Prehistory and the birth of civilization

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Prehistory and the birth of civilization

• Sixth Grade
• Social Studies
• Stripes Team

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Timeline Technology of Prehistoric Civilizations

• -2,500,000
• -500,000
• -24,000
• -20,000
• -13,000
• - Signifies B.C.E.

• First stone tools are utilized in East Africa
• In China, Homo erectus uses fire for domestic
  purposes
• Fish hooks and line are utilized in Europe
• Bows and arrows are in use in North Africa and
  Spain oil lamps, fueled by animal fat, come into
  use
• Devices to hurl harpoons and spears are in use

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Terminology

• Paleolithic not time but culture that appeared
  in different parts of the world
• B.C.E. Before the Christian (or common) era,
  or C.E. Christian (or common) era.
• Homo group that includes man
• Homo erectus upright human
• Neanderthals man who used tools
• Homo sapiens self- conscious, symbol-making-
  human, memory, foresight
• Huminid proto-human lived 5-6 millions years
  ago

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Prehistory

• Study of history before written records
• Means of knowing
• Geology to determine age of earth
• Paleontology history of fossil remains life of
  earliest living creatures
• Anthropology study of human beings, society,
  cultural practices
• Archeology uncovering, analyzing and
  interpreting material remains of past societies
• Ethnography study surviving, preliterate
  societies
• Method instruments that register radioactivity

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Knowledge of earliest times

• Earliest organic remains 4 billion years old
• One-celled organism in water yielded higher forms
  or life
• 100 million years ago dinosaurs
• 80 million years ago mammals on earths surface
• 10- 5 million years ago human ancestors appear
  in Southern Africa

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Fossil may prove

• Structural similarities between man and apes
• Now genetics show ties to chimpanzees

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Paleolithic (Old Stone) Culture(ca 6 million-10
B.C.E.)
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Huminid

• Near-human who lived some five or more millions
  years ago
• Lived in packs
• Gathered seeds, berries, wild fruit and
  vegetables
• Hunted beats of African savannas
• Footprints found in South Africa in 1990s
• Fossil remains in 2001 in forests of Ethiopia
  evidence of man walking upright 5.7 million years
  ago

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Australopithecus

• Using sharp-edged pebbles for skinning animals
  and chopping
• 2.5 and 2.6 million years ago
• Created earliest tools of stone and bone
• Genus Homo
• Homo habilis - tool-making human

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Tool Making

• Represent the beginning of culture
• Defined as the manipulation of a nature
• Mans earliest technology-extending control over
  nature / rudiments of problem /solving