- Origin modern man between 6 and 7 million years ago
Study of jaws and teeth: herbivores
Molars for grinding grains and plants
-2 major developments:
- human brain size tripled bet. 4 and 1 million y/a
- human stood upright (use of weapons)
-1st meat appreciated: small mammals (lizards, tortoises)
- hunter-gatherers (Gender labor differentiation)
- omnivore
- 1 million y/a homos sapiens
- 1.6 millions y/a invention of tools (paleolithic)
- 100 000 BCE language was developed
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DATE (years ago) EVENT
6Š7 million Oldest fossils
4Š1 million Scientists believe human brain size
tripled
1.9Š1.6 million Scientists believe humans invented
tools (homo habilis)
1.5 millionŠ500,000 ŅUpright manÓŠ homo erectus
1 millionŠ500,000 Scientists believe humans learned to
use fire
1 millionŠ100,000 Scientists believe Homo sapiens,
h
human
ancestor,
t
appeared
d
120,000Š60,000 Middens show that humans ate
shellfish
100,000 Scientists believe humans developed
language
DATE (b.c.)
EVENT
10,000 b.c. Agricultural Revolution; pots invented
6000 b.c. Earliest Chinese civilization, in Ban Po
6000 b.c. People from Middle East migrate to
India
Prehistoric Europe
1-2 Horses. Cave painting. c. 28 000 BC.
Chauvet Cave, France
1-2 Rhinoceroses, Chauvet Cave
recess of the Rhinoceroses
2
Map of the Lascaux Caves
Lascaux Main gallery or axial gallery
Charcoal, ochre, iron oxide
vegetal and plant pigment
10 meters equals 30 feet
Axial Gallery, Lascaux. 15 000 – 10 000 B.C. France
Neolithic Axe 4000 BC
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bu5eqBg5Lr4
3
Lascaux, Bull and Horses
Lascaux, Bull
Chinese Horse. Lascaux Cave. Dordogne, France ca. 15,000-13,000 BCE.
With weapons, traps or insects
Rhinoceros, Wounded Man and Bison. Lascaux Cave
Dordogne, France ca. 15,000-13,000 BCE
First narrative.
427 animals with 17 species
4
Bison. Cave painting. c. 15 000 – 10 000 BC
Altamira, Spain
Hand stencils, Chauvet Cave
1-2 Wounded Bison. Cave painting.
c. 15 000 – 10 000 B. C.
Altamira, Spain
Hand prints, Chauvet Cave
1-12 Horse, from Vogelherd cave. c. 28 000 BC
Bison from La Madeleine
c. 15000 – 10000 BC
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“Venus” of Willendorf
c. 25 000 – 20 000 B.C.
Limestone, height 4 3/8”
Vienna
1908
Carved in the round
Traces of ochre
“Venus” of Willendorf, back
Head profile
Venus Capitoline
6
Botticelli, Venus, 16th century
7
Neolithic plastered skull,
from Jericho. c. 7000 B. C.
Jordan
Displayed above ground
1-18 Early Neolithic wall and tower,
Jericho, Jordan. c. 7000 B.C.
Domestication of animals and plants, first portraiture
Agricultural Revolution
-domestication sheep, goats and then pigs (7000 BCE Jericho)
- barley and wheat: originally wild grasses 30000 varieties
-social inequalities
-after domestication came farming
The domestication of plants and nonhuman animals 10000 years ago was “probably the single gre
Sidney Mintz, anthropologist (1989)
Southwest on Konya
alluvial plain (forest with oak, juniper trees,
wild pistachio, almond and apple trees)
trade: obsidian from Anatolia (tools, with Syria
Palestine, Jordan and Cyprus)
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Catal Hüyük South excavation
Neolithic town
Dweling mud bricks
Taos Pueblo, New Mexico
Drying coffee beans on the roof
Catal Huyuk, Turkey
Neolithic town
1,000 before Jericho
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Animal Hunt. Restoration of Main Room, Shrine A.III.1. Çatal Hüyük
(after Mellaart) ca. 6000 BCE. Size: 27 x 65" (68.5 x 165 cm)
Hackberry Tree: dry but sweet sugary constitency
Dolmen, Carnac (Brittany), France. c. 1500 B.C.
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Menhir alignments at Ménec, Carnac, France ca. 4250-3750 BCE.
Menhirs, Carnac (Brittany) France
Stonehenge, Salisbury Plain (Witshire), England.
c. 2000 B.C. Diameter of circle 97’ (29,6m)
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1-25 Stonehenge (aerial view), Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire, England ca. 2100 BCE.
45 – 50 ton megaliths Diameter of circle 97’ (29,6m)
Stonehenge at night
Questions of the Lecture
What are the main explanations about the significance of Prehistoric cave paitings
What are some scientific theories about the origins of humans and how they developed?
Why did the Agricultural Revolution occur when and where it did?
What are some of the first foods that were deliberately planted?
Why did humans start domesticating animals? Which animals?
Wh and
When
d where
h
was th
the rise
i off cities
iti and
d ttrade?
d ?
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