Prologue, Intro to Part 1, Chapter 1(Fist Peoples)

Prologue

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The prologue discusses how understanding evolution is so important for everyone to study. To understand our world today we must first study and understand the Big Bang Theory, the start of it all. Understanding events like this in history allow us to understand why we live the way we are living and why we are where we are as a species and country. Studying these events also allows us to learn from the mistakes of our ancestors so we do not do the same things they did and work to become a better place.

Intro to Part 1
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The Big Bang Theory is a theory that the universe began from a single primordial atom. During this Cosmic Era the Earth was created, and then we began to evolve as homo sapiens in the Paleolithic Era. Our panel was a super organism Earth in the Gaiac Era 4.5 BYA. Homo sapiens first evolved in Africa, where they remained for 150,000 years. Fishing and hunting began. Around 60,000 years ago they began to migrate to Eurasia, Australia, and the Americas. They migrated in boats. During the ice age, around 20,000 years ago people migrated to warmer areas to survive. During the Paleolithic era people had very small societies where everyone was super close. They lived in bands of people, around 20-25. Men and women were relatively equal, especially compared to later years. However, work was still divided, with men being hunters, and women being primarily the gatherers. Paleolithic people are referred to as gatherer-hunters. The ice age occurred. Then 3,500 years ago was the Ancient era. Then from 500 B.C. to 1400 A.D. was the the classical era followed by the modern era.

Cosmic Era -->  Paleolithic Era --> Neolithic Era --> Ancient Era --> Classical Era --> Modern Era

Chapter 1(First Peoples)

Out of Africa

• Homo sapiens emerged 250,000 years ago and spent about 150,000 of those years in just Africa
• Culture shaped behavior
• Hunting and fishing began
• Migrations out of Africa began about 100,000 years ago
• Development of 250 languages
• Major communication and trade networks
• Migration to Americas by seas
• Clovis: first clearly defined widespread culture of the Americas

The Ways We Were

Paleolithic:

• First human societies contained 25-50 people (slow population growth)
• Paleolithic people were nomadic, moved in patterns
• Gender equality existed
• Low life expectancy (35 years)
• Difficult to understand the spiritual world of Paleolithic people
• Paleolithic people contacted spirits
• Population rise after last ice age, with beginnings of settlement

• Existential: we evolved as homo sapiens
• Technology: we used basic (old) stone tools
• Socially: we formed ourselves into moving bands of gatherer-hunters
• Migration: migrated out of Africa into other continents

Neolithic:

• Began about 12,000 years ago
• Global warming had some effect on agriculture, causing people to settle in places with productive land
• Agriculture was spread by both migration and diffusion. 
• Sense of food and security, and ability to store food in surplus
• Development of economy to trade food for other things
• Sense of property ownership to dictate social hierarchy, slavery, and power.

• Existential: we out competed all other species of homo
• Technology: we used more sophisticated stone tools
• Socially: we formed ourselves into small settled agricultural communities
• Migration: all continents except Antarctica settled by Homo sapiens