S1 - Early Human Terms to Know Flashcards
BCE/CE vs BC/AD
BC - before Christ/ AD - after Jesus’s birth
BCE - before common era/ CE - common era
BC=BCE and AD=CE, it was changed to be more inclusive
Hominids
a species of great apes which humans descended from; all of these species share a common ancestor from about 7 mil years ago
Homo Sapiens: Why they evolved?
Homo Sapiens were superior in:
* brain size
* thinking ability
* bipedalism
* ability to use tools
The evolved bc new genetic variations in early ancestor populations allowed homosapiens to adapt to environmental change and so they altered the human way of life
Bipedalism
The ability to walk upright
Characteristics of the Paleolithic Era
- Foraging was the basic way of life
- Egalitarianism
- Moved more often in search of food (nomadic)
- Life expectancy rate was low
- Belief in unseen world
- Shamanism and Shamans
- Animism
- Foraging groups
- No War/no one had control over food or land
- Some hunted large game
- Megafaunal extinction don’t know if we need to know this
Foraging
- Tribes of 30-40
- Gathered foods and occasionally hunted for meat
- Adaptable
Characteristics of the Neolithic Era
- Agricultural Revolution
- Horticulture
- Plowing
- New ideas of growing crops
- social/gender hierarchy
- More control/more wealthy
- Trading with people
- Diseases spread
- Pastoralism & domestication
- Patriarchy
- Slavery
- (more developed) Religion
- Larger populations but slow increase
- Growing crops started by woman
- priests/shamans in power
- Climate warming
- More food
- Economy based on livestock
- Plow agriculture
Neanderthals
The ancient and now extinct relatives of modern humans. Neanderthals lived in Europe about 150,000 years ago and were the earliest form of the human species, Homo sapiens.
Division of Labor by gender and social class
- Egalitarian society; roles divided up by ability, sex, and age
- Both men and women had equal but slightly different contributions
- Food was a constant preoccupation, not a constant job
- Allowed for lots of extra time = > art and storytelling
Animism
everything has a spirit
Ice Age
* Climate became wetter and warming, allowing for farming
* Crops domesticated through human intervention
* ~15,000 years ago, globe started to warm and could support the foragers
* Selective breeding plants and animals people in areas with high rainfall and temperature —> Increase in human population and growth;
* people turned to farming when foraging was no longer an adequate source of food for the growing population
Impact of the Plow
- Animals such as cattle and buffalo were trained to carry people, loads, etc.
- Typically performed by men and one of the main causes of the beginnings of patriarchy.
- Neolithic people created plows to produce a surplus of food
- This increased the division of labor
- Storing the food became a source of conflict
- Some people began gradually gain power and used force to maintain power/rules and structures
Causes of the Agricultural Revolution
Main cause
* gradual warming climate across many parts of the world
* therefore an increasing surplus of food resulting in greater populations to feed with a lower mortality rate
* When wild or foraged food sources diminished, people turned to agriculture
Agricultural Revolution
- the alteration from foraging to raise crops and animals
- Plant and Animal Domestication led to the transition from the Paleolithic to the Neolithic
Results of the Agricultural Revolution
- The increase in food production brought by the development of plow agriculture allowed Neolithic villages to grow larger
- Trading between people increased
- Social and gender hierarchies were developed
- Increased the gap between the wealthy and the power
