PLAN 201 LECTURE

The Dawn of Civilization and the Rise of Cities

- Favorable, easily-defended areas where they can stay for a while depending on the
season. Some chose to stay permanently.
- Needs-based: food, shelter

Homo Sapiens: 150,000 YA

Agricultural Revolution(s): 10,000-8,000 YA
- Cultivation of edible plants that provide food during lean seasons and augment the _
- Started with hunter and gatherer communities through process of discovery
characterized by trial and error

Domesticated crops
- Wheay, barley, and millet
- Fruits and olives
- Rice and corn in tropical counties
- Root crops like potato, and taro and yams (Pacific Islands)

Domesticated livestock and pets

- Those with docile disposition
- Contributed significantly to the capacity for fixed settlements

Tools and Material Usage from crude to sophisticated

- Shaping tools out of available materials determined advance of building technology
- Societies that learned how to use iron tools soon acquired distinct tools

Nomadic
- Characteristics: mobility; seasonal diet; small egalitarian community
- (+) flexibility; low impact; simple technology and lifestyle
- (-) vulnerable to control by stronger groups; limited child-bearing/rearing

Settled
- Large and structure community; permanence; characteristic diet
- (+) stable food supply over time; short birth spacing; learning and high technology
- (-) vulnerable to site-specific disaster; may form rigid hierarchies

Where in the World?

Rift Valley – where primates developed into human beings

Ancient Civilizations Common Representatives

Fertile Crescent
- Middle East: modern-day Iraq, Turkey and Palestine
- Neolithic farming
- 1st cities: 3500BC lower Mesopotamia (Sumer)
- the need for large-scale water and land management required centralized direction and
coordination of labor and usage of materials
*Mesopotamia- lesson in sustainability: repeated planting and harvesting 
desertification

Catalhuyuk
- in Turkey 7500BC
- Eridu, Ur (cities of Mesopotamia) inhabited for at least 10,000 years, as cities since
3,500BC
- Damascus, Aleppo continuously inhabited for 11,000 years

WEEK1 AUGUST 3, 2018

 PLAN 201 LECTURE

- Transition from loose groupings and structures  settlements tied to logic related to ___.

*Imothep
designed the step pyramid ++
religious and cultural influence on the resulting shapes and form of cities and management of
land
space and forms(?) of craftsmanship went into what the citizens valued

Yellow River
- Cradle of Chinese civilization
- Birthplace of Northern Han Societies
- 4,000-6,000BC

Indus Valley Civilization

- Water from the Himalayan flowing from east to west
- Indus+ Ganges
- Lasted until Aryan invasions into India

Americas: Olmea and Aztec

- Tenichititian

Greece
- Archipelagic and part of a peninsula
- Different civilizations per island
- Acropolis: highest point
- Agora: market place
- Sparta: art of warfare
- Athenians: democracy and governance
- Hippodemus of Milletus: father of urban planning
o Grid plan = Hippodamian plan
o Characterized by order

Romans
- Engineering: roads, irrigation; warfare
- First to organize in a massive scale
- Had most far-reaching influence on early urban populations

Less Known Representatives

Southwest Africa Kingfom of Zimbabwe
- 1100-1450AD

Ancient Bahman (Burma)

- Under Anamuhuh in 11th century
- In Bagan (Pagan) in the dry central plains.

Primary characteristics of Cities

1. Size and density of cities
2. Full-time specialization of labor
3. Concentration of surplus
4. Class-structured society
5. State organization

WEEK1 AUGUST 3, 2018

 PLAN 201 LECTURE

Secondary Characteristics of Cities

1. Monumental public works
2. Long-distance trade
3. Standardize monumental artwork
4. Writing
5. Arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy

Theoretical Approaches of Urban Origin Groupings

1. Hydraulic
2. Economic
3. Military
4. Religious

Humans chose areas the most conducive, and rejected which were not.

WEEK1 AUGUST 3, 2018