Oasis Theory
(noun)
The theory that humans were forced into close association with animals due to changes in climate.
Examples of Oasis Theory in the following topics:
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The Neolithic Revolution
- There are several competing (but not mutually exclusive) theories about the factors that drove populations to take up agriculture.
- The Oasis Theory, originally proposed by Raphael Pumpelly in 1908, and popularized by V.
- However, this theory has little support amongst archaeologists today because subsequent climate data suggests that the region was getting wetter rather than drier.
- The Demographic theories proposed by Carl Sauer and adapted by Lewis Binford and Kent Flannery posit that an increasingly sedentary population outgrew the resources in the local environment and required more food than could be gathered.
- The Evolutionary/Intentionality theory, developed by David Rindos and others, views agriculture as an evolutionary adaptation of plants and humans.
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Trade Under the Tang Dynasty
- Furthermore, banditry was a problem along the checkpoints and oasis towns, as Xuanzang also recorded that his group of travelers were assaulted by bandits on multiple occasions.
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Arabian Cities
- During the pre-Islamic period up until 622 CE, the city was known as Yathrib, an oasis city.
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Disappearance of the Indus Valley Civilization
- Scholars have put forth differing theories to explain the disappearance of the Harappans, including an Aryan Invasion and climate change marked by overwhelming monsoons.
- According to one theory by British archaeologist Mortimer Wheeler, a nomadic, Indo-European tribe called the Aryans suddenly overwhelmed and conquered the Indus River Valley.
- The theory suggested that by using horses and more advanced weapons against the peaceful Harappan people, the Aryans may have easily defeated them.
- Yet shortly after Wheeler proposed his theory, other scholars dismissed it by explaining that the skeletons were not victims of invasion massacres, but rather the remains of hasty burials.
- Many scholars came to believe in an Indo-Aryan Migration theory that states the Harappan culture was assimilated during a migration of the Aryan people into northwest India.
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Scientific Exploration
- According to an earlier theory, a substance called phlogiston was released from inflammable materials through burning.
- Eventually the oxygen-based theory of combustion drowned out the phlogiston theory and in the process created the basis of modern chemistry.
- Beccaria is recognized as one of the fathers of classical criminal theory.
- His theories have continued to play a great role in recent times.
- Some of the current policies impacted by his theories are truth in sentencing, swift punishment and the abolition of death penalty.
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John Locke
- Considered one of the first of the British empiricists, he is equally important to social contract theory.
- The Second Treatise outlines a theory of civil society.
- Therefore, any government that rules without the consent of the people can, in theory, be overthrown.
- Locke's political theory was founded on social contract theory.
- Locke's theory of mind has been as influential as his political theory and is often cited as the origin of modern conceptions of identity and the self.
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Thomas Hobbes
- Thomas Hobbes, an English philosopher and scientist, was one of the key figures in the political debates of the Enlightenment period, who introduced a social contract theory based on the relation between the absolute sovereign and the civil society.
- Hobbes was the first modern philosopher to articulate a detailed social contract theory that appeared in his 1651 work Leviathan.
- This marked an important departure from medieval natural law theories which gave precedence to obligations over rights.
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The Indo-Aryan Migration and the Vedic Period
- Different theories explain the Vedic Period, a time of Indo-Aryan people on the Indian subcontinent migrating to the Ganges Plain around 1200 BCE.
- Yet shortly after Wheeler proposed his theory, other scholars dismissed it by explaining the skeletons were not victims of invasion massacres, but rather the remains of hasty burials.
- Wheeler himself eventually admitted that the theory could not be proven.
- According to this theory, these nomadic pastoralists expanded throughout the Pontic-Caspian steppe and into Eastern Europe by early 3000 BCE.
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Cities of the Indus Valley Civilization
- Over time, three major theories have developed concerning Harappan governance or system of rule.
- The second theory posits that there was no single ruler, but a number of them representing each of the urban centers including Mohenjo-daro, Harappa and other communities.
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The Toltecs
- Theories abound about the role the Toltecs actually played in Mesoamerica, from the central Mexican valleys all the way down to certain Mayan city-states.
- This led him to posit the theory that Chichén Itzá had been violently taken over by a Toltec military force under the leadership of Kukulcan.
- Historicists supportive of the ethnic group theory also argue that much of central Mexico was possibly dominated by a "Toltec empire" between the 10th and 12th centuries CE.
- Multiple theories place the Toltec and the site of Tula within a more general framework: