considered the cradle of Chinese civilization? What is a tai yuan landform? What materials in the Bampo Museum suggest a high level of agricultural development in ancient China?

To create paragraphs in your essay response, type at the beginning of the paragraph, and at the end.

Yellow River Home Page

This site is designed to disseminate knowledge about the Yellow River.

http://www.cis.umassd.edu/~gleung/

Questions for exploration:

After viewing the enlarged picture of the Yellow River in flood at this site, describe why such a volume of water and its loess content would be both a blessing and a danger to settled agriculture.

To create paragraphs in your essay response, type at the beginning of the paragraph, and at the end.

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