Ap Human Geography Chapter 4

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Chapter 4 * A Polycentric World: Cities and States in East Asia, the Americas and West Africa 1700 BCE – 1000 CE. -Yellow River valley of China, Mesoamerica and the South American Pacific coastal plain with the adjacent Andes Mountains. Niger River valley of West Africa. -Earliest city id in China (1700 BCE), Latest-Niger valley (400 CE). China: The XIA, SHANG, and ZHOU DYNASTLES Earliest Villages: -Neolithic pottery decorations marked the transaction from hunting and gathering into the culture of forming and village life. -This Yangshao culture was named for the location where it was discovered in China’s western Henan province. -A set of tiny flutes-carved 900 years ago from the wing bones of a large bird were discovered. Three…show more content…
-Used a distinctive type of pottery, often distinctively reddish-brown and grey in color, quite different from the black pottery of the Longshan of Henan. -Although the high points of Yangshao and the eastern and western Longshan cultures appeared at successively later times, they overlapped each other to a considerable extent. -The Henan Longshan culture excavations reveal the burials of victims of killing, some decapitated and showing signs of struggle, suggesting warfare between villages. The Beginning of State Formation -The Xia, The Shang and Zhou ruled over large regions of China (3 early dynasties). -In its time, each ruled over the most powerful single kingdom among the embattled states of Northern China. -All were based primarily around the Huang He (Yellow River) valley in Northern China. -State formation may have begun under the Xia. Although the records are sparse. -The archeological records on urbanization under Shang is for more revealing and reliable. -The Zhou consolidated both city and state and left extensive…show more content…
The Rise & Fall of Maya -Teotihuacan’s third legacy was to the Maya -They built on Olmec, Teotihuacano foundations -Expanded their centers to plazas surrounded by stone pyramids and crowned with temples and palaces City of Tikal -Today’s Guatemala -One of the largest , most elaborate , most completely excavated cities -in its center it holds 5 temple pyramids -a spiritual and religious center -50,000 people -Ruled by kings who were shamans -Created an elaborate calendar :recorded 3 related chronologies dates, events in cosmic time periods of thousands of years; historic events in the lives of specific rules & their states ;and the yearly cycle of agricultural activity Maya Civilization in Decline -By 900 CE great classical period of Maya in the southern lowlands ended .Hypothesis suggests; -Excessive pop pressure on natural resources -Climatic changes -Excessive warfare – destroyed their city -New Maya cities grew up in the northern highlands of the Yucatan peninsula notably - Last Maya capital Mayapan -It seemed Militaristic ,beleaguered and possessed of tough sensibilities as evidenced by wholesale human sacrifices -City destroyed in civil wars (mid- 1400

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