1. Objectives: Describe characteristics of early humans
Explain impact of geography on human societies
Analyze cave art for clues of technology, religion
Describe how human lifestyles changed Neolithic Era

2. Early Humans
Early Man, 1-1, 1-2

3. Archaeologists study artifacts (man-made objects)
How do we know how humans lived thousands of years ago?
Archaeologists study artifacts (man-made objects)

4. Anthropologists study culture (a people’s unique way of life)
How do we know how humans lived thousands of years ago?
Anthropologists study culture (a people’s unique way of life)

5. Paleontologists study fossils
How do we know how humans lived thousands of years ago?
Paleontologists study fossils

6. During the Paleolithic Era
(Old Stone Age)
Humans (Homo
Sapiens) emerged in Africa between 100,000 and 400,000 years
ago.

7. Homo Sapiens migrated from Africa to Eurasia, Australia, and the Americas. (Every continent except Antarctica!)
Land and ice bridges connected the continents

8. How did humans migrate from Asia into the Americas?
Land/Ice Bridges connected Siberia and Alaska

9. Today, the body of water that formed an ice bridge between
Russia and Alaska is called the Bering Strait

10. Early humans were hunters and gatherers who survived by hunting animals and gathering wild plants, berries and nuts for food
They had to adapt to their physical
environment
How?

11. Early human societies (hunter-gatherer societies):
Were nomadic (migrated in search of food, water and shelter)
Invented the first tools, including simple weapons
Learned how to make fire
Lived in clans
Developed oral language
Created “cave art”

12. Carbon Dating: Used by archaeologists to tell the age of fossils and artifacts

13. Neolithic Age begins 8000 BCE
The New Stone Age
The ice age is ending and the earth is warming
Sea levels rise, eliminating land bridge

14. As rising sea levels eliminated
land bridges, societies became isolated in the Americas, islands, and
Australia.
Aborigines are believed to be descended from the first humans who migrated to Australia during the Paleolithic era.

15. Agriculture develops The agricultural revolution begins
Seeds scattered in fields result in crops the following season
Over the next several hundred years, many societies begin to farm
Agriculture first developed
in the Middle East

16. What is a Revolution?
What was revolutionary about the development of Agriculture?

17. It completely changed the way people lived
It led to villages, then cities, then civilizations

18. Societies during the Neolithic Era (New Stone Age)
Developed agriculture
Settled in permanent
Settlements – they were
no longer nomadic
Domesticated animals
Used advanced tools
Made pottery
Developed weaving skills

19. Result: A Population explosion
Growing food instead of hunting and gathering food requires different skills:
Paleolithic skills Neolithic skills
Hunting
Gathering
Following wild herds
Making simple tools
Finding caves to live in
Planting
Harvesting
Herding domesticated animals
Making advanced tools for
farming, weapons, containers for seed and food storage Permanent settlements
Result: A Population explosion

20. Growth of villages into cities
Effects
Causes
People become sedentary
living in permanent
settlements
Job specialization
Population explosion
Climate changes
Global warming
Scattering of
seeds led to
crops
Agricultural
Revolution
Growth of villages into cities

21. Civilization Complex Institutions Job Specialization Advanced Cities
Agriculture changed everything – It was a revolution because it led to: Ad
Advanced
Technology
Recor J
Record Keeping
Job
Specialization
Civilization
Advanced Co
Complex
Institutions
Advanced
Cities

22. Aleppo and Jericho Catal Huyuk
Add to notes
Aleppo and Jericho
Were early cities in the Fertile Crescent studied by archaeologists
Catal Huyuk
is an example of a Neolithic settlement currently under
excavation in Anatolia or
Asia Minor
Stable communities such as these came during the Neolithic period.

23. With the development of agriculture, human no longer merely adapted to their environment. They learned to control their environment. Example: growing crops, domesticating animals such as goats and developing irrigation systems to control flooding.

24. Stonehenge, located in England provides a perfect example of humans controlling their environment.
Talk to your neighbor – write down three questions you have about Stonehenge.

25. Photo credits
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