8.0 Expansion
Summary:
Early humans had pretty small social networks. At most, they probably met only a couple hundred people who probably all lived very similar lives to their own. As people started farming, these networks got larger. People were increasingly specialized in their work and trade. Populations in cities got larger. Trade reached across longer distances, bringing together people with very different lives and ways of thinking. All of this sped up the process of collective learning. It's not that humans necessarily got smarter. There were simply more of them, and they got better at sharing information. We developed ways to communicate in the form of writing, and eventually we were able to print large quantities of what we'd written. Our means of transportation became more sophisticated and included domesticated animals, ships, and systems of roads that made it easier to cover long distances.
Video - Why did civilization expand?
1. Why did civilizations expand geographically?
2. Why did many leaders of agrarian civilizations choose conquest to pay their expenses rather than trying to raise money in lands they already controlled?
3. What are some examples of ways that military innovations supported trade and other important human activities?
Tekst - The Four World Zones:
8.1 Exploration & Interconnection
Summary:
The rise of agriculture ushered in an era of increasing innovation in communication and transportation that led different parts of the world to connect in entirely new ways. The voyages of Christopher Columbus extended this exchange from Afro-Eurasia to the Americas, which saw a massive movement of ideas, people, diseases, plants, and animals between the two hemispheres. The results of these exchanges were dramatic. Potatoes and corn, first cultivated in the Americas, quickly became crucial in the diets of people across Eurasia. Horses and cattle, unknown in the New World in 1492, quickly took on crucial roles in many societies in the Americas. The linking of the different world zones in this period and the exchanges that this linking made possible, transformed the lifeways of the people and civilizations involved – and laid the foundation for modern exchange routes and the global balance of power.
8.2 The Columbian Exchange
Summary:
This lesson focuses exclusively on the short-term and long-term impact of the Columbian Exchange. You’ll learn how the interconnection of previously isolated continents changed the world forever. The exchange of New World and Old World goods, diseases, and people forever increased the complexity of life on Earth. Not only did it increase the biological complexity due to the spread of flora, fauna, and disease, but also the social and cultural complexities that exist in the world. The Columbian Exchange had a massive impact on the demography of the world, and the Atlantic slave trade was just one part of this. You’ll analyze the complexity of the Columbian Exchange through timelines and the creation of an infographic.
8.3 Commerce & Collective Learning
Summary:
Evading bandits through mountain passes, leading a caravan of yaks carrying silk and goods, sailing the trade winds off the Indian coastline – these are a few things you might have done as a trader in the age of agrarian civilizations. Systems of exchange and trade between large agrarian civilizations facilitated the transfer of goods from one civilization to the next, but they also helped share the world’s religions, ideas, innovations, diseases, and people. While each world zone had its own trade routes, none were as vast and intense as the Silk Road. This large system of exchange and trade, initially designed for commerce, dispersed goods and ideas throughout Afro-Eurasia, and paved the way for a substantial increase in both commerce and collective learning.