Unit reflection

In these two months we studied different civilizations. We worked on some cities. We investigated how those cities were developed. 

People domesticated animals. They would use dogs to guard their sheep or houses. The first domesticated animals were dogs and sheep. They started with agriculture so they could organize better and have more food. The first time they domesticated plants was around 8,000 and 7,000 B.C. 

Agriculture offered important advantages: farmers and herders could raise more food. They became farmers when they could have enough food. They had more stable homes. In those places the first civilizations started to develop. A civilization is a complex society that has five characteristics: stable food supply, specialization of labor, government, social levels and culture.

People in the first city-states were polytheists. They believed in many gods. The priests offered sacrifices, prayed and worked to please the gods so the gods would help them.

The Sumerians are very important to us because they invented the pictographic writing system. If I hadn't studied this, I wouldn't know about other civilizations. This experience was interesting to me.

Changing environment

Our environment changed and a lot. Imagine that our environment started from dinosaurs to cars and laptops. It has really changed: before we had a rock and a stick and that were our defending weapons. Now we have guns and other stuff. Imagine that you lived in the era of dinosaurs. You would get bored all the time because you couldn't chat to your friends and you would probably e already dead. Before, people only lived until 20 years old. People would get bored because their was nothing to do. The only thing we could was to hunt and do other stuff. Now, we can go to the cinema and hang out with our friends. But before we didn't have a stable house of 4 floors and now we have hotels,, palaces huge houses and other buildings. Our government has changed a lot, too. Before we actually didn't have a real government; a king or a priest were ruling.

So, as you can see are environment has changed now. Probably in the future there will be flying cars and laptops  that you should not type anymore and get tired of doing that; the laptops probably will work like this: you say something to it and it would automatically type it. Our enviorment did change and it will change even more.

Why is Catal Hyuk an important archaeological site?

Catal Huyuk was discovered in the late 1950s and it was excavated for the first time by James Mellaart in 1961between 1965. It is famous because the large size and the occupation and the paintings. It was a neolithic town. Thanks to this discovery we now a lot about how people lived in the neolithic era and how the houses looked like. Their houses were all the same size, nobody had a bigger one. The houses had flat roofs the doors were opened on the top. They entered from the roof and for going from place to place they went through their neighbors roof. Catal Huyuk is in Turkey. It was discovered in the Middle East. They cultivated wheat (the main crop) and they gathered pears, crab apples and berries. They traded obsidian which is black volcanic glass and it was vary valuable because it was used to make tools. They had everything they needed: wood, grain, cattle and mud. The houses were made out of mud bricks.