Building Blocks of Prehistory:
Chapter of “My Story of the World”
Goal: Retell the story of where humans first “began,” how they
survived, and how changes in weather affected how early
humans lived.
Read both texts twice: once for meaning; and a second time to
write meaningful sentences.
Read pages 30-35; 38-41 in Our World. Read pages 4-9 in A
Little History of the World:
Africa:
Great Rift Valley:
Prehistoric:
Stone Age:
Paleolithic:
Hunter-Gatherer:
Prey:
Stone tools:
Ice Age:
Neanderthal:
Bronze Age:
Write a mini-chapter on prehistory made up two to five paragraphs.
Follow the Goal at the top.
Name: ______________
Date: _______________
Fill-in-the-Blank “Ladder” for Mini-Chapter on Prehistory for “My
Story of History”
Directions: Use this worksheet to help you get used to the process of
researching and writing your own mini-chapter.
First, read through the below fill-in-the-blank mini-chapter.
Second, read pages 5 through 9 in A Little History of the World, and
read pages 30 through 35, and pages 38 through 41 in Our World.
Third, use the same pages in both books to write sentences with/about
the assigned words. These are sentences that are: a) related to the
subject b) use information from the books c) satisfy the goal of the
mini-chapter.
Last, use information from the fill-in-the-blank sentences to construct
your own mini-chapter. Use all or none of the fill-in-the-blank
sentences. Add your own. Just make sure that it makes sense.
Goal: Retell the story of where humans first “began,” how they
survived, and how changes in weather affected how early humans
lived.
Sentences:
According to scientists, human beings started living in Africa about 2
million years ago. The old human bones found in Africa were found
in an area in Tanzania called the Great Rift Vally. Prehistory is the
time that comes before writing, when there were no written records
and dates. The period of prehistory is called the Stone Age, because
during this time people flaked and sharpened sticks and stones in
order to make or invent knives.
The Old Stone Age is also called Paleolithic Era. This time
period lasted from about 70,000 to about 12,000 years ago. Prehistoric
humans were called hunter gatherers, because they gathered plants
and vegetables and because they hunted animals. The animals hunted
by hunter-gatherers are called their prey. These animals were
important, because they allowed early humans to survive.
Stone tools were made by a process called flaking, during which
prehistoric hunters chipped pieces of stone to give them a sharp edge.
Life during the Ice Age was hard for prehistoric people,
because of climatic changes. The temperature was very cold; the
winters were long and freezing; and snow was very deep.
Some human ancestors before modern humans were named
Neanderthal, because their bones have been discovered in the Neander
valley in Germany. They had a thick, low forehead.
About 6,000 years ago, people discovered that could use mix
different types of metal to make tools and weapons and armor and
jewelry.
Name: Lindsay and Jennifer
Date: 11/4/11
Directions for Mini-Chapter on Early Agriculture for
"My Story of History"
.
Directions: Use this worksheet to help you research
and write your own mini-chapter.
First, read pages 44 – 49 in Our World for
comprehension. Take no notes at first.
Second, reread those pages to take notes and to
answer the below questions.
Third, use your answers to construct your own minichapter. Remember, the goal is to answer the below
question.
Goal: Tell the story of how, after the end of the third
(and most recent) Ice Age, humans changed how
they lived. Describe/explain the steps to civilization.
Begin with the end of the last Ice Age and changes in
the diet of hunter-gatherers; explain the middle
stages with farming; end your description with the
birth of civilization in towns and village.
If you answer each question by echoing it, you will
have a first draft of your mini-essay!
Questions to Answer (Be sure to use the boldfaced
words in your mini-essay)
The last Ice Age ended about 12,000 years ago. The
Earth’s climate change when the ice age ended. It
affect animal and plant life because it increased fast
and plant life and Earth’s climate got warmer and
the animals were not prepared and used to the big
change. The diet of food eaten of early humans
changed because the animal’s populations
increased, and so they ate wild grains and smaller
animals. Human beings settle in once place and did
not hunt or gather as frequently, or follow herds of
animals because farming provides a way for people
could live in a large group. Agriculture is the raising
of crops and animals for human use. We might use it
to an advantage to settle in one place and start
farming is that hunting is still easier then farming
and that farming has a steadier food supply.
Domestication means, to train something to be
useful to people. It benefits humans by getting food
and growing vegetables and fruit and wheat.
Agriculture creates surplus. Surplus is an extra
supply of something, such as crops, that is not
needed immediately. It is stored until use. It would
allow people to specialize by having more food than
a family needed thought out a year. Specialization is
to spend most of one's time doing one kind of job,
making the person really good at doing that one or
two things. Humans would travel to and even settle
in towns and villages because it attracted people
from other areas for trade of products, the other
products from to each cite had a different designs on
it. Civilization is civilization is a culture that has
developed systems of specialization, religion,
learning, and government. It means that the people
traveled to a nearby volcano to gather black stones.
In one of the earliest cities, Catalo Hayek, summarize
what plants and animals the residents domesticated
and had a surplus of, and say what skilled crafts they
specialized in. What good or products did they
create?
Name: Lindsay Palmaffy and Jennifer Sabatino
Date: October 17, 2011
Humanities
6-B
Fill-in-the-Blank Mini-Chapter on Ancient Mesopotamia
Directions: Read pages 54-57, 58-63, and 66 through 71 in Our
World, and pages 17-25 in A Little History of the World. Then,
read through the below text. After that, find the correct word from
the texts that belongs in each blank.
Mesopotamia is one of the world’s first civilizations. The
word
“Mesopotamia” means Land Between the Rivers in Greek. The
rivers that formed this area, which is called the Asher Crescent, are
the Tigris and the Euphrates.
Southern Mesopotamia also goes by the name Sumer. This
region was made up not of countries or counties, but of city-states,
which is a powerful self-governing that controls the city-states
around it. Three such city-states were Ur, Uruk, and Eridu.
The Mesopotamians created one of the world’s first written
languages. It is called cuneiform. This was made by scratching on
a wet, clay tablet. It has about 500 symbols or pictures writing that
look like the thing they describe. Usually boys went to school to
learn to read, science, and do mathematics. After they left school,
they became a scribe or official writer. They wrote laws, legends,
songs, and records. The world’s first set of written code of laws,
called the cuneiform were written in this language.
The ancient Mesopotamians believed in many gods. This is
called
polytheism. Most of their gods were nature gods. Ki was the god
for a good earth; Ishkur was the god of rain, and Enki was the
god of water. The Mesopotamians built large Step-temples called
ziggurat on which they worshipped their gods.
Lindsay Palmaffy and Jennifer
sabatino
Humanities
October 20, 2011
Mr. Baskin
Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt had an Effective Civilization, because they had good
geography, technology, and economy. They also had a writing
system, government, laws, and society. In addition, they had religion, art, and
architecture.
Egypt is located in northern Africa. The Nile River is the longest river in
the world. It flows northward through Egypt. The Nile empties into the
Mediterranean Sea. The Nile River helped people to get crop. The river helped
people to get food because the river supplied the Egyptians with waters that they
could grow crops.
Irrigation was a very important part of the economy in Ancient Egypt.
Irrigation is a system that allows you to bring water to farmland through a system
of pipes or sea. Irrigation helped the people build an economy or make a living.
The type of government that the Ancient Egyptians had was called a
monarchy. A monarch is a form of government ruled by one ruler In Ancient
Egypt the name of the ruler was Menes. His job was to build unity in the country.
In the Ancient Egypt the system of writing they used was called
hieroglyphics this used about 800 picture signs, or hieroglyphs. Each sign or
symbol could stand for an object a sound, or a letter In Egyptian society the role,
or job of scribes was writing letters, records, and contracts.
There were four ranks in the Egyptian “social pyramid”. The first and top
rank in the pyramid was the king or queen. The next and second parts of the
pyramid are the priests and members of the soldiers. After the second group,
comes the third. The third group includes merchants and artisans and farmers the
last and final part of the pyramid includes the enslaved people.
The Egyptians had a polytheism religion. This means that they believed in
many gods. The head god of their religion was Ra—the sun god.
Pyramids were huge ancient structures in Ancient Egypt. The purpose, or
function, of a pyramid was religious. The purpose was to be a burial ground for
the pharaohs and their families in when they died.
Name: Jennifer Sabatino
Directions: Highlight in your mini-chapter the information that you
wrote in each blank. This will enable your teacher to spot-check
the accuracy of your mini-chapter.
The civilization of ancient Greece lay on Attica in and
peninsulas that stick into the Mediterranean Sea. A peninsula is a
Area of land almost entirely surrounded by water. Small Islands
throughout the area give protection for ships that dock there. Two
of the large peninsulas on the Greek mainland are Peloponnesus
and the Phoenicia. The city-state of Sparta, Athens’ enemy, was on
the large peninsula named the Peloponnesus. Crete and Rhodes
are two large Greek islands in the Aegean Sea. The civilization of
Minoa, named after King Minos, grew up on the island of
Crete. And the early Greek civilization of Mycenae grew on the
mainland of Greece.
Greece was the most powerful city-state on Attica. This was where
democracy was born. This is the form of government in which the
people control their government by voting. This form of
government was first started by Solon. Later, during the Golden
Age of Athens, the statesman Pericles expanded Athens’
democracy. In Athens, the citizens would gather in the assemblyto
vote on laws. Pericles was responsible for building the Parthenon,
which is a temple to the goddess Athena on top of the
Parthenon. Athena was the goddess of war and wisdom. The
Acropolis was a high hill in the center of the city where citizens
could go for protection when enemies attacked the city.
The city of Athens itself was named after the goddess
Athena. The Greeks worshipped many other gods, including
Dionysus—god of wine—and Zeus—the chief god, He is father of
Athena. Every four years the Greeks would have the Olympia
Games near Mt. Olympus, in order to entertain and please the gods
and goddesses
Name: Jennifer Sabatino and Lindsay Palmaffy
Humanities
Date: 10/24/11
6-C
Rome Mini-Chapter
Please read in Our World pages 218-221, 222-225, 232235, and 238. No reading in A Little History of the
World.
The ancient civilization of Rome was founded on the
Italian peninsula. The city was founded on the Latium Plain.
The Tiber River flows through the center of the city.
According to mythology, twin brothers named Romulus and
Remus founded Rome. After Rome’s last king, whose name
was Tarquinius was overthrown, Rome became a republic,
which is a government in which the people elected
representatives to speak for them and pass laws. (The
U.S.A. has this form of government.)
Rome was divided up into two social groups: plebeians and
patricians. Plebeians are lower class people who work for
patricians, who are rich land-owners. The patricians were not
always fair towards the plebeians. So, the plebeians protested and
got the patricians to publish Rome’s first set of tables. These were
called The Twelve Tables.
The most powerful branch of Rome’s government was the
Senate. It was made up of patricians. It controlled law-making and
how money was spent in Rome. The tribunes were elected by the
plebeians from the citizen assembly. They asked the snateto pass
laws for the plebeians. There were two powerful consuls. One was
head of the army and one was a chief judge.
Rome wanted to be the unquestioned leader of the entire
Mediterranean region. So they went to war with the civilization of
Carthage over who would control the island of Sicily. These wars
were called the Punic War.
Julius Caesar was Rome’s first dictator, which is an allpowerful ruler. Julius Caesar was from a wealthy patrician family,
and he had built up his power as a Senator, Consul, and later as
military governor of Gaul. After Julius Caesar was stabbed to
death in the Senate, his adopted stepson, named Octavian Caesar,
became emperor. Rome grew in power and in the size of the area
that it controlled. The time when Augustus Caesar ruled was called
the Pax Romana, which means Roman peace. To pay for its huge
building projects, Rome collected tax money from those it had
conquered. It counted the numbers of people whom it had
conquered; they called this count a census. Roman soldiers built
an immense network of the empire’s road. Water was carried to
new Roman cities on raised water bridges called aqueduct. Roman
citizens enjoyed bloody entertainment in Rome’s immense,
coliseum stadium which is where gladiators fought to the death.
Name: Jennifer Sabatino
Date: 11/12/11
Humanities
6-C
Directions for the middle Ages mini-chapter of “My
Story of the World.”
Read in Our World, from pages 336-355. (Skip the
“workbook” matter between chapters.)
Read in A Little History of the World page 112, and from
middle of page 124 through 129; read also 137-143, 157-158.
“My Story of the World;” Middle Ages Mini-Chapter
The approximate dates of the Middle Ages are from A.D
500 to 1400. Charles Martel was a Frankish leader whose
grandson, named Charlemagne, lead the Franks and who spread
Roman Christianity throughout Europe. Charlemagne (it means
“Charles the Great”) conquered many lands, including present-day
France, Germany, and Italy. The Pope Leo the III crowned
Charlemagne as the Holy Roman Emperor because Charlemagne
had spread Roman Christianity throughout the territory that had
previously been controlled by the Roman Empire.
The form of government in the Middle Ages was called
feudalism. This was a way to keep Peace in Europe. It was a
system of governing based on fief of land and support to a
landowner. In the feudal system a lord gave land to the nobles,
who in turn gave loyalty to the Vassals. The vassal received an
area of land called fiefs in exchange for his loyalty to the lord. The
“pledge of allegiance” made by a vassal was called an oath of
loyalty. The vassal promised to protect the lord, if asked, and to act
as a soldier. When a vassal wore armor on horseback in defense of
his lord, they were called knights. They followed a Code of
Chivalry. Knights had to know music and poetry, have good
manners, and protect the church.
A Serf was a person who was bound to work on a noble’s
farmland. Serfs had to pay their lord taxes in the form of crops or
produce. A manor is a settlement that had a church, farmland, a
mill on it, and a central manor house.
During the Middle Ages, a tribe from northern called the
sea raiders tried to exert their control over Europe. One such tribe,
named the Vikings traveled throughout Europe. They terrified
people, and stole from towns and burning them. They were also
great explorers who settled in Iceland, Greenland, and even in
North America.
In 1066, William the Conqueror crossed the English
Channel from the north coast of France. He defeated the Saxon
king of England at Hastings, who was named Harold. William
made himself King of England. William brought elements of the
French culture to England and established a strong government.
The English king of England, King John, was forced by
his vassals to sign an important document called the Magna Carta.
This “Great Charter” was important, because it said that King John
could not violate the rights of free men. The Magna Carta said that
the king could not unfairly raise taxes, or make unfair demands of
goods or labor from his citizens.
The primary religion in the Middle Ages was Roman
Catholicism. This religion made its influence felt throughout the
Middle Ages. Monks were people who lived in monasteries and
who dedicated themselves to serving god and to do acts of
kindness and good works. In one room in the monastery, called the
scriptorium, monks copied ancient Latin and Greek texts onto
manuscripts. Women who devoted their lives to serving god were
called nun. They lived in convents.
A Cathedral is/was a huge Christian church. In the Middle Ages,
the religious life of the community centered around cathedrals. The
Crusades was a series of wars that Christians fought to regain
control of the Holy Land including Jerusalem and the surrounding
lands. Crusaders battled with the Muslims, who were then in
control of the Holy Land.