Intro to WHIST

Chapter One Objectives

• Describe key scientific findings about human origins
• List human achievements during the Stone Age
• Trace emergence of modern humans
• State discoveries about early humans

Chapter One Main Ideas

• Section One - Human Origins in Africa
• Fossil Evidence shows that the earliest humans original in Africa and spread across the globe

• Section Two - Humans Try to Control Nature
• The development of agriculture caused an increase in population

• Section Three - Civilization Case Study: Ur in Sumar
• Prosperous farming villages, food surpluses, and new technology led to the rise of civilization

Things to Think About ...

• Interaction With Environment
• As early humans spread out over the world, they adapted to each environment they encountered.

• Science and Technology
• Earliest people develop new ideas & technology to survive, then keep creating new tech to improve lifestyle

• Economics
• Early humans hunted animals and gathered wild plant food. About 10,000 years ago, we learned to tame animals & grow crops. Gradually more complex economies developed.

Common Practices

• Food
• Clothing
• Sports
• Tools & Technology
• Social Customs
• Work

Shared Understandings

• Language
• Symbols
• Religious Beliefs
• Values
• Arts
• Politics

Social Organization

• Family
• Class or Caste Structure
• Relationships between individuals/communities
• Government
• Economic system
• Views of authorities

Early Migration

During Ice Age, continents had more land, easier to walk

Humans Move Across the Globe

It's in Our DNA

National Geographic, "Search for Adam"

Search for Human Origins

• Pre-History means "before writing"
• Without writing scientist must use other methods to study early humans
• Archaelogists - excavate ("dig") plots of land to find bones & artifacts
• Anthropologists - study the discovered bones & other ancient objects
• Paleontologists - find fossilized remains left behind in rocks
• Ethnogeneticists - analyze mutations in DNA in remote regions

Foresnic Anthroplogist from UT-Knoxville

Paleontologist with Pre-Human

Geneticist working with sample

Archaelogist digging in Germany

Geologist debating new period Anthropocene because human impact found in geo record

Homonids

• Family of Primates (a.k.a. "Great Apes")
• Monkeys: Pongo (Orangutans), Gorillas, Pan (Chimps)
• Homo: ancient & modern humans
• Humans appear during Micoene Era in Geology

Earliest Evidence

• "Laetoli Footprints" in African volcanic ash in Tanzania (East Africa)
• Discovered in 1978 by Mary Leakey near Laetoli region
• Made by Australopithecines, believed to be first upright homonids

• "Lucy" also discovered in East Africa
• Discovered in 1974 near Ethopia
• named for Beatles song
• Rare complete skeleton
• 3.5 M yrs old

Real Lucy

Laetoli Footprints

Maybe Lucy

Leakey Family

Other Homonids

• Homo neanderthalensis
• Homo floresiensis ("Hobbit")
• Homo sapiens ssp. Denisova

Modern Basque

Map of Homonid migration

Where does H. florensiensis fit?

Stone Ages

Names for material left behind

• Paleolithic - "Old" Stone Age
• 2.6 M years ~ 10,000 BP (Before Present)
• Neolithic - "New" Stone Age
• circa (c.) 10,000 BP ~ 2,000 BC(E) (Before Common Era)

Cave Paintings

Cave of Pettakere, Indonesia

40,000-35,000 BP

"Why are these 32 symbols found in caves all over Europe?" - Genevieve von Petzinger

(TED Talk, 2015)

Cueva de las Manos, Argentina

13,000-9,000 BP

Early Advances in Technology

• Early humans quickly distinguished themselves from primitive ancestors by tech
• Tools need to survive
• Old Stone Age humans were nomads and hunter-gatherers
• Used tools to fashion stones & bone to hunt, butcher, sew basic clothing
• Artistic Expression
• Tools went beyond just necessities
• Necklaces of seashells, animal bones/teeth, and tusks (both men & women)
• Cave paintings

Paleolithic Tools

Types of technology throughout Paleolithic Era

Illustration showing how they made tools

Beginings of Agriculture

• Early humans lived in small bands of 25-70 people
• Returned to certain spots to find crops replenished, stayed to plant
• Neolithic Revolution (Agricultural Revolution)
• Causes of Agricultural Revolution
• Climate grew warmer after Ice Age
• Population grew & needed new source of food to support it
• Early Methods of Farming
• Slash-and-burn farming to clear land & use ash as fertilizer
• Planted crops until depleated soil then moved to new settlement
• Domestication of Animals
• Learned how to domestic animals, esp horses, cows, dogs, cats
• Lead to hearding to travel from one pastur to another with them

Villages Grow & Prosper

• Farming developed globally
• Africa along Nile
• China along Huang He (Yellow)
• Mexico = corn, beans, & squash
• Peru = tomatoes, potatoes

Çatalhöyük (Catal Huyuk)

• Small Neolithic Village discoved in central Turkey in 1958
• Thrived about 8,000 years ago
• Population about 5,000 people
• Grew wheat, barley, and peas
• Raised livestock
• Quarried obsidian (located between two volcanoes)
• mirrors
• jewelry
• weapons/tools
• Religious Shrines to cowlike goddess who controlled grain

Çatalhöyük ~ Photos

Exterior of Village

Interior of "home"

Effigies of Bulls Head

Ötzi the Ice Man

• Discovered in Italian Alps in 1991 by hikers
• trapped & preserved in ice for 5,000
• Found complete with tools next to him
• About 40s
• Died of arrow wound to lower body
• Ate goat, deer, & grains before death

What is Civilization?

“The History of every major Galactic Civilization tends to pass through three distinct and recognizable phases, those of Survival, Inquiry and Sophistication, otherwise known as the How, Why, and Where phases. For instance, the first phase is characterized by the question 'How can we eat?' the second by the question 'Why do we eat?' and the third by the question 'Where shall we have lunch?”

-- Douglas Adams, Restaurant at the End of the Universe

Villages Grow Into Cities

• Early Man continued to settle into small communities centered on agriculture
• New tools -- hoes, sickles, & plows -- made farming easier
• As food became easier to obtain, populations rapidly grew
• Having to work less meant more time for socializing
• Moving from nomads & hunter-gatherers culture took time, so did process of urbanization

Economic Changes

Early sickle

• Technology advanced society
• Didn't need to rely only on rain
• Could live farther from the water source (safer shelter)
• Less manpower to produce food = more time for others to pursue other skills
• Development of artisian trades (weavers, bakers, millers, etc)
• Allowed new technology like pottery, metal objects, woven clothes
• Extra food & goods allowed for trade with other communities
• Invention of Wheel & Sail allowed for farther travel

Social Changes

• Less time working = more free time to spend with other people
• Also new technology & skills require labor
• Specialized groups formed early social classes depending on wealth, power, influence
• Religion develop
• Paleolithic Era = nature gods or animals (animism), afterlife
• Neolithic Era = gods who controlled farming (sun, rain, etc)

"Venus of Willendorf," Paleolithic idol

How Civilization Develops

Kish Tablets

• Five characteristics that demonstrate civilization
• Advanced Cities
• Size doesn't determine village vs city status
• Focus is on marketplace where they trade goods
• Specialized Workers
• People have different tasks & roles in their community (worker, priest, king)
• People become experts at their job (jewelry, baking, etc)
• Complex Institutions
• Government emerge to maintain order
• Religion bridges the present and afterlife
• Record Keeping
• Writing needed to administer complex institutions
• government needs to collect taxes & create laws
• priests need to monitor calendar for religious season
• merchants need to know who owes payments
• Improved technology
• New problems require new tools & knowlege to solve them
• Advancing technology makes life easier for people in that community

Cuneiform tablet,

Stela of Iddi-Sin, king of Simurrum

Sumerian Civilization

• Oldest civilization is in Sumer (modern-day Iraq)
• circa (c.) 4,500 BC - 1,900 BC
• Collection of individual cities, like Eridu (oldest "city" ever discovered)
• Advances in technology pushed humans from Stone Age to Bronze Age
• Ur = One of greatest cities in Sumeria
• Agriculture Economy
• City life (lots of shops, two story houses for wealthy)
• Thriving trade with barter system (no cash)
• Temple in center of town with ziggurats

Great Ziggurat of Ur

Mesopotamia - The Sumerians