movie

In west civ class today we watched guns, germs, and steel. It was about a scientist who was asked the question "why do white people have so much cargo but us don't have any" Now the guy is on a mission trying to find the answer to this! these people still live the hunter gather ways. 

test day

Today we took our first west civ test. The fill in the blanks took a while but i think it was helpful to use our blogs. I think i did really good on this test so hopefully i started out this class with an A. I think it would be more helpful to do more then right down notes so were not so bored and we can find more interest in this subject. 

review

In west civ class we reviewed for the mesopotamia test thats tomorrow. Reviewing for the test helps because he gives test answer that we can study for. Im feeling confortable about this test because i have good notes that i can study and look over tonight. After reviewing for the test in class we looked at hammurabi code. 

the earliest cities

• sumer occupied the land between the tigris and euphrates river
• population increased by 40,000
• irrigation was invented
• fertile crescent
• able to store food better
• started worshiping gods and goddesses 
• kings emerged and the concept of the city state
• earliest for of writing known as cuneiform 
• a pantheon of sumerian god and goddesses
• divided the hour into minutes and minutes into seconds 
• created the calendar based on moon cycles 
• ziggurat was a sumerian temple on top of a mountain
• wandering nomads herds of domestic animals 
• king hammurabi of babylon created a series of laws known as hammurabi's code
• indo-european tribe known as hittites settled in asia minor

prehistory to civilization

• 3000-1200bc
• 200,000 years ago a human species emerged from south western africa
• patheolithic- old stone age
• neolithic-new stone age
• beginning of agriculture
• the agriculture revolution 
• a shift from itinerant hunting and gathering to settlements 
• population grew because of ability to care for young children 

First class

Today in the first west civ class we met all the new people who joined the class and just talked about how to set up new blogs. Most of the class could not get it to work so we had to do this at home. I'm looking forward to start this class.