AP World History: World Regions – The Big Picture View
AP World History: World Regions – A Closer Look
Robert W. Strayer
Ways of the World: A Brief Global
History with Sources
Second Edition
Chapter 1
First Peoples, First Farmers: Most of History in a
Single Chapter, to 4000 B.C.E.
Copyright © 2013 by Bedford/St. Martin’s
Prehistory refers to the period before writing,
while history refers to the era after the
invention of writing enabled human
communities to record and store information.
Australopithecus
•“The Southern Ape” but not an ape, a
hominid
•Appeared in east Africa about 4-1 million
years ago
The modern
•Walked upright on two legs; well- adult human
brain
weighs about 3
developed hands
pounds (1,3001,400 g
•Stone tools; fire later
•Short, hairy and limited intelligence
•About 3 feet tall, 25-55 pounds
•Brain size was 500 cubic centimeters
•November 1974
•Hadar, Ethiopia
•25-30 years old
•3.5 feet tall
•About 55 pounds
•One of the most
complete and bestpreserved skeletons of
any early human ancestor
•Skull about the size of a
grapefruit
•Walked upright
•3.2 million years ago
Homo erectus
•“upright walking human”
•2.5 million to 200,000 years ago
•East Africa
•Large brain (1000cc); sophisticated tools
•Fire
•Developed language skills in wellcoordinated hunts of large animals
•Migrated to Asia and Europe; established
throughout by 200,000 years ago
Homo sapiens
•“Consciously thinking human”
•Evolved as early as 200,000 years ago
•Brain with large frontal regions for conscious
and reflective thought
•Spread throughout Eurasia beginning more
than one hundred thousand years ago
•Ice age land bridges enabled them to populate
other continents
•Used knives, spears, bows, and arrows
•Brought pressure on other species
I. Out of Africa to the Ends of the Earth:
First Migrations
 Stone age is subdivided into the Paleolithic age (old stone age to 10,000
years ago)
 Neolithic Age (New Stone Age)
 Stone tools are developed in the Paleolithic Age
A. Into Eurasia
1.
2.
3.
4.
Migrations: 45,000–20,000 years ago
New hunting tools
Cave paintings
Venus figurines
B. Into Australia
1. Migrations by boats as early as 60,000 years ago
2. Dreamtime
Chauvet Cave
On December 18, 1994, this cave in southern France was discovered by JeanMarie Chauvet, a French official. It contains the oldest and best preserved
prehistoric cave paintings; more than three hundred paintings were found of
animals that inhabited the Stone Age world, including panthers, cave bears,
and mammoths. This black-painted panel in the Chauvet Cave shows horses,
rhinoceroses, and wild oxen. (Jean Clottes/Ministere de la Culture)
Fossilized footprints
Fossilized footprints
Archaeologist Mary Leakey
(shown at top of photo) found
these remarkable footprints of a
hominid adult and child at Laetoli,
Tanzania. The pair had walked
through fresh volcanic ash that
solidified after being buried by a
new volcanic eruption. Dated at
3.5 million years old, the
footprints are the oldest evidence
of bipedalism yet found.
(SPL/Photo Researchers, Inc.)
Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
I. Out of Africa to the Ends of the Earth:
First Migrations
C. Into the Americas
1.
2.
3.
4.
Bering Strait migrations: 30,000–15,000 years ago
Clovis culture
Large animal extinctions
Diversification of lifestyles
D. Into the Pacific
1. Waterborne migrations 3,500–1,000 years ago
2. Intentional colonization of new lands
3. Human environmental impacts
Ice Sheets and Land Bridges
HW - Human Migration Annotated Timeline
II. The Ways We Were
A. The First Human Societies (Hunting and Gathering Peoples)
1. Small populations with low density
a. Lived in small bands, about thirty to fifty members in each group
2. Egalitarian societies
a. believing in the principle that all people are equal and deserve equal rights
and opportunities
3. Widespread violence
B. Economy and the Environment
1. The “original affluent society?”
2. Altering the environment
a. Some permanent Paleolithic settlements, if area rich in resources
» Natufians in eastern Mediterranean
» Jomon in central Japan
» Chinook in Pacific northwest area of North America
C. The realm of the Spirit
1. Ceremonial space
2. Cyclical view of time
1. Describe this
statue. What
features stand
out, and what
features are
missing?
2. Why do you
think the artist
decided to
shape the
statue in this
way?
3. What might this
statue tell us
about women
and Paleolithic
communities?
Page 23 – Visual Source
1. The statue represents a female
figure. It is made of a porous
stone, has a yellow tint, and is
quite small, measuring only 4 ½
inches. While the breasts, upper
thighs, and abdomen are large
and pronounced, there are no
facial features visible. Instead, the
head seems covered in what
might represent braided hair. The
arms are barely visible and seem
to be resting on top of the breasts.
2. While it is difficult to say with any
certainty what the motivations of
the artist were, she or he wanted
a symbol that was easily
transportable. The exaggerated
female body parts suggest that
this statue could have been a
fertility symbol or a celebration of
the role of women as the bearers
of new life.
3. This statue required considerable
time and skill to create, and the
surplus of both is a sign of modest
comfort in this Paleolithic
community. Furthermore, as the
only lasting form of visual
representation available in that
time period, this statue probably
reflected not just a practical
appreciation of women’s role for
the procreation and prosperity of
the community but a spiritual
value as well.
II. The Ways We Were
D. Settling Down: The Great Transition
1.
2.
3.
4.
New tools and collecting wild grains
Climate change and permanent communities
Göbekli Tepe: “The First Temple”
Settlements make greater demands on environment
III. Breakthrough to Agriculture
A. Common Patterns
1.
2.
3.
4.
Separate, independent, and almost simultaneous
Climate change
Gender patterns
A response to population growth
Pages 28-29
III. Breakthrough to Agriculture
B. Variations
1.
2.
3.
4.
Local plants and animals determined path to agriculture
Fertile Crescent first with a quick, 500-year transition
Multiple sites in Africa
Potatoes and maize but few animals in the Americas
IV. The Globalization of Agriculture
A. Triumph and Resistance
1. Diffusion and migration
2. Resistance
3. End of old ways of life
IV. The Globalization of Agriculture
B. The Culture of Agriculture
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Dramatic population increase
Increased human impact on the environment
Negative health impacts
Technological innovations
Alcohol!
V. Social Variation in the Age of
Agriculture
A. Pastoral Societies
1.
2.
3.
4.
Environmental factors
Milk, meat, and blood
Mobility
Conflict with settled communities
B. Agriculture Village Societies
1. Social equality
2. Gender equity
3. Kinship ties and role of elders
V. Social Variation in the Age of
Agriculture
C. Chiefdoms – lead by chiefs that had inherited positions of
power and privilege
1. Power came not from physical force or violence but by giving
gifts, performing religious and political rituals, and personal
charisma.
2. Religious and secular authority
a. Chiefs combined the sacred and the political.
3. Collection and redistribution of tribute
a. Chiefs collected food and manufactured items from the
commoners and redistributed them to warriors.
VI. Reflections
A. “Progress?”
- Some might point to these various changes as a sign of life
getting better.
B. Paleolithic values
- Other might find aspects of early human life as a model or
lesson for contemporary society.
C. Objectivity
- Condemning or romanticizing a historical era violates the
historian’s need to be objective.