PREHISTORY & ANCIENT HISTORY

 

4,600 MILLION YEARS AGOà EARTH COMES INTO BEING

 

3,500 MILLION YEARS AGOà FIRST PRIMITIVE LIFE FORMS

·         Due to existence of chemicals that could combine and replicate

·         Oxygen levels gradually rose, creating better conditions for diversity of life forms.

·         Simple organisms/single celled similar to algae dominated life on earth for almost 3 billion yrs.

 

570 MILLION YEARS AGOàCOMPLEX ORGANISMS EVOLVE

 

500 MILLION YEARS AGOà FIRST VERTEBRATES

 

430 MILLION YEARS AGOàFIRST PLANTS

 

400 MILLION YEARS AGOàLAND ANIMALS

 

200-65 MILLION YEARS AGOàDINOSAURS

 

65          MILLION YEARS AGOàDINOSAURS EXTINCT (asteroid?)

 

25          MILLION YEARS AGO—>PROCONSUL:

(E. Afr.-ancestor of apes & forest dweller)

 

15      MILLION YEARS AGO—>KENYAPITHECUS:

(E. Afr.—African apes)

 

11-7 MILLION YEARS AGO—>SIVAPITHECUS:

            (India/Pakistan—orangutan, Asian apes)

 

ca. 5 MILLION YEARS AGOà humans branch off from apes

·         (Chimps share 97% of our DNA, use tools, communicate in complex ways, & are more closely related to humans than to gorillas)

 

5-1 MILLION YEARS AGO—>HOMINIDS: prehuman & human

·         Australopithecus—prehuman Ethiopia(3-6 mil.)

1)      Australopithecus robustus-S. Afr. caves

2)      Australopithecus africanus-S. Afr.

3)      Australopithecus afarensis—Ethiopia (Lucy) apelike features, herbivore, upright

 

2.5 MILLION YEARS AGOà cycle of repeated glaciation begins

 

2    MILLION YEARS AGO—>HOMO HABILIS

            (handyman, toolmaker)

·         Ice Ages & interglacial period cycle

·         Ice Ages occur every 100,000 yrs.

·         Interglacial periods last 20,000 yrs.

·         Plants & animals respond to fluctuations by moving N. during milder periods & S. when glaciers advance

·         Early hominids follow advance & retreat of animals & plants

 

1.7-1.5 MILLION YEARS AGO—>HOMO ERECTUS

·         (upright, larynx shift enables speech)

·         twice brain weight of modern humans

·         Scattered groups move N. to Levant (Syria, Lebanon, Israel), then across the then-tropical forests to Arabia & Iran.

·         Probably evolved in Africa & began migration due to tectonic plate movement that caused 2000 m. mountain range to jut up, cutting off tree-dwellers from rainforest.

·         Savanna requires upright mobility

·         Creative and critical thought necessary for survival

 

1 MILLION-100,000 YEARS AGOàadaption to cooler climates w/ help of technology

·         (evolutionary shift from biology to technology)

·         Settle in Eur. (1 million) & Asia from Caucausus to China & Java

·         Shelter (Eur. 380,000 yrs. ago)

·         Clothing

·         Fire (China 460,000 yrs. ago)

·         permanent encampments 250,000 yrs. ago

·         Efficient tools/weapons—hand ax to kill, cut, etc. 200,000 yrs. Ago

·         Art (Bohemia) 200,000 yrs. ago

·         H. sapiens, “thinking man” evolves (250,000 yrs. ago) Afr., Eur., Asia

 

120,000 YEARS AGOà Neanderthals:  Eur. & Levant

·         (Germany, Mid. E.—Iraq, Siberia--Uzbekistan)

·         Massive build (needed lots of fuel/food, which became increasingly scarce.

·         Rudimentary speech

 

100,000-35,000 YEARS AGOà CroMagnon=>Modern Humans

·         (H. sapiens sapiens)-Afr. origins

·         Migrated from Africa to Levant & S. Eur.—live side-by-side w/ Neanderthal

·         Constantly had to adapt to new surroundings

·         Track deer, bring fire rock into cave, predict salmon runs

·         Art associated w/ ritualà hunt, birth, death

·         Cave paintings and figurines

·         Mixed gender groups

 

35,000 YEARS AGOà NEANDERTHAL EXTINCTION

·         Out-foxed, out-competed for resources, plague from foreign germs brought by CroMagnon, war?

·         Lack of forethought (don’t track, don’t improve tools, don’t cooperate with mixed gender groups)

·         No art has yet been found, but there aren’t many sites to investigate

·         Buried dead ritually, decorated graves, nursed sick

 

20,000- 15,000 YEARS AGOà peak of last ice age.

·         Temps reached lowest level

·         Ice sheets maxed out

·         Sea levels dropped more than 330 ft.

·         Expose dry land & bridges b/w landmasses for migration

 

13,000-8,000 YEARS AGOàICE THAWS

·         Global temps, which had been rising since the coldest point of last Ice Age, had reached present levels by 8,000 bce

·         As ice sheets melted, sea levels rose by 325 ft.

·         Dry lowland areas, such as Bering land bridge, Gulf of Siam, North Sea, Sahul Shelf (b/w Australia and New Guinea) were flooded.

·         More water was available to fall as rain, so deserts in tropic regions shrank

·         Populations of plants, animals, and humans rose steadily

·         Americas were colonized by humans

 

8,000-5,000 BCEàFARMERS & HUNTER-GATHERERS

·         Domestication of animals and crops

·         China, Americas, Nile Valley, Sahara had independently of one another adopted plant cultivation

·         Australiaà hunter-gatherer

·         8,000à mud bricks, Mesopotamia

·         Irrigation techniques in Mesopotamia 7th millennium bce.

·         6,500 bceà first known metallurgy, Middle East

·         6,000 bceàfirst stamp seals used, Mesopotamia

·         5,500 bceà first pottery, China

 

5,000-3,000 BCEà TECHNOLOGY, URBANIZATION, TRADE

·         farming communities develop into cities

·         social life and organization changes radically and rapidly

·         5,000 bceà grain farming, Egypt & copperworking, S.E. Eur.

·         4,500 bceàmegalithic tombs, W. Eur.

·         4,000 bceàfirst temple-pyramids, Peru & plow, Eur., Middle E.

·         3,300 bceàwriting

·         3,100 bceàNarmer becomes first pharaoh of Egypt by uniting Upper (southern) and Lower (northern) Egypt & establishing new capital @ Memphis.  This marks the end of the pre-dynastic period (c.5000-3100 bce)

 

3,000-2,000 BCEà AGE OF MONUMENTS

·         2650 bceà step pyramid @ Saqqara

·         2500 bceà bronzeworking introduced in mainland S.E. Asia

·         2250-2470àGiza pyramids built

·         2100 bceà Stonehenge reaches its final form, Britain

 

TODAYà polar ice caps cover 1/10 of earth’s surface

·         Drop of 8 degrees F in word’s avg. temp would mean 1/3 of earth covered in ice