Ancient and Medieval World: Social Formations and Cultural Patterns  (Paperback, Dr. Krishna Vergy)

Evolution of Humankind and Paleolithic Cultures; Environmental Context of Human Evolution; Biological Evolution of Hominins; Social and Cultural adaptations: mobility and migration; development of lithic and other technologies; changes in the hunting gathering economy; social organization; art and Graves; Understanding the Mesolithic; Mesolithic as a stage in prehistory; Environmental change and changes in subsistence strategies based on case studies from West Asia, Europe and Meso-America: seasonal and broad-spectrum exploitation of resources, food storage, tools, semi-sedentism and features of social complexity; The Neolithic; Debating the origins of food production— climate change; population pressure; ecological choices; cognitive reorientations; Features of the Neolithic based on sites from West Asia, Europe and East Asia: nature and size of settlements; tool-kits, artifacts and pottery; family and household; Features of social complexity in late Neolithic communities; ceremonial sites and structures; The Bronze Age; Concepts: ‘Bronze Age’, ‘Urban Revolution’, ‘Civilization’ and ‘State’; Ecological context of early civilizations; Aspects of social complexity: class, gender and economic specialization; Forms of kingship, religion and state; Nomadic Pastoralism; Conceptualizing nomadic pastoralism; The emergence of specialised pastoral economy in West Asia and its relationship to sedentary farming, third and second millennium BCE; Socio-political interactions between nomadic pastoralists and urban-state societies in West Asia, third and second millennium BCE; The Advent of Iron : Its Origins and Implications; How the Iron Age Changed the World; Tracking the Spread of Iron; Classical Greece and Rome; Emergence of the polis and changing political formations in ancient Greece: Athens and Sparta; Rome from Republic to Empire: i) Conflict of the Orders; Imperial expansion and social tensions. ii) The Augustan experiment iii) Crisis of the Roman empire; Slavery in ancient Greek and Roman economy and society; Culture and religion in ancient Greece and Rome; Feudal Societies in Medieval Europe (8th – 14 century); The emergence of states: medieval monarchies, aristocracies, nobility and the culture of chivalry; church and State; The growth of seignorial authority: i) parcellization of sovereignty and militarization; ii) the creation of a dependent peasantry: from colonate to serfdom; The growth of the medieval economy from 11th -14th centuries: agriculture, towns, trade and its impact on feudal Relations; Religion and culture in medieval Europe; The crisis of feudalism; Islamic Societies in West Asia; Rise of Islam and the making of political authority: from tribe to state. i) Prophet and Ummah ii) Caliphate and sultanate: Ummayads and Abbasids; The Sunna, the Shia and the Sufi traditions; Adab, literature, and the urban tradition.