Bellwork: Thursday, November 1

• Imagine you are the leader of a small clan of hunter-gatherers. You want to find the perfect place to move your group. In a paragraph (even though hunter-gatherers couldn’t write), describe your ideal place in detail. What physical features, resources, or climate would be best for your survival?

Biomes

Biomes of the Earth

Tropical Savanna

• Warm weather

• Primarily grassland, with widely spaced, drought resistant trees

• Moderate rainfall: 40” – 60” per year

• Distinct dry season - frequent fires

• Found near the equator (most of Africa, parts of Central and South America, South Asia, and north Australia).

Tropical Rainforest

• Warm weather

• Very dense trees, little sunlight on the forest floor (canopy)

• High rainfall: 100” – 180” per year. Sometimes daily rains.

• Little seasonal change. Hot and humid year-round.

• Found near the equator (South America, parts of Africa and South Asia).

Desert

• Usually very hot (except Antarctica)

• Very little rainfall (less than 10”)

• Little to no vegetation, limited to cacti, shrubs, and other drought-resistant plants

• Usually found just north or south of the tropics (North and South Africa, Southwest and Central Asia, southern United States, and Australia)

Temperate Deciduous Forest

• Warm summers, cool winters

• Moderate rainfall.

• Trees lose their leaves seasonally.

• Usually found in temperate areas (North America, Europe, East Asia, and East Australia).

Taiga (Boreal Forest)

• Short and mild summers, long and cold winters.

• Moderate to low rainfall.

• Trees do not lose their needle-like leaves (evergreens).

• Found in colder areas closer to the north pole (most of Northern North America and Eurasia).

Alpine

• Found at high elevation, where the air is always fairly cold.

• Moderate to low rainfall.

• Characterized by grasses and shrubs than can grow in a colder, drier environment.

• Found in mountainous areas all over the world (Andes, Rockies, Himalayas, etc.).

Tundra

• Cool summers, very cold winters.

• Low rainfall.

• Soil frozen for most of the year, preventing tree growth and only allowing certain grasses, shrubs, and moss to grow.

• Found in polar regions, in the far north of North America and Eurasia.

Which Biomes are best?

• In your groups, discuss which biomes you think would be best for early humans to survive in. Spend 3-4 minutes brainstorming, then we’ll share as a class.

Origin of Language

• Many species communicate with vocal sounds. But language is a special form of communication. Full language—with rules for combining sounds into words, and words into sentences—probably originated at some point before about 50,000 years ago. But we will probably never know precisely when and where language originated. Fossils, DNA evidence, comparisons with other animals and studies of languages change over time all provide clues, but spoken language itself leaves few traces.

• Watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvRtlH-3Asc

Calls and Gestures

• We cannot observe early humans, but we can observe related species and make inferences. Chimpanzees use both gestures and vocal calls to communicate status and other complex social information. It is possible that our ancestors also expressed themselves first with gestures or simple words, then developed rules for linking them into sentences.

How Did Language Arise?

• Human language did not appear entirely out of the blue, but most likely evolved from a simpler form of communication, or "proto-language." Theories of a proto-language include:

• Gesture before speech: Early humans communicated with gestures and "body language" in addition to simple sounds before developing language as we know it.

• Words before sentences: Language might have begun with individual words. Rules for linking words into sentences could have come later.

• Phrases before words: Early proto-language might have consisted of whole phrases with a single meaning. These phrases might later have been broken into individual words.

Talking Without Words

• Before language emerged, humans might have used music-like phrases similar to those parents use when talking to babies. Though not composed of individual words, these phrases might have conveyed a meaning, much as a melody can be expressive even though individual notes are meaningless. Such phrases might later have been broken into individual words, which could then be rearranged in different sequences.

Symbolic Thought

• Before writing was invented, people represented thoughts and ideas with images. This pictogram was made in the 1800s in Siberia by people with no written language. Far older images have been discovered dating as far back as 35,000 years ago. Their makers probably had the ability to use language, since both language and art reflect a capacity for symbolic thought.

Ancient Images

• The capacity to make visual symbols is related to the ability to use language. Over 30,000 years old, these images from Chauvet Cave, France, provide some of the most powerful early evidence of symbolic thought. Archaeological evidence indicates that there was a "creative explosion" of art, technology, culture and probably language at some time after about 40,000 years ago, although the origins of these new behaviors could well have been earlier than this.

Early Writing

• Samples of early writing, such as these cuneiform tablets, provide hard evidence of language use for at least the past 5,000 years. But written artifacts do not indicate when language itself began, since articulate speech arose long before writing. Indeed, all cultures have speech, but some never developed writing.

Bellwork: Friday, November 2 • What are some possible uses for #1?

• What are some possible uses for #2?

• Based on these artifacts, were they more likely to be hunters or farmers? Explain.

• What challenges do we have when trying to interpret these artifacts?

#1

#2

Bellwork: Friday, November 2 • What are some possible uses for #1?

Hide scraping, Cutting meat off an animal carcass

• What are some possible uses for #2?

To make holes in things, like animal hides for clothing

• Based on these artifacts, were they more likely to be hunters or farmers? Explain.

They were likely to be hunters based on the tools best uses—to kill, carve, or skin and animal rather than to plant or harvest food.

• What challenges do we have when trying to interpret these artifacts?

Archeologists and anthropologists don’t know what the tools are or exactly how they are used; of their information is based on guesses and context clues.

#1

#2