Prehistory Flashcards
Great Rift Valley
A giant canyon-like area near the Horn of Africa
•contains Mt. Kilimanjaro and the Ethiopian highlands
Cataracts
Descent of water over a steep edge
Tropical wet climate
Hot and rainy
Tropical wet and dry climate
By year round with a distinct rainy and dry season
Savanna
Tropical wet and dry climate; Tall, thick grasslands with scattered trees
Semiarid climate
Transitional zone from desert to wetter parts; rainfall is very limited and unpredictable
Steppe
Semiarid climate; short grasses interspersed with shrubs/bushes but trees are basically nonexistent
Sahel
Southern border of Sahara; African steppe
Arid climate
Desert
Desertification
When people use up all the nutrients in the soil of a piece of land (turns into a desert)
Periodization
Breaks in time based on significant changes
Prehistory
The time before people had a written language
Archeology/archeologists
The study of human activity in the past/ people who study archeology
Artifact
An object made by humans
Site
A place that archeologists search for artifacts/things that that prove what was in that area at one time
Inference
Educated guess based on what you know
Evidence
An indication of sign
Shard/sherd
A piece of something that has been broken
Stratigraphic dating/ stratigraphy
Dating something based on how far down it was in the Earth/layers of sedimentary rock is about it
Radiocarbon (carbon-14) dating
When you carbon date something; the object had to have been living at one point
Ice Age
A long period of time when the world was mostly frozen
“Out of Africa” theory
The thought of Homo sapiens originating in Africa and migrating out to other places
Animism
The belief that all things have souls
Shamanism
A religion that had a practitioner go into a different state of consciousness to talk to the spirits
DreamTime
An elaborate and complex outlook on the world; everything in the natural order was a sign/echo of ancient happenings - reason as to why inhabitants were so tied to the land
Technology
What type of tools and knowledge they were using at the time
Paleolithic Age
First of the stone ages -
Stone tools, nomadic way of life, 2.5 million - 8,000 BCE
Lascaux
Set of caves in southwestern France famous for its cave paintings
Nomadic (nomads)
The way of how people lived in the Paleolithic Age; traveled constantly and only in groups of 15-30
Escarpments
Where the land drops off sharply
Foraging societies (foragers)
Paleolithic & part of Mesolithic age; nomadic way of life, when you search for food, with hunting as a marginal part of their diet
Equalitarian/egalitarian
The belief that everyone is equal
Mesolithic Age
The transition time between the Paleolithic and Neolithic Age; 10,000 - 7,000 BCE
Neolithic Age
Agricultural society - caused gender roles, social classes, permanent settlements; 8,000 - 3,000 BCE
BCE = BC
Before common era = before Christ
CE = AD
Common Era = (Latin translation) “the Year of our Lord
Neolithic Revolution
Major changes:
•taming animals •settled communities •gender roles •agriculture •social stratification
Agricultural society
When people farm
Jericho
The longest lasting Neolithic village (still exists today)
Catal Huyuk/Bam Po
Neolithic villages
Bam Po - early Chinese village
Obsidian
Volcanic glass; igneous rock
Domestication
When humans tame animals/plants
Environmental degradation
When the environment deteriorates cause of resources depleting
Sedentary
When a community/someone isn’t that physically active and does a lot of sitting
Pastoral society/pastoralism
When a society relies on the domestication of animals
Bantu migrations
The movement of the Bantu people across Africa
