World History Notes

Geography

The shape pf the world

Continents

1, Mediterranean

2. Afroeurasia

 60 percent of earth’s landmass

 E-W land Axis
 “Great Arid Zone {aka sunbelt
 Morocco to Gobi Desert
 Arid regions can still be livable with ricer pr oases
 Europe asmamsubconinent of AfroUsasia

America

1. Primary in N-S land axis

 Cordillera
 Mesoamerica
 Southe1. rn Mexico and 7 Central American nations
 South America

Australia

1.

Inland Seas

1. Afroeurasia has many of them

Inland seas? look up inland seas for images both on the map and in person

Source of water

Important for early societies

Navigation

Few rivers you can ail tight up

Some rivers, one you

Barriers

1. some moutains are

 Himalayas
 Kunlun
 Alps

Oceans

 Pacific is far larger than Atlantic

 Nearly 2.5 time
 Many more islands in the pacific
 1600 BCE-1000 CE: Polynesian migrations

Indian ocean
 Monsoon winds are predictable
 Atlantic and Pacific are also predictable, but more complex
 Clockwise north of the equator

Farming

 12,000 years ago: “Agricultural Revolution”

 5,500 years ago: Actually became productive enough for surpluses
 Animals: A means to convert inedible plants into food
 Hunter Gathering
 Pastoral nomadism ( animal husbandry)

Guiding Question #2

1. What are some attributes of hominis an humans being that have assisted us in settling so much
territory

Four main types of prehistorical evidence

 Fossils of human and animals

 Tools
 Indicators of climatic change
 DNA from fossil and people

Early Hominins

 Homo Sapiens were not first to migrate

 Homo Erectus
 Zhoukoudian, China
 Likely Fire User
  400,000- 300,00 years

Homo Habilis

 Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania

 1.8 million year ago
 Dmanisi, Georgia s
 Tool User,

Hominid Cooperation

 Working as groups
 Offspring have a longer time of immaturity than most species
 Brain Size has to triple form infant to adult

Interbreeding with homo sapiens

 Neanderthals
 200,00-28,000 years ago
 Not direct ancestors of homo sapiens
 May have contributed important genes in Europe cold Weather resistance and diseases
 Finally died in the Iberian Peninsula

Denisovans

 7000,000-170,000 years ago

 Contributed Perhaps 3 percent of Asian DNA

 Island of Flores, near java, Indonesia

 Small Brains
 Seem to be tool users
 Brain Size NOT a direct correlation with intelligence

Homo Sapiens success

 Developed at least 150,00 years ago:

1. Bipedalism
2. Fire
3. Tools

Use your brain

 Humans Developed cognitive skills, enlarged brain, capacity for language

 Human can recognize 5 phonemes, apes only 12
 Language makes collective learning possible
 Requires a certain amount of symbolic thought
 Acquiring a consciousness

8/28/2019

Peopling of the World

Guiding Question #2

How did hominins and humans successfully spread to so much of the world, and how did we develop so
many different cultures.

Early days in Africa

 Evolved in southern or eastern Africa 2000,000-150,000 years ago

 117,000 years ago, Bi

Eastern Hemisphere

 60,000-55,000 years ago; SE Asia and Australia separated

 Lower Sea Levels: Could Possibly have walked from Papua New Guinea to Australia
 50,000-40,000 years ago: Europe colonized
 34,000 years ago: Evidence of the String Revolution beginning (Flax strand in Georgia, Caucasus
 30,000 years ago: Pit Houses along the Don River
 25,000 Years ago: Evidence of nets for hunting and fishing

Western Hemisphere

 18,000 years ago: Beringia and the America

 Warm enough to survive, cold enough that the sea level was low
 Travel by foot, or down the Pacific Coast?
 Probably successive waves of colonization
 Speed suggest boat, but not remain older than 6,000 years.

Speed of Travel

 15,500 years ago: Buttermilk Creek, TX

 14,000 years ago: Monte Verde, Chile

Paleolithic Societies

 Hunter gatherers
 Relatively Small Bands, Relatively small population
 70,000 years ago: Could have been only 10,000 Homo Sapiens, previous to migration
 1500 BE: 15 p34cent of the world were still hunter gatherers
Paleolithic Art

 Requires Symbolic Thought

o Symbolic activity “enabled humans to make sense of themselves nature, and the
relationship between humanity and nature”
 Cultural Diffusion
o Spread of artistic forms and styles from one region to another

Remains of Art

 50,000 cave patings across the world over a 25,000 year

Agrarian Age

Farms, Village’s, Towns, cities, civilization

Guiding Question: What Environmental factors shaped way of life, and which ones helped early
“civilization” grow?

Neolithic Societies

 Agrarian
 Agriculture and livestock together, usually
 Growing complexity of society
 Certain aspects of it started in Mesopotamia, spread to the med and the Indus valley.

Sedentary Societies

 Domestication
 Took some time (probably 6,000 years)
 No large surpluses for millennia
 Plants
 Different plants different places, often independently

Sedentary Civilization

 Well-organized governments
 Complex religions
 Job Specialization
 Social Classes
 Art and Architecture
 Public Works Writing