Early European History. Hutton Webster
following terms: society, nation, state, government, institution, culture, and civilization.
3. Explain the abbreviations B.C. and A.D. In what century was the year 1917 B.C.? the year 1917 A.D.?
4. Look up the derivation of the words "paper" and "Bible."
5. Distinguish between the three stages of savagery, barbarism, and civilization, and give examples of existing peoples in each stage.
6. Can you name any savages still living in the Stone Age?
7. What stone implements have you ever seen? Who made them? Where were they?
8. Why should the discovery of fire be regarded as of more significance than the discovery of steam?
9. Why has the invention of the bow-and-arrow been of greater importance than the invention of gunpowder?
10. How does the presence of few tameable animals in the New World help to account for its tardier development as compared with the Old World?
11. What examples of pastoral and agricultural life among the North American Indians are familiar to you?
12. Give examples of peoples widely different in blood who nevertheless speak the same language.
13. In the classification of mankind, where do the Arabs belong? the Persians? the Germans? the inhabitants of the United States?
14. Enumerate the most important contributions to civilization made in prehistoric times.
FOOTNOTES
[1] There are still some savage peoples, for instance, the Australians, who continue to make stone implements very similar to those of prehistoric men. Other primitive peoples, such as the natives of the Pacific islands, passed directly from the use of stone to that of iron, after this part of the world was opened up to European trade in the nineteenth century.
[2] Iron was unknown to the inhabitants of North America and South America before the coming of the Europeans. The natives used many stone implements, besides those of copper and bronze. The Indians got most of their copper from the mines in the Lake Superior region, whence it was carried far and wide.
[3] See the illustration, page 45.
[4] See the illustration, page 14.
[5] In the New World, the only important domestic animal was the llama of the Andes. The natives used it as a beast of burden, ate its flesh, and clothed themselves with its wool.
[6] The plants domesticated in the New World were not numerous. The most important were the potato of Peru and Ecuador, Indian corn or maize, tobacco, the tomato, and manioc. From the roots of the latter, the starch called tapioca is derived.
[7] See page 2.
[8] See the illustration, page 14.
[9] Latin cuneus, "a wedge".
[10] See page 71.
[11] From the Greek words hieros, "holy," and glyphein, "to carve" The Egyptians regarded their signs as sacred.
[12] Our word "alphabet" comes from the names of the first two letters of the Greek alphabet, alpha (a) and beta (b).
[13] See page 186 and note 2.
[14] The Old Testament (Genesis, x 21–22) represents Shem (or Sem), son of Noah, as the ancestor of the Semitic peoples. The title "Indo- Europeans" tells us that the members of that group now dwell in India and in Europe. Indo-European peoples are popularly called "Aryans," from a word in Sanskrit (the old Hindu language) meaning "noble."
CHAPTER II
THE LANDS AND PEOPLES OF THE EAST TO ABOUT 600 B.C. [1]
7. PHYSICAL ASIA
GRAND DIVISIONS OF ASIA
Ancient history begins in the East—in Asia and in that part of Africa called Egypt, which the peoples of antiquity always regarded as belonging to Asia. If we look at a physical map of Asia, we see at once that it consists of two very unequal divisions separated by an almost continuous mass of mountains and deserts. These two divisions are Farther and Nearer, or Eastern and Western, Asia.
[Illustration: Map, PHYSICAL MAP OF ASIA.]
FARTHER ASIA
Farther Asia begins at the center of the continent with a series of elevated table-lands which rise into the lofty plateaus, known as the "Roof of the World." Here two tremendous mountain chains diverge. The Altai range runs out to the northeast and reaches the shores of the Pacific near Bering Strait. The Himalaya range extends southeast to the Malay peninsula. In the angle formed by their intersection lies the cold and barren region of East Turkestan and Tibet, the height of which, in some places, is ten thousand feet above the sea. From these mountains and plateaus the ground sinks gradually toward the north into the lowlands of West Turkestan and Siberia, toward the east and south into the plains of China and India.
CHINA
The fertile territory of central China, watered by the two streams, Yangtse and Hoangho, was settled at a remote period by barbarous tribes. The civilization which they slowly developed in antiquity has endured with little change until the present day. The inhabitants of neighboring countries, Korea, Japan, and Indo-China, owe much to this civilization. It has exerted slight influence on the other peoples of Asia because the Chinese have always occupied a distant corner of the continent, cut off by deserts and mountains from the lands on the west. As if these barriers were not enough, they raised the Great Wall to protect their country from invasion.
[Illustration: THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA The wall extends for about fifteen hundred miles along the northern frontier of China. In 1908 AD it was traversed for its entire length by an American Mr. W. E. Geil. He found many parts of the fortification still in good repair, though built twenty one centuries ago.]
Behind this mighty rampart the Chinese have lived secluded and aloof from the progress of our western world. In ancient times China was a land of mystery.
INDIA
India was better known than China, especially its two great rivers, the Indus and the Ganges, which flow to the southwest and southeast, respectively, and make this part of the peninsula one of the most fertile territories on the globe. Such a land attracted immigrants. The region now known as the Punjab, where the Indus receives the waters of five great streams, was settled by light-skinned Indo-Europeans [2] perhaps as early as 2000 B.C. Then they occupied the valley of the Ganges and so brought all northern India under their control.
INDIA AND THE WEST
India did not remain entirely isolated from the rest of Asia, The Punjab was twice conquered by invaders from the West; by the Persians in the sixth century B.C., [3] and about two hundred years later by the Greeks. [4] After the end of foreign rule India continued to be of importance through its commerce, which introduced such luxuries as precious stones, spices, and ivory among the western peoples.
NEARER ASIA
Nearer, or Western Asia, the smaller of the two grand divisions of the Asiatic continent, is bounded by the Black and Caspian seas on the north, by the Red Sea, Persian Gulf, and Indian Ocean on the south, eastward by the Indus River, and westward by the Mediterranean and the Nile. Almost all the countries within this area played a part in the ancient history of the Orient.
COUNTRIES OF NEARER ASIA
The lofty plateaus of central Asia decline