Chpt. 1, Human Origins

Question 1

Oceania

Answer 1

the thousands of islands sprinkled throughout the Pacific which form no continent but are often referred to as this (along with the continent of Australia)

Question 2

Stone Age

Answer 2

the first period of world history, which lasted from 2.5 million to 5,000/6,000 years ago, and is typically subdivided into the Paleolithic (“early Stone Age), Mesolithic (a transitional period from 12,000-8,000 BC), and the Neolithic (8,000-5,000 BC)

Question 3

attributes of early humans

Answer 3

used fire, simple tools, and had social organization based on kinship groups, in which extended family clustered together; they often practiced nomadism, following their favorite game animals on seasonal rounds of migration

Question 4

animism / totemism

Answer 4

belief systems in which all things in the natural world, including beasts, trees, and even mountains, possess some form of spirit

Question 5

shaman

Answer 5

a religious leader in an animistic/totemistic society

Question 6

gender division of labor

Answer 6

men hunted large animals, fought, and performed heavy labor; women gathered plants and hunted small game, hauled back food that men had hunted and prepared; this division continued after the Stone Age and gave rise to gender inequality

Question 7

Neolithic Revolution

Answer 7

a transformation in which the majority of people on earth began using agriculture

Question 8

pastoralists

Answer 8

nomadic peoples have lived on the edge of the civilizations that developed; they played a key role in cultural diffusion, helping to spread new technologies, especially military technologies

Question 9

Bronze Age

Answer 9

the age during which man discovered the use of bronze; it began circa 3,000 BC

Question 10

metallurgy

Answer 10

the science of extracting and refining metal from raw ore

Question 11

anthropology

Answer 11

this is the study of humans as a species; the study of ancient humans is a subsection of this

Question 12

artifacts

Answer 12

objects created by humans

Question 13

radiocarbon dating; aka carbon 14 method

Answer 13

is measures the amount of radiocarbon remaining in a fossil skeleton, and because the radiocarbon declines at a constant rate, it allows scientists to determine the fossil’s age

Question 14

thermoluminescent dating

Answer 14

measures radioactivity released from electrons in heated flint and clay, allowing for the dating of objects made from these materials

Question 15

tree-ring dating; aka dendrochronology

Answer 15

it is the counting of the number of rings in the cross-section of a tree to determine it’s age; every 2 rings = 1 year

Question 16

DNA dating

Answer 16

obtaining samples of the genetic material DNA from donors and comparing it to DNA from a long time ago; based on the rate of change in DNA, age can be calcutated

Question 17

Australopithecenes

Answer 17

an early hominid that was close in appearance to modern humans; in 1977, Mary Leakey found a striking example in Tanzania of the footprints of two of them walking side by side

Question 18

Lucy

Answer 18

a name given to the oldest known hominid, she is a female whose fossilized skeleton was discovered by Donald Johanson in Ethiopia in 1914

Question 19

Homo habilis

Answer 19

the first to be classified in the “Homo” genus, it was in turn replaced by an upright hominid, Homo erectus

Question 20

Java Man and Peking Man

Answer 20

found in Indonesia and China respectively, they are examples of Homo erectus; artifacts were found near them, including a hand ax and tools used for butchering large animals

Question 21

Homo sapiens (wise human)

Answer 21

about 100,000 years ago, this human appeared; it had a greater capacity for intelligence than it’s predecessors, and is still in existence today

Question 22

multiregional model

Answer 22

this model is an alternative to the “out of Africa” thesis; under this theory, Homo erectus evolved into Homo sapiens in each region of subsequent migration, but separately; it also states that modern Homo sapiens (Cro-Magnons) displaced older humans (Neanderthals) in Europe,

Question 23

two of the earliest human towns

Answer 23

Jericho (in modern-day Palestine) and Catal Huyuk (in present-day Turkey); both of these areas became trading centers

Question 24

metalworking

Answer 24

the craft of shaping metal into tools

Question 25

major river systems to know

Answer 25

the Nile, Congo, Tigris, Euphrates, Indus, Ganges, Huang He (Yellow), Yangzi (Yangtze), Volga, Danube, Rhine, Mississippi-Missouri, and Amazon

Question 26

Sahara

Answer 26

the world’s largest desert, it is located in northern Africa

Question 27

Out of Africa thesis

Answer 27

Homo sapiens evolved around 150,000 years ago and migrated out from East Africa’s Rift Valley