Summary of Annalee Newitz's Four Lost Cities

Everest Media

Description

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.
Sample Book Insights:
#1 When I traveled to Çatalhöyük, a city that was built before cities existed, I was able to see the origins of the world I knew. The people there were a generation or two removed from nomadism, and when they began to settle in one place, it was a revolutionary idea.
#2 When people passed through one of Çatalhöyük’s thousands of rooftop doorways, they entered a new phase in human society. They found themselves in an alien future where people’s identities were tied to a fixed location.
#3 The Çatalhöyük Dig House is the home of hundreds of archaeologists who have worked there over the past 25 years to uncover the ancient city’s secrets. It is roughly the size of a modern city block, and is protected by a huge shade structure that arcs over the East Mound.
#4 The city of Çatalhöyük was excavated in the 1950s, and since then, archaeologists have found thousands of houses that were rebuilt upon each other for over a millennium, leaving behind a treasure trove of artifacts.

Sujets

• Earth science
• Geography

Informations

• Publié par: Everest Media LLC
• Date de parution: 13 mars 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781669353010
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Insights on Annalee Newitz's Four Lost Cities
Contents Insights from Chapter 1 Insights from Chapter 2 Insights from Chapter 3 Insights from Chapter 4
Insights from Chapter 1

#1

When I traveled to Çatalhöyük, a city that was built before cities existed, I was able to see the origins of the world I knew. The people there were a generation or two removed from nomadism, and when they began to settle in one place, it was a revolutionary idea.

#2

When people passed through one of Çatalhöyük’s thousands of rooftop doorways, they entered a new phase in human society. They found themselves in an alien future where people’s identities were tied to a fixed location.

#3

The Çatalhöyük Dig House is the home of hundreds of archaeologists who have worked there over the past 25 years to uncover the ancient city’s secrets. It is roughly the size of a modern city block, and is protected by a huge shade structure that arcs over the East Mound.

#4

The city of Çatalhöyük was excavated in the 1950s, and since then, archaeologists have found thousands of houses that were rebuilt upon each other for over a millennium, leaving behind a treasure trove of artifacts.

#5

The South dig is breathtaking. archaeologists have dug at least ten meters down, uncovering layers of the city’s grid. The first evidence that people were cooking with dairy products was found at the dairy line, which represents the traces left behind by humans who had stopped looking for their place within nature and started changing nature to suit themselves.

#6

The Neolithic Revolution, which was the transition from nomadic life to mass urban society, was very gradual and didn’t begin in the Middle East and radiate to the world, but many places developed their own version of it independently.

#7

Humans changed every life-form that entered their settlement ecosystems. We bred plants so that their edible bits would ripen faster and feed more people, which led to wheat with bigger seeds as well as plumper fruits. We also domesticated ourselves.

#8

Humans were also domesticated, and their culture was changed as a result. They began to have a fascination with the wild world they were desperately trying to leave behind, and they created symbolic structures that resembled the animals they were trying to escape.

#9

The walls of Çatalhöyük were meant to remind people of their wild past, but they also served as a reminder of their weakness. As society became more domesticated, people began to desire privacy, which was only available in cities.

#10

Çatalhöyük was the first archaeological site I visited, and it was unlike anything I had ever seen before. Its residents were building new layers to their identities, and their houses were a way to think about social relationships.

#11

The first examples of monumental architecture appear around 12,000 years ago, during the Neolithic period. They were created by nomadic peoples who lived on the summit of a high plateau known today as Gobekli Tepe. The structure was a temple representing a cult of the dead.

#12

The people of Çatalhöyük had a different view of place than the people at Gobekli Tepe. While the first were struggling to establish new societies in the wilderness, the second were part of established, self-confident communities.

#13

The people of Çatalhöyük grew up with mass society, and they adapted by creating networks of trusted people within the city. They began to carry small clay tokens that depicted images of animals, houses, and other symbols.

#14

The people of Çatalhöyük were constantly communicating with symbols, as they lived in a bubble of human culture. They developed a shorthand to recognize meaning in pictures that no longer resembled what they represented.

#15

The city of Çatalhöyük began as a small settlement and grew into a larger one over time. It was a place where humans developed the crafts, tools, and symbolism that still make cities so appealing.

#16

The first person to see Skeleton 8115 was archaeologist Ruth Tringham, who named the woman Dido. She spent seven years excavating Dido’s home, trying to get to know a woman who had been separated from her by roughly 350 generations.

#17

The city of Çatalhöyük was inhabited by thousands of people around 7,000 BCE. It was a precarious arrangement, with deadly rifts between neighbors easy to open up. But people lived on their roofs seasonally, so Dido might have seen bedrolls and dinner bowls tucked away for evening use.