After studying this chapter, students should understand and be able to discuss the following:
The difference between culture and civilization
The great age of the earth and the relatively recent nature of human development
The distinction between prehistory and history
The stages of early human development
The earliest forms of artistic expression
How agriculture brought about the Neolithic period and the significance of this cultural period
How the discovery of metalworking led to the Bronze Ages of the Near East, which in turn produced the first civilizations in the West
The leading characteristics and major historical periods of the three civilizations that arose in Mesopotamia and of the Egyptian civilization that began in the Nile river valley
The interaction between geography and cultural development in Mesopotamia and the Nile valley
How Mesopotamia's and Egypt's cultural developments were each an outgrowth of specific political, economic, and social settings
Contrasts between Mesopotamian and Egyptian civilizations
The defining role played by religion in Mesopotamia's and Egypt's civilizations
Historic "firsts" achieved in Mesopotamia, Egypt, or both that became legacies for later Western developments: writing, music, musical instruments, musical forms (such as hymns), astronomy, medicine, engineering principles rooted in mathematics, technological advances (i.e., pottery- and glass-making, the extraction and working of metals, woodworking, and textile weaving), a law code, religious ideas, mathematical and geometrical knowledge, the 365-day, 12-month calendar, town life, town planning, standard weights and measures, literary genres, the column with capitals, the pyramid, post-and-lintel construction, zoos and botanical gardens, sculpture in the round, portrait sculptures, relief sculptures, sculptural and painting techniques, and an aesthetic canon for artists
