Global Assignment

1. Agriculture

• Agriculture is the cultivating of land, the producing of crops, and the nurturing of animals to provide food, wool, and other products. Agriculture replaced hunter-gatherer societies at around 10,000 B.C.E. allowing more reliable and predictable sources of food and clothing.

2. Animism

• Animism is the oldest known belief system to exist and is known for the practice of nature worship. Animists believe that everyone in the world has a spirit. An example of animism would be Shinto which is a Japanese religion that focuses on nature.

3. Bureaucracy

• When a state has a bureaucracy, most of the vital decisions are made by the state officials rather than by elected representatives. Bureaucracy refers to the administrative section of the government.

4. City-State

• A city-state is a combination of a city and it's surrounding land that forms an independent state. In this city-state, the people follow the same law, have one form of government, and share languages, religious beliefs, and ways of life. Famous examples of ancient city-states are those of Rome, Athens, and Carthage.

5. Civilization

• A civilization is a society that reaches a high level of culture and social organization. A standard civilization will have an organized government, job specialization, and an organized belief system. There have been countless amounts of civilizations throughout history including the Aztecs, Incas, Mayans etc.

6. Commerce

• Commerce is the activity of buying and selling goods and/or services. The system includes legal, economic, political, social, cultural and technological systems that are in operation in any country.

7. Cultural Diffusion

• When trade and war takes place, very often cultural diffusion occurs. Cultural Diffusion is when ideas are spread from one group to another. An example of cultural diffusion is that Christianity first started in Israel and has now spread all over the world.

8. Democracy

• A democracy is a system of government in which the legislative, executive, and judicial power are held by the citizens, by majority rule. The Magna Carta, for example, was a document signed by King John in 1812, that gave rights to the Church and the nobility, and was considered to be the start to British Democracy.

9. Demography

• A Demography is a calculation of human populations. It studies the changes within populations such as deaths, births, and aging. Ancient Greece, India, and China have all been known to use demographics.

10. Domestication

• Domestication of animals was first brought about during the Neolithic Revolution. Domestication is when an owner keeps an animal as a pet or for farm produce. Domestication let to the development of civilizations and has been used worldwide ever since.

11. Dynasty

• A dynasty is a chain of rulers of a country from the same family. This method of rulership has been used in many countries, but in China it was used throughout their time. Han dynasty, Abbassid dynasty, and Gupta dynasty are all examples of dynasties throughout history.

12. Empire

• An empire is a group of nations or peoples ruled by a single authority, usually a monarch, but can be other systems of government as well. It can also be defined as a very large and powerful industrial organization.

13. Feudalism

• Feudalism is a social system that dominated medieval European life between the 9th and 15th centuries. In this process, the nobility held land from the crown in exchange for military service, the vassals were tenants of the nobles' land, and the serfs lived on their lord's land, while he supplied him homage, labor, and a share of the produce, in exchange for military protection.

14. Interregional

•  Interregional means between/amongst other regions. For instance, interregional migration means to travel between two or more regions as opposed to intraregional migrating, which means to travel within one region

15. Intraregional

• Intra regional means within the same region. For instance, intraregional trade means transactions in one region, as opposed to interregional trading which are transactions between two or more different regions.

16. Matriarchal

• A matriarchy is a society where women hold political or social power, as opposed to a patriarchy. Most anthropologists hold that there are no known societies that are unquestionably matriarchal, but some authors believe that there have been some.

17. Medieval

• Medieval refers to something that happened during the Middle Ages. The word is commonly used when referring to medieval Europe.

18. Metallurgy

• Metallurgy is a field of science and engineering that studies the behavior of metals as well as their production and purification. The production of metals involves the processing of ores to extract the metal they contain. Metallurgy is important in the craft of metalworking and was used in many places such as Ancient Iran, Ancient Egypt, Carthage etc.

19. Migration

• Migration is the mass movement of people from one nation to another. It usually occurs when the nation the people are leaving has deficiency of products that the new place has. But there is also involuntary migration, like the slave trade.

20. Monarchy

• A monarchy is a political system where the ruler of a country is a monarch. Absolute monarchy is when the monarch has complete power as opposed to a constitutional monarchy, where the monarch has limited power.

21. Monotheism

• Monotheism is the belief that there is only one God. Many religions are based off of monotheism such as Judaism, Islam, Christianity etc.

22. Oligarchy

• An oligarchy is a political system which is under the control of a small group of people. Although many oligarchies were controlled by the wealthy, many of them were privileged group of people who earned the position. China, North Korea, and Venezuela are known for having oligarchies

23. Nobility/Aristocracy

• The nobility and aristocracy are the people that are considered to be in the highest social class of that society. Usually they have hereditary titles that were granted by a monarch. Before the French Revolution, the nobility occupied the second estate, behind the clergymen who occupied first estate.

24. Nomad

• A nomad is someone who moves from place to place with a group of people in search of food and water. An example of nomads were the Aryans who were nomadic warriors from Central Asia who migrated to India, and are responsible for many aspects of Indian culture that exist today.

25. Papacy

• A papacy is the office or authority of the pope. The papacy has had a prominent part in world history. The popes in ancient times helped in the spread of Christianity and are now involved in charitable work and the defense of human rights.

26. Pastoral(ism)

• Pastoralism is the branch of agriculture that deals with the raising of livestock. It is different from pastoral farming in that pastoralism moving herds in search of fresh pasture and water, unlike pastoral farming where the farmers stay immobilized.

27. Patriarchal

• A patriarchy is a political system in which males dominate political power, as opposed to a Matriarchy. Feminism is a theory that opposes patriarchy and defines it as an unjust social system that is cruel towards women. Throughout history there have been many Patriarchal societies and some would say that patriarchy still hovers in America.

28. Polytheism

• Polytheism is the belief tat there is more than one god. Many religions are based off of polytheism such as Hinduism, Chinese traditional religion, Japanes Shinto etc.

29. Republic

• A republic is a system of government in which a country is ruled by law and has an elected government. Republic replaced absolute monarchy as the most commonly used form of government in the 19th century. Sun Yixian is famous for turning China into a republic.

30. Serf

• A serf was a person who lived on their lord's land, while the lord supplied him homage, labor, and a share of the produce, in exchange for military protection, during feudalism.

31. Slavery

• Slavery is a system of forced labor, where a person is legal property of another and is forced to obey them. A slave had few rights and could be bought or sold and made to work for the owner without any choice or pay. Slavery can be traced back to the earliest records, such as the Code of Hammurabi.

32. Syncretism

• Syncretism is the combination of different beliefs. Syncretism also occurs in other things such as politics and different expressions of art and culture. It occurred in religions by the Abrahamic religions where different beliefs were merged to form different branches of religions.

33. Social Stratification

• Social stratification is the way any given society categorizes its people into rankings of socioeconomic tiers. The way they categorize the people is through many factors like wealth, social status, income etc. It is often divided into three classes; upper, middle and lower. In France, there were three estates in the society, the first estate being the clergymen, the second estate being the noblemen, and the third being the rest, such as artisans and the bourgeois.

34. Theocracy

• A theocracy is a form of government where priests rule in the name of god. They were known to be the form of government in Ancient Egypt and Tibet, where kings represented and even incarnated the deity.