Key Concept 1.1

Big Geography and the Peopling of the Earth

The term Big Geography draws attention to the global nature of world history. Throughout the Paleolithic period, humans migrated from Africa to Eurasia, Australia, and the Americas. Early humans were mobile and creative in adapting to different geographical settings from savanna to desert to Ice Age tundra. By making an analogy with modern hunter-forager societies, anthropologists infer that these bands were relatively egalitarian. Humans also developed varied and sophisticated technologies.

I. Archeological evidence indicates that during the Paleolithic Era, hunting-foraging bands of humans gradually migrated from their origins in East Africa to Eurasia, Australia, and the Americas, adapting their technology and cultures to new climate regions.

• Humans used fire in new ways: to aid hunting and foraging, to protect against predators, and to adapt to cold environments.

• Humans developed a wider range of tools specially adapted to different environments from tropics to tundra.
• Economic structures focused on small kinship groups of hunting-foraging bands that could make what they needed to survive. However, not all groups were self-sufficient; they exchanged people, ideas, and goods.