Early Humans and the Paleolithic Era

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Early Humans and the Paleolithic Era
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Learning About the Earliest People

• Anthropology is the study of other cultures
• Culture is a peoples unique way of life. It
  determines the most basic human needs, like how
  they provide food and shelter. Religion,
  language, family relationships, entertainment,
  government, and many other things are also
  cultural.

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How Do We Know?

• Archeologists investigate other cultures
  settlement sites by setting up an archeological
  dig and sifting through all evidence such as
  artifacts and fossils. This is also called an
  archeological excavation.
• Artifacts are human made objects
• like tools or art.

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Archeology cont

• Archeologists use scientific tests like carbon
  dating and relative dating to analyze fossils and
  artifacts.

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• Stone henge
• Jericho
• Catal huyuk

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Hominids

• Hominids are apes, humans, and any creatures in
  between that walk upright.

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Hominids Originated in Africa

• Early hominids like Homo habilis and Homo erectus
  originated in Africa.
• They migrated on foot to the other continents.
• They even began using the first stone tools for
  cutting, digging, and scraping.

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What did they look like?

• Many of these early hominids looked similar to
  modern Homo sapiens who emerged about 200,000
  years ago.
• Homo sapiens were similar to other hominids
  except their (our) brains were much larger.
• http//humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/human-fossils/
  species/homo-sapiens

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How Did They Survive?

• They were hunter-gatherers whose survival
  depended on the availability of wild plants and
  animals.
• They were also nomadic, travelling around in
  search of plants and animals to eat.
• They slowly invented tools and other things.
  This allowed them to hunt more efficiently.
• By 30,000 BC, most of the other hominids were
  extinct, leaving Homo sapiens as the remaining
  human on the planet.

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Early People cont

• They were nomadic people, meaning they travelled
  around searching for food, water, and shelter.
• During the Paleolithic Era (Old Stone Age), they
  invented the first tools and weapons.
• They lived in clans and invented oral language to
  communicate with each other.

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What about reading and writing?

• Written language (reading and writing) was not
  invented until about 3,000 BC, so these really
  ancient people did not keep any records.
• Thats why archeology is so important! Without
  written records, artifacts and fossils are the
  only way we can learn about them.
• In fact, writing is such an important invention,
  we use it as a marking point. Everything that
  happens in a society before writing is called
  PRE-history. Everything after writing was
  invented is called history.

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Pre-historic Art?

• Primitive people began creating cave paintings
  about 35,000 years ago.
• They made paint from berries, animal blood,
  charcoal, and other natural media.
• Cave paintings depicted rituals, changes in
  seasons, and natural surroundings.
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vU3b1sX_WOlA

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Paleolithic Age (Old Stone Age)

• Lasted from about 2.5 million years ago until
  8,000 BC (although it started and ended at
  different places at different times).
• During this age, humans developed the very first
  stone tools.
• For most of this time, people were nomadic
  hunter-gatherers. Although toward the end, they
  started to settle into villages in areas where
  there was plenty to eat.

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The Neolithic Age (New Stone Age)

• Human societies advanced slowly. During the
  Neolithic Age, they invented more advanced tools
  and developed agriculture.

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The Agricultural Revolution

• During the Neolithic Age, about 10,000 years ago,
  humans began farming. Agriculture provided a
  more steady food source than hunting and
  gathering plants.
• Agriculture was probably made possible by a
  change in climate that allowed for longer growing
  seasons.

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Farming Techniques

• Farming happened accidently at first. Someone
  probably left some seeds outside and then noticed
  they grew the next year. The rest is history.
• To open up forests and grasslands to farming,
  they used slash-and-burn to clear the land.
  After the soil became infertile, they would move
  to another spot.

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Domestication

• Along with agriculture came the domestication of
  animals. By keeping animals in enclosed areas,
  people could wait until they needed to eat to
  slaughter the animals.

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Agriculture Grows

• People developed agriculture independently in
  different areas across the globe.
• The increase in the food supply allowed villages
  to grow.

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Catal Huyuk
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Villages Grow Into Cities

• With the increase in the food supply, some people
  did not have to work to produce food. They could
  use their time to do other things.
• Some people, called artisans, learned a craft,
  and produced pottery, tools, metal objects, and
  more.
• Others would trade products to other people, and
  profited off the trade.
• Cities are different from temporary settlements
  because the buildings and structures are
  permanent and the people who live in the city
  rely on the surrounding land for food, water and
  trade.

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Civilizations

• A civilization requires
• Advanced cities
• Specialized workers
• Complex institutions
• Record-keeping (and hence writing)
• Advanced technology

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Advanced Cities

• Cities serve as centers for trade.
• Farmers and traders brought goods to the city to
  exchange. The city-dwellers produced goods to
  exchange, too.
• Money was not invented yet, so people bartered.
  Bartering is like trading. For example, a farmer
  might barter the wheat he grew in exchange for a
  piece of pottery produced in a city.

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Specialized Workers

• As cities grew, they needed people to perform
  more specialized tasks
• Government officials
• Traders
• Priests
• Artisans
• Made clothing, pottery, metal tools and weapons,
  jewelry
• The variety of gods produced allowed cities to
  become centers for trade

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Complex Institutions

• The growth in cities made government necessary
• Other complex institutions included religion and
  the economy
• As wealth grows, social classes develop based on
  access to resources

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Record-keeping

• As institutions became more complex, it became
  necessary to keep records of laws, taxes, and
  grain storage.
• Scribes were trained to keep official documents.
• As writing became more popular, people began
  writing down other events like war and natural
  disasters.
• Cuneiform was the first system of writing and was
  developed in Mesopotamia. Scribes would press a
  wedge-shaped reed into a moist clay tablet to
  form symbols and then dry the tablet to preserve
  it.

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Advanced Technology

• Technology varies from place to place, but
  generally involves things that previous people
  could not create. Examples include
• Irrigation,
• Wheels,
• Pottery,
• Metalworking,
• Ox-drawn plows to break up soil for planting.

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The Bronze Age

• The Sumerians in Mesopotamia were the first to
  discover bronze.
• They learned that if you melted and mixed copper
  and tin together, it made bronze, which was much
  stronger and more durable than copper or stone.
• They used bronze to make tools, weapons,
  decorations, and building materials.

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Apply it

• What things in the following video clip might
  have actually happened?
• Which things were impossible during the Stone
  Age?
• In which age did the North American natives live
  before Europeans settled this continent? (hint
  they used stone, had agriculture, and some were
  using metal tools and lived in cities).