History of Science 2220 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Acupuncture, Shang Dynasty, Phlegm

• School: Western University
• Department: History of Science
• Course: History of Science 2220
• Professor: Dorotea Gucciardo

Document Summary

Don"t worry about specific names, but generalities, similarities, and differences when studying. Ancient refers to the ancient past, dealing primarily with archeology. However, there will always be gaps in findings. Only about a fraction of written texts survive, and even the ones that did do not tell us everything. Only an elite group of people (few) would have been able to write. Literally means the land between the rivers. Refers to the geographic region and corresponds to modern day iraq, and parts of turkey, syria, and iran. Fertile region and subject to regular flooding from the rivers. Tremendous amount of human labour needed in order to successfully irrigate the land. 4000 to 1500 bc: lived in the southern parts, developed many features used to describe civilizations (e. g. religious instututions, cities, government, technological innovations specifically the wheel, and developed pictographic writing), pictographic writing evolved to cuneiform writing.