Www.whiteplainspublicschools.org



The Paleolithic Period

WHAP/Napp

Objective: To identify and explain significant characteristics of the Paleolithic Period

Do Now: Describe human life before the Neolithic Revolution.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

[pic]

Complete the Cornell Notes:

|Essential Questions/Cues: |Notes: |

| |The Origin of Man |

| |Some 5 to 7 million years ago, ancestors to modern humans ________ from African apes and the line leading to |

| |chimpanzees |

| |20 to 30 different species of ________ or humanlike creatures developed |

| |In eastern and southern ___________ |

| |Bipedalism |

| |All hominids were _______ |

| |Bipedal = To walk ________ on two legs |

| |Mary Leakey |

| |In 1976, ____ _______ uncovered in what is now Tanzania a series of footprints of three such individuals, |

| |preserved in the cooling volcanic ash about 3.5 million years ago |

| |Two of the hominids appeared to be _______ ________ |

| |Then Homo Habilis |

| |About 2.3 million years ago, one particular hominid’s brain grew larger |

| |Scientists believe this _______ _______ was due to extreme and rapid climate change that required the ability to |

| |adapt |

| |Homo Habilis or “_______ Man” had evolved |

| |Homo Sapiens |

| |Some _______ years ago, Homo sapiens emerged in Africa |

| |And sometime after 100,000 years ago, Homo sapiens began to ________ out of Africa |

| | |

|Summaries | |

|( | |

|Essential Questions: |Notes: |

| |They eventually settled every __________ region |

| |Paleolithic or Old Stone Age |

| |95% of humanity’s ______ on earth |

| |Food-collecting or gathering and hunting way of life |

| |__________ societies |

| |Small groups, mobile, __________ |

| |Inability to ________ food |

| |Few personal belongings due to ____________ |

| |Did not build ___________ settlements |

| |But development of spoken language |

| |Ability to make simple tools out of ________ |

| |Ability to control and use _______ |

| |Ability to _______ to a multiplicity of environments |

| |Homo Sapiens = Wise Humans |

| |The Stone Age lasted from 2.5 million years ago to 5,000 or 6,000 years ago |

| |But three phases of the Stone age |

| |Paleolithic |

| |Mesolithic |

| |________ |

| |Stone Age Periodization |

| |Paleolithic (“Old Stone Age”) |

| |ending 12,000 years ago and overlapping with the Great, or Pleistocene, _____ Age |

| |Mesolithic (“Middle Stone Age”) |

| |lasting from 12,000 to 10,000 years ago |

| |Neolithic (“______ Stone Age”) |

| |beginning around 8000 BCE |

| |Social Organization |

| |Based on ______ unit |

| |Extended families formed clans bound by ties of kinship |

| |Clans formed bands and _______ |

| |Social Divisions |

| |______ = Hunted |

| |_________ = Gathered |

| |But men’s roles were not necessarily seen as _________ to women’s roles |

| |And because there was no massive accumulation of goods, there were no social _________ |

| |No rich class, No poor class |

| |Greater social and gender _________ than with the development of farming |

| | |

| | |

| | |

| | |

|Summaries | |

|( | |

Essential Question:

• In what essential ways did the Paleolithic Period differ from the world we live in today?

|1. Paleontologists |4. The "Out of Africa" thesis |

|(A) study the physical, cultural, and social characteristics of humans|(A) argues that modern humans appeared throughout the world at the |

| |same time |

|(B) study the physical remains and fossils of animals and plants |(B) proposes that modern humans emerged in Africa |

|(C) study the objects and buildings created by humans |(C) submits that only the Neanderthal emerged in Africa |

|(D) study astronomy |(D) argues that crops were first cultivated in Africa |

|(E) study ancient urban centers |(E) proposes that only the most primitive human behavior originated in|

| |Africa |

|2. In what ways were the earliest hominids and their descendants more | |

|advanced than earlier primates? |5. The earliest period in which humans began expressing themselves in|

|I. bipedalism |both art and music is thought to be |

|II. a large brain |(A) the Mesolithic era |

|III. use of agriculture |(B) the Neolithic era |

|IV. larynx |(C) the Paleolithic era |

| |(D) the Bronze Age |

|(A) I, II, and IV |(E) none of the above |

|(B) I, III, and IV | |

|(C) I and III only |6. Which statement about early humans do most scholars today agree is |

|(D) II and IV only |accurate? |

|(E) III only |(A) Humans originated in Asia, then spread to Africa. |

| |(B) Humans originated in Africa, then migrated to other continents. |

|3. Hunting and gathering societies were marked by |(C) Antarctica was inhabited by early hominids. |

|I. widespread specialization of labor |(D) Humans appeared simultaneously throughout the world. |

|II. a subsistence lifestyle |(E) none of the above. |

|III. limited trade | |

|IV. little specialization of labor | |

| | |

|(A) I and III | |

|(B) II and IV | |

|(C) I, II, and III | |

|(D) II, III, and IV | |

|(E) IV only | |

| | |

| | |

| | |

| | |

Our Hunter-Gatherer Bodies

Daniel E. Lieberman is professor of human evolutionary biology at Harvard University. He is the author of "The Evolution of the Human Head." ()

Many humans today are taller, heavier and live longer than our grandparents, great-grandparents and other distant relations. We are also more numerous. Since I was born in 1964, the world’s population has doubled to nearly 7 billion.

These changes unquestionably reflect advances in agriculture, medicine and sanitation that have rapidly and profoundly changed how humans obtain and use energy. Like all organisms, humans must spend effort to acquire energy, which we then apportion into growth, maintenance and reproduction. Because many humans today have abundant supplies of food and nutrients, and because we spend less energy in fighting illness or getting food, we have more energy to grow and reproduce.

Whether our species’ increased height, longevity, girth and fecundity represent progress depends on the lens one uses to assess the meaning of progress. To many economists, progress represents more of something good like wealth, health or leisure. So by this measure, yes, our changing bodies reflect progress.

But in the context of evolutionary biology, progress is a meaningless term since evolution doesn’t have any goals. Evolution just happens, sometimes by natural selection, sometimes by other chance mechanisms. Nature doesn’t make judgments.

And there's one reason not to crow about progress. It's the realization that our species’ recent gains have also come with costs, some of them alarming. Humans, as a species, have been around for approximately 10,000 generations, and the human genus has been around for more than 100,000 generations. For all but the last 600 generations, our ancestors were hunter-gatherers. Accordingly, the bodies we inherited are still mostly adapted to a hunter-gatherer way of life, which includes plentiful exercise, and a diet rich in protein and fiber, but low in saturated fat and simple sugars.

Today’s well-fed children may grow taller than a typical hunter-gatherer, and they have a much lower chance of dying young. But as standards of living rise throughout the world, so do obesity rates and related illnesses that are virtually unknown among hunter-gatherers such as adult-onset diabetes, coronary heart disease and cancer.

The optimists among us hope that our ever inventive minds will eventually devise new solutions to these challenges just as we have the power to conquer hunger, polio, and the need to do physical labor. I hope they are right, but I suspect that human cultural capabilities are nowhere near as powerful as millions of years of natural selection. Future progress for the human body -- that is, gauged by an economic lens -- may require that we eat and exercise more like the hunter-gatherers we evolved to be.

The Question the Experts Debated that Prompted this Response: If human bodies become taller, bigger and longer-living -- is that progress?

-----------------------

Louis and Mary Leaky, archaeologists and anthropologists, excavated the remains of early humans in the Great Rift Valley in East Africa. Their discoveries and subsequent discoveries strongly suggest that human life evolved in Africa, that Africa is the birthplace of humanity. And that early humans eventually migrated out of Africa to populate the Earth.

YBP means Years before Present

................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download