| Term | Definition |
|---|
| australeopithecus | an ape like hominid discovered by the Leakey family in the mid 20th century |
| homo habilis | first hominids to use tools and came before homo erectus |
| homo erectus | first humans to stand upright and came after homo habilis |
| "Lucy" | found in north Africa. basis for the African Eve theory. |
| African Origins Debate | African Eve theory states that anatomically modern humans come from a common female ancestor in Africa named Lucy. Comes from the large amount of discoveries made in East Africa. This theory is challenged by the Neanderthal discoveries that have been made. |
| Neanderthal | Always considered an inferior hominid type, but it turns out that they weren't as inferior. They even nursed their sick back to health and their teeth were more similar to modern European human teeth. This challenges the "African Eve" theory. They even possibly had some sort of ritual/religious aspects, as they buried items with their dead. They also have been discovered to share space with modern Europeans (cro magnin). |
| archaeology, anthropology, and science | Archaeology is the study of past societies. Anthropology is the study of current societies. Archaeology involves many fields including botany, zoology, linguistics, comparative anatomy, genetics, and forensics which means a lot is done in the lab. • An archaeologist is like a forensic scientist or a detective... seemingly unimportant details can tell a lot. The use of the scientific method is important but use didn't occur until after the renaissance when the idea of seeing knowledge empirically became especially important. |
| Paleolithic | "Old Stone Age." During this period occurs the discovery of fire, the use of spoken language (the development of the larynx), and the beginning of hunting (social organization). |
| Neolithic | During this period humans began cultivating crops, began to establish sedentary (non-nomadic) lives (which began the need for defense/trade), were able to have a food surplus, and began the division of labor. |
| nomadic | Hunting and gathering societies were usually nomadic rather than sedentary. Pre-farming. |
| early social organization | Had to be organized to hunt and especially to farm as well |
| discovery of fire | Crucial point for human development during the paleolithic period |
| spoken language | Could only be possible with the development of the larynx during the Paleolithic period |
| sedentary | non-nomadic living. established need for defense and trade cause people knew where you were. Also only began when they began to use agriculture. |
| technology of agriculture | Agriculture became popular, as well as ways to store it since they were not always moving. With more food, they can stay healthier. They were also able to weed out the desirable traits in food that they wanted. |
| mutual defense | They had to find ways of protecting the food that they had grown, so they built up defensive walls to circle their cities so that no one could come in and hurt them. |
| theories on the origin of writing | writing started around 4000 BCE when people needed a way to keep account of things. began with cuneiform |
| cuneiform | pictographic form of writing. usually made with a stylus on wet clay tablets. • the tokens were found all over and a linguist figured out they were used for business transactions... accounting |
| trades, towns, and nomadic culture | towns and nomads together could trade with each other as a nomadic culture could know where the town was. |
| waterways and the birth of civilizations | The Nile River, Tigris and Euphrates, Indus River, Yellow River |
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