The First People

1
The First People

• Early Hominids lived in bands of about 30 adults
  and their young
• The members of these bands lived cooperatively,
  sharing food
• The First Families
• Only humans developed communities based on the
  nuclear family
• Families were characterized by permanent
  male-female bonds
• Men hunted larger animals
• Women gathered other forms of food and cared for
  the children
• These early societies practiced exogamy
• Marriage outside the immediate group
• This practice formed bonds between different
  family groups

2
Living Conditions and Technology

• The Control of Fire
• Enabled the defending caves and other locales for
  use as base camps
• Meat could be cooked, increasing nutrition
• Stone tools are found in hominid sites starting a
  million years ago
• The Paleolithic period, or Old Stone Age
• Australopithicus and Homo erectus made simple
  pebble tools
• Homo erectus gradually developed hand axes
• The spread of hand axe technology demonstrates
  human ability to disseminate ideas

3
Living Conditions and Technology (cont.)

• Neanderthal people developed very sophisticated
  tools made by flaking flint
• These tools could be used to scrape hides and
  create clothing
• Homo sapiens produced varied and sophisticated
  tool kits containing
• Scrapers
• Chisels
• Knives
• Burins
• They used these tools to work hides, ivory, bone
  and wood
• They created spear tips, needles and fishing hooks

4
Europe in the Stone Age Hunters and Artists

• Human beings are characterized by the symbolic
  and artistic
• Neanderthals are known to have buried their dead
• Early Homo Sapiens produced compelling forms of
  art
• Cave Painting
• Works at Chauvet and Lascaux date to around
  20,000 years ago
• Startling lifelike images of the animals in the
  artists world
• Scholars do not know the purpose of this artwork
• Paleolithic people also carved statuettes from
  wood and bone
• Some of the carvings represent animals
• Other works are stylized representations of
  humans
• The Venus of Willendorf

5
The Hall of the Bulls
6
The Venus of Willendorf
7
The Neolithic Revolution

• At the end of the last Ice Age around 11,000
  years ago, climate changed.
• Paleolithic humans began to change their way of
  life
• The Neolithic Revolution
• The shift from hunting and gathering to farming
• Changes took place gradually between 7000-4000
  B.C.
• Permanent communities and social changes happened
  only slowly

8
The Neolithic Revolution, (cont.)

• These changes occurred in many places around the
  globe
• Northeastern China along the Yellow River
• Domestication of pigs and millet
• Western Africa
• Domestication of yams and sorghum
• Central and South America
• Domestication of corn, squash, and beans
• The Near East
• People domesticated many crops
• The First Cities developed

9
Early Near Eastern Permanent Communities

• Jericho founded between 8 and 7000 B.C. in
  Palestine
• Population of around 3000 people
• Round houses of stone and mud
• Large Temple-like structure and defensive walls
• Catal Hüyük, in Anatolia, founded between 6400
  and 5600 B.C.
• The residents domesticated sheep
• They cultivated lentils, peas, barley, and wheat
• In Europe, civilization developed more slowly
• The Iceman, or Homo tyrolensis

10
Neolithic Society was characterized by a number
of things including

• An increase in the efficiency of food production
• This allowed an increase in population size and
  density
• It also enable Neolithic communities to support
  skilled craftsmen like potters and smiths
• With cultivation of permanent farms and the
  production of surpluses came the concept of
  property ownership

11
Neolithic Society was characterized by a number
of things including (cont.)

• Differential accumulation of property and goods
  created varying economic status within the
  communities
• Surpluses also enabled the beginnings of regular
  trade in such items as obsidian, salt, amber, and
  more
• As society became more complex, it developed more
  of the characteristics we used to define
  civilization. Including, eventually, systems of
  written communication