1. The Peopling of the Earth
Unit 2 – Lesson 5
The Peopling of the Earth

2. Reviewing What We Have Learned…

3. Homo sapiens
Between 200,000 and about 100,000 years ago, people who were both anatomically and genetically “like us” emerged 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

4. Locations of Earliest Human Remains

5. From their African homeland, Homo sapiens groups migrated to…
…Where?

6. When early humans moved out of Africa, where do you think they went?

7. 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
years ago
From World History for us All
Australia
as many as 60,000
years ago
Chile
12, ,000
years ago
Possible coastal routes of human migration
Possible landward routes of human migration
Migrations in Oceania

8. Why do people move?
PUSH
PULL

10. Work with a partner to complete the T-chart.

11. Which of the push and pull factors we identified might have caused early humans to move out of Africa?

12. From World History for us All

13. From World History for us All
To find food

14. To escape weather patterns
From World History for us All
To find food
To escape weather patterns

15. To escape weather patterns To find space for a growing population
From World History for us All
To find food
To escape weather patterns
To find space for a growing population

17. tropical rainforest savanna
taiga
tundra
alpine forest
steppe
grasslands
deciduous forest
tropical rainforest savanna
desert
steppe
grasslands
deciduous forest
taiga
tundra
alpine forest

18. Biomes Map

19. Biomes Map

24. That’s amazing!
Why were modern humans able to move into so many different environments?
After all, no other large animals had spread so widely! So what was so special about us?

25. Language! Homo sapiens had language
so they could exchange complex ideas with each other.
and they 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

26. 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.
We call this ability “collective learning.”
It is what human history is about!
It is what makes us special!

27. Video

28. Online Activity

29. Lesson Summary
Humans were able to move out of their original habitat while other species did not.
Human migration over the planet took thousands and thousands of years.
As humans migrated, they learned to live in more varied environments such as deserts and dense forests.
Humans migrated to new biomes to find food, escape weather patterns, and find space for a growing population.
Language might have developed in Africa, anywhere between 50,000 and 100,000 years ago. As humans migrated and moved, language likely became more complex and helped people solve new problems.