UNIT 1: Technological and Environmental Transformations

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UNIT 1 Technological and Environmental
Transformations

• To c. 600 B.C.E

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Where did we come from?
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Key Concept 1

• The term Big Geography draws attention to the
  global nature of world history. Throughout the
  Paleolithic period, humans migrated from Africa
  to Eurasia, Australia, and the Americas. Early
  Humans were mobile and creative in adapting to
  different geographical settings from savanna to
  desert to Ice Age tundra. By making an analogy
  with modern hunter-forager societies,
  anthropologists infer that these bands were
  relatively egalitarian (egalitarian) Humans
  also developed varied and sophisticated
  technologies (Like what?).

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Objective 1.01 (Big Geography and the Peopling of
the Earth)

• Archeological evidence indicates that during the
  Paleolithic era, hunting-foraging bands of humans
  gradually migrated from their origin in East
  Africa to Eurasia, Australia, and the Americas,
  adapting their technology and cultures to new
  climate regions.
• Humans used fire in new ways to aid hunting and
  foraging, to protect against predators, and to
  adapt to cold environments.
• Humans developed a wider range of tools specially
  adapted to different environments from tropics to
  tundra.
• Economic structures focused on small kinship
  groups of hunting-foraging bands that could make
  what they needed to survive. However, not all
  groups were self-sufficient they exchanged
  people, ideas, and goods.

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Topic 1

• Locating world history in the environment and time

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Environment
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Five Themes of Geography

• Relative location location compared to others
• Physical characteristics climate, vegetation
  and human characteristics
• Human/environment interaction how do humans
  interact/alter environ
• Leads to change

• Movement peoples, goods, ideas among/between
  groups
• Regions cultural/physical characteristics in
  common with surrounding areas

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Role of Climate

• End of Ice Age 12000 BCE
• large areas of N. America, Europe, Asia became
  habitable
• big game hunters already migrated
• Geographical changes
• 3000 BCE Green Sahara began to dry up, seeds to
  forests

• Effect on humans nomadic hunters didnt move so
  much
• Settle near abundant plant life beginning of
  civilization
• Sedentary life w/ dependable food supply
• milder conditions, warmer temperatures, higher
  ocean levels

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What are some barriers to human expansion?
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Paleolithic Age in Brief

• Means Old Stone Age from 3 million to 10,000 BC
• Characterized by simple stone tools
• Hunters and Gathers
• Equality amongst the group
• Most of human history
• Early Humans move out of Africa during this time

What ends Paleolithic Age? Why? What so special
about Hunting and Gathering?
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East Africa

• 750,000 years ago started to move out of Africa
• moving in search of food

Why is fire important?
FIRE
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Demography

• Major population changes resulting from human and
  environmental factors
• 2 million people during Ice Age
• allowed for growth
• big game gone
• more usable land available
• 50-100 million by 1000 CE
• Regional changes altered skin color, race type,
  quantity of body hair

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Time

• Periodization in early human history
• Early Hominids humans 3.5 million years ago
• Australopithecus Lucy found in Africa
• Bipedalism
• sizable brain
• Larynx voice box
• 3 million homo habilis handy human crude
  stone tools
• 1 million - homo erectus upright human
• First to migrate
• Clothed selves skins/furs

• 100,000 to 250,000 homo sapiens wise human
• social groups
• permanent, semi-permanent buildings
• 100,000 to 200,000 homo sapiens, sapiens
• Out of Africa started in Africa and migrated
• Multiregional thesis all developed independently

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Stone Age

• First period of prehistory - Tool use separates
  hominids from ancestors
• Paleolithic Old Stone Age 10,000 to 2.5
  million years ago
• Crude tools clubs, axes, bones for shelter,
  protection, food, cloth
• Natural shelters cave/canyons
• Began tent like structures/huts
• Wooden/stone structures by Mesolithic
• 1 million years ago fire
• Warfare rocks, clubs food preparation tools
  used for combat
• Weapons found in bones

• Clothes from hides/furs and later plant fibers
• Dying cloth for color
• Families, clans, tribes
• Select sexual partners not seasonal
• Long term sexual bonds emotions child rearing
  
• Family units created clans
• Neolithic New Stone Age 5,000-10,000 years
  ago

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Social Organization During Paleolithic Age

• Family Unit
• Extended families clustered together, forming
  clans bound by ties of kinship.
• Larger groups such as bands and tribes.
• Social groups sustained themselves by hunting and
  gathering (foraging).
• Most hunter-gatherer societies were mobile or
  nomadic.
• Coordination and teamwork were needed to hunt
  large creatures and wage war.

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Social Organization During Paleolithic Age

• Gender Division of Labor
• Men hunted, made war, and performed heavy labor.
• Women gathered nuts, berries, and plants
  prepared food maintained home and tended
  children.
• Some historians believe women and men were
  basically equal.

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Religion of Paleolithic Societies

• Worshipped gods or deities.
• Practiced a variety of religious rituals.
• Buried their dead.
• Nature oriented deities
• Performed various ceremonies
• How do we know?

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Religion of Paleolithic Societies

• Oldest cave paintings discovered to date are
  32,000 years old.

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Paleolithic Age Old Stone Age
Natural Shelters like caves. Homo Erectus learns
to make fire.
Cooperative Hunting
Organized into clans by family groups
Very Primitive Stone Tools
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Pleistocene Ice Age

• The end of the Pleistocene corresponds with the
  retreat of the last continental glacier. It also
  corresponds with the end of the Paleolithic age
  used in archaeology.

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What is the most common source of change
connection or diffusion versus independent
invention?

• Connection/diffusion due to interaction vs.
  invented something new or used it in a new way
• Diffusion ironwork Assyrians to Kushites
• Invention Nok people of Nigeria smelting iron
  
• Farming of certain crops diffusion Middle
  East gt India gt Europe gt Nile

• Others independent sub-Saharan Africa,
  Southeast Asia, China, Americas
• After emergence of civilization, diffusion takes
  over exchange of techniques, seeds, crops

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Why Change?

• Most evidence suggests that hunters-gatherers
  resisted agriculture as long as they could.
• Why?

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What is civilization?
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What are the issues involved in using
"civilization" as an organizing principle in
world history?

• World historians

• more broad view importance of human
  creativity/connectivity
• Interaction of human beings in creative manner
• What is a civilization (for our purposes)
• Food surplus
• Advanced cities
• Advanced technology
• Skilled workers
• Complex institutions government, religion
• System of writing/record keeping

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Which of the following best explains life in
communities prior to the Agricultural Revolutions?

1. Agriculturalists and pastoralists competed and
   often fought over land.
2. The only role for women was to bear and raise
   children.
3. Groups were defined by the geographic region of
   origin.
4. The foraging lifestyle supported only small,
   nomadic groups of people
5. Specialization of labor resulted in important
   technological advances.

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Answer D

• Though large enough to defend themselves,
  hunter-gatherer communities rarely exceeded
  around fifty people so as to not exhaust the food
  supply in their area.

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Which one of the following reasons do most
historians cite as the cause of the Agricultural
Revolutions?

1. People migrated to regions that could finally
   support agriculture.
2. A cooling period around 6000 B.C.E. allowed
   people to settle in one place year round.
3. Climate change drove people to abandon foraging
   in favor of agriculture.
4. Foraging groups grew so large that they could no
   longer function as nomadic societies.
5. Major river valleys stopped flooding, which
   allowed people to settle along their banks.

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Answer C

• Global warming ended the last Ice Age around 9000
  B.C.E. As the climate changed in different
  regions, people adapted to the environment. As a
  result, people created settled communities in
  those regions best suited for agriculture.

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Discussion Questions

• Characteristics of pastorialism versus nomadic
  societies.
• Why were the arts developed?
• Describe hominid evolution.
• Why did certain species survive and others didnt?