Early Humans and Prehistoric Studies

Early Humans

• Early humans slowly spread from Africa to other parts of the world.
• They used basic stone tools and weapons to hunt animals, catch fish, and gather plants and nuts to survive.
• For hundreds of thousands of years, early people lived in this way.

The First People

• Scientific evidence suggests that modern humans spread from Africa to other lands.
• They gradually developed ways to adapt to their environments.

Studying the Distant Past

• Much of the human story remains a mystery because writing has only existed for about 5,000 years.
• Scholars find and interpret clues to study prehistory.
• Anthropologists study culture, knowledge, art, and customs.
• Anthropologists examine artifacts, objects that people in the past made or used.
• Archaeologists dig at sites where people have left traces.
• Archaeologists use methods to date and analyze objects found.
• Anthropology continues to expand and revise the picture of the prehistoric past.

Human Origins

• Early Hominids include:
  • 1959-East Africa where Mary Leakey found skull fragments
  • Hominids are humanlike beings that walked upright
  • 1974-Ethiopia where Johanson found "Lucy"
  • Lucy was a 4 foot-tall hominid who walked upright and lived 4 to 5 million years ago
• Later Hominids include:
  • More advanced hominids from about 3 million years ago
  • 1960s-Tanzania where Louis Leakey found
  • Homo habilis ("handy man")
  • They had more humanlike features
  • They made and used crude stone tools
• Other hominids include:
  • Homo erectus ("upright man")
  • This species lived 2 to 1.5 million years ago in Africa.
  • They had larger brains and were more skillful hunters.
  • They were the first hominid to control fire.
• Modern humans include:
  • Homo sapiens ("wise man")
  • Appeared 200,000 years ago.
  • They had larger brains and more sophisticated tools.
  • They learned to create fire.
  • They were the first to develop language.
• Groups of hominids appeared in Africa from about 5 million to 200,000 years ago.
• Later groups were more advanced than earlier groups and made better tools.
• Australopithecine
  • Name means "southern ape"
  • Appeared in Africa about 4-5 million years ago
  • Stood upright and walked on two legs
  • Brain was about one-third the size of those of modern humans
• Homo Habilis
  • Name means "handy man"
  • Appeared in Africa about 2.4 million years ago
  • Used crude stone tools for chopping and scraping
  • Brain was about half the size of those of modern humans
• Homo Erectus
  • Name means "upright man."
  • Appeared in Africa about 2-1.5 million years ago
  • Used early stone tools such as the hand ax
  • Learned to control fire
  • Migrated out of Africa
• Homo Sapiens
  • Name means "wise man"
  • Appeared in Africa about 200,000 years ago
  • Migrated around the world
  • Same species as modern humans
  • Used a wide range of tools; learned to recreate fire; likely developed language

Faces of History: Mary and Louis Leakey

• Husband and wife team of Mary and Louis Leakey made significant discoveries related to human origins.
• Discoveries include nutcracker man skull, the Laetoli footprints, and the first Homo habilis fossils.
• They greatly expanded understanding of early people.
• Mary Leakey gained an interest in prehistoric archaeology during her childhood.
• She began working as an illustrator, drawing tools and other artifacts for an archaeologist as a teenager.
• That work brought her in contact with Louis Leakey in 1933
• He had received a degree in anthropology/ was working in that field
• The Leakeys married in 1937
• They spent the next 30 years in East Africa searching together for clues to the origin/early development of humankind.
• Many of the Leakeys' greatest discoveries were made in the Olduvai Gorge, a steep-sided ravine in Tanzania.
• The sides of the gorge have yielded Stone tools and fossils dating back nearly 2 million years.

Spreading Around the World

• Hominids learned to adapt their climate and migration patterns.
• They began to move out of Africa.
• This movement occurred over hundreds of thousands of years.
• Homo erectus was the first hominid to migrate.
• Fossils have been found in Asia and Europe.
• Homo sapiens migrated around 100,000 years ago using boats.
• The Ice Ages began 1.6 million years ago.
• There were long periods of freezing weather cycled with warmer periods.
• Asia and North America joined at the Bering Strait.
• Groups adapted as they migrated/ two groups of Homo sapiens: Neanderthals and Cro- Magnons

Life in the Stone Age

• The first humans lived during the Stone Age and made tools mainly from stone in the Paleolithic Era.
• This was 2.5 million to 10,000 years ago.
• Stone Age people lived as nomads, sheltered under rock overhangs or in caves, and were hunter-gatherers.
• First tools were crude chipped stones, followed by later tools made of wood and bone.
• Spears were used for hunting, nets and traps for fish and birds, canoes made from logs, clothing from animal skins.
• Shelters were built from skins, wood, and bones.
• Societies began to form
• Societies had common cultures of language/ art / religion
• They practiced animism
• Believed in life after death