What is History?

By Heather August

A Journey of a Man

• Studies show that life began with our Ancestors in Africa.

• By sampling blood, and then testing the blood can show that the DNA relates back to its ancestors and everyone goes back to Adam in Africa.

• Many people would like to disagree with the theory because of religion. But after studies showing that are DNA matches with our ancestors 60,000 years ago indicates that it is true.

• Wells studies the change of DNA, and sees how through migration over the years, we are all still related.

• Today, most people believe that migration started 1.7 million years ago to Eurasia starting from Africa.

• Wells predicts that people migrated because of weather conditions and food availability.

• Wells studies is very important because it tells us the history of our planet, and where we originated.

Catastrophe• Keys, studied the worlds biggest catastrophe in the 6th century.

He wanted to know what caused the dark ages and killed many people.

• Keys studies history by using many technology advances we have today. The first way that Keys studied the earth was by using Tree Rings.

• The tree rings go back thousands of years, and it show that during the sixth century, there were major climate changes.

• Keys wanted to receive more information, but what could have caused the weather climate changes. Keys went to see astrologists to see if the Earth changed because of comets, asteroids, or volcanoes.

• Turns out, that a asteroid or comet did not make a big change.

• After Keys found out that it wasn’t from outer space, he went to test volcanoes.

• He went to find ice capsules, that told the history of volcano eruptions. It turns out that a major Volcano changed the world in the 6th century.

• After finding what caused the Dark Ages, Keys wanted to find what Volcano eruption caused the big change on Earth. He found that it was caused by the Volcano Krakatoa.

• The volcano eruption changed the world by making the sun blocked for over a decade which caused famine, drought and many people died because of this major eruption.

Guns, Germs and Steel

• Jared Diamond states the people have innate differences, only environmental differences.

• He found that there are four innumerable environmental features that affect the planet.

• First, continental differences in wild plant and animal species

• Second, rates of diffusion and migration

• Third, Diffusion between continents

• Fourth, Continental differences and area or population size.

• These environmental features affected the planet because of climate, food and competition.

• This was shown when people migrated to the United States.

• When Europeans came to the US, they had technologies and more competition than Native Americans. They had guns, germs, and steel. These three features helped them defeat the Natives because they did not have these resources.

• Guns were more advanced than Natives weapons. Disease/Germs- killed many Natives because they were not immune. And steel helped make new tools that were needed.

The Columbian Exchange

• The Columbian Exchange was a wide spread of animals, plants, culture, humans, and diseases.

• In the 1400’s during migration the interior motives were economic, nationalistic, religious, and not biological.

• They wanted to make money, expand empires, convert heathen.

• They did not want to spread Old World DNA.

• By travelling to different parts of the world, it brought concern in ecology and agriculture, and culture.

• Northern and Southern Americas differ in animals and climate, as well does Africa and the Americas. Outside Europe and Africa, is thought to not be related because they have been separated more than 10,000 years.

• Europeans travelled to the United States and exchanged a lot of culture. They brought back food consisting of maize, potatoes, and tomatoes.

• Europeans gave the natives-maniac, and peanuts.

• Not only did Europe give the US food, but also many diseases. One of the biggest diseases they brought to the US was Small Pox.

• The Columbian exchange ended up being a significant thing. It brought new diets to different countries, new cultures were learned and populations continued to grow.