Week 2 Essay

         I learned about many ancient civilizations in the world tour these past two weeks in history. In this essay, I will be discussing the differences in development of two of these civilizations of my choice. I chose the Anasazi people from Western Ancient North America and Ancient Europe, more specifically, the Celts in Ancient Europe.

          First, I will talk about America. The Anasazi people had to learn to live in different climates, anywhere from desert all the time like Texas, California, Utah, Nevada, and especially Arizona, to hot and dry in the summer and frigid in the winter, like Colorado. They usually did not wear much clothing because of the heat in the summer. 

          They would live in adobe houses built into the sides of cliffs, for example, Mesa Verde in Colorado. I have been to Mesa Verde, and it is astonishing to see how amazing these homes are! Did you know that builders today cannot do this? Even if they could, it would be remarkably difficult. They also would build their homes underground to escape the cold. 

          The largest structure in Ancient North America was the Pyramid of the Sun, built by the Anasazi Teotihuacan people. This pyramid-like building had a giant temple on the top for the worship of their sun god. 

          They came up with many hunting mechanisms throughout their time and development. The Anasazi from the west and the Hopewell people from the east both evolved into Native Americans and started to become more civilized after Christopher Columbus and ,some of Europe started to come to settle in North America, however, that was much later in time.

          Now for Europe, or the Celts. The Celts were made up of many different small tribes spread around the continent. This actually makes it somewhat of an empire. The Celts did not keep many written records, so almost everything we know about them was from the Romans. 

          Unlike where the Anasazi lived, Europe can get very cold, so the Celts probably wore more bulkier, warmer clothes. They probably wore more layering and clothes in general too.

          Instead of having homes built out of adobe, their homes were built out of wood, and they were not built into cliffs like the Anasazi. They are also credited for inventing soap, and they would mine, trade, and preserve salt.

          The Romans considered the Celts to be barbarians. This is probably because anyone that did not believe in the same things as the Romans did, the Romans said they were barbarians. Through research, we know that this probably was not entirely true, and the Celts were not as barbaric as the Romans said they were. They were actually a pretty civilized empire.

          Europe mainly went from the Celts, to the Greeks, to the Romans, to the Renaissance ages, to the settlement of America, where these two civilizations meet.

          As you can see, there are many differences in these two ancient countries. There are many more and there are many more similarities, for example, they both invented many very useful items. Although I will not be learning much more about America this year, I am still very excited to learn about Europe.