Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania. The Leaky Family Excavating.

Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania

The Leaky Family Excavating

Paleolithic Age2 million to 20,000 BCE

Lucy “Mother of Man” (Ethiopia)(Australopithecus 3.2 million BCE)

Evolution, Human Migration, Rise of Agriculture, and Civilization

• Olduvai Gorge, Kenya• Oldest human beings• Lucy “Mother of Man”• Human Migrations• Homo Erectus

750000-600,000• Peking/Java Man

• Homo Sapiens 200000• Successive Waves out of

Africa• Cro-Magnons or

Neanderthals Europe• Inter-breeding • Melanesians SE Asia• Australian Aborigines

Lucy “Mother of Man” (Ethiopia)(Australopithecus 3.2 million BCE)

Peking Man (Homo Erectus)

The “Missing Link” between Erectus and Homo Sapiens?

Gawis Cranium in 2006 in Ethiopia

Evolutionary Progression

Flores Man (Hobbit), 2003

Homo floresiensis (3 feet tall) goes extinct 12,000 years ago

Homo Sapiens/NeanderthalInter-breeding

Distribution of Neanderthals

Neanderthals and Humansextinct 25,000-30,000 years ago

Tracking Human Migration

• Human Skeleton Remains

• Archeological Evidence– Midden mounds– Fire Pits

• Linguistic Mapping/Language Trees

• Evolutionary Progression of Language

• Genetic Mapping/DNA Mutations

• Mapping of the Human Genome

Human Skeleton Remains

Midden mounds

Pre-historic fire pits

Radio Carbon Dating Machine

Human Migration of Homo Sapiens

Migration of Humans

San/Bushmen KalahariWorld’s Oldest Culture 80,000BCE

Hunter-Gatherer Societies

• Way of life during the Paleolithic Era• Men hunters• Women gatherers• Egalitarian Societies (Everyone equal)• Everyone shares in the food they collect• No chiefs/kings/leaders• Old people do have more status• Organized into extended families/clans• Usually 25-75 people

Bantu Language Migration

Migration of the German Language

Linguistic Migration of Maya

DNA Mutations

Tracking through DNA Mutations

Mapping of the Human Genome is Complete

Human Historical Eras

• Stone Age/Paleolithic 2,000,000-12,000• Middle Stone Age/Meso 12,000-8000 BCE

– Domestication of Animals, Pastoralists

• New Stone Age/Neolithic 8000BCE-• Neolithic Revolution

– Rise of Agriculture– Domestication of Animals– Metal Working (Copper)

• Bronze Age/Iron Age

The study of past societies through an analysis of what people have left behind.

Artifacts are those things that people left behind, they can include:

Tools and Weapons Art and Sculpture Pottery

Jewelry Human Remains

Ancient Buildings and Monuments

The study of human life and culture

The remains of ancient plants and animals.

By studying fossils archaeologists and anthropologists can learn about what people ate, what animals they had around, and their way of life.

Carbon dating can be used to date organic artifacts, or things that were once alive

All living things contain a radioactive isotope of Carbon called Carbon 14 which they absorb from the sun while they are alive.

Carbon 14 has a half-life of 5000 years. That means it takes 5,000 years for half of the Carbon 14 in something to break down.

If we know how much Carbon 14 something has left we can count back to how much is had to begin with to determine the age of the artifact. Is limited to things 50,000 years old or less.

Developments of Paleolithic Age

• 12,000 BCE–humans evolved physically and mentally to the level of today– Opposable thumbs & developed brain

• Paleolithic Achievements– Invention of tools & weapons– Language– Control of fire– Art (sculpture, jewelry, and cave paintings)

• Humans lived in small bands of hunter-gatherers

Rise of Agriculture

• Near simultaneous emergence• Various regions/continents around world• Extinction of Big Game Animals • End of Ice Age• Agriculture discovered by accident?• Discovered by women• River Valley Systems• Large Scale Irrigation Systems

World Population Growth

Intensive agriculture caused human population to jump from 5-8 million to 60 to 70 million in

5,000 years

Early Agricultural Civilizations(River Valley Civilizations)

• “Fertile Crescent” (Tigris-Euphrates) – Summerians, Babylonians– Emergence of City-States– Evolve into Regional Empires

• Early Egyptian Civilization (Nile)

• Indian (Indus) River Valley

• Chinese (Yellow) River Valley

Agricultural (Neolithic) Revolution

• Sedentary (live in one place)• Use animals for labor (Domestication)

– Secondary benefits (Meat, Dairy, Leather, Fuel)• Food Surplus• Trade• Money, Currency, Monetized Systems• Weights and Measures• Numbers• Symbols• Writing Systems

Negatives of Agricultural Revolution (Diamond)

• Malnutrition (monocrops)• Starvation (drought, disease)• Disease (parasites, animals, crowding)• Surplus/Class Divisions• Social Stratification• Hunter/Gather lose land and territory• Increased Birth Rates (female mortality)• Decrease in leisure time• Elite become better off, the majority worse• Starvation, Epidemics, Warfare, & Tyranny

What is a “Civilization?”

• Economic surpluses• Division of labor (social classes)• Social/Political hierarchy• Transition from family/tribal ties to state• Large scale political units: city-states/empires• Inter-regional trade• Some scholars argue for a writing system• Some scholars for a monetary system• “Civilization” does not mean “better”

The Evolution of Writing Systems

• Physical Symbol

• Pictograph (hieroglyphics)

• Ideograph (combining pictographs)

• Writing System

• Evolution from physical symbols to abstract characters to alphabets

Pictographs

Ideographs

Sumerian Cuneiform (the first true known writing system)

Evolution of Cuneiform(from physical symbol to abstract)

Heritage of Early Civilizations

• Revolutionary concept of writing– Changes the way we “think”

• Inventions– Wheel, paper, animal husbandry

• Calendars and conceptions of time• Agriculture and Agricultural Techniques• Large-scale social organization (cities)• Numeric systems and Mathematical concepts• Religious systems (mono and polytheistic)

Writing System to Legal Systems

• Mesopotamia

• First codified legal code

• Social mores

• Code of Hammurabi

• Far from the notion of judicial equality

• Warped sense of guilt/innocence