Professor Brumley
AP World History
Chapters 1 Study questions:
Introduction: Pages 2-3:
1. What does “Before History” mean?
2. How do researchers learn to understand pre written history?
3. How long have humans (Homo sapiens) existed?
4. During most (95%) of that time, how did we get our food?
How did we travel?
How were we socially organized?
Where did we travel to?
5. What did we invent, in order to adapt to challenges of different geographical settings?
6. What happened to human patterns of living about 10,000 years ago?
7. What do historians call the period of the advent of farming and the domestication of animals.
8. What were the benefits of farming to the development of human society?
9. By what name do historians call societies based on cities and their surrounding farmlands.
10. What are the beginning and ending dates of Early Complex Societies?
11. By 600 B.C.E., all major types of political organization have developed for the first time. Name them.
12. What do we call these foundational civilizations? Give specific examples and their locations.
13. Why did people invent recordkeeping?
14. What is the difference between human forager and urbans-based societies that historians think led
to the creation of social classes?
15. How did culture play a significant role in unifying different peoples in these early states?
16. What are some of the early religions that appeared during this era?
17. What were some of the ways that different early societies interacted with one another?
18. What were the effects of these interactions? Cite specific examples.
19. What does your text call this early period in human history?
AP World History Study Guide: pages 5 – 22: Answer the following questions as you read:
Eyewitness:
1. When and where did archaeologists discover “Lucy”?
2. What was Lucy? Describe.
3. Why was Lucy such an important discovery? Describe.
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The Evolution of Homo sapiens:
4. What similarities do human beings share with large apes? List them.
5. What differences make us distinctive from other primate species? What benefit did each of these
differences give us?
6. What places have given up the richest finds in early human ancestors and how old are some of these
fossil remains?
7. What genus did these remains probably belong to? Where did this genus flourish? In what time
period did this genus flourish?
8. How did Australopithecus compare with modern humans? How did this hominid compare with other
ape species? Describe the differences.
9. What did the intelligence of australopithecines allow them to do?
10. What new hominid appeared about one million years ago? Describe.
11. What new skills did this new hominid have that australopithecines did not? List.
12. Describe how Homo erectus groups behaved.
13. How did Homo erectus get control over their natural environment? What new development did
these abilities cause?
14. Who were the next group of proto-humans to develop on earth and when do historians date their
arrival? Describe them.
15. Which physical feature provided Homo sapiens with survival advantage? Why?
16. What physiological traits did Homo sapiens develop about 150,000 years ago and what development
did it lead to?
17. What was the benefit of this new development?
18. When and where did Homo sapiens begin to spread around the world, and who did they encounter
when they went there?
19. Why were Homo sapiens able to move beyond temperate zones into colder climates?
20. Between 60,000 and 15,000 years ago, Homo sapiens extended their migration and the range of
human population. What environmental event facilitated this new migration? Where did they go?
21. What did Homo sapiens intellectual abilities enable them to do in their natural environment that
favored survival?
22. What have archaeologists discovered that is evidence of Homo sapiens’ increasing control over their
environment? List and describe.
23. What was an inadvertent consequence for other species of Homo sapiens’ intelligence and toolmaking?
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Sources from the Past: Richard Leakey on the Nature of Homo sapiens sapiens:
1. Why does Leakey consider our forelimbs the most interesting part of our development? Describe.
2. What purpose does Leakey say communication has for all animal life? Cite his examples.
3. According to Leakey, how is human communication different?
4. Finally, what other human characteristics does Leakey cite that sets us apart from any other species
and of what does he believe this is evidence?
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Paleolithic Society:
24. What are the principal characteristics of Paleolithic society?
25. How do archaeologists draw inferences about Paleolithic economy and society?
26. Why did the Paleolithic hunting and gathering economy prevent individuals from accumulating
private property and therefore, basing social distinctions on wealth?
27. What was the gender equality/inequality of Paleolithic society? Why?
28. What effect did Paleolithic hunter-gatherer economies have on group size? Why?
29. Was Paleolithic hunting and gathering random or systematic? Describe each.
30. In late-Paleolithic time, a few nomadic peoples abandoned their nomadic lifestyle to settle into
permanent communities. What resources would have been necessary for this to occur in a preagricultural era?
31. Name and describe examples of early Paleolithic settlements. Make sure to list their dates.
32. For what Paleolithic group do we have the first evidence of reflective thought? Where and when
were these people found?
33. For how long and from what dates did Neanderthal and homo sapaiens co-exist?
34. Which group showed the first development of funerary rites? Describe where and what this was?
35. Of what modern human characteristic is this an indication?
36. Which species of proto-human was more intellectually inventive? Why? Describe..
37. 200.000 year ago Homo sapiens produced what item? 140,000 year ago was addition to their diet
did Homo sapiens make? What development in human interaction took place during that time?
38. 110,000 years ago Homo sapiens began doing what activity to enrich their diet?
39. 100,000 year ago, they began making what two new tools? What hunting technology did Homo
sapiens develop right after this period?
40. 50 – 40,000 year ago Homo sapiens began making and producing what artistic products?
41. 10.000 years ago, what hunting tool did they develop? What were its effects?
42. What do archaeologists view as the most impressive artistic creations of early Homo sapiens?
Describe this item.
43. What do archaeologists consider the most dramatic examples of prehistoric art? Describe them.
44. What evidence and analysis do scholars study to explain why these artistic endeavors occurred?
45. How were the cave paintings produced?
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Thinking about Traditions: page 14:
“In what ways did intelligence and language enable early Homo sapiens to create traditions of reflection
about the relationship between human beings and the natural world?
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Neolithic era and transition to Agriculture
46. What do archaeologists understand the term ‘Neolithic era’ to mean? To what does it refer?
47. When did agriculture become environmentally possible?
48. Who do scholars believe first began systematic care of plants? Describe.
49. How did the accessing of meat change during this period?
50. Where and when does our earliest evidence of agricultural activity occur?
51. Read the entire question before taking notes: Draw a graph:
Between 9000-7000 B.C.E., which group and where did the next evidence of domestication and
agriculture take place? Betwee8000-6000 B.C.E. which next group began cultivation and
pastoralism? What did they grow/raise? From 6500 B.C.E. which group began growing rice?
After 5500 B.C.E. what group in this area grew what other product? 6000 B.C.E. who came next
and what did they raise? Finally, from at least 3000 B.C.E. where did agriculture next show up?
Who grew what and when in the western hemisphere?
52. What was the earliest known method of cultivation? Describe.
53. How specifically did slash and burn agriculture spread farming? What effect did this have on
accessibility of food choice?
54. Flow chart the spread of agricultural crops from on area to another.
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Thinking about Encounters:
55. Read and answer the accompanying questions: “In what ways did early human migrations help
explain the early spread of agriculture?”
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56. What transformational social and cultural changes came in the wake of agriculture?
57. What city is known as one of the earliest consequences of social organization resulting from the
agricultural economy? Where is it located? When did it come into existence?
58. Draw a concept map to itemize the characteristics of Jericho.
59. What factor encouraged the specialization of labor?
60. What and where is the city that most clearly demonstrated to archaeologists the rapid development
of specialization of labor? Give the dates of its existence.
61. Draw a concept map of the characteristics of Catal Huyuk.
62. Name three early craft industries from neolithic times.
63. Which was the earliest of the three craft industries? Why did this craft only develop in the Neolithic
era, and not the Paleolithic? What date is given for its beginning?
64. What was the earliest metal that humans worked? When did humans first start heating it to extract
it from other ores? When did they smelt it to a degree where it could be used in molds?
65. What were the consequences of the development of copper metallurgy?
66. Fragments of textiles date its beginning to what time period? Draw a flow chart of the development
of textile production.
67. What two pre-conditions led to the first accumulation of wealth? What enhanced the significance of
accumulated wealth?
68. What conditions led to the development of social classes?
69. Give examples of Neolithic applied science.
70. Describe the development of Neolithic religion, using a concept map.
71. What three factors gave rise to a new form of social organization – the city?
72. What distinguished early cities from the Neolithic villages and towns that preceded them? Create a
two-column compare and contrast chart to who the information.