Time Adventure

I could feel the wind rushing by my face as I sped backwards into time. It was June 12, 2011, but by now I was probably in the early 1980s. Why did I do this again? I thought, dodging a plane that was spiraling down towards what I guessed was Scotland.

It all started last month, when my teacher, Dr. Brainstorm, assigned us all to invent something new, something that no one had ever invented before. My friend Alice created a solar powered can opener, Davie created canine contact lenses, but I made the best invention of all – a time machine! Dr. Brainstorm said that my invention was so good, that all of the class just had to try it. He suggested that I take the class on a tour of what we had just learned in History class. I agreed, but first I had to explain the glitch in the system. I could go anywhere I wanted to go, but after an hour there I had to travel somewhere else or I would be transported back to the beginning of time and stuck there. The whole class agreed that the danger was part of the thrill, so I merely shrugged, turned to my time machine, and said: ‘First Stop: Pre-Historic Kenya.’

The class oohed and ahhed as the room turned first purple, then green. Then suddenly, the time machine sucked the whole class into it and burst through the History class ceiling. We soared into the sky, twisting and whirling. Everything was a blur. The class screamed as we broke through the clouds and flew dangerously close to an airplane that was about to crash. I could hear Alice’s high-pitched scream above all of the other voices and it made me laugh.

So, here I was, going through centuries as if they were seconds, and all I could think was – I miss 2011. After a couple of minutes, we finally began to slow down. We went back down through the clouds and landed on the savanna of Kenya. We climbed out carefully, looking around in great wonder. There were animals, animals everywhere. I stared in awe at the lions lying lethargically in the shade of a rock. This was better than a safari! But I made myself focus on the task at hand – after all, we only had an hour. ‘Come on, you guys, let’s go look for some early humans!’ I called across to the rest of the group.

We trekked across the savanna, staring in wonder at the great sights but also taking care not to bother any of the animals. Then, suddenly, I came to a stop. ‘Look over there!’ I hissed, pointing to the beginning of a forest. We could see the outline of an apelike creature. In fact, if it wasn’t holding what looked like a makeshift spear, I would have thought he was an ape. He was running towards us, holding the spear in his hand. As he came closer, I could see him in more detail. ‘Homo Habilis,’ I explained to the rest of the class. ‘Also known as the handyman – he’s the guy who made the first tools. Now back away slowly, and let’s hope that he doesn’t see us.’ He came closer, still running and with a fierce expression on his face. ‘Um, guys- I think we should move.’ I said, starting to get a bit panicky now. The class didn’t listen to me –they were gazing at Homo Habilis, transfixed. ‘Move!’ I shouted, and finally Dr. Brainstorm snapped out of it. ‘Come on you guys,’ he said, and started herding them away from the path of the ape-man. What is he chasing after? I wondered. Then, I saw it – an antelope running, graceful and quick. However, it was getting tired, and Homo Habilis was gaining on it. Finally he reached it, and quickly stabbed the antelope in the neck with the spear. With a sickening moan, the antelope crumpled, and the ape-man slung it over his shoulder and started walking directly towards us. ‘Time to go,’ I said, nervous. We rushed back to the time machine, looking over our shoulders to make sure he wasn’t following us. Finally we reached it, and I quickly said, ‘Next stop – the Fertile Crescent.’

We made the same journey, just shorter and into the future this time. ‘Maria, do you think you could teach us a bit about the Fertile Crescent once we get out of this machine?’ Dr. Brainstorm requested. ‘Yeah, sure,’ I said, mentally going over what we learned in class.

‘Okay, guys, listen up,’ I said as we clambered out of the time machine. Before we step out into the unknown,’ I said dramatically, ‘I’m just going to brief you on some of the main points of Mesopotamia and why I decided to take you guys here anyway. So what we are looking at right now is one of the world’s first civilizations. This magnificent view,’ I said, sweeping my arm, ‘is where we can find out why people organize themselves into larger communities.’

‘Now, guys, let’s take some notes!’ Dr. Brainstorm said cheerfully.

‘Alright,’ I said, sort of nervous.

‘This is what you should write down,’ I said, pointing at my notebook.

· This is the Middle East

· This is where the growth and behavior of plants and animals became easier, humans learned how to control it

· Farming was fully established, they soon had extra food called surplus

· This was where the hunter-gatherers stopped being nomadic and settled down

‘Oh guys, look!’ I said, abandoning my pretense of teaching the class. ‘This is perfect timing! We’re able to see them using the wheel for the first time! That’s what Sumerians are most famous for – for inventing the wheel.’ ‘Coooool,’ Davie said, looking at a man moving a wheelbarrow full of grains. ‘Those grains are probably going to be stored as surplus,’ I said. ‘And look at that man over there!’ He was sitting on a huge stool with pictographs depicted on it and was being carried. He had people on each side of him with big fans to keep him cool and the flies off.

‘Guys, this place has basically all of the characteristics of a civilization,’ I said, getting back on topic. ‘They have specific jobs, like the man who’s wheeling the wheelbarrow, they have social classes, like the man on the stool who is all high and mighty, they trade their surplus, they have clear leadership, they have a writing system like the pictographs on the stool, and they definitely have a stable food supply.’

While we were looking around, I could see the two rivers Tigris and Euphrates on either side of me. I suppose those were what helped with the compulsory irrigation system, which helped the surplus of food and helped to prevent famine. I checked my watch and gasped – we had 2 minutes left before we would be transported to the beginning of time!

‘Gather around,’ Dr. Brainstorm called to our class. ‘We’re ready for the next location.’

‘Next stop is Ancient Egypt.’ I hurried to say.

Once we arrived, I could finally breathe again. It looked exactly like I expected. I looked around, and on my left, I could see the Nile. It was their main source of water, in fact, their main source of everything. It was flooding season, which meant that the Nile was bringing rich silt onto its banks. This fertilized the soil and made it easier to farm. I could see many boats travelling down the river, most likely to transport goods to trade. I turned away from the Nile, eager to see the other sites that looked so real and so new. I observed that there were many temples, for many different gods. This was because the Ancient Egyptians were polytheistic.

Suddenly, Dr. Brainstorm became adventurous. ‘Come on, class! Let’s go explore a pyramid!’ He ushered us into the closest pyramid, past the immobile guards. There isn’t much I can say to describe it – all I can say is that while the afterlife is a big thing in Ancient Egypt, dried up dead bodies are not very pretty.

‘All right, time to go!’ I called. We only had 5 minutes left. ‘Dr. Brainstorm, we can only go to one more stop – should it be India or China?’ I asked. ‘Oh, let’s make it Ancient India, shall we,’ he said airily.

‘Alright then: Next stop, Ancient India!’ I said loudly in the general direction of the time machine. Again we all felt the familiar suction feeling, and then we were whirling through time and through space.

We landed in the middle of a big city that I assumed was New Delhi. It was very busy, but that wasn’t the interesting part. The interesting part was that I had a view of nearly everything. There was a gigantic mountain range behind me that I could see by twisting my head, then when I looked over to my sides I could almost see the tips of the East and West Ghats.

‘Guys, let’s walk along the river!’ Dr. Brainstorm said happily. He just loves this stuff, I thought. We hiked over through the streets and alleyways of New Delhi for half an hour until we finally reached what must have been the Ganges River. ‘Oh no, it’s monsoon season!’ Dr. Brainstorm said excitedly as a huge cloud began to hover above our path. In only a matter of 2 minutes, the cloud had burst and it was raining like I had never seen it before. ‘June to September is monsoon season, then,’ Dr. Brainstorm reminded us. ‘We have to go,’ I reminded him. ‘After all, we only have half an hour and it’ll take us at least 25 minutes to reach our time machine again.’ We hurried back to our time machine, taking in the lush landscape and breathing in the never-polluted air of the ancient countries. I was sort of sad, because I knew that if I went to India in the present, it wouldn’t be nearly as nice as it was then. Oh well, I thought, and sadly walked back with the rest of the group. ‘Last stop – Home,’ I said, my voice wobbly. We were sucked into the time machine yet again, and the last thing I saw was a round Buddha’s belly painted on the building across from the time machine. ‘Goodbye’ I whispered.

The Taj Mahal

This is the Taj Mahal:

The story of the Taj Mahal is this:
One day, the emperor of India's son decided to go find himself a wife. He went to the market, and there he found a beautiful woman. They fell in love within the first 10 minutes of knowing each other, and they were wed. The couple did many great deeds for the empire, and eventually the emperor's son became known as Shah Jahan. Then the emperor grew sick and died, leaving Shah Jahan to become emperor. He did a lot of good stuff for the empire as emperor, and he greatly enjoyed leading the empire. Then he and his wife went on a journey. Once there, his wife became pregnant for the 14th time. They were both overjoyed, but during the birth of the child, Mumtaz Mahal, his wife, grew sick and died. Shah Jahan was upset beyond belief. He went back to his great palace, donned his white robes of mourning, and lost interest in leading the empire. Mumtaz Mahal's last wish was to make the world remember the great love the two of them had, so Shah Jahan spent many days and many nights thinking about what to do to make the world remember their great love. Eventually, he came up with an idea - to create a huge memorial building for Mumtaz Mahal. He immediately set many workers onto the job, and it ended up magnificent, like this:
He then had an even better idea - when he died, he was going to have a black memorial building right across from Mumtaz Mahal's! Unfortunately, he was later conquered by his cousin and forced into a prison, where he stayed for nine years before he died. He never got his memorial, but his wife got her wish - to let the whole world know how great their love was. And this is signified by the Taj Mahal.

Buddhist Eightfold Path

This is the Buddhist Eightfold Path:
Right Effort
Right Liveliness
Right Action
Right Speech
Right Intentions
Right View
Right Mindfulness
Right Concentration
Right Action and Right Speech are the ones that are easiest for me to incorporate into my life. They are both principles of ethical conduct, and they basically mean to always do the right thing and to say the right thing, never to insult or to attempt to gain something for one's own selfish desire. When someone provokes me, I can't just snap back, but I can incorporate 'right speech' and reply nicely or not at all. The same thing applies to right action.

Reflection on Maps

Physical features, climate, and elevation all affect each other. One example of how they affect each other could be a desert - the desert, being the physical feature, is only created by the climate of that area, which is a very arid, dry climate. If the desert had a tropical climate, it wouldn't be a desert!
I learned a lot from this mapping project, and it wasn't all just about India. I learned that in any country, the physical features depend on the climate, and the elevation somewhat depends on the physical features. Humans tend to settle in places where there's enough natural resources, and the resources depend on physical features, the climate, and also the elevation.

Shiva

The Hindu god I decided to research is the god Shiva. Shiva is the destroyer, but he is not evil. He is just responsible for change both in the form of death and destruction and in the positive sense of destroying the ego, the shedding of old habits and bad attachments. He is also the god of the yogis. In Hinduism, destruction creates a path for a new creation of the universe, a new opportunity for truth, goodness and beauty. There are many different attributes of Shiva. He carries around a trident , he is often seated on a tiger skin or wears it, because tigers represent the mind. The sound of Shiva's drum is said to maintain the rhythm of the heartbeat. He lives on Mount Kailasa in the Himalayas, and his 'vehicle' is the white bull called Nandi, or 'the joyful'. Shiva is one of the mainly worshiped gods. He is worshiped everywhere in India, and that is because he is part of so much of Hinduism. He affects Hindu's lives in so many different ways that they worship him in order to have a good life.

Mohenjo Daro (National Geographic Article)

In 1911, archaeologists first visited Mohenjo Daro, an ancient ruin on the Indus River. They excavated there for a long time, but they still haven’t figured out who occupied the city. The city has no flamboyant palaces, temples, or monuments. We still aren’t sure what type of government there was. However, we do know that modesty, cleanliness, and order were preferred, that pottery and tools of copper and stone were standardized, and that there was a system of tightly controlled trade. The city was very wealthy and had high stature.

In modern Pakistan, it’s located in the Larkana district of Sindh province in Pakistan. With no evidence of kings or queens, Mohenjo Daro was most likely a city-state.

There were many prized artifacts found – for example, a miniature bronze statuette of a female, known as the dancing girl. This statuette was discovered in 1926. There were also a few stone sculptures of males found broken, which archaeologists also found interesting.

Another mystery of Mohenjo Daro is what ended the civilization. There is no evidence of any flooding destroying the city, and the city wasn’t totally abandoned either. Archaeologists are still researching today, but there was no evidence found yet.

Ancient Egypt Reflection

For our Ancient Egypt Reflection, we were supposed to write about which IB Learner Profiles we had exhibited throughout the unit as well as which Approaches to Learning Categories we showed.

For the approaches to learning categories, I think the one that I showed the most was Communication. The three points are to present information with a variety of formats, to understand how visual information communicates ideas, and to demonstrate good speaker and audience behavior. This was something I definitely did because of our end-of-unit presentations, where everybody did a presentation on something different. Also, we all drew pictures that resembled Ancient Egyptian art that had a meaning but were free to interpretation, which also falls under communication.

During the section of the unit where we were taking notes, I used problem solving and thinking skills as well. There was a lot that we learned about the Nile, where we had to recognize cause and effect relationships.

For the learner profile, there were a couple that I showed, other than communicators. I was an inquirer for a lot of the unit when we were learning about the Nile, because it was an interesting unit that I didn't really know much about.

I was a risk-taker when I did my presentation by trying to talk more to the class and do less reading, whether from cue cards or from the PowerPoint. It worked for most of the time, I only forgot what I was going to say once.

Lastly, I think the whole class demonstrated being knowledgeable this unit. We all explored different aspects of Ancient Egypt on our own, and finally at the end, everybody presented the topic that they found to be interesting.

Egyptian Hieroglyph Picture Explanation

In class, everybody decided to depict a different scene that is typical of Ancient Egyptian art. Here is mine:

This is a picture of the Egyptian god Horus, or the god of light. He basically controls the weather, so I tried to show him responding to a priest's prayer. On Earth, there's a thunderstorm. The crops are drowning from all the water, so the priest is praying and giving an offering to Horus, begging the god to give them light again.

Question 3 - Importance of the Nile

How do natural features such as rivers, lakes, and mountains help unite people or keep them isolated from each other?

The river Nile acts to both unite and separate different parts of Africa. It is essential for transportation and is often thought of as the ancient day "highway" because it is a quick method for trade and migration. Also, if one part of Africa is expecting an attack, the Nile may act as protection and separation.

Mountains stand in the way most of the time, and it is often necessary for people to travel around them. They only isolate, they do not unite.

Mapping Project Section

1. Describe the climate zone/biome of the Nile River area.

The Nile River is so long that there are several different climate zones, ranging from rainforest to desert. The Northern area of the Nile River, in Sudan and Egypt, there is nearly no rainfall. However, in Ethiopia, the southern part, there are heavy rains during the summer months. There are parts along the Nile River that have more tropical climates, with lots of rainfall. The rainy season is usually around April to October. Further North, the land is characterized as being a desert. It’s very hot and dry, or arid. There are often sandstorms during the spring months, which last from three to four days.

2. List the vegetation and natural resources available.

Because of the Nile’s flooding, there was plenty of silt and fertile soil for the Egyptians to farm. Egyptians were then able to farm wheat, barley, and vegetables such as onions, lettuce, and beans. The Nile also gave water and mud to the Egyptians. The mud was useful for farming, while the water could be used for both farming and drinking.

3. Explain how water, mud, plants, and animals were all “gifts of the Nile” to the Egyptians.

Because of the Nile, farmers were able to grow flourishing crops, such as wheat, barley, onions, lettuce, and beans. Egyptian farmers also raised cattle, goats, sheep and pigs for food. However, plants and animals weren’t always used as food. For example, fibers of the flax plant were used to spin linen thread, and sheep’s wool was also spun and woven. Water wasn’t only used as a farming technique, but also for the more obvious purpose – to drink it. Mud was useful for crops and for building things, a true gift of the Nile.

Migration Down the Nile

I wake up to the familiar soft lapping sound of water along the shores of the Nile. It's early in the morning, and I was woken by the chirping of birds around me. A dragonfly whizzes past me, and I can see the waving ferns along the shore nearby.It is the third day of our voyage to Hermopolis, and we are still traveling at a steady pace. Hermopolis is the new place where our family will settle, and we have heard of many others who migrated there and prospered by growing crops in the rich soil. As it is still early morning, a cool breeze brushes past me and makes me sigh in relief. It is not often that we have cooler weather on this river. I can tell just by looking at the calm waters ahead of us that there will be no trouble. We will settle in Hermopolis, and all will be good. I relax back in my section of the boat, and simply enjoy the ride.

Mummies

Cadavers: dead bodies, corpses

Transgressions: violations of the law

Cryonics:the deep-freezing of human bodies at death for preservation and possible revival in the future

Mummy: any ancient cadaver whose soft tissue has partially or wholly resisted decay

1. In what parts of the world have mummies been found?

The oldest known mummies were found in northern Chile near Arica, at the edge of the Atacama Desert. Mummies have also been found in England and northern Europe, where thousands of mummies were recovered from mossy bogs. As well as that, hundreds of mummified Caucasian bodies were found in northwestern China.

2. In what types of places (physical geography and climate)have mummies been found?

Mummies have been found in mostly 3 different types of places - in bogs or swamps, where cadavers are naturally preserved, in ice climates, where they are frozen and in this way also naturally preserved, and then in other, mostly hot, places. An example of this could be Egypt. The Ancient Egyptians are very well known for their mummies (wrapped in linen), which they buried in huge pyramids - the pyramids of Giza.

3. How did Ancient Egyptians preserve their dead?

The Ancient Egyptians preserved their dead by wrapping them in linen, extracting their insides, and putting them in pyramids. These are what most people think of when they think of mummies.

4. Why do you think ancient Egyptians took such care to embalm their dead if the desert could do the job for them?

They believed that they dead had an afterlife. They buried the dead with their most important possessions so that they would have them in the afterlife, and they buried them in twisting pyramids so that no robbers would come and rob the mummies of their successful afterlife.

5. What features of the natural environment can cause bodies to be mummified unintentionally?

Any swamps, bogs, cold environments where the corpses would freeze, or deserts are places where corpses are preserved and mummified naturally.

6. According to current scientific beliefs, what are some reasons people were intentionally mummified?

Most scientists believe that the desire to mummify the dead was because of the primal urge to extend human life as best as possible. Today, there is a company called Summum Mummification, which offers human-preservation services. What they do is deep-freeze a person at death in the hope that the individual can someday be revived.

Questions I would ask in order to figure out whether there is a possibility of a mummy there:

1. Is the climate one that would easily preserve a corpse?

2. Is it a desert, a bog or swamp, or a freezing cold location?

3. Were there mummies there found before?

4. Did the earlier civilizations there believe in preserving their dead?

5. Did the culture and religion of the earlier civilization which existed there believe in those types of burials?

the Persian Empire

This is our poster that we did for the First Empires project. David, Ilija and I researched about the Persian Empire and did a poster on the Government situation, on the culture, the accomplishments, the geography, military, wars, and we also did a timeline and random facts.

Unit Reflection

a) The domestication of plants and animals
The domestication of plants and animals was a huge step in the growth of civilizations. It provided a way for humans to learn how to control and tame the environment around them. When people learned how to do this, they had a stable supply of food, often a surplus. Because people didn't have to work as hard to find food, they had time for specialization and division of labor.

b) The transition from hunter-gatherer communities to the first civilizations
Hunter-gatherers didn't have very secure ways of living. They followed the food, instead of making the food follow them. The transition to civilizations was easier and more comfortable. This way they had time to pursue other interests, they always had stable food supplies, and life became more predictable.
c) Early religion and beliefs
Early people had several religions and beliefs. They didn't have science, so they had to figure out a way to explain their surroundings. They decided that the Earth had to have been created somehow, so they began to believe in higher powers, or gods. Religion has evolved over time, however, and we don't have the same types of religions today. Still, many early beliefs have continued on to today.

2. Imagine someone saying to you, "Learning about the Sumerians isn't very
important since they're long gone!" What would you tell them in order to change their mind? Learning about the first ever civilization is important so that we can learn about how we began to settle and survive the world around us. History is like a big puzzle, and only once we find all of the pieces can we truly see the whole picture. Sumerians seemed to be the first real smart people who actually thought for themselves.

Enheduana of Sumer (summary)

Almost 4,300 years ago, a priestess named Enheduana began to write. As the daughter of a powerful king, Enheduana learned to write when even most men didn't know how to write - let alone women! She is known as the world's first "non-anonymous" author, being the first person to use her own name in her writings. Although many other men also used their names in writing, this was mostly for the sake of recording things, for their jobs. Enheduana wrote for the art of writing. As the daughter of the king Sargon, Enheduana was very respected by the people. In her people's eyes, only she could cause the higher powers to smile on the land and keep the animals, crops, and people well. Enheduana brought a lot of her religious feeling into her writing. She wrote a set of 42 poems/hmns to the temples of Sumer and Akkad. Then suddenly, her father died. Her brothers were the next heirs to the throne, but both were killed in war. Next, a nephew of Enheduana's came to power. He didn't like the idea of sharing it, so he exiled her to the desert. Still, Enheduana was the most remembered from that time. Nobody remembered her mean nephew, but they have remembered her writing all that time to now.

From earliest times, people have changed their environments. How have people today changed their environment? Duscuss both the good and the bad.

From earliest times, people have changed their environments. How have people
today changed their environment? Discuss both the good and the bad.

There are a lot of different things we could think of when we consider how the earliest humans changed their environment. The earliest humans changed their environment by not only hunting and killing animals, which they depended on for their survival, but also by using fire for their benefit. Early humans harvested fire from wild fires, and they benefited from it very much because fire provided cooked food, light, warmth, and also ended up starting oral tradition. Fire was not only beneficial to early humans, though. It also changed the environment. The burning of the wood and the grass added more nutrients to the soil, surprisingly. More nutrients in the soil meant that more animals were attracted to the area where the early humans were at the time, which meant more food for the people.

Once the hunter-gatherers started to settle down, they found out how to domesticate plants and animals. They observed that when crop season was over, they could reuse the same seeds and always have a steady supply of food – sometimes even a surplus. Controlling animals and learning to farm was very important and caused a huge change in the environment. It was the turning point of hunter-gatherers, because it was the start of civilization.

Now, today, we change our environment in ways that are actually mostly unhealthy and bad for the earth. Learning how to use science and technology for our gain has both helped us and made a whole lot of things bad for us. We’ve used the earth without really thinking about whether we need things or whether we just want them, and now the average person wastes so much in a lifetime that it has become almost impossible to go back, change, and make sure that we are taking care of our planet.

People have finally realized what we are doing to the earth, and now, although we are paying some of the price, we are trying to go back and change things. By going one problem at a time, we can slowly eliminate the biggest problem of all – which is, in fact, some people not caring what they do to the environment as long as they don’t have to suffer afterwards.

Why was Catalhoyuk Such an Important Find?

This is a picture of part of the site:

Approximately 8,000 to 9,000 years ago, an extremely important village was built, named Catalhoyuk. Over time, it was covered with many layers of earth – entirely buried. This site was first excavated by James Mellaart in 1958, and is continuing to be excavated today. Archaeologists are taking it slow – they are studying the site to learn more about the Neolithic period. This is a very good example of a thriving civilization. By studying this site, archaeologists were able to learn about early lifestyles, farming, beliefs, and the domestication of plants and animals. In my opinion, this site is very important because it is one of the first villages that were thriving with agriculture. When James Mellaart started the excavation of this site, it was as if a light bulb went off for historians and archaeologists. That site was the perfect example of how prospering communities worked. By studying this site and others that were eventually found, archaeologists and historians were able to get the general idea of how we as the human race have become so developed today.

Catalhoyuk was once a thriving city, fertile and with many animals. It rose up in the time period know as the agricultural revolution, or the Neolithic period. The agricultural revolution is when people started to really think about what was better for their lifestyle. They watched what happened to animals and they watched what happened to plants, and they learned. They learned how to domesticate the animals to have them in complete control. They also realized that they could stay in one place for longer than a couple of weeks! Comparing something such as Terra Amata to this is very easy. In Terra Amata the early humans followed the food. Once agriculture came around, it was different for people. They made the food accommodate them, not the other way around.

With Catalhoyuk, people slowly evolved from nomads to relatively permanent residents of this village. Not only was the soil extremely fertile, but the village was also positioned right by a river, so people didn’t have to go hunt for water as it is today. Because people could control the crops, they were able to stay there for a long time. This also meant that they were able to build more permanent homes, which was very useful. The idea of going hungry was laughable, because now that they had so many crops, they could save some in what they called surplus bins! Now that everybody didn’t have to concentrate on sources of food and water specifically, they were able to go into what we call the division of labor and the specialization of labor. There were some jobs that just needed doing – hunting, building, and so on. These were the divisions of labor. The specializations of labor were similar to our hobbies – crafts, pottery, art, weaving, painting, tool making, and keeping pets. Soon they became in touch with other places around them that had just as fertile soil and were also doing pretty well. This and language led to trading. There were many different things that Catalhoyuk ended up trading, such as art they made, baskets they weaved, beads they formed from rocks, and often the rare rock obsidian which could be useful for making tools. Once they had this whole thing going, they pretty much had culture. They had proper burials for the dead, they had hobbies, they had jobs, they traded instead of using money, and they had the necessary resources to live. And still, when they could have been satisfied, they were curious. What else could they do? What makes us special is that we express our feelings, our emotions, thoughts, concerns, dreams, hopes ideas. Through these, our ancestors ended up creating proper civilizations such as the one we are living in today.

In conclusion, people who lived in Catalhoyuk were very lucky. They just ended up there in one of their migrating endeavors, and they found that they could easily stay there for long periods of time! They finally had time to think about other things they could do than what was absolutely necessary to survive, and their culture grew more and more complex to lead to what we are today. Catalhoyuk was a very important find to archaeologists and historians, and we are very lucky that the village was found. Otherwise, we would have missed a very important step in our humanity to how we became such a complex culture.