Let’s look at one particular type: those based on improve- ments in the way information is exchanged, stored, and circulated within networks — in essence, innovations having to … convened an important meeting in Kashmir at which the decision was taken to rewrite the Buddhist scriptures in a more popular and accessible language. 2013: 180). ), Toronto Studies in Central and Inner Asia (pp. Vol. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. BIG HISTORY PROJECT / LESSON 6.2 ACTIVITY 2. Big History explains everthing starting with Big Bang until nowadays. Humans and Collective Learning. Once such communities emerged, they facilitated the linking up of all the different lifeways and communities. The bowls required the use of cobalt for blue coloring, which was imported by the Chinese manufacturers in significant quantities from Iran. Eight hundred years later, according to ancient Chinese Buddhist documents, the Kushan king, Kanishka the Great (c. 129–152 CE?) First Silk Roads Era (c. 50 BCE – c. 250 CE). Those that were not eager to trade could be subdued by force and compelled to join the Han trade and tributary network. Ironically, Silk Roads trade itself was at least partly responsible for this disengagement, because it contributed to the spread of disastrous epidemic diseases. Our ancestors have passed on their knowledge to us, and as time passed on, we began to develop and expand our knowledge. An example of collective learning can be seen when a … One idea is passed from one person to the next, and is improved upon. New York: McGraw-Hill. Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. During the Era of Agrarian Civilizations (c. 3000 BCE – 1750 CE) human communities did not exist in isolation. Humans are cable of doing this because of our powerful brains and language. Big History examines our past, explains our present, and imagines our future. By the middle of the last century BCE, conditions in Afro-Eurasia were ripe for levels of material and cultural exchange – and collective learning – hitherto unknown (Benjamin 2009: 30–32). As with the first Silk Roads Era, although the material exchanges were important and impressive, the cultural exchanges seem in retrospect of even greater significance. The Kushans in World History. It helps explain Unit 9: Collective Learning (Part 4) 1. Whether by land or by sea, however, no traders we are aware of ever made their way along the entire length of the Silk Roads during the first era of its operation. At the same time, in Eurasia, new types of tools and new kinds of art and sculpture started to emerge. We all descended from a common shrew-like ancestor. Hungry for Han Goods? The development of the Silk Roads is also an example of another key theme in Big History – evolving complexity at all scales. Human language… allows more precise and … This restored peace and stability to much of Western Afro-Eurasia, leading to a sharp increase in the demand for luxury goods in Rome, particularly for spices and exotic textiles like silk (Benjamin 2009: 30–32). The Silk Roads also illustrate another key theme in Big History – evolving complexity at all scales. (eds. Big history explains the past ,and gives us,knowledge about collective learning. ), Kanishka I, Kushan Dynastic Religion, and Buddhism. 4. As smallpox devastated the Mediterranean world late in the second century, populations declined again, to perhaps 40 million by 400 CE. 2013: 178). The Han became involved in the late-second century BCE after Emperor Wudi dispatched envoy Zhang Qian on a diplomatic and exploratory mission into Central Asia. New York: McGraw-Hill. As confederations of pastoralists, states and large-scale agrarian civilizations expanded and stretched their boundaries, they joined together to form larger systems. Zhang Qian and the Origins of the Silk Roads. Their almost factory-like manufacture demonstrates the existence of a well-organized commercial infrastructure. The Periplus demonstrates that sailors had discovered the secrets of the monsoon ‘trade’ winds. ‘Made in China’. The winds blow reliably from the southwest in summer, allowing heavily laden trade ships to sail across the Indian Ocean from the coast of Africa to India. Its founder, Mani (216–272 CE) was a fervent missionary who traveled extensively throughout the region and also dispatched disciples. Intelligence gained through collective learning often leads to power. BIg History project (Elements) - Ajay Pursram Tuesday, 6 December 2016. Threshold 6: Humans and Collective Learning. This happened because Greek merchants and colonists followed in the footsteps of Alexander and spread Greek language, art, religion, philosophy, and law throughout much of the region. Trade with China and Central Asia for such high-value goods cost the Romans a fortune. Collective learning is the distinctly human ability to share and preserve knowledge, the ability that allows us to build on ideas over time and advance at a rapid rate in comparison with other species of animals. Bentley, J., and Zeigler, H. 2010. With the advent of Islam in the seventh century and the establishment of substantial Muslim merchant communities in the centuries that followed, mosques also began to appear in many Chinese cities. Along these difficult routes through some of the harshest geography on earth traveled merchants and adventurers, diplomats and missionaries, each carrying their commodities and ideas enormous distances across the Afro-Eurasian world zone. Start studying Big History Threshold #6: Early Humans and Collective Learning. Traditions and Encounters. Silk Roads Studies Series. Benjamin, C. 1998. You’ll argue that culture either is or is not a product of collective learning. This is the currently selected item. Native to the steppes of Central Asia, the two-humped Bactrian camel is a supreme example of superb evolutionary adaptation. Yet of all the foreign beliefs that were accepted in China, only Buddhism made substantial inroads against Confucianism. Silk Roads exchanges play an even more significant role in the big history narrative. Because of this regular commingling the very idea of distinct agrarian civilizations with rigid borders is misleading. The comingling of so many goods, ideas, and diseases around a geographical hub located deep in central Eurasia was the catalyst for an extraordinary increase in the complexity of human relationships and collective learning, a complexity that helped drive our species inexorably along a path towards the modern revolution. The Silk Roads, both the land and maritime variants, are the quintessential example of the interconnectedness of civilizations during the Era of Agrarian Civilizations. The more they did this, however, the more nomadic they had to be, so that they could graze their animals over large areas. Extensive internal road networks were constructed, great advances were made in metallurgy and transport technology, agricultural production was intensified, and coinage appeared for the first time. It shows what happened from the big bang, or from God creating the heavens and the earth. All rights reserved, Kirova street 143, At the same time, Arab merchants, benefiting from the stable and prosperous Abbasid administration in Baghdad, began to engage with Chinese merchants in lucrative commercial enterprises. By the late fourth century, during a period of disunity in China, much of the population of northern China had adopted Buddhism, and by the sixth century much of southern China as well. : 30–32). It is a continuous chain of ideas about the universe. Buddhism first emerged in northern India in the sixth century BCE. Change ). New financial instruments (including printed paper money) were devised to facilitate large-scale mercantile activity. This raises the … Each category of exchange was important, but perhaps the most significant consequence was the spread of religion, particularly Buddhism, which became one of the key ideological and spiritual beliefs of South and East Asia during the Era. Not only material goods were carried along the Silk Roads, however, but intellectual, social, and artistic ideas as well, which together had an even greater impact on collective learning (Christian et al. The Kushan monarchs were not only effective political and military rulers; they also demonstrated a remarkable appreciation of art and were patrons of innovative sculpture workshops within their empire. Lesson 6.2 Lesson 6.2 An example of collective learning can be seen when a lioness teaches her cubs to hunt, True The ability to use language has not played an important role in the development of collective learning. Big History Collective Learning 8 Public Lectures (Feb - May 2017) Big History: A Scientific Narrative of Changes from the Big Bang to Modern Society The Emerging Universe, Life and Human Society history, ideas, customs that Polo recorded gave Europeans insight into an impressive but little-known culture and helped to grow the collective learning of the time. The Yuezhi. Plagues and People. Collective learning, according to the Big History website (bighistoryproject.com), is defined as: preserving information, sharing it with one another, and passing it to the next generation. The Chinese, realizing the commercial value of their monopoly on silk, carefully guarded the secret of silk production, and border guards in Dunhuang searched merchants to make sure they were not carrying any actual silk worms out of the country. Vol. It's a story about us. Collective learning is the ability to share, preserve, and build up on ideas over time. XIV. Aspects of the Secondary Products Revolution. Origin, Migration and the Conquest of Northern Bactria. Up Next. The primary function of the Silk Roads was to facilitate trade, but the intellectual, social, and artistic exchanges that resulted had an even greater impact on collective learning. Little Big History Project: threshold 6: The next threshold I chose was collective learning because every species must grow and evolve by learning from each other. Big history is a giant web, instead of a straight time-line. Collective learning increases when there is greater diversity within a network Rule 3 Uneven distributions of information produce uneven distributions of power and wealth Positive feedback cycles compound the effects of these three rules, accelerating collective learning Collective learning worked differently in the world zones. The commingling of so many goods, ideas, and diseases around a geographical hub located deep in central Eurasia was the catalyst for an extraordinary increase in the complexity of human relationships and collective learning, a complexity that drove our species inexorably along a path towards the modern revolution. Intelligence gained through collective learning often leads to power. Collective learning is the ability to share information so efficiently that the ideas of individuals can be stored within the collective memory of communities and can accumulate through generations. Through collective learning humans adapt to our environment without changing genetically. After a long day of work, I had to come back to school and hope my presentation ran so long that I wouldn’t have time to answer any questions from parents I might be unprepared for. 6.1 How our ancestors evolved 6.2 Collective learning 6.3 How did the first humans live? The major Chinese export commodity in demand in Rome was silk, an elegant, translucent, sensual material that soon came to be regarded as the last word in fashion by wealthy patrician women. Like Buddhism, Manichaeism was particularly attractive to merchants, and eventually most of the major Silk Roads trading cities contained Manichaean communities (Christian et al. The recent discovery of a sunken ninth-century CE Arab ship – the so-called Belitung Wreck – in the waters of Indonesia has provided historians with tangible evidence of both the intensely commercial nature of Chinese-Muslim trade and the significance of maritime routes in facilitating it (Worrall 2003: 112ff.). As noted above, long before the Tang came to power, many foreign religions had made their way into East Asia. The more knowledge we have the more we are able to develop our society. Significant linkages developed during the era in the Americas, Australasia, and the Pacific, but the four zones were so isolated from each other that human populations in each remained utterly ignorant of events in the others. Instead, merchants from the major eastern and western civilizations took their goods so far, then passed them on to a series of middlemen, including traders who were operating deep within the Kushan Empire. Big History and Collective Learning. Since wolves/dogs were so intelligent humans used that to their advantage and once domesticated they were able to learn off each other through their actions and behavior. The appearance of a species capable of collective learning marks a tipping point in the history of the biosphere, after which the very rules of change begin to change. About: My name is … In Afro-Eurasia, by the time the first cities and states appeared, the technologies of the secondary products revolution had generated more productive ways of exploiting livestock, some of them so productive that they allowed entire communities to depend almost exclusively on their herds of animals (Sherratt 1981: 261–305). Sherratt, A. At the same time, in Eurasia, new types of tools and new kinds of art started to appear. This was true within each of the individual world zones, although not between them. An Introduction to Kushan Research. Collective learning is a complex concept that is variously defined. Collective Learning Agriculture Expansion and Interconnection The Modern Revolution The Little Big History of Watches References Reference Part 2 Big History From the Beginning of time to the world we know today. Sometimes they joined up simply because their borders met and merged, but more often they joined in a looser sense as people from one region traded with, or traveled to, or borrowed ideas from, or fought with people from other regions within and beyond agrarian civilization. 6.2—Collective Learning. History of dogs The Beginning Evolution Collective Learning New Breeds The Future Little Big History Project: threshold 6: The next threshold I chose was collective learning because every species must grow and evolve by learning from each other. After 1492, goods, ideas, peoples, crops, animals, and diseases were shared between the world zones. The most influential of the intensified Afro-Eurasian exchange networks emerged around a trading hub located deep in Central Asia, along the Silk Roads. This is often called collective learning. The Han iron was prized in Rome for its exceptional hardness. 261–305). After a slow 7 million years of evolving, developing bipedalism, collectively … Just a normal blackbackground. It helps explain why the zones had such different histories. An idea that arose from a desire to go beyond specialized and self-contained fields of study to grasp history as a whole. Teacher of the Year: Finding and Tending your Fire. The result was that there developed, over several millennia, entire lifeways based mainly on pastoralism, capable of exploiting the arid lands that ran in a long horizontal belt from northwest Africa through Southwest Asia and Central Asia to Mongolia. Change ), You are commenting using your Twitter account. This joining together of previously separated human communities led to a steep increase in levels of collective learning and complexity that had regional and global ramifications. The two humps on its back are composed of sustaining fat and its long eyelashes and sealable nostrils help to keep out dust in the frequent sandstorms. BIG HISTORY PROJECT / LESSON 8.3 COLLECTIVE LEARNING & WORLD TRAVELERS Todd Nussen, Big History Teacher New York, USA Like many teachers, I used to dread Back-to-School Night. Christian, D., Brown, C. S., and Benjamin, C. 2013. Eventually within the Afro-Eurasian world zone in particular, every human community was connected together within a vibrant web. Turnhout: Brepols. In return for their high value-exports, the Chinese imported a range of agricultural products (including grapes), Roman glassware, art objects from India and Egypt, and horses from the steppes. The primary function of the Silk Roads was to facilitate trade, but the intellectual, social, and artistic exchanges that resulted had an even greater impact on collective learning. Fine spices were imported into the Roman Empire from Arabia and India, notably nutmeg, cloves, cardamom, and pepper, prized as condiments, but also as aphrodisiacs, anesthetics, and perfumes. The first important period of the Silk Roads was between roughly 50 BCE and 250 CE, when material and intellectual exchange took place between the Chinese, Indian, Kushan, Iranian, steppe-nomadic and Mediterranean worlds. Benjamin, C. 2007b. Chinese edicts of 65–70 CE specifically mention the spread of Buddhism and opposition to it from imperial scholars devoted to Confucianism. The diagram opposite is a very simple map of the relations between three people (or perhaps three groups of people). Collective learning is the increase in complexity over time as ideas and knowledge are preserved, spread and built up upon among communities. The 66-year-old American-born academic is now a professor at San Diego State University … Continuing expansion by the major civilizations meant that, by the first Silk Roads Era, just four imperial dynasties – those of the Roman, Parthian, Kushan, and Han Empires – controlled much of the Eurasian landmass, from the Pacific to the Atlantic. ( Log Out /  In winter the winds reverse, and the same ships carrying new cargo would make the return journey to the Red Sea. This helped facilitate the emergence and spread of Mahayana (or Great Vehicle) Buddhism, partly because the scriptures were now written in a language the common people could understand, and not one that could be read only by religious elites (Benjamin 2013). It shows what happened from the big bang, or from God creating the heavens and the earth. Big History and Collective Learning 2016/17; Big History and Collective Learning 2017/18; Prof. David Christian in Hong Kong - Public Lecture on Big History and Student Conference on Humanity, Sustainability and Artificial Intelligence (29 September 2018) (NEW!) Passage One “It is a fact that all over the country of Cathay there is a kind of black … PART 4 COLLECTIVE LEARNING 9 1180L 2. Christian missionaries made good use of the superb Roman road and sea transportation networks. The religion also later found ready acceptance in Korea, Japan, Tibet, Mongolia, and Southeast Asia (Benjamin 1998, 2009). You'll find every chapter full of great activities to keep you entertained and test your learning. 2013: 180–181). In western Eurasia, the major land route departed from the great trading cities of Roman Syria, crossed the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers, then climbed across the Iranian Plateau toward Afghanistan (then known as Bactria). 2013: 181). The firing date of the bowls was carefully noted in the ship's manifest. to grow the collective learning of the time. 2013: 177–178). Perhaps, the most important spiritual consequence of material exchange was the spread of religions across Afro-Eurasia, particularly Mahayana Buddhism, which moved from India through Central Asia to China and East Asia. Our curiosity and our ability to cooperate and collectively learn are the essential ingredients in the Big History story of us. Why Labels for Ideas Are Essential. The Central Asian religion of Manichaeism also benefitted from the silk routes after it emerged in Mesopotamia in the third century CE. Next lesson. At sites in Africa, there is tantalizing evidence for innovative thinking and new technologies from 100,000 years ago or even earlier. Crash Course Big History takes a look at Humans, one of the weirdest examples of change in the Universe. Collective Learning (Part 1) Why Human Evolution Matters. Until this moment the Buddha had never been depicted in human form, but had instead been represented by symbols including an umbrella or footprints in the sand. Collective learning is the increase in complexity over time as ideas and knowledge are preserved, spread and built up upon among communities. Big History Collective Learning 8 Public Lectures (Feb - May 2017) Big History: A Scientific Narrative of Changes from the Big Bang to Modern Society The Emerging Universe, Life and Human Society It shows how dinosaurs from 100 million years ago are connected to why you and I are here today. Activity: Claim Testing – Collective Learning. Human language… allows more precise and … 10 11 SIMPLE NETWORKSThe connections between people form a network of exchange A model of collective learning networks Now we need to start thinking about how collective learning works in dif- ferent periods of human history. The Summer Institute took place and the rest is Big History! Big history is the collective history of everything from every human's perspective. Commercial and cultural exchange on this scale became possible only after the small river valley states of the early era had been consolidated into substantial agrarian civilizations, a process that was largely the result of warfare. The highly mobile, militarized pastoralism of Inner Asia, associated with the riding of horses by the Saka/Scythians and other groups, probably did not emerge until early in the first millennium BCE (Christian et al. … Humans are cable of doing this because of our powerful brains and language. The two broad toes on each of its feet have undivided soles and are able to spread widely as an adaptation to walking on sand. It shows how dinosaurs from 100 million years ago are connected to why you and I are here today. Activity 6.2.1 Review Course Glossary Activity 6.2.2 Objectives Reading: Early evidence of collective learning Activity 6.2.2 Review Course Glossary Activity … 19–45). Little big history of the pencil: Home of the pencils Threshold 1 The big bang Threshold 2 Stars light up Threshold 3 New chemical elements Threshold 4 Earth and the solar system Threshold 5 Life on Earth Threshold 6 Collective learning Threshold 7 Agriculture Threshold 8 Modern revolution Threshold 9 The future Contact About Some innovations increased the possibility for collective learning among agrarian civilizations. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. © 2013 Uchitel Publishing House. Tag: Collective Learning. Through collective learning we are able to distinguish different people and establish a social structure. In short, the idea of collective learning, for all its simplicity, predicts the long trend to increasing social complexity that we find in human history. From the very beginning of human history the exchange of information and ideas between diverse peoples and cultures has been a prime mover in promoting change through this process of collective learning. Also critical in facilitating these exchanges were the pastoral nomads, who formed communities that live primarily from the exploitation of domestic animals such as cattle, sheep, camels, or horses. Other species do not have the symbolic language skills to enable collective learning. The Tang bowls were functional and intended for the ninth-century equivalent of a ‘mass market’. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. It is important to look at how collective learning ties into the broader Big History themes developed by Eric Chaisson and Fred Spier: the rise of complexity in the Universe and energy flows. k.bir@mail.ru, Globalistics and globalization studiesBig history & global history, In Memoriam: Robert L. Carneiro (1927-2020), 6th International Scientific Congress “Globalistics-2020”: “Global issues and future of humankind”, A new volume: A Big History of Globalization. Within a decade the Han had established a tributary relationship with dozens of city-states of Central Asia, and mercantile traffic began to flow out of China along the ancient migration routes into Central Asia. The borders of agrarian civilizations were more often vague regions within which the control of rulers fluctuated or was contested by the claims of neighbors or local rulers. Christianity eventually spread further to the east along the Silk Roads, through Mesopotamia and Iran, into India, and eventually into China. Early Humans 6.2—Collective Learning. Advances in transportation, communication, and road systems also helped to increase connections and increase collective learning. Big History and Collective Learning. Collective learning, as defined by Big History, is the ability to "use language to share and build knowledge". Borders that we identify on maps are, for the most part, modern inventions. October 31, 2017 November 30, 2017 Big History Project BHP and ELA, BHP General. The more knowledge we have the … By 166 CE, the Han emperor himself was sacrificing to the Buddha, and the Sutra on the ‘Perfection of the Gnosis’ was translated into Chinese by 179 CE. Change ), You are commenting using your Facebook account. Collective learning worked differently in the world zones. 2013: 177–178). in collective learning. In Christian, D., and Benjamin, C. The uprising of the Homogeneous species was brought upon by the following ingredients and goldilocks condition: powerful brains, adaptable language, and a new type of interaction between individuals and others. Why collective learning? The dhow was filled with tens of thousands of carefully packaged Tang ceramic plates and bowls, along with many gold and silver objects. With these preconditions in place, it was the decision by the Han Chinese to begin to interact with their western neighbors and engage in long-distance commerce that turned small-scale regional trading activity into a great trans-Afro-Eurasian commercial network. 8.2 Commerce and Collective Learning What Big History can do is show us the nature of our complexity and fragility and the dangers that face us, but it can also show us our power, with collective learning." Arts and humanities Big History Project 6. The Big History timeline has multiple ideas form all sorts of times. In Gervers, M., and Long, G. As a result of this interaction, despite the diversity of participants, the history of Afro-Eurasia has preserved a certain underlying unity, expressed in common technologies, artistic styles, cultures and religions, even disease and immunity patterns, a unity that was to have profound implications for subsequent world history. This physical representation then spread along the Silk Roads, penetrating south to Sri Lanka and east to China, Japan, Korea, and Southeast Asia (Benjamin 1998, 2009). The Silk Roads also illustrate another key theme in Big History – evolving complexity at all scales. RAPID ACCELERATION By David Christian COLLECTIVE LEARNING 3. Start studying Big History Threshold #6: Early Humans and Collective Learning. The survival of the first century CE seaman's handbook, the Periplus of the Erythrian Sea, has provided historians with a detailed account of maritime commerce at that time (Ibid. Only with the biological evolution and then human domestication of the silk worm and the Bactrian camel did the Chinese have an export commodity valuable enough, and a transport mechanism hardy enough, to justify and facilitate the expensive and complex expeditions necessary to allow the Chinese merchants to join the pre-existing Afro-Eurasian exchange network. The primary function of the Silk Roads during both periods was to facilitate trade. The Christian missionary, Paul of Tarsus, may have traveled as many as 8,000 miles along the roads and sea-lanes of the eastern Roman Empire preaching to small Christian communities. peruch@mail.ru As maritime trade gradually eclipsed overland trade in volume, merchants and sailors from all over Afro-Eurasia flocked to the great southern port cities of Guangzhou and Quanzhou (Christian et al. At the heart of the Silk Roads network, straddling and influencing both the land and maritime routes, was the Kushan Empire (c. 45–225 CE), one of the most important yet least known agrarian civilizations in world history (Benjamin 1998, 2009). The physical contexts that made the Silk Roads possible were the product of billions of years of geological change and biological evolution. Collective learning Scale What is Big History? Tag: Collective Learning. This opportunity allows students to investigate the history of an item or commodity through multiple thresholds and various disciplines. increased the opportunities for collective learning. Just as the early universe was simple until contingent circumstances made it possible for more complex entities to appear, and that the relatively simple single-cell organisms of early life on the planet were able to evolve into an extraordinary, complex biodiversity, so human communities and the connections between them followed similar trajectories. Collective Learning as a Key Concept in Big History David Baker One of the key concepts for the human part of the grand narrative is known as ‘collective learning’. One branch of Christianity, Nestorianism, became particularly strong throughout the central and eastern Silk Roads. However, with the creation of the Dar al-Islam in the eighth and ninth centuries CE, and the establishment of the Tang Dynasty in China at the same time, significant Silk Roads exchanges along both land and maritime routes revived. 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