World History:
Connections to Today
CHAPTER 1
Toward Civilization (Prehistory – 3000
B.C.)
Copyright, 2001 © Prentice Hall
CHAPTER 1
Toward Civilization (Prehistory – 3000 B.C.)
SECTION 1
Understanding Our Past
SECTION 2
The Dawn of History
SECTION 3
Beginnings of Civilization
Chapter 1
SECTION 1
Understanding Our Past
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Archaeologists learn about the human past by studying artifacts, or
objects made by people, such as tools, weapons, pottery, clothing,
and jewelry.
Historians reconstruct the past by studying written evidence such as
letters or tax records and visual evidence such as photographs or
films.
Geography, the study of people and their environments, is key to
understanding history. Geographers study five major themes:
(1) location where a place is on the surface of the Earth
(2) place physical and human characteristics of a location
(3) interaction how people have shaped and been shaped by the places
where they lived
(4) movement movement of people, goods, and ideas
(5) region places with similar unifying physical, economic, or cultural
features
Chapter 1, Section 1
SECTION 2
The Dawn of History
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During the earliest period of human history, the Old Stone Age,
people made tools, learned to build fires, and developed spoken
languages.
About 11,000 years ago, during the New Stone Age, humans
learned to farm, a development that transformed the way people
lived.
By about 5,000 years ago, the advances made by early farming
communities led to the rise of civilizations.
Chapter 1, Section 2
SECTION 3
Beginnings of Civilization
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Historians identify eight basic features common to most early
civilizations: cities, well-organized central governments, complex
religions, job specialization, social classes, arts and architecture,
public works, and writing.
Cities, the central feature of civilization, first rose in river valleys in
the Middle East, Africa, and Asia, where conditions favored farming
and a surplus of food could be grown.
In the Americas, two major civilizations emerged in the highlands of
Mexico and Peru.
Chapter 1, Section 3