Remember: A humanocentric

history is our focus.

Paleolithic Age = Old Stone Age = 2 million years - 10,000 years ago Paleo = Old, Lithic = Stone.

Beginnings of tool-making to beginnings of farming. Hunting, gathering, and fishing the universal way of life.

Late Paleolithic = 200,000 - 10,000 years agoAdvances toward greater cultural complexity, which began to appear when Homo sapiens still lived only in Africa.More and better tools, symbolic thought and expression.Hunting, gathering, and fishing continue but settlements

become bigger in some places.

Neolithic Age = 10,000 - 4,000 years agoNeo = New, Lithic = Stone.More complex stone tools.Early era of farming to beginnings of city-based societies.Humans in many parts of the world continue to gather and hunt.

Terms and Time Periods

Paleolithic starts

LatePaleolithic

Neo-lithic

Why Do We Care about Early Human History?

Recent discoveries near the village

of Dmanisi in the Republic of Georgia

(Caucasus Mts.) suggest that early

human ancestors migrated from

Africa to Eurasia much earlier than

scholars previously thought. This

might mean that the first hominids

to leave Africa had smaller brains

and much simpler stone tool kits than

we have assumed.

Why Do We Care about Early Human History?

• We want to know what it means to be human rather than to be some other kind of life form. What makes us different from chimps?

• We want to know what connects us and the world we live in to the past, including the very, very remote past.

• We want to know how the world got to be the way it is because the way it used to be was so different.

• Early history is part of the human experience. We want to be able to talk about it with others without sounding like ignoramuses.

• The way national and ethnic groups view their distant past is an important aspect of their identity.

• The question of whether nature or nurture makes us the way we are always fascinates us.

“The past was not only weirder than we realize,it was weirder than we can imagine.”

David Lowenthal

Early Human HistoryWhat’s the Evidence?

• Bones– Physical traces of human beings

• Evidence of anatomical evolution• Evidence of movement in space

• Stones– Physical traces of tools or weapons

• Evidence of changing technology• Evidence of movement in space

• Grave goods– Physical traces of human-made objects

• Evidence of changing technology andlife ways, i.e. culture

• Climatology– Physical traces of changing climate

• Evidence of interrelationship between environment and human history

• DNA– Physical evidence of genetic change in the

tissue of people, living or dead.• Evidence of movement in time and

space• Evidence of adaptation to differing

environments

“As DNA flows from one generation to the next, small alterations, or mutations occur, and at a regular rate. This means that over time the genetic distance between individuals sharing a common ancestor steadily increases. The longer two human populations have no contact with one another, the greater the genetic distance between them will be.”

Family Tree of Human Evolution(part of the modern “creation myth”)

This family tree shows the variety of hominid species that have populated the planet--some known only by a fragment of skull or jaw. As the tree suggests, the emergence of Homo sapiens has not been a single, linear transformation of one species into another but rather a meandering, multifaceted evolution.Ian Tattersall

Homo sapiens

Homo Neanderthalensis

Homo Heidelbergensis

Homo Erectus

Homo Ergaster

Homo Habilis

Australopithecus afarensis

Unlike most animals, humankind is a cosmopolitan species. That is, it

has adapted to almost all the earth’s regions and climates.

Why are humans everywhere, and

how did they get there?

Homo erectus bands were notquite like us, but they were

great travelers (if not the first).Homo erectus• Appeared 2 mya (?)• Omnivorous• Complex brain compared to

preceding species• Made stone tools• Controlled fire• Adapted to cool climates• Spread from Africa to Eurasia

• Did not go to Australia, Oceania, the Americas, or eventhe northern, colder parts ofAfroeurasia

Did Homo sapiens meet Homo erectus?(Maybe)

Where did people “like us” start from?

Most scholars believe that Homo sapiens evolved in Africa, then migrated to other parts of the world. As modern humans spread around the world, they completely replaced all other hominid species, including Homo erectus and our very close cousins the Neanderthals.

Homo Erectus Homo Erectus

Homo sapiens

Remains discovered at Blombos Cave in South Africa are one example of the more complex culture some humans were developing as many as 90,000 years ago.

The people who lived in this seaside camp

made sharp stone spear points using methods that appeared in Eurasia only 50,000 or more years later.

made objects from bone, the earliest use of this material known.

scored bits of bone and ochre with marks that may have had symbolic meaning.

Photos: Arizona State University, College of Liberal Arts and Scienceshttp://clasdean.la.asu.edu/news/images/bone/

View looking out of Blombos Cave to the Indian Ocean

Bone points from the cave

Ochre piece with scrapemarks. A person may havescraped the ochre to get powder to use to makebody paint.

Map 1Migrations of Homo sapiens

Possible coastal routes of human migration

Possible landward routes of human migration

Human Origins200,000-250,000

years ago

Southwest Asia100,000 years ago

Australiaas many as 60,000

years ago

Europe40,000 years ago

Siberia40,000 years ago

North America12,000-30,000

years ago

Migrations in Oceania

Oceania1600 B.C.E.-500 C.E.

Chile12,000-13 ,000

years ago

Why are Human Beings

Everywhere?

By perhaps 200,000 years ago, human beings possessed the

intelligence, capacity for shared learning, and technical skills

to adapt to just about any climate on earth. But why did they

populate all the major land masses and most islands of the globe?

Why Did People End Up Everywhere?

• Humans did not “decide” to populate the world.

• Neither did humans drift aimlessly from continent to continent.

• Migrating peoples did not have long-distance objectives. But they did have short distance ones to survive and perpetuate the group. Sometimes that meant moving.

• When population rose in an area, some were forced to move on.

• Climatic fluctuations and crises could also be “engines” stimulating migration.

Introducing

Facts about Kennewick Man• Skeletal remains discovered on a bank of the Columbia River in

Washington State in 1996.• Radio carbon dating showed the skeleton to be about 9,000 years

old.• Skull appears to have features unlike other ancient skulls of

Native American ancestors.• DNA study has been inconclusive in determining genetic

connection between the skeleton and human groups. The origins of Kennewick Man are unknown.

• Umatilla Indian group claimed the skeleton for immediate ritual burial. The skeleton was found on federal land, not on a reservation. Even so, the law requires that remains of Native Americans found on federal land be returned to affiliated tribes for reburial. This law, enacted in 1990, is called the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA).

• Scientists have sued to be permitted to undertake long-term study of the remains.

• Popular media at first reported Kennewick Man as a “European” whose genetic relatives had come to North America more than 9,000 years ago. The notion that this man came from “Europe” has been discredited.

• A court has recently found in favor of the scientists, but Indian groups will appeal that decision.

Kennewick Man fishing Artist: Joyce Bergen

Tom McClelland shows skull casting

used to recreate facial features of

Kennewick Man.

Ariel view of site on Columbia River where

Kennewick Man was discovered.

Sept. 27, 2002Tribes try to appeal ruling on Kennewick Man bones

By Mike Lee Herald staff writer

Four Northwest tribes are attempting to appeal a federal court ruling that allows study of Kennewick Man's 9,000-year-old remains.Tribal lawyers Thursday said that the U.S. government no longer adequately represents Indian interests and asked for the right to appeal the high-profile decision, which addresses pivotal aspects of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. . . .

Copyright 2002 Tri-City Herald

Should the Remains of Kennewick Man Be:

1) safeguarded indefinitely for scientific study?

2) studied during a reasonable time period, then returned to Indians in Washington State for burial?

3) returned immediately to Indians in for reburial?

END