The Classical period from 600 BCE to 600 CE saw the rise of new civilizations like Persia in the Middle East, Greek and Roman Empires in the Mediterranean, and the Qin and Han Dynasties and later empires in China and India. While monarchies continued to rule and systems like patriarchy, slavery, and social classes persisted from earlier times, this period was marked by growing populations and larger states or empires, as well as new philosophical, religious and technological developments that helped connect societies across vast trade networks.

1. Continuities & Changes over Time

2. By the 600s BCE new civilizations
were on the rise. This new period
of human history (until 600 CE) is
called the CLASSICAL PERIOD.

3.  Monarchs continued to rule most of the new
civilizations
 Patriarchy
 A wide gap between the small number of elite
and everyone else
 The practice of slavery
 Social Classes and Economic structures

4.  Population grew more rapidly
 The size of the states or empires grew
(later civs were much larger than
Mesopotamian city-states or the Egyptian
Empire)
 New philosophical and religious
traditions (Confucianism, Daoism,
Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism,
Zoroastrianism, and Christianity)

5.  Technological innovations to help humans
manipulate the environment
 For example:
 China-bellows, loom, silk making, wheelbarrow,
harness, crossbow, iron casting
 India-sugar, cotton
 Rome-aqueducts, roads)
 Emergence of more elaborate, widespread,
& dense networks of exchange &
communication--especially Indian Ocean
trade networks & the Silk Road

6. Persia in the Middle East
Greek Civilization and then the
Roman Empire along the
Mediterranean
Qin & Han Dynasties in China
 Mauryan & Gupta Empires in
India