Chapter 1: The Earliest Human Societies
What were the characteristics of an agrarian civilization?
Agriculture~ 1. No longer on the move for food 2. People could settle in one place 3. Build cities 4. Make inventions like the plower, wheel and writing
What place in Spain feature caves that have amazing Stone age rock paintings
Altamira
What are the three circumstances or ways that cultural diffusion occurs?
Migration, Trade, or war
What did the people of Eurasia invent?
Money, armies, iron, math, literature, democracy, and world religions
How does geography facilitate change?
More people meant more ideas, more inventions, and more diseases.
What was the neolithic period?
Neolithic means the late Stone Age when agriculture began, and copper tools were developed
What place in france feature caves that have amazing Stone Age rock painting
Lascaux
What does the word lithos mean
Lithos means Stone
Can we ever be sure we know the truth about an historical event? Why or why not? If not, what good is history?
No we can not, mainly because we never saw it happen. Good history is history that has been seen from another human and passed down as a story to be told
What are the arctic and antarctic regions
The Arctic Circle is an imaginary line that circles the earth at 66-1/2 degrees north latitude • The Antarctic Circle lies at 66-1/2 degrees south latitude.
What were some of the consequences of agricultural revolution
The community itself becomes more productive if people now do different things or tasks, this leads to division of labour and job specialization
What is anthropology?
The science that studies humans as a species, rather than studying a special aspect of their activity
Why did waves of change take longer to reach sub-Saharan Africa and the Americas?
They were separated from Eurasia by physical barriers of desert and ocean.
What word means of an animal only using two legs for walking
bipedal
What were the consequences of an agricultural society?
1. Human population increased 2. People in civilized societies divided themselves into unequal social classes with priests and kings at the top. 3. Wealthy landowners collected rent payments; men dominated women 4. Slavery became common
What does language do for humans?
1. Communicate 2. Cooperate 3. Organize 4. Plan for the future
What are the forces that shape are planet?
1. Plate techtonics 2. Erosion caused by wind and water
What are the 4 Main Eras?
1. Prehistory 2. Ancient Times 3. Middle Ages 4. Modern Times
What is the theory of plate tectonics
According to the theory of plate tectonics, the earth's surface is composed of about a dozen plates of solid material that slowly move as they float on a bed of magma, or molten rock
What is the term given to a type of religion that is a belief that spirits inhabit objects
Animism
What is Australopithecus?
Australopithecus was an extinct member of the hominid family, the family tree that includes modern humans.
What strait did humans possibly migrate from Asia to North america
Bering Strait
Who was a major superpower int he middle ages?
China. They had the greatest navy and then they decided to dismantle the fleet.
What could people do with permanent homes
Collect more possessions, which encouraged the invention of new technologies such as pottery making and looms for weaving
What is culture?
Culture is a term for the knowledge and achievements passed on from one generation to another to form the way of life shared by a group of people
Name all the continents
Europe, North america, South america, antarctica, Asia, and Australia
What was the culture of the Homo Erectus?
Evidence from archeology indicates that Homo erectus developed a culture that included construction of shelters use of hand axes and fire maybe spoken language
How did human life spread across the world? From which continents?
From East Africa to Eurasia, to Australia, and finally the Americas.
What does the Chinese Calendar count years from
From the reign of the yellow emperor in 2698 B.C
What language does lithos come from
Greek
What is the Homo Erectus?
Homo erectus was the first hominid to hunt large animals and the first to leave Africa, migrating first to Asia and then to Europe.
How do you sustain a migratory lifestyle?
Hunting and Gathering
What was the neolithic age? When was it and what shift happened?
In the Holocene era (a geological age beginning around 12,000 BCE to the present) the world experienced a dramatic shift to a generally warmer and dryer climate.
What were the uses of metal
Iron plows opened new areas, that were too hard for cultivation
Walking upright was a big advantage why?
It gave Australopithecus a better view of the surrounding countryside and It left both hands free to carry burdens and to use primitive tools and weapons.
Where does our solar calendar come from
Our solar calendar comes from ancient Egypt.
The continents, however, cover less than a third of the earth's surface. Earth is mostly a water planet, and 97% of that water is found in the earth's four oceans:
Pacific Atlantic Indian Arctic.
What is the term given to a type of religion that has many gods
Polytheistic
Why rivers?
Rivers= Fresh water, transportation, communication & trade!
What is a secondary Source?
Sources created after the event. Examples include books, encyclopedias, movies
What is Australopithecus latin for
Southern ape
Where did human life begin?
The Great rift valley
What is the Olduvai Gorge
The Olduvai Gorge area of the Great Rift Valley has been the site of famous discoveries by the husband and wife team of Louis and Mary Leakey and other paleontologists
What was the stone age?
The Stone Age began about 250,000 BC and ended about 4,000 BC During the Stone Age, people learned to use fire and make stone tools and weapons; they also developed spoken language and farming. The earliest discoveries of human art are also from the Stone Age.
What is the tropic of cancer
The Tropic of Cancer is an imaginary line that circles the earth at 23-1/2 degrees north latitude, the northernmost point reached by the sun during our summer
What is the tropic of capricorn
The Tropic of Capricorn lies at 23-1/2 degrees south latitude, the farthest point south reached by the sun during our winter (on the winter solstice).
What were the roles of women
The association of women with fertility, is personified in a whole series of Earth Mother goddesses in various cultures.
What is the evidence supporting the big bang theory?
The big bang theory is supported by scientific observations that indicate galaxies in space are moving away from earth
Restate in your own words the following two theories: a) big bang, b) plate tectonics
The big bang theory is the theory that all of life was once smaller then an atom and then all of a sudden it expanded. Plate tectonics is the theory that Earth's outer shell is divided into several plates that glide over the mantle, the rocky inner layer above the core
Describe the new species discovered
The bones have a strange mix of primitive and modern features, and were found in an even stranger place — an almost inaccessible chamber deep inside a South African cave called Rising Star. It was an Australopithecus from the hominid family
What is the big bang theory
The idea that the universe was once smaller then an atom and then all of a sudden it expanded
What is Paleontology
The study of fossils
What is historiography?
The systematic study of history, as processed through an author's brain and bias, working with the raw materials found
What are the temperate zones
The temperate zones are Areas where temperature and climate tend to be more moderate • lie between the tropics and the arctic/antarctic regions • Most of Asia, Europe, and North America lie within the northern temperate zone, which is a good place to grow crops • Most of the world's human population has been concentrated here since prehistoric times.
What are the earths 3 main climate zones
The tropics, The temperature zones, and the arctic and antarctic regions
Explain why societies in sub-Saharan Africa and the Americas might have developed more slowly than societies in Eurasia
Waves of change took longer to reach sub-Saharan Africa and the Americas because they were separated from Eurasia by physical barriers of desert and ocean.
What is a primary source?
When someone was at the event. Examples include art work, records, diaries, letters, speeches, and newspaper articles
Define World History
World history is the story of human experience. This is a story of how humans, ideas, and goods spread across the world creating both past and present.
What was the possible new species called that was found recently in the rising star cave near johannesburg
homo Naledi
What was the paleolithic period?
is a scientific term applied to the early Stone Age when humans made their living mostly by hunting, scavenging, or gathering wild food such as nuts and berries
What are homo sapiens?
the biological classification for modern humans
What is archeology?
the study of past cultures and civilizations through examinations of artifacts (anything made by humans) def = Grk, the study of origins
What are the tropics
the tropics are generally the warmest areas of the earth because they are near the equator where the sun's rays are most direct