List of Benchmarks for World History |
| Standard 5. | Understands the political, social, and cultural consequences of population movements and militarization in Eurasia in the second millennium BCE |
| | Level II (Grade 5-6) |
| | 1. | Understands how the rise of pastoral societies was linked to the climate and geography of the Central Asian steppes, and how kinship-based pastoral society differed from the social organization of agrarian states |
| | 2. | Understands how the invention of the chariot affected Southwest Asian societies (e.g., how the chariot changed transportation, the development of chariot warfare, how the chariot contributed to the spread of new ideas and technology) |
| | 3. | Understands characteristics of Mycenaean Greek society and culture (e.g., the political and social organization of the Mycenaean Greeks as revealed in archaeological and written records, how geography influenced the development of Mycenaean society, the significance of the story of the siege of Troy) |
| | 4. | Understands possible causes of the decline and collapse of Indus Valley civilization (e.g., possible causes for the disappearance of cities such as Mohenjo-Daro, the role environmental changes played in the fall of Indus cities) |
| | Level III (Grade 7-8) |
| | 1. | Understands the development of Indo-European language (e.g., the probable geographic homeland of speakers of early Indo-European languages and the spread of the language to other parts of Eurasia, languages which developed from the Indo-European root language) |
| | 2. | Understands the origins of the Hittite people, their empire in Anatolia, and major cultural and political achievements of this society |
| | 3. | Understands significant individuals and events in Egyptian civilization (e.g., the extent of Egyptian expansion during the Old, Middle, and New Kingdoms, and some of the factors that made this expansion possible; major political and cultural achievements of Thutmose III, Ramses II, and Queen Hatshepsut in Egypt) |
| | 4. | Understands significant events in the development of Mycenaean culture (e.g., the cultural influences of Egypt, Minoan Crete, and Southwest Asian civilizations on the Mycenaeans; the story of the Trojan war through different sources) |
| | 5. | Understands characteristics of Aryan culture (e.g., the reasons for the migration of Indo-Aryan and Mycenaean-speaking peoples into India, the Eastern Mediterranean, and the Iranian Plateau; the belief system embraced by the Aryan people; odes from the Vedas that praise major Vedic gods and what they illustrate about Aryan values; potential conflict and tension among Aryan tribes as they began to settle down in the Indo-Gangetic plain) |
| | 6. | Understands potential sources for the decline in trade, the overcrowding, and eventual collapse of Mohenjo-Daro and other Indus cities |
| | Level IV (Grade 9-12) |
| | 1. | Understands characteristics of pastoral and agrarian societies (e.g., economy, social relations, and political authority among pastoral peoples; women's social equality with men in pastoral societies as opposed to agrarian societies) |
| | 2. | Understands the beliefs and accomplishments of Mesopotamian and Egyptian rulers (e.g., the religious ideas of Akenaton [Amenhotep IV] and the viewpoint that Atonism was an early form of monotheism, the accomplishments of Sargon and Akenaton [Amenhotep IV]) |
| | 3. | Understands characteristics of Mycenaean society (e.g., the impact of Mycenaean expansion and city-building on commerce and political life in the Eastern Mediterranean; society, trade, and government in Mycenae; comparisons of Mycenaean and Minoan societies from archaeological remains) |
| | 4. | Understands cultural elements of the Aryan civilization (e.g., Aryan culture in India as denoted in linguistic, literary, and archaeological materials; beliefs expressed in the Vedic hymns; the root of the word "Aryan," those people who came to be called Indo-Aryan) |
| | 5. | Knows the migration routes of Indo-European language speakers and the approximate dates of their arrivals in new locations during the second millenium BCE |
| | 6. | Understands the emergence and militarization of new kingdoms (e.g., what visual and written sources suggest about the impact of chariot warfare on the battlefield; the boundaries of major states in Southwest Asia, Egypt, and the Eastern Mediterranean in the later part of the 2nd millennium BCE and why wars and diplomatic relations among these states may have represented the first era of "internationalism" in world history) |
| | 7. | Understands the decline of the Indus valley civilization in comparison to that of other peoples such as the Sumerians |
| | 8. | Understands the reliability of epics as historic sources and the aspects of these works historians have determined actually reflect contemporary or later culture (e.g., the Iliad, the Odyssey, the Mahabarata, and the Ramayana) |
