The First Human Societies: The Old Stone Age

The book The Human Story by James C. Davis is about the way humans evolved from Homo erectus to where we are now. The book starts off by telling us how archaeologists found paintings in caves leading all the way back prehistoric times. These people were mainly from Africa and spread all across the world just because they followed herds of animals which they lived off of. They spread from Africa to Europe and Asia, from Asia they followed the herds across a land bridge to North America and all the way down to South America. They were also able to reach Australia and the island surrounding it. After a couple thousand of years they began to settle down into civilizations. These civilizations included Athens, Sparta, Sumer, Egypt, and China. We

All throughout history, humans have come up with innovations that have brought both positive and negative changes to the way people live. This all started around 10,000 BCE, when people developed agriculture. The first nomads started off by moving from place to place, hunting and gathering food… but as people developed agriculture, they saved a lot more time. After agriculture developed, the humans learned many things such as farming and taming wild animals for their own use. This time in history was called the Neolithic Revolution… which lasted about 6,000 years, until 4,000 BCE. The big change in the way people got their food and how they lived, resulted to positive and negative changes of human innovations of the Neolithic Revolution. So,

The first civilizations, the foundations for future empires, were all founded and created between 3500 B.C.E. and 500 B.C.E. by groups of nomadic peoples who decided to settle in an area for certain group specific reasons. Some of the main states of the first civilization were Mesopotamia, Norte Chico, Egypt, Indus Valley, China, and Olmec. The second wave civilizations, built between 500 B.C.E. and 500 C.E., included the Persians, the Greeks, Romans, Chinese (Qin and Han), and India (Mauryan and Gupta). The first wave civilizations were sparked by the agricultural movement that led to the settlement of large groups of people in areas that became the cities and states that formed these first civilizations. The rise of civilization led to

The start of agriculture during the Neolithic Revolution led directly to the beginning of civilization. The Neolithic Revolution, which happened 10,000 years ago, was the shift from hunter-gathers to a food-producing culture meaning humans started to farm and domesticate animals. This was the catalyst to help create civilizations. We know now how to distinguish groups of humans from actual civilization if those groups have certain characteristics. Those characteristics are complex institutions, record keeping, advanced cities, specialized workers, and advanced technology. A result of the Neolithic Revolution is that more people were able to thrive since there was a surplus of food. These early civilizations were able to take advantage of the rivers and create irrigation systems to water their crops.

The societies of Paleolithic man were far different then that of the Neolithic man. The Old Stone Age societies had no time for other actives then what was necessary to survive. They did not invent many new things, and were constantly moving and changing their environment. Societies in he New Stone Age were a settled people, who constantly improved their lifestyle's to make it easier to live by. Job's of the women no longer consisted of gathering, it consisted of growing the crops, since agriculture was a new provider of food.

     The societies of Paleolithic man were far different then that of the Neolithic man. The Old Stone Age societies had no time for other actives then what was necessary to survive. They did not invent many new things, and were constantly moving and changing their environment. Societies in he New Stone Age were a settled people, who constantly

Although it has been assumed for a long period of time that early Paleolithic people have a very uninteresting and uniform history, studies have shown that many cultures of the time have demonstrated many different ways of expressing beliefs, relationships with others, and ways of getting food by hunting and gathering.

The paleolithic civilizations the early period of human history from 2,500,00 through 10,000 B.C. Neolithic civilizations begun to

3. Humans first appeared In East Africa and later migrated to Europe and Asia. Early human societies were egalitarian, nomadic, and hunter-forages. Meaning that humans moved from place to place, moving to an abundant food supply. The first human technologies included fire and some stone tools. As for culture the first humans sang and danced, with animistic beliefs.

The societies in the Paleolithic era differed from one another because each society had a different governments, diets, social organizations, what tools they used, and how they adapted to their environment. Some societies decided to move into a permanent settlement or village while others decided to keep their way of hunting and gathering. The societies that decided to move into a settlement started to become larger and complex. This allowed early humans to be able to accumulate more goods which caused more inequality in these societies.

There is little information to support claims regarding individuals in the Neolithic period, but it is only safe to assume that by looking at certain artifacts and cultures that followed them one is probable to come across important information. Agricultural cultures were a more advanced version of the Neolithic man, as they emerged during the last years of the era. Most tribes used to focus primarily on fields like hunting, gathering, and herding before experiencing reform and starting to concentrate on agriculture. While earlier cultures were Apollonian in character, later communities were Dionysian.

Before the Neolithic Revolution, which began around 8000 B.C.E., the first human species, Homo sapiens, appeared in Africa 2.5 million years ago. As they evolved, the humans developed new uses of tools to equip themselves properly to hunt and gather, which more so began around 750,000 B.C.E. While hunting and gathering was a successful way to survive as a society, it was very dependent on their surrounding environment, causing the people to have to constantly migrate as the game population fluctuated. Through tens of thousands of years , the people spread widely across the globe stretching from Africa, Mesopotamia (now known as the Middle East), Asia, Eastern Europe, and parts of Latin America. The ending point of this time period began as

The Paleolithic people created there own distinct civilizations and developed their own culture to be shared with their descendants

The first scholars that existed named the whole period of human devolvement the “Stone Age.” The stone age is divided into three periods which are Paleolithic which means the old Greek age, Mesolithic and Neolithic which is the new Greek age. The Paleolithic and Neolithic stone ages have many great differences and has changed greatly between the two periods.

Homo heidelbergensis was an early human species that lived around 700,000 to 200,000 years ago. These pioneers were the first to live in colder climates, hunt large animals with wooden spears, and utilize fire. They were also our first ancestors to construct simple shelters out of wood and rock. Interestingly a comparison between Neanderthal and modern human DNA suggests the two lineages diverged from a common ancestor, most likely Homo heidelbergensis!