HISTORIAN'S TOOLBOX & BIG Era 1 (Part 1)
13.8 Billion Years Ago - 200,000 BCE
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Historical Context: Historians believe "humans," also known as Homo Sapiens, appeared around 200,000 BCE. Imagine you are an archaeologist who stumbles upon cave art from Lascaux Cave (see left). What questions would you have about these people from long ago? What things may have happened in the history of Earth to make it look like it did when humans first appeared? How do we know these things really happened?
U N I T G O A L S
1. UNDERSTAND HISTORY PRIOR TO APPEARANCE OF HUMANS
2. BE ABLE TO USE HISTORICAL SKILLS TO ANALYZE EVIDENCE
UNIT 1 VOCABULARY
THE SHORT-SHORT STORY OF BIG ERA 1
Hover over the capitalized words for videos!
13.7 BYA scientists believe BIG BANG created gravity + matter (1)
Several hundred thousand years later STARS FORM (2)
Then heat from supernovas helps create the PERIODIC TABLE (3)
4.6 Billion Years Ago SOLAR SYSTEM and EARTH FORM (4)
250 Million BCE Pangea breaks up large landmass into 7 continents (5)
65 Million BCE dinosaur extinction means mammals (that's us!) thrive (6)
Earth's climate changes forests to savannas (in Africa) (7)
7 Million Years BCE hominins become bipedal to survive in savannas (8)
Australopithecus USES TOOLS (sharp rocks) they find to eat food (9)
Homo Habilis MAKES TOOLS and USES FIRE they find to cook food (10)
Homo Erectus learns to MAKE FIRE and BETTER TOOLS (11)
Hominins pass on what they learn to next generation, called collective learning (12)
Earth's climate gets colder and enters an Ice Age (13)
Neanderthals appear (14)
Homo Sapiens (that's us!) emerge and migrate to major continents (15)
UNIT 1 ACTIVITIES | IXL | STUDY GUIDES
Need Extra Practice or Help?
Before you begin your journey into the ancient past, you need to be able to locate places on a world map. See the Geography and Map Skills Handbook
LESSON 1: Why do we study history?
How do historians figure out what is important enough to include in the official "story" of the past? Check out: Historical Significance.
LESSON 2: How do historians organize time?
They use TIMELINES. Watch the video here to learn more.
LESSON 3:
Historians study primary sources (sources made at the time of an event) and secondary sources (sources made AFTER an event by people who were NOT there). Read more about these sources here. You can practice your skills here:
Primary and Secondary Source Game: https://www.playfactile.com/secondarysoursevsprimarysources/play
Primary and Secondary Source Game: https://wordwall.net/resource/21848362/history/primary-and-secondary-sources
There are three history skills we will focus on this semester.
Context is the background information about an event. We may think people of the past make strange decisions. By learning more about the time period these decisions will make more sense. Read and watch the video here.
Bias is when a source's opinion is unfair or unbalanced. These sources are important because they give us clues to what people of the past were thinking.
Bias reading and Bias Video
Corroboration is when we gather many pieces of evidence to support a claim or source. We can never trust only one source about the past. We need to corroborate, or build our case with lots of evidence, just like a lawyer!
LESSON 4: Where do we find primary sources --> Archaeology!
Archaeology is the study of prehistory (before written sources). Archaeologists excavate (dig) in a VERY careful way. They are looking for fossils (human/ animal remains) and artifacts (man-made objects) to tell the story about the past. See more here!
LESSON 5: Who are the hominins?
According to scientists, hominins are the ancestors to humans. Check out this video to see a breakdown of all of the major hominin groups. In class, we will talk about the 4 most famous groups of hominins.
Resources for Unit
Holt textbook pages 6-31 (my.hrw.com)
Pages 6-9 Intro to History
Pages 7, 10, 11 Archaeology and Evidence
Pages 12-17 Geography Review
Pages 28-31 Archaeological discoveries and hominin characteristics
H I S T O R I C A L S K I L L S
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