The Stone Ages: Big Era 1 (Part 2)

2 Million- 200,000 BCE

• 2 Million BCE the Old Stone Age begins with Hominins (Homo Habilis) use fire they find to cook food and MAKE tools

• Homo Erectus learn to MAKE fire = cooked food = bigger brains

• Hominins pass on what they learn to next generation, called collective learning

• Neanderthals develop language for hunting. They live side by side with humans prior to going extinct.

• Earth enters an Ice Age

• 200,000 BCE Homo Sapiens (that's us!) emerge and begin to spread out to major continents

200,000 - 10,000 BCE

OLD STONE AGE humans develop early culture: 

• Nomads: people move from place to place in search of food

• Hunting and gathering is the primary way of getting food

• Homes: caves, pit houses, and mammoth bone houses

• Tool making: stone. bone, teeth, ivory

• Groups of 50-100 people, led by a chieftain

• Men and women have different roles

• Shamans communicate with Nature Spirits (wind, sun, moon, rain). Dead are buried with jewelry.

10,000 BCE

Earth's climate warms up, Ice Age ends

People start to collect wheat grasses and replant them every year. People settle in places where these grasses grow.

NEOLITHIC REVOLUTION! Humans begin to farm near sources of water. This decision to farm put us on the path to later civilizations. 

10,000- 3,000 BCE

NEW STONE AGE humans develop settled communities, farming, domestication, furniture, basic government/religion

• Evidence of more solidified gender roles

• Evidence of 

• Evidence of tribal conflict seen in home design and fortifications

• Humans begin to store large surpluses of food, which allows for time for job specialization

Job specialization will lead to THE FIRST CIVILIZATIONS!!