Human Beings Almost Everywhere

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Big Era Two

• Human Beings Almost Everywhere
• 200,000 10,000 BCE

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What happened inBig Era One?

• The Universe popped up 13 billion years ago.

Big Bang!

• Stars and Galaxies popped up from about 12
  billion years ago.

• Our Sun and Earth popped up about 4.6 billion
  years ago.

• Life popped up on Earth about 3.8 billion years
  ago.

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What else happened in Big Era One?

• Complicated life-forms showed up after about 600
  million years.

• Some organisms got onto the land from about 400
  million years ago.

• Dinosaurs ruled the earth until about 67 million
  years ago.

• Then our hominid ancestors showed up.

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When did WE appear?
Big Era Two is the first era in which there were
human beings, people like you and me (ME?)
(Remember, they appeared at the end of Big Era
One!) So, what IS so special about humans?
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How, when, and where did we become human?

• Meet our closest ancestor, Homo erectus.
• Homo erectus was one of the hominid groups that
  was developing increasingly large brains in both
  Africa and Asia between about 500,000 and 200,000
  years ago.

This is a reconstructed Homo erectus skull, found
in northern China. It dates to some time after
1.6 million years ago.
Homo erectus
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Homo erectus was a traveler!
Homo erectus began migrating to southerly parts
of Eurasia sometime after about 1.8 million years
ago.
Homo erectus
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Homo sapiens(thats us!) evolved from Homo
erectus

• By 200,000 years ago, people whose skeletons were
  like those of Homo sapiens were already living in
  Africa.
• Between that time and about 100,000 years ago,
  people who were both anatomically and genetically
  like us emerged in eastern and southern Africa.

This is a reconstructed Homo sapiens skull, found
in Israel. It has been dated to about 90,000
years ago.
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Homo sapiens traveled even further than Homo
erectus. From their African homeland, Homo
sapiens groups migrated to
Where? See the Map!
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Migrations of Homo sapiens
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Why were modern humans able to move into so many
different environments?
After all, no other large animals had spread so
widely! So what was so special about us?
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Language!

• Homo sapiens had language
• so they could exchange complex ideas with each
  other.
• and they could store and add to the ideas of
  previous generations.
• Because they swapped ideas, they kept finding
• new ways of doing things.
• new ways of living.

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Language made collective learning possible.

• The stores of knowledge and skills humans built
  up are called culture.
• No other animal can store and accumulate
  knowledge and skills in this way.
• We call this ability collective learning.

It is what human history is about!
This is what makes us special.
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• Storing up and building on new skills and new
  knowledge is what set our species on the path of
  continuing cultural changes that led to the world
  we now live in.

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How did collective learning change human culture?

• At first, changes in technology were very slow.
• After about 100,000 years ago, the pace of change
  began to increase.
• Evidence appears from about that time of humans
  living in east, central, and southern Africa.
  They were

• Making more advanced and varied tools.
• Experimenting with body decoration and abstract
  symbols.

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Remains discovered at Blombos Cave are one
example of the more complex culture some humans
were developing as many as 90,000 years ago.
View looking out of Blombos Cave to the Indian
Ocean

• 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.

Bone points from the cave
Ochre piece with scrape marks. A person may
have scraped the ochre to get powder to use to
make body paint.
Photos Arizona State University, College of
Liberal Arts and Sciences http//clasdean.la.asu.e
du/news/images/bone/
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Acceleration!

• From about 40,000 years ago, archaeological
  evidence shows faster and faster cultural change
  and increasing complexity.

The engraved horse panel in the Cave of
Chauvet-Pont-DArc in southern France. The image
is about 31,000 years old. (http//www.culture.gou
v.fr/culture/arcnat/chauvet)

• Humans began to
• Create both naturalistic and abstract art.
• Make more specialized tools.
• Weave and knot fiber.
• Decorate clothing.
• Make jewelry.
• Build semi-permanent structures.

Venus of the Kostenki I site in Russia dated to
about 23,000 years ago. This stone female head is
wearing headgear of woven basketry. (New York
Times, Dec. 14, 1999. Photo Bill Wiegand,
University of Illinois.)
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• By the time humans appeared, our closest living
  relatives were probably the hominids known as
  Neandertals (or, Neanderthals).
• When Homo sapiens groups arrived in western Asia
  and Europe, Neandertals were already there. By
  100,000 years ago Neandertals were living from
  Spain to Inner Eurasia.
• They had a long record of living successfully in
  both warm and cold environments. But they
  disappeared from the record about 28,000 years
  ago.

Were other surviving hominids changing in the
same way as Homo sapiens?
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Did Homo sapiens meet Neandertals?
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Did Homo Sapiens meet Homo Erectus?

• Members of the two species may have met in
  Southeast Asia.
• The last physical traces of Homo erectus, dating
  to about 28,000 years ago, were discovered in
  Java. By that time Homo sapiens was already
  living in that region.

Range of last surviving Homo erectus
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What do you think might have happened when Homo
sapiens met Neandertals or Homo erectus?

• Would they have
• Learned from each other?
• Fought?
• Traded?
• Eaten each other?
• Mated?

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Homo sapiens and other species

• Were not sure what might have happened if Homo
  sapiens met Neandertals or Homo erectus, but we
  do know that these two hominid species died out.
• And so did many other large animals, called
  megafauna, which once roamed the earth.
• What might these extinctions tell us about our
  own species?

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Before you answer that question, lets review

• What happened in Big Era Two?
• Humans appeared, and they started TALKING!
• Therefore, they could share new ideas and build
  up a store of ideas what we call culture.
• They learned to live in many different
  environments.
• And they migrated to all the worlds major
  landmasses and many of its islands, big and small.

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So what do you think is so special about Homo
sapiens?
What does it mean to be human?
Why does human history matter?