Stone Age and Early Cultures

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Stone Age and Early Cultures

• Chapter 2

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Chapter 2 Timeline
4-5 Million Years Ago 2.6 Million Years Ago 500,000 Years Ago 200,000 Years Ago 11,000 Years Ago 10,000 Years Ago
Early humanlike creatures called Australopithecus developed in Africa Hominids make the first stone tools By this time hominids live all across Europe The first modern humans appear in Africa Humans occupy all of the continents except Antarctica Ice Ages end and people begin to develop agriculture
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Chapter 2 Timeline
Poleolithic Era Mesolithic Era Neolithic Era Lucy Discovered
Until 10,000 Years Ago 10,000 to 5,000 Years Ago Begin About 10,000 to 5,000 Years Ago 1959 1974 1994
The first part of the Old Stone Age when people began to make tools The Middle Stone Age when people began making more complex tools and shelters The New Stone Age when people learned to make fire and grow crops also called the Agriculture Revolution Mary Leakey found bones in East Africa belonging to a hominid that was more than 1.5million years old Donald Johanson found the bones of a 3 million year old hominid he named Lucy Proved Hominids walked upright Tom White found the remains of a hominid that lived as long as 4.4 million years ago
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Section 1 The First People

• The Big Idea
• Prehistoric people learned to adapt to their
  environment, to make simple tools, to use fire,
  and to use language.
• Main Ideas
• Scientists study the remains of early humans to
  learn about prehistory.
• Hominids and early humans first appeared in East
  Africa millions of years ago.
• Stone Age tools grew more complex as time
  passed.
• Hunter-gatherer societies developed language,
  art, and religion.

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Main Idea 1Scientists study the remains of
early humans to learn about prehistory.

• To study prehistory, the time before writing,
  historians rely on the work of archaeologists and
  anthropologists.
• Key Hominid Finds
• Mary and Louis Leakey found bones of early
  ancestors of humans, called hominids, in East
  Africa.
• Lucy was found by Donald Johanson. Tests showed
  that she lived more than 3 million years ago and
  walked on two legs.
• Tim White found even older remains from as long
  as 4.4 million years ago.

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Early Human Sites page 29
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Archeologist Mary Leakey

• Mary Leakey found bones in east Africa that were
  more than 1.5 million years old. They belonged to
  an early hominid, an early ancestor of humans.
• This discovery showed early humans first appeared
  in Africa.

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• Richard Leakey
• And
• Donald Johanson

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Main Idea 2Hominids and early humans first
appeared in East Africa millions of years ago.

• Groups of hominids appeared about 3 million years
  ago.
• A group of hominids called Homo erectus, or
  upright man, appeared in Africa about 1.5 million
  years ago.
• Many scientists think that modern humans appeared
  about 200,000 years ago in Africa.

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Early Hominids page 30-31
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Hominids and Early Humans
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Main Idea 3Stone Age tools grew more complex
as time passed.

• The first humans and their ancestors lived during
  the Stone Age.
• The first part of the Stone Age is called the
  Paleolithic Era, during which people used stone
  tools.
• A tool is a handheld object that has been
  modified to help a person accomplish a task.

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• Many great mammals such as wooly mammoths, wooly
  rhinoceros, and cave lions inhabited places like
  Siberia during the Pleistocene.

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• Paleoindians hunting a glyptodon. Glyptodons were
  hunted to extinction within two millennia after
  humans' arrival to South America.

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First Tools

• Earliest tools found in East Africa
• About 2.6 million years old
• Each stone was hit with another to create a sharp
  edge.
• One unsharpened side could be used as a handle.
• Scientists think these first tools were used
  mostly to cut and grind food.
• Tools called choppers were used about 2
  million years ago.

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Later Tools

• Improved tools were made out of flint.
• People learned how to attach wooden handles to
  tools.
• Because they no longer had to stand next to the
  animals they were hunting, people were able to
  kill larger animals from a distance.
• Later people developed the hand ax and learned to
  attached wooden handles to tools.

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Hunter-Gathers page 32
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Old Stone Age Shelters and Clothing

• At first early people took shelter in caves. To
  keep warm they learned to sew animal skins
  together. Then the first humans made pit houses
  in the ground with roofs of branches and leaves.
  Later people made shelters framed from mammoth
  bones and covered them with animal skins.

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Main Idea 4Hunter-gatherer societies developed
language, art, and religion.

• Early humans formed societies.
• They were hunter-gatherers.
• The most important development of early Stone Age
  culture was language.

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Stone Tools page 33
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Hunter-gatherer Societies

• A society is a community of people who share a
  common culture.
• Anthropologists believe that early humans lived
  in small groups.
• Lived in caves
• Hunter-gatherers hunted animals and gathered
  plants and seeds to survive.
• Developed cultures with language, religion, and
  art
• Allowed more relationships to form
• Easier to hunt
• Allowed food distribution

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Hunter-gather Achievements

• Learned how to make tools
• Learned to use fire
• Learned how to create art

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Cave Paintings page 34
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Section 2 Early Human Migration

• The Big Idea
• As people migrated around the world, they learned
  to adapt to new environments
• Main Ideas
• People moved out of Africa as the earths
  climates changed.
• People adapted to new environments by making
  clothing and new types of tools.

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Main Idea 1 People moved out of Africa as the
earths climates changed.

• Ice ages caused people to migrate, or move, to
  new places.
• Early people migrated around the world. Complete
  global migration took hundreds of thousands of
  years.

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Effects of the Ice Age on Humans

• Early humans were forced to move to new
  environments due to the Ice Age.

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The Ice Ages

• About 1.6 million years ago, many places around
  the world began to experience long periods of
  freezing weather, called the ice ages.
• The ice ages ended about 10,000 years ago.
• Huge sheets of ice covered much of the earths
  land.
• Many areas that are now underwater were then dry
  land. A land bridge, or strip of land connecting
  two continents, probably connected Asia and North
  America.

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Land Bridge

• Land bridges allowed Stone Age peoples to migrate
  around the world.

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Settling New Lands

• Early hominids migrated from Africa to Asia about
  2 million years ago.
• They eventually spread to India, China, Southeast
  Asia, and Europe.
• Humans began to migrate to South Asia around
  100,000 years ago.
• From South Asia, they moved to Europe, North
  Asia, and then North America.
• By 9000 BC, humans lived on all continents except
  Antarctica.

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Early Human Migration page 37
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Main Idea 2People adapted to new environments
by making clothing and new types of tools.

• Early people had to adapt to new environments.
• They learned how to sew animal skins together for
  clothing.
• They found new shelters, such as pit houses and
  caves. Then, created structures made out of
  animal skins, wood, stone, and bones.
• They had to create new tools and technologies.
• New tools defined the Mesolithic Era (Middle
  Stone Age).
• Invented hooks, fishing spears, and the bow and
  arrow
• New technologies such as canoes and pottery

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Life in the Mesolithic Era

• People made advances that allowed them to adapt
  to new environments.

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Mesolithic Era

• Migration caused people to adapt to new areas by
  sewing animal skins together for clothing. They
  also needed shelters to survive. They began to
  make shelters called pit houses. They were pits
  in the ground with roofs made of branches and
  leaves. Later they built structures with wood
  roofs and mammoth bones. People who lived near
  water invented hooks and fishing spears. Other
  groups invented the bow and arrow. People
  invented canoes to travel. The began to make
  pottery and domesticate animals.

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A Mammoth House page 39
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Section 3 Beginnings of Agriculture

• The Big Idea
• The development of agriculture brought great
  changes to human society.
• Main Ideas
• The first farmers learned to grow plants and
  raise animals in the Stone Age.
• Farming changed societies and the way people
  lived.

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Early Domestication page 40-41
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Main Idea 1The first farmers learned to grow
plants and raise animals in the Stone Age.
After the Middle Stone Age came a period of time
that scientists call the Neolithic Era, or New
Stone Age.
People learned how to make plants more useful
through a process called domestication.
Farmers also began learning how to use animals
for their own benefit.
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Neolithic Revolution

• The Neolithic Revolution (Agriculture Revolution)
  was the shift from food gathering to food
  producing.

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New Stone Age

• Began as early as 10,000 years ago, in Southwest
  Asia
• People learned how to polish stones, make fire,
  and produce food.
• Ended 5,000 years ago in Egypt and Southwest
  Asia, when toolmakers began using metal
• People began using seeds to grow crops.

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Domestication

• Process of changing plants or animals to make
  them more useful to humans
• People learned they could plant seeds and grow
  their own crops.
• People learned to plant the biggest and sweetest
  crops for better yields.
• The domestication of plants led to the
  development of agriculture, or farming.

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Domestication of Plants

• Domestication involves changing the plants to
  make them more useful to humans.

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Animals

• Hunters didnt need to follow wild animals once
  they learned how to keep and use animals.
• Sheep and goats were used for milk, food, and
  wool.
• Larger animals were used to help with farming.
• Learning to use animals to help with farming
  increased peoples chances of surviving.

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Domestication of Plants and Animals

• People in the New Stone Age had a different
  relationship to plants and animals due primarily
  to climatic changes and human innovations.

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Early Farming Society pages 42-43
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Megaliths

• Megaliths were huge stone monuments used as sites
  for religious gatherings.

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Religion of Early People

• Early people based their religion on nature and
  their environment.

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Main Idea 2Farming changed societies and the
way people lived.
More certain survival
People could focus on activities other than
finding food.
Domestication of plants and animals led to the
use of fibers to make clothes.
Domestication
Domestication led to the need to stay in one
place. Farming communities grew into towns.
Permanent settlements
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The Agriculture Revolution

• Effects

• Results

• People began to guild permanent settlements,
  raise crops, and domesticate animals

• Food supplies became more reliable, other jobs
  were created, civilizations were created

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Chapter Review page 45