Unit 1: Migrations

[Mr. Viles]

Using the text provided and your notes from Stearns, please post what you observe to be commonalities among all of the migrations and what are some significant differences.  Be sure to make direct references to specific information from the text.

[Douglas Kimball]

   In the short piece of the epic of Gilgamesh, it depicts how the Mesopotamian's believed in multiple gods that were based strongly around different aspects of there life's such as food, beauty and war. The Mesopotamian's also believed in demigods which where part man, part god, such as Gilgamesh and Enkidu.

   Some things that I recognized in this document is for one the mention of a flood, a great flood seems to have a common tie in the Mesopotamian's, Greek and Catholic faiths. Also, the fact that the Mesopotamian's believed in multiple gods, this can be related to the Greeks, Romans, Egyptians etc.

[Caleb Wursten]

Commonalities of migration: Migration rate correlates with technology of the age (Ancient migrations extremely slow, Bantu, Fertile crescent) Modern migrations extremely fast (Settling of N. America). Generally goes into regions with similar climates allowing successful agriculture. (Goes with Latitude)  

"Modern Europe all belong to the Indo-European language family, which have originated in the Near East and spread with agriculture both westward to Europe and east to India." 

Differences: Fertile Crescent migration caused by over farming and climate change. While Bantu migration caused by cultivation of additional land

“The expansion was slow because of the difficulty of clearing tropical forest for farming, but eventually it encompassed most of Africa south of the Sahara.” 

On Friday, August 10, 2012 4:21:16 PM UTC-4, Mr. Viles wrote:

[Caleb Wursten]

Ancient Mesopotamians believed that their gods had the power to shape and man before his birth. They also believed that prayer was answered by the gods if they saw fit to answer it, probably resulting in sacrifice. In addition the story shows obvious belief in polytheism with mention of at least three gods all with separate powers and duties. 

     These documents reminds me of the Greek stories with the hero revered by the people, who is part god part human, and whose life is watched and influenced by the gods themselves. The reference of the “flood” seems similar to flood mentioned in the old testament. 

On Friday, August 10, 2012 4:21:16 PM UTC-4, Mr. Viles wrote:

[Christine Clark]

     I have noticed a number of commonalities among all migrations, as well as some notable differences. For one, until the rise of technology it was a given for migrations to take place slowly. The Bantu-language expansion is an example of such slow movement. The Bantu-language expansion also supports the idea that migration effects and is effected by culture, as well as geography. Another example of that fact is how greatly the Aryans shaped India after their migration into the sub-continent. The Aryans not only relocated to a new geographic location, but they also imparted cultural traditions, religious beliefs, and political and social structures that would dictate the characteristics for future generations. 

     A significant difference I noticed was the motives that appear to be behind a civilizations migration. It appears that the two major reasons are lack of space or resources or conflict. Both situations, although clearly different require the same outcome-migration. For example, the Gupta dynasty came to an end after the Han immigrated and pushed the natives out of power. The multiple migrations that occurred from east-west due to lack of resources (food) for the people of the Fertile Crescent, also illustrate my point.

     Although I'm sure there are more to be found, the commonalities and differences I listed depict some of the significant themes observed when looking into historical migrations.

On Friday, August 10, 2012 4:21:16 PM UTC-4, Mr. Viles wrote:

[Christine Clark]

     The text suggests that not only did the ancient Mesopotamian's believe their gods/goddesses were involved in the creation of human beings (and partially human beings), but that they also cared about what become of them afterward. For example, all the gods/goddesses not only put great thought into the creation of Gilgamesh, but in bringing a companion for him into existence, as well. Their power over man is also clear based on the amount of responsibility/honor that was bestowed upon Gilgamesh to lord over all other humans.

     I found many of the elements in this passage to be familiar to me. First, the idea of a half-god (or three-fourth's god in this case) was very Greek inspired to me. It brought to mind other epic heroes such as Odysseus and Hercules. In that sense, the story related very closely to Polytheistic tales that I'd heard/read before. The fact that Gilgamesh was created by a prominent god and goddess that stood as his father and mother, brought to mind creation myths of Egyptian and Indian (as in aboriginal/native tribal people) origin. This passage also brought to mind elements found in Christianity and Judaism, as well. Again, the semi-divine nature of Gilgamesh was a factor of commonality, in a way similar to the nature of Christ. But even more so than that, the idea that Gilgamesh also had a female counterpart created for him, as Adam had Eve, had me making connections with Monotheistic religions, in addition to Polytheistic.

On Friday, August 10, 2012 4:21:16 PM UTC-4, Mr. Viles wrote:

[Caleb Wursten]

Reading yours makes me want to re-write mine

[Christine Clark]

     Great examples! I particularly like the connection you noticed between the reason migration was necessary for a civilization, and the corresponding amount of time the migration took. (i.e. Fertile Crescent migration and Batu migration)

[Jacob Holt]

The text in this epic shows what they believed in by telling us that the gods power made two man and by saying gods it shows us that there religion is the belief in many gods and demigods such as the demi gods in this story enkidu and gilamesh and that the gods had the power to make them in out of thin air 

On Friday, August 10, 2012 4:21:16 PM UTC-4, Mr. Viles wrote:

[Jacob Holt]

Most of the migrations that have happened depended on the technology of the time and the people within the civilization that where moving plus where they where from for example If they where in a mountain region they would most likely not move because of the rough travel but if they where around flat land with some hills they would move because the travel would be easier the Huge  difference would be That some migration was for the conquest of more land well the other was for over framing and climate change    

On Friday, August 10, 2012 4:21:16 PM UTC-4, Mr. Viles wrote:

[Jacob Holt]

Good Job doug sounds good got a lot of the main points 

[Caleb Wursten]

Rig Veda is on page 27 of the Document reader. (Same document as Gilgamesh)

On Friday, August 10, 2012 4:21:16 PM UTC-4, Mr. Viles wrote:

[Caleb Wursten]

28*

[Caleb Wursten]

         Rig Veda was difficult to grasp so I would appreciate going over it in class. From what I did catch was the Rig Veda represented the Indian god's and there duties/traits. Moreover the gods had enormous power over every aspect of Indian life, which makes sense with the core to Indian culture being religion. Where is the Chinese believed in more secular ideals such as the teachings of Confucius placing there culture more on government and worldly affairs. 

On Friday, August 10, 2012 4:21:16 PM UTC-4, Mr. Viles wrote:

[Kirsten Costedio]

Mesopotamian beliefs about gods and their effects on men- The epic of Gilgamesh represents Mesopotamia's polytheistic religion. Since numerous gods supposedly created Gilgamesh, this demonstrates that the people believed many gods existed. Also the Epic of Gilgamesh shows that men believe that they are controlled by the gods, especially due to the fact that they create all humans and semi divine humans (like Gilgamesh.) Also it appears that the people believe that the gods will answer their requests, for example when they wanted the gods to create Gilgamesh's equal to try and correct his wrong doings. This also shows me that the people thought the gods to be kind and care for their people.

The Epic of Gilgamesh reminded me of Greek and early Roman culture in the aspect of Polytheism. Also the main character of the story- Gilgamesh reminded me of many of the epic heroes in Greek literature. For example Gilgamesh, as well as Hercules, Achilles and Odysseus. All of these characters were created by the gods, partly divine, but all contained some sort of weakness. What didn't remind me of the Greeks was how the gods acted in this epic; In most of Greek literature the gods would try and stir up trouble among the mortals, were as in this story the gods tend to all of the mortals requests.   

On Friday, August 10, 2012 4:21:16 PM UTC-4, Mr. Viles wrote:

[Kirsten Costedio]

@Christine Clark- I liked how you made connections between the Epic of Gilgamesh and monotheistic religions like Christianity. I probably wouldn't have picked out the Adam and Eve similarity if you hadn't pointed it out :-) 

On Monday, September 17, 2012 5:46:18 PM UTC-4, Christine Clark wrote:

[Christine Clark]

     I agree that the hymns weren't didn't provide as clear a message as I would've liked, but from what I gathered they appeared to also depict what the people's theory of creation was. You probably already realized this, but I thought I'd note that I found that the Hymns from Rig Veda illustrated really well what the Indian people believed and how they believed their gods' effected human beings. Just like our question asked regarding what the Mesopotamian people's beliefs entailed. 

[Andrew Dyer]

    The document suggests that the Mesopotamian religion was polytheistic. The many gods that were worshiped in everyday life had a large impact on how people went about their day (Adad god of storm, Shamash the glorious sun). The gods also were believed to have been able to create demigods to rule among the humans. In Gilgamesh's case another demigod is also created to match him in order to please the Uruk people. The gods also influenced man greatly by making them sacrifice in their name to please them, or prevent a major disaster.
    Parts of this document seem to relate to the ancient Greeks when the gods created demigods to fight their battles on earth. It also sounds like any other religion of the period because they were polytheistic. Something that popped out to me was Shamash (the sun). The Ancient Egyptians had a similar king god named Ra who was considered as the sun. Also the complaining Uruk are the same as every other human by asking for help from the gods, hoping that they will come through.

On Friday, August 10, 2012 4:21:16 PM UTC-4, Mr. Viles wrote:

[Andrew Dyer]

What questions are we focusing on in the Rig Veda?

On Friday, August 10, 2012 4:21:16 PM UTC-4, Mr. Viles wrote:

[Andrew Dyer]

Commonalities: The migration often is driven by the need to survive. When the people spread out it also spread the agriculture out from the Fertile Crescent to other parts of the world. The First migrations started out very slow but as technology progressed so did the migrations. Culture and other things such as language were also spread through migration.
"Major tongues of modern Europe all belong to the Indo-European language family, which appears to have originated in the Near East and spread along with agriculture both westward to Europe and east to India." 
Differences: The Bantu migrations took place only in Africa while the rest of the world was expanding out of Africa and Europe. This was because the terrain was so rugged and hard to navigate. Also agriculture got better in the Bantu regions while in the middle east things only got worse because of the growth of the population.

" The expansion was slow because of the difficulty of clearing tropical forest for farming, but eventually it encompassed most of Africa south of the Sahara."  

On Friday, August 10, 2012 4:21:16 PM UTC-4, Mr. Viles wrote:

[Kirsten Costedio]

A significant similarity I noticed throughout all early migrations was the speed in which they spread. Due to lack of technology (including forms of transportation) all migrations happened a slow rate. However the inverse is true, later on as technologies like transportation systems developed, the speed in which migrations happened consistently increased. Another similarity throughout migrations is the fact that not only did these migrations introduce new people to different places, it introduced new cultures as well. This included ways of life and language, for example: As the people of modern day Cameroon spread, they also spread their Bantu language and agriculture throughout all of Africa.  "Agriculture expanded out of West Africa with the Bantu-speakers, a group of people who originally lived in present-day Cameroon."

A significant difference I recognized in the early migrations was the cause for the migration. For example the spread of migration in Southeastern Asia was caused by an "increased food supply [that] soon caused a population explosion." So basically their were so many people, the area they inhabited had to become larger. However in other early migrations the cause of them was simply because once agriculture was developed, people wanted to have more land to cultivate more crops, as well as have new land because the soil had become overused in their original area. 

On Friday, August 10, 2012 4:21:16 PM UTC-4, Mr. Viles wrote:

[Kirsten Costedio]

My overall interpretation of the Rig Veda is that it contains several hymns that interpret the Indian religion and depict the Hindu gods; as well as it was later used to help develop the Caste system.

*I did read the article, however I was not sure on the question you wanted answered so I just did a very 

brief description of it for now.

On Friday, August 10, 2012 4:21:16 PM UTC-4, Mr. Viles wrote:

[Douglas Kimball]

In the short piece of the Rig Vade, it talked about a massive abyss of chaos in a sense. From this abyss came a though from a sage which help to form there gods.

On Friday, August 10, 2012 4:21:16 PM UTC-4, Mr. Viles wrote:

[Douglas Kimball]

  Agni seemed to be a connection or link that helped the gods and humans together, this is shown through the fact that humans would make a scarifies to Agni that would be then sent to the other gods.

  Indra is sopost to give the weary, weak, and needy the strength, courage and will to fight on ( in other words they were given a form of hope). Finally, he gave the singers, a good ballered of tale to sing about and spread.

   Purusa's mouth was the brahman, his arms the Rajany, his thighs the vaisye, and his feet the Sudra. This was caused do to the fact that the other gods sacrificed him in order to make new things to add to the earth.

[Douglas Kimball]

  Thank' s Jacob, you did a good job to, short and simple.

[Cat Williams]

There were many differences and commonalities about the different migrations that took place in the middle east and the bantu expansion in southern Africa and North America. Some commonalities had more of a major purpose than others. Agriculture was one of the major commonalities between migrations because if they lived in mountainous regions soil erosion would cause them to try and migrate to flat land for the use of crop and food. Differences between the migrations would consist of the mountainous areas. This was because the mountainous areas were much more of a rocky soil base while the flat lands were easier to use for agriculture but they would overuse the soil so they would have to migrate to many other lands while the mountainous areas would have to migrate to the flat lands because the soil is unusable.

[Douglas Kimball]

   In the Great Migrations people started to spread out for a variety of resins. For one, after the end of the Ice age people were able to spread out do to masse climate change ( a worming climate). With the spread of humans also came the spread of agriculture, domestic animals and most importantly language.

[Jacob Cloutier]

This document show the the Mesopotamian people were polytheistic meaning that they believed in more than one god. These gods were often created for multiple reasons like the god of war, beauty, and even the god of corn. The Mesopotamians also believed in demigod beings. These people were half god half humans created by the gods to walk the earth. This cultural reminded me of the Greek and Roman culture were the also believed in multiple gods and also in demigods. One major difference in the Greek and Roman culture is that the feared there gods and thought that if you upset them you will die. Were as it seems in Mesopotamian culture they seem to respect their gods and not fear them but love them.

[Jacob Cloutier]

There are many similarities and differences in the migrations over time. One major similarity is the use of technology. Technology allowed migrations to happen much faster. Early migrations were very slow and often took a long time. An example of this would be the Bantu migration. There culture spread through Africa at a very slow rate due to the fact that they did not have the technology to be able to get through the jungles and migrate. Another similarity is geography. Geography influenced people because if you can move the crops and domesticated animals you will migrate more often. An example would be the expansion from the fertile crescent. One difference in migration is the rate that people migrated due to the geography and technology. When the Bantu people expanded from Africa they were very slow.  They did not have the technology or the proper geography to be able to migrate quickly. While in the 1500’s when people migrated to the “New World” it happened very quickly because they had proper technology like new fancy boats that traveled much faster.

[Jacob Cloutier]

Rig Veda is talking on how people wanted to understand how the world came to be. How the heavens were formed or created. How even people back then wondered how we got here and that the humans curious nature is always there and the need to for reason was always there.

[Kourtney Webber]

 The commonalities between all of the migrations seems to be based on agriculture. Depending on how well crops grew determined whether or not civilizations migrated. For example, if a civilization  over planted their fields and the fields could no longer grow crops, the civilization would be forced to migrate in order to grow crops and survive. 

[Kourtney Webber]

The document The Epic of Gilgamesh shows that the Mesopotamians believed the gods had power above everybody else, and that humans were weak and small compared to them. Even the half gods could take any man's wife or daughter, and leave sons without their fathers. However, the Mesopotamians complained to the gods about Gilgamesh for he was not the king or shepherd that he was supposed to be. So the goddess that created Gilgamesh created Enkidu. Once Gilgamesh proved himself superior over Enkidu, the people were silenced for Gilgamesh's power and strength were proven worthy. 

[Kourtney Webber]

Oh, and adding to my Gilgamesh post, no this document is not familiar to me and I do not know it from any other sources. 

[Kourtney Webber]

In the Creation Hymn of Rig Veda, the gods came into the picture after the "creation". It seems that there were impregnators, inherent powers below, and impulses above. Then it says that the gods are subsequent to the creation of this, so they came after. That is where the gods fall in to the creation scheme, and then I figure the world was created and people and trees and animals were made by the gods in turn. 

[Maddie Waugh]

The migrations between the Bantu, Polynesians, and Amerindians, were all very different. The only true thread that tied the cultures together is that they migrated.

Polynesians moved via boats to cross the Pacific, while Amerindians followed herds of animals over a land bridge to reach their destination. The Bantu barely moved at all, staying in the Sub-Saharan desert, and spread agriculture along the way.

On Friday, August 10, 2012 4:21:16 PM UTC-4, Mr. Viles wrote:

Using the text provided and your notes from Stearns, please post what you observe to be commonalities among all of the migrations and what are some significant differences.  Be sure to make direct references to specific information from the text.

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[Maddie Waugh]

The Epic of Gilgamesh:

1. The document suggests that ancient Mesopotamians were very religious, and believed that gods had a strong influence over their lives. They were very in touch with the spiritual world, and believed there were demi-gods that walked among them.

2. No I haven't seen something like this document before; my World History teacher may have mentioned it my freshman year when he was teaching, but other than that it isn't familiar.

As for Rig Veda, it was interesting to read. It reminded me of Greek mythology stories I've read, just by the way they talked about the gods. It also appeared to be the Indians way of coming up with a “creation story” to explain how the earth came to be.

[Maddie Waugh]

I like your references to Greek/Roman culture. I wouldn't have originally thought of that!