1. Social
Studies for 8 th
FIRST CIVILIZATIONS E.G.B.
Teacher:
Mauricio
Torres

2. REVIEWING: CIVILIZATION
 CONCEPT: An advanced society
 Elements:
 Organized government
 Urban development
 Resources
 Large amount of resources bring: Surplus.
 Specialized jobs
 Culture:
 Arts, architecture, literature, media.
 Social Classes
 Religion

3. FIRST CAME THE TEMPLE, THEN CAME
THE CIT Y
 With the building of
Megaliths such as Göbekli
Tepe, modern day Turkey,
humans began to gather
around permanent areas.
 Göbekli Tepe was an hilltop
sanctuary at the top of a
mountain ridge.
 The importance of the site is
because its shows that
hunter-gatherer societies
could also erect monumental
complexes.

4. BEGINNINGS
 With the development of agriculture,
humanity was now “overproducing”
and thus creating “surplus”.
 With this, our ancestors could now
focus less on everyday survival.
 To reach this level of productivity,
humans settled areas around rivers
and valleys.
 These areas were rich and fertile.
 They had water which is needed to
maintain life.
 This is how traditional economies
developed.
 The civilizations that rose up in
these areas are called River Valley
Civilizations.

5. RIVER VALLEY CIVILIZATIONS

6. THE FIRST: ÇÄTALHÖYÜK
 Çätalhöyük was a very
large settlement from
the Neolithic in what is
modern day Turkey.
 Archaeological finds
show us that there was
a canal that ran in
between the area,
probably used to keep
the soil fertile for
agriculture.

7. THE FIRST: ÇÄTALHÖYÜK
 It was composed of domestic
buildings.
 Estimated population is 8,000.
 The dead were buried in the
village. Some of the bodies
found had no heads on them!
 Murals have been discovered,
with many religious themes.
 With no distinctive differences
on each house, archaeologists
believe there were no social
classes.
 The first benefits of
agriculture are found, and
even traded items from far
away lands are here.

8. WHY DID THESE CIVILIZATIONS
DISAPPEAR?
 They were always in constant change.
 This change usually involved a shift in the environment.
 Environments affect people’s lives:
 Civilizations have always relied on resources.
 If a resource is depleted, they will need to find a need source or
something to replace it.
 Cultural diffusion:
 The spread of ideas, customs and technologies from one people to
another.
 This was usually a product of trade or migration.
 Expansion:
 Villages expanded into city-states (a political unit that included a city
and its surrounding lands and villages).
 The next step, was creating empires, which is a group of territories or
states controlled by one ruler.

9. SUMMARY: CAUSE AND EFFECTS
 Cause
 Neolithic people learn to farm > They
settle into communities > They settle in
river valleys > New technologies improve
farming > Food surplus leads to
population growth > First cities are built.
 Ef fects
 Complex forms of government develop.
 Arts become more elaborate.
 Job specialization leads to classes.
 People invent writing.
 Early civilization create empires.

10. THEREFORE
We can now say that a civilization is a
complex, highly organized social order.

11. BIBLIOGRAPHY
 Ellis, E. G., & Esler, A . (2009). World Histor y. (P. Hall, Ed.)
Upper Saddle River, New Jersey, US: Pearson Education INC.
 Burstein, S. M., & Shek, R. (2012). World Histor y (Teacher´s
Edition) (1st Edition ed.). (H. McDougal, Ed.) Orlando, Florida,
US.: Houghton Mif flin Harcourt Publishing Company.
 Wikipedia. (n.d.). Catal Huyuk. Retrieved May 14, 2012, from
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catal_Huyuk
 Wikipedia. (n.d.). Gobelki Tepe. Retrieved May 14, 2012, from
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6bekli_Tepe
 Images taken from Google.com