What is Prehistory?

1. What is Prehistory? • Everything before writing

2. Prehistory Chapter 1 Pages 2-23

3. How can we know about prehistory? • Archaeology • study of past through left over artifacts • Anthropology • study of human life and culture • Biology of humans and their ancestors • how we are related • how do we work • Dating Finds • determining the age • C14 dating • Ar • etc.

4. Third chimpanzee? • Title of book by Jared Diamond • argument over how man evolved, what makes man different and the same, and mankind’s future • Science has placed Humans (Homo sapiens sapiens) in the evolutionary tree like this

5. Development • Hominids • apes that walk upright • earliest fossil evidence dates back 4 million years • Likely was a gradual development • walking upright • thumbs • tools Australopithecus afarensis

8. Homo sapiens and Homo Neanderthalensis • Emerged about 200,000 years ago • As with most hominids probably emerged first in east Africa • Neanderthals found in Europe • colder climates • used furs • burial of dead

9. Homo sapiens sapiens • Anatomically the same as us • Appear in Africa about 150-200,000 years ago • Spread “out of Africa” about 100,000 years ago • replace/eliminate/out compete other hominids

10. Migration • Moving to a new place • What does it take to migrate? • depends where your going • advances in technology • clothing, fire, tools, etc.

11. Paleolithic Age

12. Paleolithic Age • Old Stone Age • 2,500,000 BCE to 10,000 BCE • BCE= Before Common Era (before year 0)

13. Hunters and Gatherers • Early man lived in small hunting and food gathering groups numbering 20-30 people • In general men hunted while the women and the children gathered berries, fruit, nuts, wild grain, and sea food. • Women were responsible for more of the caloric intake than men. • These early people were nomads • Nomads- people who wander to find food

14. What makes humans different? • Humans modify their environment NOT just adapt • fire, clothing, shelters, modern conveniences (AC, fridge, roads, etc.) • Early humans did this to migrate and survive • Ice Age • 100,000 BCE to 8,000 BCE

15. Art • Represents daily life • hunting scenes • Also used for religious purposes

16. Religion • Around 30,000 years ago evidence emerges of man’s belief in a spiritual world • Man believed spirits and forces resided in animals, objects, and even dreams • They drew paintings of these animals on cave walls • These beliefs are called animism

17. Religion • Why would people revere symbols of pregnant women? • Why would they bury their dead? • Why would they bury their dead with items from their life? • Why would they paint drawings of their prey?

18. Neolithic revolution

19. Neolithic Revolution • Guess what Neolithic means? • New Stone Age • Starts at the end of the last Ice Age ~8,000 BCE • Why do you think it is a revolution? • Start of systematic agriculture • domestication of animals • wasn’t sudden it was a gradual process started before • wasn’t that common at beginning • took thousands of years for more people to farm than hunt/gather

20. Farming/Domestication of Animals • How do you think it started? • garbage heaps, leftovers grew came back to them • animals became dependent on humans for survival • What are advantages? • free time, not everyone focused on food production • People can become specialists(pottery, writing, building, etc.) • higher caloric intake • larger population

21. Disadvantages of Agriculture? • Introduced inequality, women rear children men, do the farming, children work the fields. • More disease • Altering local environment towards ecological shifts including collapse in certain regions • Less diverse diet as hunting and gathering, meaning less healthy people. Fossil remains show a 50% increase in malnutrition. • Hunting and gathering societies spent about 3 hours a day on food acquisition. During planting season, people could spend 12 hours a day on food production.

22. Where it starts • Agriculture developed in 3 separate regions independently. Maybe as many as 5 • First, in the Middle East around 11,000 years ago along the Black Sea Wheat/ Barley • Second, in Southern China along the Hueng He (Yellow River) 9,000 years ago- Rice • Third, in Central Mexico around 7,000 years ago- Maize (corn). • There is evidence that Sub-Saharan Africa and Northern China might have developed agriculture independently. • Wherever agriculture developed it spread. This is called diffusion. • What did they grow first? • grains • types of grass

23. Domesticated Animals

24. End of Neolithic • Discover metallurgy 4,000-3,000 BCE • heat metal it melts pour into molds • Copper first used • soft metal melts easily • Bronze • copper and tin • harder than just copper • Bronze Age 3,000-1,200 BCE • Iron Age • harder metal than bronze

25. Farming Village to Civilization • More people living and working together • More need for organization • division of labor • social organization • governments • First types of government? • autocracies (one ruler) • monarchy, dictators, etc. • writing • art • Cities can compete better than villages