Modern Humans By: Grace, Madi, Donovan and Antonio.

Modern Humans

By: Grace, Madi, Donovan and Antonio

Introduction • Dates/ Daily life: 10,000 years after the ice age ended and the climate got warmer, plant life flourished and larger animals died out, and were replaced by forest dwelling animals along with a new type of Modern Humans. The Modern Humans made many advances in hunting and gathering. They were able to find out where the big game came from, and so they soon sheltered near the creatures and began hunting and farming. Their daily lives involved hunting, planting, gathering, and making homes. (1)

Where They Lived

• Modern Humans lived in many different places. These places involved the grasslands of Africa and Australia, the forest of South America, the grasslands of Australia, the glaciers of Greenland and Alaska, and the deserts of Mexico, etc.They also migrated from place to place until they settled and lived their lives. (2)

Shelter

Modern Humans’ shelters were made from bricks, which consisted of mud and straw, and the roofs were thatched from straw, which was covered in mud. The houses were multiple stories, two or three at the most. Rush mats covered the rough earthen floor. Along with houses, courtyards, shrines, and granaries, store houses were built. (3)

Food • Modern Humans were the first farmers, but life still

made farming difficult. So most of the food they ate was food they gathered or hunted. They collected wild grain, berries, nuts, and roots. From the grain, they used mortar and pestle to make flour that they then baked into hard, flat bread. Since Modern Humans had many techniques for hunting (fish traps, dams, bows and arrows, and canoes), they had a plentiful supply of meat. Besides these contraptions, they took wolf pups and trained them to help them on the hunts. (4)

Tools

• Modern Humans used tools such as stone axes—some with wooden handles, knives, spears, harpoons, sharp stone-tipped arrows, and wooden bows. All of these things were made by Modern Humans. (5) 

Fire

•  The Modern Humans would make fire with a stick(tinder) and a stone(flint).The Modern Humans would use the fire to cook, to provide heat and for light, and to make jewelry shine. They would have to use special tools to make fire. The fire would protect them from dangerous animals, but when there was rain, the rain would extinguish the fire. (6)

Religion

 • Modern Humans buried their dead. There is proof. Peter Beaumont found an infant buried in a cave, and the skeleton was one hundred percent complete! (6)

• Usually priests were group leaders of the Modern Humans. They organized daily worship at the shrines and also held ceremonies and rituals. (7) 

Communication

•  Modern Humans communicated through cave paintings; they also had a spoken language.(8)

Clothing • During the sweltering hot days of summer, the Modern Humans had to put away their winter clothing and take out their looms for making cloth. When the cloth was made, they would dye the cloth in different shades, such as grey, brown, and black. (9)

•  Modern Humans used many materials for their clothing, including cattle and goat skins. They also used sheep’s wool. But, back then goats, cattle, sheep were wild, so the Moderns Humans had to tame and raise the babies they took from the mother goat and sheep. After a few years, goats and cattle were killed for their meat and skins, and sheep were sheared yearly for their warm fleece coats. (9)

Art

•  Modern Humans made jewelry. They also created pottery, and they fired it to give it a custom strength. They also created little statues carved from ivory or bones. (10)

Conclusion/Fun facts

• All in all, Modern Humans were interesting to learn about, and we hope you had as much fun learning about them as we did telling you. One fun fact is that when compared to Homo Sapiens, Neanderthals, Homo Erectus, and Homo Habilis, Modern Humans had the largest brains. Our second fun fact is that Modern Humans actually aren’t that different from humans today! (11)

Questions

• Which human group has the largest brain?• How complete was the baby Modern Human

skeleton found in the cave?• What aspects of the Modern Humans led

them to being so successful?

Answers

• 1. Some scientists believe that Cro-Magnons may have had larger brains than Modern Humans, but Modern Humans were the most complex of all the Early Human groups.

• 2. The baby was 100% completed!• 3. The Modern Humans were such a success

was because they farmed and worked together.

End Notes

• (1) Early Humans Packet, pp. 1-3.• (2) Ibid.• (3) Ibid.• (4) Ibid.• (5) Ibid.• (6) msmcclure.com/PPP.• (7) Early Humans Packet, pp. 1-3.• (8) msmcclure.com/PPP.• (9) Early Humans Packet, pp. 1-3• (10) early humans.modern.org• (11) Facchini, Fiorenzo. A Day with Homo Sapiens, p. 16.

Bibliography

• Facchini, Fiorenzo. A Day With Homo Sapiens. 21st Century Books: Brookfield,Connecticut, 2003.

• Kearns, Marsha. Homo Sapien Early Humans. Creative Teaching Press: C.A., 1993.

• Martin, Philip. http://earlyhumans.modern.org.

• McClure, Tracy. http:msmcclure.com.