WHP Origins | Unit 3 Overview - Early Agrarian Societies | OER Project

[@JaydieBrabec]

Q:Why does this video begin with a letter and who is Iddin-Sin? A student from a wealthy family who complains about not having enough nice clothes at his school. The letter is a demonstration of how things have stayed somewhat the same through time, how even kids now will complain about the same things because they are important for socializing with other people like yourself. How he has the same emotions one might feel now if you felt like your parent was trying to embarass you by not getting you the nice new things. Q:How did agriculture change human societies in this period? Societies across the world started developing complex political trade and city systems after the agricultural revolution. This would provide people with the ability to spend their time learning different skills, being able to be protected from raiders, have a reliable food source from farming surplus, and occasionally even have running water to stay clean and fresh. These early cities were dirty, led by kings who charged taxes, and didn't provide too much safety from faminine and war. Q:How did urbanization help create long-distance trade routes? Networks of trade grew with cities, local communities interacting with eachother was first for essential things. And then as these trade routes broadened they allowed wealthy people to get things they wanted (maybe didnt need). This increased the wealth gap in the people in the cities which could make things more tense, as well as making it easier for diseases to spread and conflicts with distant peoples to occur. Q:What are states, and why were they important to early agrarian societies? States are places with bigger populations and have organized, and enforced laws, and military management. Writing added complexity to society and was something that only wealthy people could have. These people were often higher up in importance to a king or state management than any poor person who couldn't write could possibly be at the time. Q:This video features a letter written by a boy almost four thousand years ago. Do you think we should take his letter seriously as historical evidence? Why or why not? I think that we should if the graphic representation of the letter as being etched into stone that is still present that we could date is the case. If there was no stone-etched letter from this time period we actually found, then no of course. I think the letter is very telling of what society was like at the time and what was expected of the family unit to send their son attaining an education.