CHAPTER 1: FROM HUMAN PREHISTORY TO EA RLY CIVILIZA TIONS

Period 1: Technological and Environmental Transformations

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Overview Prehistory: period before writing

History: period after invention of writing, allowed communities to record & store info.

Basic development: Hunting and foraging

Agriculture

Complex society (Major development of first complex societies 3500 B.C.E. – 500 B.C.E.)

Key issue: surplus capital

Development of Hominids

Animals adapt themselves to environment (Evolution)

Video: Evolution 101

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUM6NOARlO4

Hominids (primate species including humans) adapt environment to themselves

Use of tools

Language

Complex cooperative social structures

Fat Boy Slim VIDEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ub747pprmJ8

Homonids

Australopithecus = “southern ape”

Discovery of skeleton AL-288-1, north of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Nicknamed “Lucy”

Homo erectus = “upright walking man”

Homo sapiens = “consciously thinking man” Homo sapiens sapiens (that’s us!)

Neandert(h)als = became extinct

http://www.handprint.com/LS/ANC/disp.html

Global Migrations of Homo erectus and Homo sapiens

©2011, The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Quickwrite: Write for 3 minutes…no stopping!

Use the map on pp. 8 – 9 to support the “Out of Africa” hypothesis.

Global Migrations of Homo erectus and Homo sapiens

©2011, The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Push Factors Pull Factors

Factors that drive people from their current location

Examples:

Factors that draw people to a location

Examples:

Push vs. Pull Factors

Migration

By 13,000 B.C.E., Homo sapiens had migrated to every part of world

Evidence = archaeological finds

Sophisticated tools

Choppers, scrapers, axes, knives, bows, arrows

Cave and hut-like dwellings

Use of fire, animal skins

Hunted several mammal species to extinction

Climatic change may have accelerated process

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Paleolithic Society

Paleolithic Era = “Old Stone Age”

Hunting-gathering peoples

NO individual accumulation of property or social distinctions based on wealth = egalitarian existence.

Social distinction based on age, strength, courage, virility/fertility

Neanderthals in Paleolithic age

Hunting and gathering

Hunting and gathering (foraging) lifestyle = Egalitarian

Women (gatherers)

- Provides plants, fruits, nuts, roots

Interdependent

Equal contribution

Men (hunters)- Provides meat

Live in small bands (more efficient)Exploit env. systematically (seasonal migrations)Hunt with purpose & use brain

• Development of weaponry, animal-skin disguises, stampeding tactics (Lighting of fires, etc., to drive game into

kill zones)

Creativity of Homo sapiens

Able to accumulate/transmit info.

Sewing

Beads, necklaces

Sculptures

Fish for added food

Adv. tools for hunting

Cave paintings (animals & humans)

Bow and arrow – a dramatic improvement in humans’ power over nature

“Venus” figurines shows evidence of worship

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©2011, The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Mesolithic Era

“Middle Stone Age”

Improved tools (rafts, etc.)

Domestication of animals

Increased conflict

Video: Domestication of dogs

Cause and Effect: Neolithic Revolution

Neolithic Revolution

Neolithic Era

“New Stone Age”

Beginning of agriculture Agriculture = cultivating of plants and

animals (aka farming)

Distinction in tool production Chipped vs. polished

Relied on cultivation for subsistence Men: herding animals rather than

hunting Women: nurturing vegetation rather

than foraging

Effects of spread of agriculture Slash-and-burn techniques Exhaustion of soil promotes

migration Diffusion of crops

Agriculture became way to sustain life through continuous food source– before McDonalds.

Early Agriculture 10,000 – 2,000 B.C.E.

http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/history/lecture03/r_3-2.html

Origins and Early Spread of Agriculture

Agriculture and Change

Most important change = population explosion

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Agriculture and Population Growth

©2011, The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Agriculture and Change

Neolithic Settlements

Agricultural economy and increasing population led to new forms of social organization.

Settled in permanent villages

Earliest known = Jericho in present-day Israel (before 8000 B.C.E.) w/ 2,000 ppl.

Concentration of many people in villages led to specialization of labor - with food surplus, some people did other work.

Çatal Hüyük (modern-day Turkey)

7250 – 5400 B.C.E.

5,000 people

Made pots, baskets, textiles, leather, stone/metal tools, jewelry, etc.

The rectangular shape of the buildings: as there is no readily available stone to build defensive walls, the buildings were made to face inwards, with no windows on the

outside. The only entrance to the city was through ladders leading onto the roofs of the outside buildings. The streetless city offered a high degree of protection from outside attackers in this way - if under attack, the outside ladders were withdrawn, and any

would be attacker was faced with a solid wall and no gate or other weak point.

A reconstruction of the first city in the world, Catal

Huyuk, Anatolia, present day

Turkey. This city flourished from about 6250 BCE

to 5400 BCE, and was excavated in

part in 1961.

Çatal Hüyük

http://www.lwcag.org/sub-racial/chapter-the-late-paleolithic-age.html

Agriculture and Change

Specialization of Labor Pottery (needed to

store/cook food)

Metallurgy

Copper (jewelry/tools) - 4000 BCE

Bronze – 3000 BCE

Iron – 1500 BCE

Textile (domesticated plants/ animals for better fiber)

Mostly women

Social Distinctions

Accumulated wealth

Trade surplus food/manufactured goods for gems, jewelry

Ownership of land (privatization) = economic power (especially for families who passed down wealth)

Neolithic pottery, excavated from

Yung Long & Tuen Mun (Hong

Kong)

Multi Flow Map: Cause and Effect

Neolithic Revolution

Neolithic Revolution

Neolithic Villages vs. Cities

Cities

cities = larger, more complex than villages

(i.e. governors, administrators, tax collectors to run city & priests to transmit values/traditions)

cities influenced political, economic, & cultural life of larger region

(i.e. political = extending authority/military power, economic = marketplaces/trading, cultural = schools/temples to spread traditions/values)

Neolithic Culture

Science

Neolithic people observed natural world to ensure good harvest.

Learned weather was based on position of sun, moon and stars (early calendar system)

Religion

Worshipped Venus figurines to ensure fertility

Celebrated/worshipped other deities associated w/ cycle of life – death –regeneration (for humans and harvests)

Origins of Civilization

Agriculture begins

Population increases

Villages form (near water source)

Specialization of labor

Social classes emerge

Cities are born

Civilization begins

Agriculture and Resistance to Change

Many hunter-gathering societies resisted farming Southern Africa

Australia (Aborigines)

Islands of SE Asia

Northern Japan

N. America (combined with seasonal farming)

Central Asia (Mongols)

Agriculture became most important economic system, but not only one Hunting gathering and nomadic

herding continued

Why?

Characteristics of Nomadic Societies

Nomadic societies commonly referred to as “barbarians” Few records exist

Violent lifestyle

Outstanding fighters (reputation for cruelty)

hospitable

Often peaceful, beneficial relationship with settled agricultural societies

Seasonal travel (weather, food, etc.)

Male dominated society (some women held important positions, even fought)

Valued courage, heroism

Major nomadic peoples: Indo-Europeans, Hittites, Xiongnu(Huns)

Compare and Contrast: Double Bubble Map

Paleolithic

Era

Paleolithic Era vs. Neolithic Era

Neolithic

Era