Human Beings Almost Everywhere 200,000 – 10,000 BCE Big Era Two Human Beings Almost Everywhere 200,000 – 10,000 BCE

What happened in Big Era One? 13B years ago: The Universe popped 12B years ago: Stars and Galaxies (Our Sun) 4.6B years ago Earth popped up 3.8B Life on Earth Big Bang!

What else happened in Big Era One? 600M yrs ago: Complicated life-forms 400M yrs: organisms got onto the land 67M yrs ago: Dinosaurs ruled the earth Then our hominid ancestors showed up.

How, when, and where did we become human? close ancestors: Homo erectus. one of the hominid groups developing increasingly large brains in Africa and Asia between 500,000 and 200,000 years ago. This is a reconstructed Homo erectus skull, found in northern China. It dates to some time after 1.6 million years ago. 250k yrs ago Today Big Eras 3-9 10k Brain Development 500k – 200k yrs ago Big Era 1 Big Era 2 Photo Franz Weidenreich Reconstruction of Homo Erectus The Smithsonian Institution Human Origins Program http://www.mnh.si.edu/anthro/humanorigins/ha/erec.html 1.8 mil. yrs ago 27k Homo erectus

Homo erectus was a traveler! Homo erectus began migrating to southerly parts of Eurasia sometime after about 1.8 million years ago. 200k yrs ago Today Big Eras 3-9 10k 1.8 mil. yrs ago 27k Big Era 1 Big Era 2 Homo erectus

Homo sapiens evolved from Homo erectus Skeletons found that look like Homo sapiens in were already living in Africa 200k years old Between 200k & 100k yrs ago both anatomically and genetically “like us” in eastern and southern Africa. This is a reconstructed Homo sapiens skull, found in Israel. It has been dated to about 90,000 years ago. Photo Skhul V The Smithsonian Institution Human Origins Program http://www.mnh.si.edu/anthro/humanorigins/ha/skhul.html Big Eras 3-9 Big Era 1 200k yrs ago Human Origins: Homo sapiens in Africa 200k yrs ago Human Origins: Homo sapiens in Africa 100k yrs ago S.W. Asia Big Era 2 10k years ago Today

Migrations of Homo sapiens Siberia 40,000 years ago Europe 40,000 years ago North America 12,000-30,000 years ago Southwest Asia 100,000 years ago Oceania 1600 B.C.E.-500 C.E. Human Origins 200,000-250,000 years ago Australia as many as 60,000 years ago Chile 12,000-13 ,000 years ago Possible coastal routes of human migration Possible landward routes of human migration Migrations in Oceania

Why were people able to move to so many different environments Why were people able to move to so many different environments? Language! Homo sapiens had language exchange complex ideas with each other. could store and add to the ideas of previous generations. Because they swapped ideas, they kept finding new ways of doing things. new ways of living. New Ideas Learning Language Shared Ideas

Language made collective learning possible. The stores of knowledge and skills humans built up are called “culture.” No other animal can store and accumulate knowledge and skills in this way.

Towers, Kuwait City, Today Great Zimbabwe, Southern Africa, 1300-1500 CE Monte Alban, Oaxaca, Mexico, 200 BCE Photos by Ross E.. Dunn

How did collective learning change human culture? 1st - changes in technology were very slow. After 100,000 yrs: the pace of change increased. Evidence appears from about that time of humans living in east, central, and southern Africa. -Made more advanced & varied tools - Experimented with body decorations & abstract symbols For example, Blombos Cave

Blombos Cave seaside camp: Remains found – 90k yrs old PROOF!! Blombos Cave seaside camp: Remains found – 90k yrs old Made sharp stone spear points using methods that appeared in Eurasia only 50,000 or more years later. Made objects from bone, the earliest use of this material known. Scored bits of bone and ochre with marks that may have had symbolic meaning. View looking out of Blombos Cave to the Indian Ocean Bone points from the cave Photos: Arizona State University, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences http://clasdean.la.asu.edu/news/images/bone/ Ochre piece with scrape marks. A person may have scraped the ochre to get powder to use to make body paint.

40,000 yrs of Acceleration! Humans began to: Create both naturalistic and abstract art. Make more specialized tools. Weave and knot fiber. Decorate clothing. Make jewelry. Build semi-permanent structures. The engraved horse panel in the Cave of Chauvet-Pont-D’Arc in southern France. The image is about 31,000 years old. Venus of the Kostenki I site in Russia dated to about 23,000 years ago. This stone female head is wearing headgear of woven basketry. Horse panel photo (http://www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/arcnat/chauvet) Headgear photo New York Times, Dec. 14, 1999. Photo: Bill Wiegand, University of Illinois.)

Neanderthals: closest living relatives Were already in western Asia and Europe 100k yrs ago were in Spain and Inner Eurasiahen Homo sapiens groups arrived in western Asia and Europe Lived successfully in both warm and cold environments. disappeared from the record about 28,000 years ago.

Did Homo sapiens meet Neanderthals? Approximate geographical range of Neandertals, 100,000-28,000 years ago Approximate geographical range of Homo sapiens by 28,000 years ago

may have met in Southeast Asia. last physical traces of Homo erectus Date to 28,000 years ago discovered in Java. By that time Homo sapiens was already living in that region. Range of last surviving Homo erectus

What do you think might have happened when Homo sapiens met Neandertals or Homo erectus? Would they have: Learned from each other? Fought? Traded? Eaten each other? Mated?

Homo sapiens and other species Unsure what might have happened if Homo sapiens met Neandertals or Homo erectus, We do know that these two hominid species died out. So did many other large animals, called megafauna, which once roamed the earth. What might these extinctions tell us about our own species?

So what do you think is so special about Homo sapiens? What does it mean to be human? Why does human history matter?