The Peopling of the World

Prehistory – 2500 BCE

1.1 – Human Origins in Africa

• How do we know things without written records?– Scientific clues

• Excavating traces of early settlements• Bones, fossils• Artifacts

– Def: human made objects (i.e. tools, jewelry)– Carbon and potassium dating (issues?)

– Anthropologists = people who study culture, humanity

Hominids

• Def: humans and other creatures• Name given to very early humans• Family: Hominidae

– Means “great apes” – chimps, gorillas, orangutans

• Walk upright• Footprints

– much like ours today

• Opposable thumbs– Imagine life without them!

Human Development

• Homo habilis – “man of skill”– 2.5 million years ago– May have used tools

• Homo erectus – “upright man”– 1.6 million years ago– More intelligent

• Developed technology• 1st to migrate from Africa• 1st to use fire• May have had spoken language

Technology

• Def: ways of applying knowledge, tools, and inventions to meet needs

Homo sapiens (“wise man”)• Scientific classification• Kingdom

– Animalia

• Phylum– Chordata

• Class– Mammalia

• Order– Primates

• Family– Hominidae

• Genus– Homo

• Species– H. sapiens

• Subspecies– H. s. sapiens

• Trinomial name– Homo sapiens sapiens

The Stone Age

• Why is it called the “Stone” Age?

• Paleolithic Age (Old Stone Age)– 2.5 million years to 8000 BCE– Period of the last ice age

• i.e. last time the glaciers advanced

• Neolithic Age (New Stone Age)– 8000 – 3000 BCE– Change… agriculture (will talk about in 1.2)

Neanderthals

• Early Homo sapiens• NOT stereotypical cave men• Vanished around 30,000 years ago

– Most likely because they were replaced by….

Cro-Magnons

• 40,000 years ago they emerge

• Prehistoric humans (Homo sapiens)

• Made many useful tools

• More effective hunters– Populations grew faster with more food

The Search Continues

• Historians, archaeologists, anthropologists, other scientists and continuously studying and uncovering new information about early/prehistoric humans