1. The Emergence of Civilization Chasidy Miroff Powerpoint Lecture #2 Brookwood Middle School

2. What is prehistory?  Prehistory is the period of time before writing was developed.  We study prehistory by looking at skeletons, artifacts, and culture.  Scientists called ARCHAEOLOGISTS study artifacts (tools, art, weapons, toys).  Scientists called ANTHROPOLOGISTS study skeletons.

3. Educated Guesses  Scientists work with limited evidence, as they try to discover human origins.  So, they must make educated guesses—their best guess about how the first human beings lived.  Can we say for sure what early humans were like? No. However, scientists have tons of experience studying the ways and customs of early humans.

4. Hominids  Hominids include humans as well as earlier humanlike creatures.  By studying their remains, anthropologists can figure out what early hominids looked like.  They can also determine how long the hominids lived.

5. Lucy  In 1974, a team led by Donald Johanson found the remains of a female hominid.  This female hominid may have lived 3 million years ago.  Johanson and his team named the skeleton Lucy, after the Beatles song “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.”  This song was playing on the radio at their campsite the night they found her. They heard the song, and decided to name her Lucy.

6. Where did they find Lucy? That’s right. They found her on the continent of Africa, in what would Today be the African country of Ethiopia.

7. Donald Johanson

8. Lucy’s remains “ I spent the morning of November 30 scanning the ground for fossils…At midday, under a murderous sun and in temperatures topping 100 degrees, we reluctantly headed back toward camp. Along the way I glanced over my right shoulder. Light glinted off a bone. I knelt down for a closer look. This time I knew at once I was looking at a hominid elbow…Everywhere we looked on the slope around us we saw more bones lying on the surface. Here was the hominid skeleton.” --Donald Johanson

9. Louis and Mary Leakey  A few years after the discovery of Lucy, Louis and Mary Leakey were searching in the African country of Tanzania.  They searched at a place called Olduvai Gorge.

10. Olduvai Gorge

11. Mary’s Discoveries  Mary Leakey found many skeletons at Olduvai Gorge.  One skeleton dated back to 3.7 million years ago.  This skeleton belonged to the Australopithecus humans, like Lucy.

12. Early Hominids  Homo habilis “handy man,” found by Mary Leakey, first time a hominid has evidence of using the opposable thumb.  Homo erectus “upright man,” also found by the Leakeys, shows early humans walking upright.  Homo sapiens—modern humans

13. How do we trace our own ancestry?  The greatest history ever written, is the one that’s written in our genes.  Dr. Spencer Wells, started “The Genographic Project” to trace our ancestry through our DNA.  We will continue our exploration of early humans, with a video lesson from Dr. Wells tomorrow.