The article The Reign of the Farmer
In the article “The Reign of the Farmer,” McClellan and Dorn explain two alternative paths toward food production after Paleolithic era: one from gathering to cereal horticulture (gardening), and then
to plow agriculture; the other from hunting to herding and pastoral nomadism.
a) What caused these two paths of food production?
b) What were the social, technological, scientific and cultural results of the first path, which was
based on agriculture?
2. Read Lindberg’s chapter “Science before the Greeks” and explain the specifications of the oral cultures: their interpretation of natural phenomena, their cosmology and cosmogony, causality, and
history. Explain the role of writing in development of analytical studies, philosophy, and science.
3. Read the article “Alexandria and After”, and explain: What are the “Hellenic” and ‘Hellenistic periods’?
a) Explain the characteristic features and importance of Hellenistic Period in the history of science
and technology.
b) Explain major developments in
-Mathematics,
– Natural sciences,
– Astronomy, and
– Technology in the Hellenistic Period.
4. Read the posted articles by Brier, and Müller-Römer and answer the following questions:
a) What are the current mostly accepted theories of pyramid construction? b) Explain the main questions/problems in both theories. c) How does each theory address the main question(s) in pyramid construction?
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5. Based on McClellan’s article (in McClellan, James E.; Dorn, Harold, “Alexandria and After”)
explain:
d) The possible causes of the decline of science and natural philosophy at the end of the Greco-Roman era.
e) The process of decline of science and natural philosophy from the beginning of the Roman period to the fall of the Roman Empire.
6. What was the Eudoxean model of geocentric spheres and why did Eudoxus propose that? What was
Aristarchus’ Model? Why was Aristarchus’s model not accepted? Why was Aristarchus threatened with
charges of impiety?
