Unit+One

**RSU #10** **Curriculum Unit**

**School:** DIRIGO HIGH SCHOOL

**Unit Title:** Unit 1, Settling Down **Duration:** 3 Weeks

**Unit Description:** - From Village Community to City-State (10,000 B.C.E. - 750 B.C.E.) - River Valley Civilizations: The Nile and the Indus (7000 B.C.E. - 750 B.C.E.) - A Polycentric World: City-states in East Asia, The Americas, and West Africa  (1700 B.C.E. - 1000 C.E.)

**Essential Questions (s):** //What is the history and nature of interaction between humans and the environment (Theme One)?// **Learning Targets/Standard(s):** //Key Concept 1.1. Big Geography and the Peopling of the Earth// The term “Big Geography” draws attention to the long time spans required for the geological changes that formed the backdrop for the migration of early humans from Africa to cover the globe. The climate changes that brought about the end of the most recent Ice Age forced humans to adapt to a drier climate, one without the large mammals that may have been their prey. Areas such as the Sahara region that had previously been savannah became desert. Early humans were mobile and creative in adapting to different geographical settings from savannah to desert to Ice Age Tundra. People lived in small kinship groups of hunting/foraging bands. Technological advances such as the use of fire, more sophisticated stone tools, and clothing that was stitched together using an awl and strips of hide or sinew characterized this period. By analogy with modern hunter/forager societies, anthropologists infer that these bands were relatively egalitarian. Although there may well have been a division of labor between men and women, the male dominance of later pastoral or agricultural communities probably had not yet developed. Social and political structures were rudimentary. Religion was mostly likely similar to what later became known as Shamanism, or based on spirits of fertility of man and beast. Economic structures focused on self-sufficient bands that could make what they needed to survive. Some trade likely existed between various groups, however, since high-quality flints and shells have been found far from their points of origin.

//Key Concept 1.2. The Neolithic Revolution and Early Agricultural Society// In response to changing climate patterns, some groups turned either to Pastoralism or to settle agriculture while others remained successful as foragers or fishers. In contrast to hunter/foragers, pastoral peoples domesticated animals and led the herds around grazing ranges. Pastoralists tended to be more socially stratified and have more male dominance than hunter/foragers because some males accumulated more wealth (animals) than others. Like hunter/foragers, however, pastoralists did not accumulate large amounts of material possessions, which would have been a hindrance when changing grazing areas. Pastoralists’ mobility allowed them to become an important conduit for technological change (by spreading knowledge of new weapons or methods of transportation, for example) as they interacted with settled populations. Other groups moved at different times in different regions toward settled agriculture. Two immediate consequences of agriculture were the settlement of populations in permanent dwellings and the production of a storable surplus of food. The switch to agriculture created a more reliable, but not necessarily more diversified, food supply. Agriculture also had a massive impact on the environment, through intensive cultivation of selected plants to the exclusion of others, through the construction of irrigation systems, and through the use of domesticated animals as food sources and for labor. Populations increased; family groups gave way to village and later urban life with all its complexity. Patriarchy and forced labor systems developed giving elite men concentrated power over most of the other peoples in their societies.

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Gill Sans,sans-serif; text-decoration: none;">//Key Concept 1.3. The Development and Interactions of Early Agricultural, Pastoral, and Urban Societies and Civilizations.// <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Gill Sans,sans-serif; text-decoration: none;">During this period civilizations appeared and expanded in several world regions. While dramatically different, these civilizations all produced agricultural surpluses that permitted significant specialization of labor. These civilizations, based in growing urban developments, generated complex institutions, such as political bureaucracies (including military establishment and religious hierarchies). They also featured clearly stratified social hierarchies and organized long-distance trading relationships. Economic exchanges within and between civilizations, as well as with nomadic pastoralists, progressively intensified. Competition for resources, labor, and luxury items led to increasing conflict and warfare. Surplus food led to several consequences, such as increased social stratification, specialization of labor, increased trade, more complex systems of government and religion, and the development of record keeping. In addition, artifacts or surplus food could be traded, which created a web connecting settled and pastoralist people in an ever-accelerating cycle of exchanging not only goods and resources but also ideas, inventions, and diseases. Finally, the accumulation of wealth in settled communities led to warfare between communities and/or pastoralists, along with new technology of war and urban defense.

<span style="font-family: Gill Sans,sans-serif;">**DHS School-Wide Expectation(s)** <span style="font-family: Gill Sans,sans-serif;">**for Learning Addressed:** <span style="font-family: Gill Sans,sans-serif;">//Expectation E – Demonstrates integrative and informed thinking skills. The student applies ideas, knowledge and skills in and across disciplines and learning contexts. The student evaluates and synthesizes information from multiple sources, applying varied modes of thought and methods to understand their interrelationships.//

<span style="font-family: Gill Sans,sans-serif;">**Lesson Activities:**

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Gill Sans,sans-serif; text-decoration: none;">//Primary Source Materials:// <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Gill Sans,sans-serif; text-decoration: none;"> - Lugal Sulgi: Role Model for Mesopotamian Royalty <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Gill Sans,sans-serif; text-decoration: none;"> - The Nippur Murder Trial and the “Silent Wife” <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Gill Sans,sans-serif; text-decoration: none;"> - The Epic of Gilgamesh <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Gill Sans,sans-serif; text-decoration: none;"> - The Code of Hammurabi <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Gill Sans,sans-serif; text-decoration: none;"> - Papyrus Lansing: Advice from an Egyptian father to his son, exhorting him to learn the skills of a scribe <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Gill Sans,sans-serif; text-decoration: none;"> - Instruction of Any: Common-sense Advice from the Scribe Any to his Son <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Gill Sans,sans-serif; text-decoration: none;"> - The Shu ching: Excerpts from the “Books of Yu,” “Books of Hea,” and “Books of Shang”

<span style="font-family: Gill Sans,sans-serif;">**Materials/Resources (including technology):** <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Gill Sans,sans-serif;">// Reading: // Spodek chapters 1, 2, 3, 4

<span style="font-family: Gill Sans,sans-serif;">**Literacy Strategies:** <span style="font-family: Gill Sans,sans-serif;">Modeling and discussion of primary sources <span style="font-family: Gill Sans,sans-serif;">**Summative Assessment (s) Description and Rubric (s): Please attach** <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Gill Sans,sans-serif; text-decoration: none;">//Activities Demonstrating Understanding of Theme 1 (Interaction between humans and the environment)// <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Gill Sans,sans-serif; text-decoration: none;">Civilizations of the Americas DBQ: Includes Photos of Machu Pichu and a pyramid of Tikal, Mayan Glyphs, Quotes from Hernan Cortes and Garciasco de la Vega, as well as a map of the Incan Empire <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Gill Sans,sans-serif; text-decoration: none;">Neolithic Revolution Chart Activity: Students will construct a chart identifying the causes and effects of the Neolithic Revolution and early agricultural society.

<span style="font-family: Gill Sans,sans-serif;">**Choices of formative assessments:** <span style="font-family: Gill Sans,sans-serif;">No choices available. <span style="font-family: Gill Sans,sans-serif;">**Differentiation Possibilities:**
 * <span style="font-family: Gill Sans,sans-serif;">DBQ offers students choices in their approach to answering the big question.
 * <span style="font-family: Gill Sans,sans-serif;">Chart activity offers students the flexibility in how they construct their chart