1. Discuss Mayan Civilization.

The Maya Empire, focused in the tropical marshes of what is presently Guatemala,
achieved the top of its energy and impact around the 6th century A.D. The greater part of the
colossal stone urban areas of the Maya was relinquished by A.D. The assignment Maya
originates from the antiquated Yucatan city of Mayapan, the last capital of a Mayan. The most
punctual Maya settlements date to around 1800 B.C., or the start of what is known as the Preclassic or Formative Period. Not at all like other scattered indigenous populaces of
Mesoamerica, The Maya were focused in one geological square covering the greater part of
the Yucatan Peninsula. Stephens and Catherwood investigated and archived the ancient ruins
of Maya.
The Maya exceeded expectations at agriculture, pottery, hieroglyph writing, calendarmaking and mathematics, and left behind a shocking measure of great engineering and typical
work of art. Notwithstanding horticulture, the Pre-classic Maya additionally showed more
progressed social attributes like pyramid-building, city development and the recording of
stone landmarks. Maya had the capacity to construct an awesome human advancement in a
tropical rainforest atmosphere. The Maya accepted profoundly in the repeating way of life
and this conviction enlivened their perspective of the divine beings and the universe. Amid
the Middle Pre-classic Period, which kept going until around 300 B.C., Maya ranchers started
to grow their vicinity both in the good country and swamp locales. The Classic Period, which
started around A.D. 250, was the brilliant age of the Maya Empire.
By A.D. 900, Maya progress in that locale had caved in. The Maya had depleted
nature around them to the point that it could no more maintain a huge populace. Steady
fighting among contending city-states, extreme time of droughtmay have wiped out the
Classic Maya human advancement. In the present day age the Maya still ranch the same
terrains as their progenitors did from the north in the Yucatan down to Honduras.

2. Discuss the civilization of the Niger River.

Niger river in western Africa, flowing primarily from west to east, through Guinea,
Mali, Niger, Benin, and Nigeria to the Gulf of Guinea. With a length of 4,180 km, it is the
third longest river in Africa. The drainage basin covers a region of around 2,092,00 sq km
and incorporates two deltasan inland delta in focal Mali and a coastal delta along the Gulf of
Guinea. The Niger has served as a point of convergence for the improvement of African civic
establishments, especially the antiquated kingdoms of Ghana and Mali.
Several important states developed in the upper Niger Basin, starting with the
Kingdom of Ghana by the 5th century AD. Following Ghana's downfall around 1200, the
Mali Empire rose to fame. In the key years of the Mali Empire, traders brought gold by
pirogue down the Niger from Ghana to Timbuktu. But the Arab traders were following even
earliest routes that existed before the Sahara was a desert. The decline of Mali in the 15th
century overlapped with the rise of Songhai. In the mid-19th century the Mandinka state lead
by Samory Tour and the Tukolor Empire of Umar al-Hajj arose in the upper Niger Basin.
The Portuguese entered at the Niger Delta on the coast in 1473. During the years when the
slave trade prospered, nearly half the total number of slaves sent from Africa came from the
Niger delta, which came to be known as the "Slave Coast." In the early nineteenth century,
Seku Amadu founded a Massina Empire in the Inland Delta region. The region became a
division of the country of Mali on its independence in 1960.
In Nigeria, major empires such as Ife, Oyo, Benin, and Sokoto stretched their
influence over parts of the Niger Valley at different times. The Nupe and Borgu kingdoms
had established themselves in the Niger Valley by the 15th century. The journey of Scottish
explorer Mungo Park from 1795 to 1798 showed the Niger flowed eastward. The Niger
mystery was finally solved through expeditions lead by Scottish explorer Hugh Clapperton
from 1823 to 1825 and by British traveller Richard Lemon Lander in 1830.

3. Discuss Bantu civilization?

Bantu was an ancient dialect talked by individuals who lived in what is presently
Cameroon and Nigeria in West Africa. These individuals were principally agriculturists who
lived in towns along waterways. By around 1500 BCE, their products, including more up to
date nourishment like bananas, yams, and oats, were thriving, their populace was growing,
and their territories were turning into a bit stuffed.
Throughout the following 2,000 years, the Bantu individuals moved gradually and bit
by bit in two headings: south down the bank of Western Africa and east over the mainland,
with a swing toward the South as they advanced. Bantu spread their horticultural practices,
their dialect, and their way of life. Along the way, they created iron devices and weapons
which helped their spread and made their farming tries more productive. The Bantu people
groups did not move into unfilled grounds. By around 500 CE, the Bantu movements were
finished; the Bantu people groups possessed about all of Africa south of the Sahara Desert.
Today, around 90 million individuals talk present day relatives of the Bantu dialects, which
incorporate Swahili and Zulu. Rather, a stateless society was driven by family aggregates that
adjusted the decision power among them and settled on choices together for the benefit of the
entire society.
Now and again these family groups controlled only one town through a chamber of
senior citizens, which was included the male leaders of the families and sometimes a chose
boss who represented the gathering. Different times, the family bunches practiced their
control more than a few towns to frame an area. For this situation, town boss met together to
talk about and choose vital issues. These systems could at times develop expansive and
contain a huge number of individuals, yet they were constantly represented by families and
never by authorities or officials.

4. In comparing civilizations, Strayer suggests several means of giving attention to one

or another. List his criteria and describe his thinking and indicate if you agree?
Robert W. Strayer (Ph.D., University of Wisconsin), a pioneer in the world history
movement with years of classroom experience, gives a mindful and shrewd blend that offers
students see the big picture. He got wide experience world history to the written work of
Ways of the World.
People who lived in ancient civilizations had a great contact on the environment. In
southern Mesopotamia, deforestation, soil erosion, and salinization of soil weakened
Sumerian city-states which led to foreign take-over. The increasing populations of the ancient
societies may have also added to the environmental issues. Ancient civilizations ultimately
started to interrelate with one another. The swap of information and goods was helpful for
both civilizations. Egypt's agriculture benefited from communication. Also, Mesopotamia had
wide sea trade with the Indus Valley civilization as early as 2300 B.C.E. All ancient
civilizations strived for development. In time, Egypt progressed an alphabetic writing and
developed a major iron-work manufacturing. This information and iron working finally led to
the creation of new shell and armaments which benefitted this society considerably. Power
indicated these ancient civilizations. They structured the law of the land and admission to the
afterlife was related to closeness to the Pharaoh. Patriarchy step by step developed in these
ancient civilizations. The organization of women with natural world due to their natural role
in reproduction may have also played a role.
I am agreed with the Strayer who indicates the differences in art, geography, social,
military, politics, technology, economy and religion between the civilizations of
Mesopotamia, Indus Valley and Egypt.

5. Why was trade so important in the period 500-1500? (in your answer discuss why
trade was important and what were the major products or trade routes involved).
The exchange of goods among societies occupying different ecological zones has long
been a famous feature of human history. Each region generates different products desired by
others. This rough distribution of goods and assets has long motivated exchange, not only
within particular civilizations or regions but among them as well. In the world of 500
1500, long-distance trade became more important than ever before in connecting and shaping
far-away societies and peoples. Nonetheless, a network of exchange and communication
spreading all across the Afro-Eurasian world, and separately in parts of the Americas as
well gradually came into being.
The Eurasian continents have long been home to the majority of humanity as well as
to the worlds most creative agriculture, largest civilizations, and greatest concentration of
rural peoples. Eurasia also gave rise to the Silk Roads, a reference to their most well-known
product. In Central Asia, silk was used as currency and as a way of depositing wealth. In both
China and the Byzantine Empire, silk became a symbol of high rank.
In China Region, silk, bamboo, mirrors, gunpowder, paper, ginger, chrysanthemums
were

exchanged.

In

Central

Asia,

furs, walrus

tusks, amber, horses, hides, copper

vessels, slaves were traded. Cotton textiles, herbal medicine, spices were products of trade in
India. Gold coins, glassware, jewellery, perfume, wool and linen textiles, olive oil were
traded in Mediterranean basin. Before 1500, the Indian Ocean represented the worlds largest
sea-based method of communication and exchange, extending from southern China to eastern
Africa.

In

China

Region,

silks, porcelain, tea

were

exchanged.

In

east Africa,

ivory, gold, slaves, tortoiseshells were traded. Grain, ivory, cotton textiles, spices, timber,
tortoiseshells were products of trade in India. Ceramics, glassware, olive oil were traded in
Mediterranean basin through sea routes.

6. Discuss the Silk Roads. (In your answer include where they occurred, what goods
were traded, and why did they develop where they did instead of other places).
The Eurasian landmass has for some time been home to the greater part of mankind
and in addition to the world's most profitable agribusiness, biggest civic establishments, and
most prominent centralization of peaceful people groups. Eurasia also gave rise to the Silk
Roads, a reference to their most well-known product. These area based exchange courses
connected peaceful and farming people groups and in addition the vast civic establishments
on the landmass' external edge. External Eurasia comprises of moderately warm, all around
watered territories, suitable for agribusiness, which gave the setting to the considerable civic
establishments of China, India, the Middle East, and the Mediterranean. Internal Eurasia and
Central Asia has a harsher and drier atmosphere, quite a bit of it not helpful for horticulture.
In China Region, silk, bamboo, mirrors, gunpowder, paper, ginger, chrysanthemums were
exchanged. In Central Asia, furs, walrus tusks, amber, horses, hides, copper vessels, slaves
were traded. Cotton textiles, herbal medicine, spices were products of trade in India. Gold
coins, glassware, jewellery, perfume, wool and linen textiles, olive oil were traded in
Mediterranean basin.
Of all these extravagance products, it was silk that came to symbolize this Eurasian
trade framework. Silk Road exchanging systems succeeded most when substantial and
intense states gave security to dealers and explorers. Such conditions won amid the
established period when the Roman and Chinese domains secured long-separate trade. Silk
Road exchange prospered again amid the seventh and eighth hundreds of years C.E. by the
Byzantine Empire, the Muslim Abbasid administration. The Mongol Empire quickly
incorporated practically the whole course of the Silk Roads in a solitary state. Buddhism
specifically spread broadly all through Central and East Asia, owing much to the exercises of
vendors along the Silk Roads.

7. Discuss trade in West Africa in the period 500-1500AD.

Amid the period 500-1500AD, notwithstanding the Silk Roads and the Sea Roads,
another essential example of long-separation exchange, this one over the endless spans of the
Sahara, connected North Africa and the Mediterranean world with the area and people groups
of inside West Africa. Like the others, these Sand Road business systems had a changing
effect, invigorating and improving West African human progress and associating it to bigger
examples of world history amid the postclassical period.
Trans-African exchange, similar to the business of the Silk Roads and the Sea Roads,
was established in natural variety. The North African beach front districts, long some portion
of Roman or later Arab domains, produced fabric, crystal, weapons, books, and other made
products. The immense Sahara held stores of copper and particularly salt, while its desert
springs created sweet and nutritious dates. Scanty populaces of the desert were to a great
extent peaceful and travelling. The farming districts of sub-Saharan Africa are typically
separated into two biological zones: the savannah meadows promptly south of the Sahara,
which delivered grain yields, for example, millet and sorghum; and the timberland territories
more distant south, where root and tree harvests, for example, yams and kola nuts prevailed.
A noteworthy defining moment in African business life happened with the
acquaintance of the camel with North Africa and the Sahara in the early hundreds of years of
the Common Era. It was camel-owning tenants of desert gardens who started standard transSaharan trade by 300 to 400 C.E. A few centuries later, North African Arabs, now bearing the
new religion of Islam, likewise composed processions over the desert. Gold was found in
some wealth in the fringe ranges straddling the prairies and the woodlands of West Africa.
African ivory, kola nuts, and slaves were in like manner in extensive interest in the desert, the
Mediterranean bowl, and past. Consequently, the people groups of the Sudan got stallions,
fabric, dates, different made products, and particularly salt from the rich stores in the Sahara.

NOTE:
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