Types of Diffusion – Practice

ONE PER GROUP Instructions – Tear this small packet apart to share amongst your group; there are seven (7) examples of diffusion to

interpret. Complete one (1) or two (2) analyses on your own, before comparing and discussing with group members.

Explain what this document is about in 2 sentences.

Explain what type of diffusion is involved AND what evidence led you to this conclusion.

Identify any elements of other diffusion types that you can detect.

Beards might seem like an odd target for taxation, but to Peter the Great (1672-1725)—Russia’s revolutionary Czar—facial hair was no laughing matter.

Born in Moscow with the name Pyotr Alekseyvich Romanov on June 9, 1672, the young royal would—more than any other figure—be credited with the modernization of Russia. Feeling that his country’s culture, technology, and politics were anachronistically agrarian, Peter embarked upon a lengthy tour of Western Europe in 1697. During this trek, he took in such sights as Oxford University, the British Royal Mint, and the Dutch naval yard (en route, Peter also met a promising scientist by the name of Isaac Newton).

Throughout his reign, the Czar vigorously implemented broad governmental reforms which he felt would finally break Russian society free of its pastoral ancestry. Among the biggest feathers in Peter’s legislative cap were the establishment of a well-trained standing army, a state-of-the-art navy, and the foundation of St. Petersburg (whose strategic location helped strengthen Russia’s role in the Baltic trade-routes) in 1703.

But to Peter, simply imitating Western military and exchange techniques wasn’t enough. To complete this transformation, he also sought to imitate the region’s very fashion sense.

After Peter’s triumphant return to Russia at the end of his European voyage in 1698, a joyous reception was thrown in his honor. In attendance were his commander of the army, his frequent second-in-command Fyodor Romodanovsky, and a host of assorted aides and diplomats. Suddenly, the crowd’s mood went from elation to horror as Peter unexpectedly pulled out a massive barber’s razor. As biographer Robert K. Massie writes, “After passing among his [friends] and embracing them… he began shaving off their beards” with his own hands! Given his political stature, none of his associates dared question this stunning turn of events. (His physical stature didn't hurt either: Peter stood an imposing 6’8”.)

Hairless necks and faces were all the rage in the Western World, so the Czar initially ordered that all of his subjects (excluding clergy and peasants) must lose their face fuzz. So dedicated was Peter to his cause that he even instructed police officials to personally shave those who refused to comply on sight.

However, as time wore on, Peter began to question the practicality of this crusade. Members of the Russian Orthodox Church were particularly critical, citing the mandate as blasphemous. As Ivan the Terrible (1530-1584) had once put it, “Shaving the beard is a sin the blood of all martyrs will not wash away. It would mean blemishing the image of man as God created him.”

Eventually, the ruler’s stance softened. Smelling a profit, Peter imposed an annual “beard tax” upon those who hoped to keep their facial hair. An impoverished beggar could retain his for the meager yearly sum of two kopeks, while a well-off merchant could expect to shell out 100 rubles. Upon depositing the cash, beard-fanciers would receive a small, copper coin upon that read “tax paid.” Despite the fee’s widespread unpopularity, it remained in place until 1772, 47 years after Peter’s death.

The Time Peter the Great

Declared War on Facial Hair

McDonald’s Menu: North & East India

Internet IP Address Locations 2007

Nike Store Locations

Explain what this document is about in 2 sentences.

Explain what type of diffusion is involved AND what evidence led you to this conclusion.

Identify any elements of other diffusion types that you can detect.

Explain what this document is about in 2 sentences.

Explain what type of diffusion is involved AND what evidence led you to this conclusion.

Identify any elements of other diffusion types that you can detect.

Two groups spread early agriculture Fertile Crescent cultures diverged to take farming east and west By Amy McDermott Magazine issue: Vol. 190, No. 3, August 6, 2016, p. 6

The cradle of agricultural civilization was culturally diverse.

Two societies lived side-by-side 10,000 years ago in the rich Near Eastern valleys of the Fertile Crescent, where

humans first learned to farm, a new study finds. Over time, one group expanded west, carrying agriculture into

Europe. The other spread east, taking their traditions into South Asia, researchers report online July 14 in Science.

“We thought the people of the Fertile Crescent were one group genetically and culturally, but in fact they were

probably two or more,” says paleogeneticist Joachim Burger of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz in Germany,

who led the new study. It’s time to rethink the textbook idea that modern Europeans and South Asians descend from

a single Stone Age people, he says.

Earlier this year, Burger’s team reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that the first

European farmers came from western Anatolia near the present site of Istanbul. Scientists suspected that the

Anatolians had started out even further east, at older sites in Iran, Iraq, Syria and southeastern Turkey where farming

began about 10,000 years ago.

But DNA from 7,000- to 10,000-year-old remains, found at two ancient Iranian settlements, told a different story.

Carbon and nitrogen ratios in bones showed that the people there ate more cultivated cereals than meat. While they

were farmers and had lived several thousand years before the Anatolians, genetic analysis showed that the two blood

lines were not closely related.

FERTILE FIELDS The new study analyzed the remains of ancient Iranian farmers in Wezmeh cave and Abdul Hosein sites

(right) in the Fertile Crescent (shaded). Their descendants spread into South Asia, while the descendants of Anatolian farmers

from sites like Barcin Höyük (left) expanded west and became Europe’s early farmers. J. Burger

In fact, the two groups had probably separated more than 45,000 years earlier, just after humans left Africa, says statistical

geneticist Garrett Hellenthal of University College London, a coauthor of the new study. Even 10,000 years ago, the ancestors

of Iranians and Anatolians had already been isolated for 36,000 to 67,000 years. Evidence of the Anatolian farmers is a few

thousand years younger than the Iranian remains, but both cultures “must have known each other to some extent,” Burger says.

People in the two groups probably looked different and spoke separate languages, Burger says. They didn’t intermarry, but

undoubtedly shared the ideas of early agriculture. It would have taken centuries to convert from hunting and gathering to an

agrarian way of life. “Domestication of wild beasts is nothing you do over the weekend,” Burger says. And “you don't invent

something crazy and complicated like farming coincidently at the same time.”

Not everyone agrees with that conclusion. “The change from hunting to farming happened probably several times,” says

archaeologist Roger Matthews of the University of Reading in England, who was not involved in the new work. While both the

Anatolians and Iranians were farmers, “it’s not actually the same idea they’re coming up with,” he says. In the east, early

agrarians focused on goats as well as barley and wheat, while in the west, shepherds raised sheep and other foods. Both

communities probably took initial but separate steps toward farming, Matthews says.

Sometime after farming was developed, the two cultures began to move apart. Why they spread so differently is still a mystery.

More DNA samples from ancient people east of the Fertile Crescent are necessary to confirm that people spread from Iran

eastward, says anthropologist Christina Papageorgopoulou of the Democritus University of Thrace in Greece. She coauthored

the Anatolian study but was not involved in the new work.

More DNA from within the Fertile Crescent could also reveal a border or boundary between ancient Anatolians and Iranians. “I

cannot imagine there was a connection,” she says. If there had been, scientists would see have seen it in the DNA. “I think there

is some kind of barrier there.”

At this point, scientists can speak broadly about the blood relationships between these early farmers, but more high-quality

DNA samples would let researchers zoom in to the village or household scale, to “come closer to ancient humans and how they

lived,” Burger says. His vision is to analyze whole Stone Age villages, to reconstruct ancient family trees, understand who

migrated where and move “from a global to a village view.”

Explain what this document is about in 2 sentences.

Explain what type of diffusion is involved AND what evidence led you to this conclusion.

Identify any elements of other diffusion types that you can detect.

Explain what this document is about in 2 sentences.

Explain what type of diffusion is involved AND what evidence led you to this conclusion.

Identify any elements of other diffusion types that you can detect.

Sequoyah and the Cherokee Syllabary

"Your invention of the alphabet is worth more to your people than two bags full of gold in the hands of every Cherokee." -Sam Houston. Family tradition tells us

that Sequoyah (S-si-qua-ya) was born west of Chillhowee Mountain, near the capital of the old Cherokee Nation in Tennessee.

In approximately 1809, Sequoyah gathered with some friends in his smithshop, and the conversation led to a discussion regarding the non-Indian method of

communicating through writing. Many thought that it was some sort of witchcraft, but Sequoyah seemed to understand that the writing stood for words. He

pondered devising a way for the Cherokee to be able to do the same thing, although many of those around him were skeptical.

After his marriage in 1815, he continued to study the idea of a way to write the Cherokee language. The first attempts were to make a symbol for each word in

the language, but very quickly the number of symbols was becoming astronomical. This caused him to become more selective in the form of writing the

language, and he began listening more intently to the individual sounds that made up the words. After a long study, he realized that there were 85 individual

syllables, which were used to make up the many words of the Cherokee language. He was then able to limit the symbols to a much smaller number than he

originally developed and they could be used in combinations to form any word. His first student was his brother-in-law, Michael Waters, and the first to read and

write with the invention was his daughter, A-Yo-Ka.

Although the system was foolproof and easy to learn, Sequoyah and A-Yo-Ka were charged with witchcraft, and were brought before their town chief for trial.

For evidence of the literacy claims, the warriors separated Sequoyah and his daughter to have them send messages between each other until they were finally

convinced that the symbols on paper really represented talking.

At the end of the trial, the warriors asked Sequoyah to teach them this new skill. Within a week, all were able to read and write their own language. The warriors

are known historically as a fierce group of Cherokees and with their protection and patronage, literacy spread quickly throughout the Cherokee Nation. Within a

very few months, a large part of the Nation had achieved literacy. This gift benefited not only the teachers and missionaries, but helped preserve history, culture

and spiritual practices. Dr. Samuel Worcester urged that type and a press be furnished to his mission so that scriptures could be translated into the native

language, and the press evolved into a business which produced a newspaper, hymn books, hand bills and most other printing needs.

The completion of the syllabary was accomplished after his arrival in present-day Polk County, Arkansas. He returned east in 1821 to present it to the tribe, and

then returned to Indian Territory in 1822, where he first taught the written language in the west. In 1824, the General Council of the Cherokee Nation voted to

give Sequoyah a large silver medal as an honor for his creation of the syllabary. Between the years of 1809 and 1821, he accomplished a feat, which no other

person in history has done single-handedly. Through the development of the Cherokee Syllabary, he brought our people literacy and the gift of communicating

through long distances and the ages. This one person brought to his people this great gift without hired educators, no books and no cost."

Explain what this document is about in 2 sentences.

Explain what type of diffusion is involved AND what evidence led you to this conclusion.

Identify any elements of other diffusion types that you can detect.