Lecture 3.pdf

LECTURE 3: ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF CIVILIZATION Faculty: Abul Hossain Ahmed Bhuiyan, Ph.D. Professor of Sociology Ages of Human Civilization  Timeline of the Stone, Bronze, and Iron Age - Lower Paleolithic: ca 2500000 – 200000 BC - Middle Paleolithic: ca 200000 – 50000...

LECTURE 3: ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF CIVILIZATION Faculty: Abul Hossain Ahmed Bhuiyan, Ph.D. Professor of Sociology Ages of Human Civilization  Timeline of the Stone, Bronze, and Iron Age - Lower Paleolithic: ca 2500000 – 200000 BC - Middle Paleolithic: ca 200000 – 50000 BC - Upper Paleolithic: ca 50000 – 10000 BC - Epipalaeolithic Age - Neolithic/Mesolithic: ca 10000 – 3000 BC - Bronze Age: ca 3000 – 1000 BC - Iron Age: ca: 1000 B.C. – present - (Ca = circa, about, Latin word) The Earliest Humans  Human beings are members of the species Homo sapiens (thinking human being), which evolved, according to present evidence, about 350000 years ago.  The immediate predecessor was Homo erectus, which may have emerged as long ago as 1.5 million years.  There is growing support for the theory that humanity originated in east Africa about 2 million years ago, but this theory is not yet proved. Homo Sapiens Homo Erectus  Homo Erectus Homo Sapiens  - An extinct species Presently living species  - Large teeth Small teeth  - Less intelligent Intelligent  - Large legs Shorter legs  - 900-1200 cubic centimeter 1300 cubic centimeter (Brain size) Is this the next stage of Evolution??? Early Migration (Homo Erectus) Modern Human Migration The Earliest Culture  The Epipalaeolithic : intervening between the Upper Paleolithic and Neolithic in the Stone Age.  Time period: 20,000 to 10,000 BP; Geographical range: Near East; culture known as the Kebarian is the last Upper Paleolithic phase of the Levant (Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Israel).  Kebaran were a highly mobile nomadic population, composed of hunters and gatherers in the Levant and Sinai areas. Two phases of human civilization  Paleolithic (or old stone age)  Neolithic (or metal using ages) Paleolithic  Man remained in a state of helpless barbarism, a mere food gatherer dependent for his livelihood on the products of the chase and fishing supplemented by such wild nuts and berries as mother Nature might provide.  Paleolithic man had no domestic animals, save the dog and that only late in the epoch, practiced no agriculture, was ignorant of pottery, and did not polish stone or flint.  Time period: Ranges from the beginning of human history (350000 years ago) to about 10000 B.C.  The most striking creations we have found from food-gathering societies are a series of cave paintings that survive at their finest in Lascaux in France and Altamira in Spain.  The cave paintings provide our earliest evidence for one of the main themes of history: the attempt to communicate with forces outside human control through symbolic action, art, and thought – that is, through religion and ritual acts. Cave Paintings: Probably drawn by Neanderthals Basic Characteristics  1. Nomadic  2. Food gatherer  3. Used simple tools  4. Learned to built fire  5. Keep records, communicated using cave paintings  6. Belief in religion Neolithic or metal using ages  The Neolithic period saw man master of his own food supply through the possession of domestic animals and cultivated plants, and shaking off the shackles of environment by his skill in fashioning tools for tree-felling and carpentry, by organization for co-operative labor, and by the beginnings of commerce. Characteristics of Food Production Phase  1. Food production  2. Permanent settlement  3. Internal trade (Exchange)  4. More complex societies  5. Specialization Human Begins as Food Gatherers and as Food Producers  Environment and labor-power played significant roles.  For the greatest part of their time on earth, they have struggled simply to hunt and gather food.  A hunter-gatherer or foraging (food collector) society is a society that depends on the hunting of animals and gathering of vegetation for subsistence. Food production as a subsistence pattern developed relatively recently, about 12000 to 10000 years ago. Thus, for almost 99 percent of human’s life span, humans lived as foragers. (Raymond Scupin, Cultural Anthropology, p. 134)  Only recently (10000 BC) have people been able to produce food and thus create a stable basis for life.  Within the last few decades have we recognized that we have the power to destroy the environment that nourishes us. Labor in Early Communities  People had to decide how to share labor. Such sharing was often based on divisions of sex. (male/female)  Research suggests that: women may have done most of the gathering as well as caring for the young.  Hunting animals required longer expeditions; we may guess that men usually performed this duty.  Later, as agriculture became the basis of the economy, the tasks of men and women probably became more similar. Theoretical notion on Labor  Hand is not only the organ of labor; it is also the product of labor. (Engels)  As soon as labor, in its direct form, has ceased to be the main source of wealth, then labor time ceases, and must cease, to be its standards of measurement, and thus exchange value must cease to be the measurement of use-value. The surplus labor of the masses has ceased to be a condition for the development of wealth in general in the same way that the non-labor of the few has ceased to be a condition for the development of the power of the human mind in general. (Marx, Grundrisse, p. 142) The First Settlements  The Neolithic Revolution first occurred probably in the hills of what is now southern Turkey and northern Iraq, east of the Tigris River.  WHY THIS REGION?  Historians have concluded: sufficient supply of animals for domestication along with the needed vegetables and cereals.  The earliest known settlements, dating from about 9000 B.C., where un-walled and unfortified, and their people lived in simple huts.  About 7000 B.C. the first somewhat larger villages appeared. (Jericho and Jarmo) The Discovery of Agriculture  Between 8000 and 7000 B.C. people turned from hunting animals and gathering food to producing food from the earth.  The rise of agriculture gave continuity to human existence and demanded long-term planning and the practice of new skills and specialists.  Agriculture, once mastered, became another enduring theme throughout history and has always been the largest single factor in the economy of the world.  WHY DID THIS REVOLUTION TAKE PLACE?  There may be no one simple answer.  However, it is clear from evidences that: the earth’s glaciers, which had long been advancing from both polar regions toward inhabited areas, began to shrink back toward the poles. This movement allowed the animals that had been driven by the glaciers into the arms and weapons of human beings to wander away again.  To hunt and trap animals now demanded longer journeys in search of less abundant prey: Therefore farming became a necessity. Patterns in Population  Two theories:  a) agriculture developed in response to increasing population; and  b) a large increase in population became possibly only after the agricultural revolution Discussion