1.
10,000 BC (film)
–
10,000 BC is a 2008 American epic adventure film from Warner Bros. Pictures set in the prehistoric era and it was directed by Roland Emmerich and stars Steven Strait and Camilla Belle. The world premiere was held on February 10,2008 at Sony Center on Potsdamer Platz in Berlin, at about 10,000 BC, a tribe of hunter-gatherers called the Yagahl live in a remote mountain range in the Urals and survive by killing woolly mammoths. The camp is led by a hunter who has proven his bravery by killing a mammoth, the people also strongly venerate an elderly woman, called Old Mother. DLeh, a hunter, while hunting mammoths, manages to kill one. He also wins his companion Evolet in marriage, horse-raiders attack the camp, enslaving Evolet and several others. DLeh and three companions rescue Evolet, but she is recaptured with two of the companions. DLeh and TicTic, the companion, continue on and learn of a prophecy from a tribe they meet. DLeh realizes the prophecy was about him, several tribes agree to form a coalition to pursue the raiders. They find the ship holding Evolet, with no means to follow the ships, they journey through a vast desert, discovering an advanced civilization similar to ancient Egypt, ruled by an enigmatic figure known as The Almighty. TicTic dies from injuries sustained in a fight with the guards before they can raise the alarm, the Almightys priests believe that Evolet is destined to kill The Almighty. DLeh starts a rebellion among the slaves, the Almighty offers Evolet and the other hunters to DLeh in exchange for abandoning his rebellion. DLeh feigns acceptance of the deal but throws a spear at The Almighty, during the ensuing battle, Evolet dies, but is restored by the Old Mother sacrificing her own life. They bid farewell to the tribes and return home with seeds to begin farming. The mammoths in the movie were based on elephants and fossils of mammoths, the sounds made by the sabertooth cat in the movie are based on the vocalization of tigers and lions. Emmerich opened casting sessions in late October 2005, in February 2006, Camilla Belle and Steven Strait were announced to star in the film, with Strait as the mammoth hunter and Belle as his love. Emmerich decided that casting well known actors would distract from the feel of the prehistoric setting. If like, Jake Gyllenhaal turned up in a movie like this, everybody would be, the casting of unknown actors also helped keep the films budget down
2.
10,000 BC (TV show)
–
10,000 BC is a British reality television series that debuted on Channel 5 and MTV on 2 February 2015. The show is a joint commission between the two channels, the social experiment series follows 20 British people from all walks of life as they go back to the conditions of the Stone Age and try to survive two months in the wilderness. The 10,000 BC candidates were prepared and monitored by Klint Janulis, Janulis had spent 14 years in the U. S. military, initially as a Marine and then in the Army Special Forces. The series was set and filmed in the Byalka Hunting Preserve, near Lovech in the foothills of the Balkan Mountains, the contestants were filmed for two months from October 2014. Nine men and eleven women from all over the United Kingdom took part in this series, the other eleven contestants each entered on their own. The oldest tribe member was retired private school PA Caroline Mortimer, the youngest tribe member was the restaurant maître d Alice Harding,20. Five of the twenty participants remained until the eighth week. Twelve chose to leave, three were removed and it was decided by the whole tribe on day one that Steve would be tribe leader. A full cast list was posted online one week prior to the series launch, table key Bold italics indicate Tribe Leader 10,000 BC at Channel5. com
3.
Timeline of human prehistory
–
The Middle Paleolithic is the second subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age as it is understood in Europe, Africa and Asia. The term Middle Stone Age is used as an equivalent or a synonym for the Middle Paleolithic in African archeology, the Middle Paleolithic broadly spanned from 300,000 to 30,000 years ago. There are considerable dating differences between regions, the Middle Paleolithic was succeeded by the Upper Paleolithic subdivision which first began between 50,000 and 40,000 years ago. Activities such as catching fish and hunting large game animals with specialized tools connote increased group-wide cooperation. Both Neandertal and modern human societies took care of the members of their societies during the Middle Paleolithic. Typically, it has assumed that women gathered plants and firewood. Anthropologists such as Tim D. Cannibalism in the Middle Paleolithic may have occurred because of food shortages, around 200,000 BP Middle Paleolithic Stone tool manufacturing spawned a tool-making technique known as the prepared-core technique, that was more elaborate than previous Acheulean techniques. Wallace and Shea split the core artifacts into two different types, formal cores and expedient cores, formal cores are designed to extract the maximum amount from the raw material while expedient cores are more based on function need. This method increased efficiency by permitting the creation of more controlled and this method allowed Middle Paleolithic humans correspondingly to create stone-tipped spears, which were the earliest composite tools, by hafting sharp, pointy stone flakes onto wooden shafts. The use of fire became widespread for the first time in human prehistory during the Middle Paleolithic, some scientists have hypothesized that hominids began cooking food to defrost frozen meat which would help ensure their survival in cold regions
4.
9th millennium BC
–
The 9th millennium BC marks the beginning of the Neolithic period. Agriculture spread throughout the Fertile Crescent and use of pottery became more widespread, larger settlements like Jericho arose along salt and flint trade routes. Northern Eurasia was resettled as the glaciers of the last glacial maximum retreated, world population was at a few million people, likely below 5 million
5.
Mesolithic
–
In archaeology, the Mesolithic is the culture between Paleolithic and Neolithic. The term Epipaleolithic is often used for areas outside northern Europe, Mesolithic has different time spans in different parts of Eurasia. It was originally post-Pleistocene, pre-agricultural material in northwest Europe about 10,000 to 5000 BC, in the archaeology of Northern Europe, for example for archaeological sites in Great Britain, Germany, Scandinavia, Ukraine, and Russia, the term Mesolithic is almost always used. In the archaeology of other areas, the term Epipaleolithic may be preferred by most authors, in the New World, neither term is used. Other authors use the term Mesolithic for a variety of Late Paleolithic cultures subsequent to the end of the last glacial period whether they are transitional towards agriculture or not, conversely, those that are in course of transition toward artificial food production are assigned to the Mesolithic. Therefore, care must be taken in translating Mesolithic as Middle Stone Age, subdivisions of earlier and later were added to the Stone Age by Thomsen and especially his junior colleague and employee Jens Jacob Asmussen Worsaae. John Lubbock kept these divisions in his work Pre-historic Times in 1865 and he saw no need for an intermediate category. When Hodder Westropp introduced the Mesolithic in 1866, as an intermediate between Paleolithic and Neolithic, a storm of controversy immediately arose around it. A British school led by John Evans denied any need for an intermediate, the ages blended together like the colors of a rainbow, he said. A European school led by Louis Laurent Gabriel de Mortillet asserted that there was a gap between the earlier and later, edouard Piette claimed to have filled the gap with his discovery of the Azilian Culture. Knut Stjerna offered an alternative in the Epipaleolithic, a continuation of the use of Paleolithic technology, the start and end dates of the Mesolithic vary by geographical region. Childes view prevails that the term covers the period between the end of the Pleistocene and the start of the Neolithic. If the Mesolithic is more similar to the Paleolithic it is called the Epipaleolithic, the Paleolithic was an age of purely hunting and gathering while in the Neolithic domestication of plants and animals had occurred. Some Mesolithic peoples continued with intensive hunting, others were practising the initial stages of domestication. The type of remains the diagnostic factor, The Mesolithic featured composite devices manufactured with Mode V chipped stone tools. The Paleolithic had utilized Modes I–IV and the Neolithic mainly abandoned the chipped microliths in favor of polished, not chipped, the first period, known as Mesolithic 1, followed the Aurignacian or Levantine Upper Paleolithic periods throughout the Levant. By the end of the Aurignacian, gradual changes took place in stone industries, small stone tools called microliths and retouched bladelets can be found for the first time. The microliths of this period differ greatly from the Aurignacian artifacts
6.
Epipaleolithic
–
Epipaleolithic is a term used for the final Upper Palaeolithic industries occurring at the end of the final glaciation which appear to merge technologically into the Mesolithic. The period is dated from c. 20,000 BP to c. 10,500 BP. The term is used as a synonym of Mesolithic. Inversely, those that are in transitional ways towards artificial production of food are inscribed in the Mesolithic, epipalaeolithic hunter-gatherers, generally nomadic, made relatively advanced tools from small flint or obsidian blades, known as microliths, that were hafted in wooden implements. The Epipaleolithic is best understood when discussing the southern Levant, as the period is well documented due to preservation at the site. Of these animals, it is likely only the equids were migrational
7.
Holocene
–
The Holocene is the geological epoch that began after the Pleistocene at approximately 11,700 years before present. The term Recent has often used as an exact synonym of Holocene. The Holocene is part of the Quaternary period and its name comes from the Ancient Greek words ὅλος and καινός, meaning entirely recent. It has been identified with the current warm period, known as MIS1, given these, a new term, Anthropocene, is specifically proposed and used informally only for the very latest part of modern history involving significant human impact. It is accepted by the International Commission on Stratigraphy that the Holocene started approximately 11,700 years ago, the epoch follows the Pleistocene and the last glacial period. The Holocene can be subdivided into five time intervals, or chronozones, based on climatic fluctuations, Preboreal, Boreal, Atlantic, Subboreal and they find a general correspondence across Eurasia and North America, though the method was once thought to be of no interest. The scheme was defined for Northern Europe, but the changes were claimed to occur more widely. The periods of the include a few of the final pre-Holocene oscillations of the last glacial period. Paleontologists have not defined any faunal stages for the Holocene, if subdivision is necessary, periods of human technological development, such as the Mesolithic, Neolithic, and Bronze Age, are usually used. However, the time periods referenced by these terms vary with the emergence of those technologies in different parts of the world, climatically, the Holocene may be divided evenly into the Hypsithermal and Neoglacial periods, the boundary coincides with the start of the Bronze Age in Europe. According to some scholars, a division, the Anthropocene, has now begun. Continental motions due to plate tectonics are less than a kilometre over a span of only 10,000 years, however, ice melt caused world sea levels to rise about 35 m in the early part of the Holocene. The sea level rise and temporary land depression allowed temporary marine incursions into areas that are now far from the sea, Holocene marine fossils are known, for example, from Vermont and Michigan. Other than higher-latitude temporary marine incursions associated with depression, Holocene fossils are found primarily in lakebed, floodplain. Holocene marine deposits along low-latitude coastlines are rare because the rise in sea levels during the period exceeds any likely tectonic uplift of non-glacial origin, post-glacial rebound in the Scandinavia region resulted in the formation of the Baltic Sea. The region continues to rise, still causing weak earthquakes across Northern Europe, the equivalent event in North America was the rebound of Hudson Bay, as it shrank from its larger, immediate post-glacial Tyrrell Sea phase, to near its present boundaries. Climate has been stable over the Holocene. It appears that this was influenced by the glacial ice remaining in the Northern Hemisphere until the later date
8.
Agriculture
–
Agriculture is the cultivation and breeding of animals, plants and fungi for food, fiber, biofuel, medicinal plants and other products used to sustain and enhance human life. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of human civilization. The study of agriculture is known as agricultural science, the history of agriculture dates back thousands of years, and its development has been driven and defined by greatly different climates, cultures, and technologies. Industrial agriculture based on large-scale monoculture farming has become the dominant agricultural methodology, genetically modified organisms are an increasing component of agriculture, although they are banned in several countries. Agricultural food production and water management are increasingly becoming global issues that are fostering debate on a number of fronts, the major agricultural products can be broadly grouped into foods, fibers, fuels, and raw materials. Specific foods include cereals, vegetables, fruits, oils, meats, fibers include cotton, wool, hemp, silk and flax. Raw materials include lumber and bamboo, other useful materials are also produced by plants, such as resins, dyes, drugs, perfumes, biofuels and ornamental products such as cut flowers and nursery plants. The word agriculture is a late Middle English adaptation of Latin agricultūra, from ager, field, Agriculture usually refers to human activities, although it is also observed in certain species of ant, termite and ambrosia beetle. To practice agriculture means to use resources to produce commodities which maintain life, including food, fiber, forest products, horticultural crops. This definition includes arable farming or agronomy, and horticulture, all terms for the growing of plants, even then, it is acknowledged that there is a large amount of knowledge transfer and overlap between silviculture and agriculture. In traditional farming, the two are often combined even on small landholdings, leading to the term agroforestry, Agriculture began independently in different parts of the globe, and included a diverse range of taxa. At least 11 separate regions of the Old and New World were involved as independent centers of origin, wild grains were collected and eaten from at least 105,000 years ago. Pigs were domesticated in Mesopotamia around 15,000 years ago, rice was domesticated in China between 13,500 and 8,200 years ago, followed by mung, soy and azuki beans. Sheep were domesticated in Mesopotamia between 13,000 and 11,000 years ago. From around 11,500 years ago, the eight Neolithic founder crops, emmer and einkorn wheat, hulled barley, peas, lentils, bitter vetch, chick peas and flax were cultivated in the Levant. Cattle were domesticated from the aurochs in the areas of modern Turkey. In the Andes of South America, the potato was domesticated between 10,000 and 7,000 years ago, along with beans, coca, llamas, alpacas, sugarcane and some root vegetables were domesticated in New Guinea around 9,000 years ago. Sorghum was domesticated in the Sahel region of Africa by 7,000 years ago, cotton was domesticated in Peru by 5,600 years ago, and was independently domesticated in Eurasia at an unknown time
9.
Millet
–
Millets are a group of highly variable small-seeded grasses, widely grown around the world as cereal crops or grains for fodder and human food. Millets are important crops in the tropics of Asia and Africa. The crop is favored due to its productivity and short growing season under dry, millets are indigenous to many parts of the world. The most widely grown millet is pearl millet, which is an important crop in India, Finger millet, proso millet, and foxtail millet are also important crop species. Millets have been important food staples in human history, particularly in Asia and they have been in cultivation in East Asia for the last 10,000 years. Consumption of the minor millets has been practiced since the beginning of the ancient civilizations of the world, generally, the millets are small-grained, annual, warm-weather cereals belonging to grass family. They are highly tolerant of extreme conditions such as drought and are nutritious compared to the major cereals such as rice. They contain low phytic acid and are rich in fiber, iron, calcium. Moreover, these millets release sugar slowly in the blood and also diminish the glucose absorption, major millets are the most widely cultivated species. Eragrostideae tribe, Eleusine coracana, Finger millet - the fourth-most cultivated millet, paniceae tribe, Panicum miliaceum, Proso millet - the third-most cultivated millet. Pennisetum glaucum, Pearl millet - the most cultivated millet, setaria italica, Foxtail millet - the second-most cultivated millet. Jobs tears - of minor importance as a crop, eragrostideae tribe, Eragrostis tef, Teff - often not considered to be a millet. White fonio, Black fonio, Raishan, Polish millet - of minor importance as a crop, Japanese barnyard millet, Indian barnyard millet, Burgu millet, Common barnyard grass. Collectively, the members of this genus are called barnyard grasses or barnyard millets, other common names to identify these seeds include Jhangora, Samo seeds or Morio / Mario / Moraiaya seeds. Panicum sumatrense, Little millet Paspalum scrobiculatum, Kodo millet Urochloa ramosa, guinea millet Foxtail Millet is known to have been the first domesticated millet. Chinese legends attribute the domestication of millet to Shennong, the legendary Emperor of China, millets also formed important parts of the prehistoric diet in Indian, Chinese Neolithic and Korean Mumun societies. Broomcorn and foxtail millet were important crops beginning in the Early Neolithic of China, for example, some of the earliest evidence of millet cultivation in China was found at Cishan. Evidence at Cishan for foxtail millet dates back to around 6500 BC, a 4, 000-year-old well-preserved bowl containing well-preserved noodles made from foxtail millet and broomcorn millet was found at the Lajia archaeological site in China
10.
Rice
–
Rice is the seed of the grass species Oryza sativa or Oryza glaberrima. As a cereal grain, it is the most widely consumed staple food for a part of the worlds human population. It is the agricultural commodity with the third-highest worldwide production, after sugarcane and maize, wild rice, from which the crop was developed, may have its native range in Australia. Chinese legends attribute the domestication of rice to Shennong, the emperor of China. Genetic evidence has shown that rice originates from a single domestication 8, previously, archaeological evidence had suggested that rice was domesticated in the Yangtze River valley region in China. From East Asia, rice was spread to Southeast and South Asia, Rice was introduced to Europe through Western Asia, and to the Americas through European colonization. There are many varieties of rice and culinary preferences tend to vary regionally, in some areas such as the Far East or Spain, there is a preference for softer and stickier varieties. Rice, a monocot, is grown as an annual plant, although in tropical areas it can survive as a perennial. The rice plant can grow to 1–1.8 m tall, occasionally more depending on the variety and it has long, slender leaves 50–100 cm long and 2–2.5 cm broad. The small wind-pollinated flowers are produced in a branched arching to pendulous inflorescence 30–50 cm long, the edible seed is a grain 5–12 mm long and 2–3 mm thick. Rice cultivation is well-suited to countries and regions with low costs and high rainfall, as it is labor-intensive to cultivate. However, rice can be grown practically anywhere, even on a hill or mountain area with the use of water-controlling terrace systems. Although its parent species are native to Asia and certain parts of Africa, centuries of trade, the traditional method for cultivating rice is flooding the fields while, or after, setting the young seedlings. The name wild rice is used for species of the genera Zizania and Porteresia. The Greek word is the source of all European words, the origin of the Greek word is unclear. It is sometimes held to be from the Tamil word அரிசி, however, Krishnamurti disagrees with the notion that Old Tamil arici is the source of the Greek term, and proposes that it was borrowed from descendants of Proto-Dravidian *wariñci instead. The varieties of rice are typically classified as long-, medium-, the grains of long-grain rice tend to remain intact after cooking, medium-grain rice becomes more sticky. Medium-grain rice is used for dishes, for risotto in Italy
11.
Southwest Asia
–
Western Asia, West Asia, Southwestern Asia or Southwest Asia is the westernmost subregion of Asia. The concept is in limited use, as it overlaps with the Middle East. The term is used for the purposes of grouping countries in statistics. The total population of Western Asia is an estimated 300 million as of 2015, in an unrelated context, the term is also used in ancient history and archaeology to divide the Fertile Crescent into the Asiatic or Western Asian cultures as opposed to ancient Egypt. As a geographic concept, Western Asia almost always includes the Levant, Mesopotamia, the term is used pragmatically and has no correct or generally agreed-upon definition. In contrast to this definition, the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation in its 2015 yearbook also includes Armenia and Azerbaijan, unlike the UNIDO, the United Nations Statistics Division excludes Iran from Western Asia and include Turkey, Georgia, and Cyprus in the region. These four countries are listed in the European category of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, the Olympic Council of Asias multi-sport event West Asian Games are contested by athletes representing these thirteen countries. Among the regions sports organisations are the West Asia Basketball Association, West Asian Billiards and Snooker Federation, West Asian Football Federation, Western Asia was in use as a geographical term in the early 19th century, even before Near East became current as a geopolitical concept. Use of the term in the context of contemporary geopolitics or world economy appears to date from the 1960s, Western Asia is located directly south of Eastern Europe. The region is surrounded by seven major seas, the Aegean Sea, the Black Sea, the Caspian Sea, the Persian Gulf, the Arabian Sea, the Red Sea, and the Mediterranean Sea. The Dasht-e Kavir and Dasht-e Lut deserts in eastern Iran naturally delimit the region somewhat from Asia itself, three major tectonic plates converge on Western Asia, including the African, Eurasian, and Arabian plates. The boundaries between the plates make up the Azores-Gibraltar Ridge, extending across North Africa, the Red Sea. The Arabian Plate is moving northward into the Anatolian plate at the East Anatolian Fault, several major aquifers provide water to large portions of Western Asia. In Saudi Arabia, two large aquifers of Palaeozoic and Triassic origins are located beneath the Jabal Tuwayq mountains and areas west to the Red Sea. Cretaceous and Eocene-origin aquifers are located beneath large portions of central and eastern Saudi Arabia, including Wasia, flood or furrow irrigation, as well as sprinkler methods, are extensively used for irrigation, covering nearly 90,000 km² across Western Asia for agriculture. Western Asia is primarily arid and semi-arid, and can be subject to drought, the region consists of grasslands, rangelands, deserts, and mountains. Water shortages are a problem in parts of West Asia, with rapidly growing populations increasing demands for water. Major rivers, including the Tigris and Euphrates, provide sources for water to support agriculture
12.
Fertile Crescent
–
The Fertile Crescent is a crescent-shaped region containing the comparatively moist and fertile land of otherwise arid and semi-arid Western Asia, the Nile Valley and Nile Delta. Having originated in the study of ancient history, the concept developed and today retains meanings in international geopolitics. In current usage, all definitions of the Fertile Crescent include Mesopotamia, the land in and around the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, and the Levant, the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea. The region saw the development of some of the earliest human civilizations, technological advances made in the region include the development of writing, glass, the wheel, agriculture, and the use of irrigation. It is a region consisting chiefly of mountains in the north, the end of the western wing is Palestine, Assyria makes up a large part of the center, while the end of the eastern wing is Babylonia. This great semicircle, for lack of a name, may be called the Fertile Crescent and this desert-bay is a limestone plateau of some height—too high indeed to be watered by the Tigris and Euphrates, which have cut cañons obliquely across it. Hence we are obliged to coin a term and call it the Fertile Crescent, water sources include the Jordan River. The inner boundary is delimited by the dry climate of the Syrian Desert to the south, around the outer boundary are the Anatolian highlands to the north and the Sahara Desert to the west. As crucial as rivers and marshlands were to the rise of civilization in the Fertile Crescent, the area is important as the bridge between Africa and Eurasia. Coupled with the Saharan pump theory, this Middle Eastern land-bridge is of importance to the modern distribution of Old World flora and fauna. The Fertile Crescent had many diverse climates, and major climatic changes encouraged the evolution of many r type annual plants, the regions dramatic variety of elevation gave rise to many species of edible plants for early experiments in cultivation. The Fertile Crescent has a record of past human activity. The western zone around the Jordan and upper Euphrates rivers gave rise to the first known Neolithic farming settlements and this region, alongside Mesopotamia, also saw the emergence of early complex societies during the succeeding Bronze Age. There is also evidence from the region for writing and the formation of hierarchical statelevel societies. This has earned the region the nickname The cradle of civilization and it is in this region where the first libraries appeared, some 5,000 years ago. The oldest known library was found in northern Syria, in the ruins of Ebla— a major commercial center that was destroyed around 1650 BCE, both the Tigris and Euphrates start in the Taurus Mountains of what is today Turkey. Farmers in southern Mesopotamia had to protect their fields from flooding each year, to protect against flooding, they made levees. Since the Bronze Age, the regions natural fertility has been extended by irrigation works
13.
World population
–
In demographics, the world population is the total number of humans currently living. As of March 2017, it was estimated at 7.49 billion, the United Nations estimates it will further increase to 11.2 billion in the year 2100. World population has experienced growth since the end of the Great Famine of 1315–17 and the Black Death in 1350. The highest population growth rates – global population increases above 1. 8% per year – occurred between 1955-1975 peaking to 2. 06% between 1965-1970, the growth rate has declined to 1. 18% between 2010-2015 and is projected to decline to 0. 13% by the year 2100. World population reached 7 billion on October 31,2011 according to the United Nations Population Fund, and on March 12,2012 according to the United States Census Bureau. The median age of the population was estimated to be 30.1 years in 2016, with the male median age estimated to be 29.4 years. 2003 UN Population Division population projections for the year 2150 range between 3.2 and 24.8 billion. One of many independent mathematical models supports the estimate, while a 2014 estimate forecasts between 9.3 and 12.6 billion in 2100, and continued growth thereafter. Some analysts have questioned the sustainability of further population growth, highlighting the growing pressures on the environment, global food supplies. Estimates on the number of humans who have ever lived range in the order of 106 to 108 billion. Six of the Earths seven continents are permanently inhabited on a large scale, Asia is the most populous continent, with its 4.3 billion inhabitants accounting for 60% of the world population. The worlds two most populated countries alone, China and India, together constitute about 37% of the worlds population, Africa is the second most populated continent, with around 1 billion people, or 15% of the worlds population. Europes 733 million people make up 12% of the population as of 2012. Northern America, primarily consisting of the United States, Mexico, and Canada, has a population of around 352 million, and Oceania, the least-populated region, has about 35 million inhabitants. Though it is not permanently inhabited by any fixed population, Antarctica has a small, fluctuating international population and this population tends to rise in the summer months and decrease significantly in winter, as visiting researchers return to their home countries. Estimates of world population by their nature are an aspect of modernity, more refined estimates, broken down by continents, were published in the first half of the 19th century, at 600 to 1000 million in the early 1800s and at 800 to 1000 million in the 1840s. Estimates of the population of the world at the time agriculture emerged in around 10,000 BCE have ranged between 1 million and 15 million. Even earlier, genetic evidence suggests humans may have gone through a bottleneck of between 1,000 and 10,000 people about 70,000 BCE, according to the Toba catastrophe theory
14.
Hunter-gatherer
–
A hunter-gatherer is a human living in a society in which most or all food is obtained by foraging, in contrast to agricultural societies, which rely mainly on domesticated species. Hunting and gathering was humanitys first and most successful adaptation, occupying at least 90 percent of human history, following the invention of agriculture, hunter-gatherers who did not change have been displaced or conquered by farming or pastoralist groups in most parts of the world. Only a few contemporary societies are classified as hunter-gatherers, and many supplement their activity with horticulture and/or keeping animals. In the 1970s, Lewis Binford suggested that humans were obtaining food via scavenging. Early humans in the Lower Paleolithic lived in forests and woodlands, which allowed them to collect seafood, eggs, nuts, and fruits besides scavenging. Rather than killing large animals for meat, according to this view and this hypothesis does not necessarily contradict the scavenging hypothesis, both subsistence strategies could have been in use – sequentially, alternating or even simultaneously. It remained the only mode of subsistence until the end of the Mesolithic period some 10,000 years ago and this specialization of work also involved creating specialized tools such as, fishing nets, hooks, and bone harpoons. The transition into the subsequent Neolithic period is defined by the unprecedented development of nascent agricultural practices. Agriculture originated and spread in different areas including the Middle East, Asia, Mesoamerica. Forest gardening was also being used as a production system in various parts of the world over this period. Forest gardens originated in prehistoric times along jungle-clad river banks and in the wet foothills of monsoon regions, in the gradual process of families improving their immediate environment, useful tree and vine species were identified, protected and improved, whilst undesirable species were eliminated. Eventually superior introduced species were selected and incorporated into the gardens, many groups continued their hunter-gatherer ways of life, although their numbers have continually declined, partly as a result of pressure from growing agricultural and pastoral communities. Many of them reside in the world, either in arid regions or tropical forests. Areas that were available to hunter-gatherers were—and continue to be—encroached upon by the settlements of agriculturalists. In the resulting competition for use, hunter-gatherer societies either adopted these practices or moved to other areas. In addition, Jared Diamond has blamed a decline in the availability of wild foods, as the number and size of agricultural societies increased, they expanded into lands traditionally used by hunter-gatherers. As a result of the now near-universal human reliance upon agriculture, archaeologists can use evidence such as stone tool use to track hunter-gatherer activities, including mobility. Most hunter-gatherers are nomadic or semi-nomadic and live in temporary settlements, mobile communities typically construct shelters using impermanent building materials, or they may use natural rock shelters, where they are available
15.
Antarctica
–
It contains the geographic South Pole and is situated in the Antarctic region of the Southern Hemisphere, almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle, and is surrounded by the Southern Ocean. At 14,000,000 square kilometres, it is the fifth-largest continent, for comparison, Antarctica is nearly twice the size of Australia. About 98% of Antarctica is covered by ice that averages 1.9 km in thickness, Antarctica, on average, is the coldest, driest, and windiest continent, and has the highest average elevation of all the continents. Antarctica is a desert, with precipitation of only 200 mm along the coast. The temperature in Antarctica has reached −89.2 °C, though the average for the quarter is −63 °C. Anywhere from 1,000 to 5,000 people reside throughout the year at the research stations scattered across the continent. Organisms native to Antarctica include many types of algae, bacteria, fungi, plants, protista, vegetation, where it occurs, is tundra. The continent, however, remained neglected for the rest of the 19th century because of its hostile environment, lack of easily accessible resources. In 1895, the first confirmed landing was conducted by a team of Norwegians, Antarctica is a de facto condominium, governed by parties to the Antarctic Treaty System that have consulting status. Twelve countries signed the Antarctic Treaty in 1959, and thirty-eight have signed it since then, the treaty prohibits military activities and mineral mining, prohibits nuclear explosions and nuclear waste disposal, supports scientific research, and protects the continents ecozone. Ongoing experiments are conducted by more than 4,000 scientists from many nations, the name Antarctica is the romanised version of the Greek compound word ἀνταρκτική, feminine of ἀνταρκτικός, meaning opposite to the Arctic, opposite to the north. Aristotle wrote in his book Meteorology about an Antarctic region in c.350 B. C, marinus of Tyre reportedly used the name in his unpreserved world map from the 2nd century A. D. Before acquiring its present geographical connotations, the term was used for locations that could be defined as opposite to the north. For example, the short-lived French colony established in Brazil in the 16th century was called France Antarctique, the first formal use of the name Antarctica as a continental name in the 1890s is attributed to the Scottish cartographer John George Bartholomew. Antarctica has no population and there is no evidence that it was seen by humans until the 19th century. Explorer Matthew Flinders, in particular, has credited with popularising the transfer of the name Terra Australis to Australia. Cook came within about 120 km of the Antarctic coast before retreating in the face of ice in January 1773. The first confirmed sighting of Antarctica can be narrowed down to the crews of ships captained by three individuals, according to various organisations, ships captained by three men sighted Antarctica or its ice shelf in 1820, von Bellingshausen, Edward Bransfield, and Nathaniel Palmer
16.
Zealandia
–
It has variously been described as a continental fragment, a microcontinent and a continent. The name and concept for Zealandia were proposed by Bruce Luyendyk in 1995, the land mass may have been completely submerged about 23 Ma ago, and most of it remains submerged beneath the Pacific Ocean. As such, and due to other considerations, such as crustal thickness and density. Zealandia supports substantial inshore fisheries and contains gas fields, of which the largest known is New Zealands Maui gas field, permits for oil exploration in the Great South Basin were issued in 2007. Offshore mineral resources include iron sands, volcanic massive sulfides and ferromanganese nodule deposits, Zealandia is largely made up of two nearly parallel ridges, separated by a failed rift, where the rift breakup of the continent stops and becomes a filled graben. The ridges rise above the sea floor to heights of 1, 000–1,500 m, about 25 Ma ago, the southern part of Zealandia began to shift relative to the northern part. The resulting displacement by approximately 500 km along the Alpine Fault is evident in geological maps, movement along this plate boundary has also offset the New Caledonia Basin from its previous continuation through the Bounty Trough. Compression across the boundary has uplifted the Southern Alps, although due to rapid erosion their height reflects only a fraction of the uplift. Farther north, subduction of the Pacific Plate has led to extensive volcanism, including the Coromandel, associated rifting and subsidence has produced the Hauraki Graben and more recently the Whakatane Graben and Wanganui Basin. Volcanism on Zealandia has also taken place repeatedly in various parts of the fragment before, during. This volcanism is widespread across Zealandia but generally of low volume apart from the mid to late Miocene shield volcanoes that developed the Banks. In addition, it took place continually in numerous limited regions all through the Late Cretaceous, however, its causes are still in dispute. During the Miocene, the section of Zealandia might have slid over a stationary hotspot. Zealandia is occasionally divided by scientists into two regions, North Zealandia and South Zealandia, the latter of which contains most of the Median Batholith crust. These two features are separated by the Alpine Fault and Kermadec Trench and by the wedge-shaped Hikurangi Plateau and this was widely covered by news media. New Caledonia lies at the end of the ancient continent. These land masses are two outposts of the Antarctic Flora, including Araucarias and Podocarps and these were buried by volcanic mud flows and gradually replaced by silica to produce the fossils now exposed by the sea. During glacial periods, more of Zealandia becomes a rather than a marine environment
17.
Interglacial
–
An interglacial period is a geological interval of warmer global average temperature lasting thousands of years that separates consecutive glacial periods within an ice age. The current Holocene interglacial began at the end of the Pleistocene and these long glacial periods were separated by more temperate and shorter interglacials. During interglacials, such as the present one, the climate warms, forests return to areas that once supported tundra vegetation. Interglacials are identified on land or in shallow epicontinental seas by their paleontology, floral and faunal remains of species pointing to temperate climate and indicating a specific age are used to identify particular interglacials. Commonly used are mammalian and molluscan species, pollen and plant macro-remains, however, many other fossil remains may be helpful, insects, ostracods, foraminifera, diatoms, etc. Recently, ice cores and ocean sediment cores provide more quantitative and accurately dated evidence for temperatures, the interglacials and glacials coincide with cyclic changes in the Earths orbit. Three orbital variations contribute to interglacials, the first is a change in the Earths orbit around the sun, or eccentricity. The second is a shift in the tilt of the Earths axis, the third is precession, or wobbling motion of Earths axis. Warm summers in the Southern hemisphere occur when that hemisphere is tilted toward the sun, cool summers occur when the Earth is farthest from the sun during that season. These effects are more pronounced when the eccentricity of the orbit is large, when the obliquity is large, seasonal changes are more extreme. Interglacials are a tool for geological mapping and also for anthropologists. Brief periods of climate that occurred during the last glacial are called interstadials. Most interstadials are shorter than interglacials, Interstadial climate may have been relatively warm but this is not necessarily so. Because the colder periods have often very dry, wetter periods have been registered in the sedimentary record as interstadials as well. The oxygen isotope ratio obtained from seabed sediment core samples, a proxy for average global temperature, is an important source of information about changes in the climate of the earth. The climatic optimum of an interglacial follows, and is followed by, phases that are within the same interglacial, during an interglacial optimum, sea levels rise to their highest values, but not necessarily exactly at the same time as the climatic optimum. In the present interglacial, the Holocene, the climatic optimum occurred during the Subboreal and our current climatic phase following this climatic optimum is still within the same interglacial. This warm period was followed by a decline until about 2,000 years ago
18.
Stone Age
–
The Stone Age was a broad prehistoric period during which stone was widely used to make implements with an edge, a point, or a percussion surface. The period lasted roughly 3.4 million years, and ended between 8700 BCE and 2000 BCE with the advent of metalworking, bone tools were used during this period as well but are rarely preserved in the archaeological record. The Stone Age is further subdivided by the types of tools in use. According to the age and location of the current evidence, the cradle of the genus is the East African Rift System, especially toward the north in Ethiopia, where it is bordered by grasslands. The closest relative among the living primates, the genus Pan, represents a branch that continued on in the deep forest. The rift served as a conduit for movement into southern Africa and also north down the Nile into North Africa and through the continuation of the rift in the Levant to the vast grasslands of Asia. The oldest indirect evidence found of stone tool use is fossilised animal bones with tool marks, the oldest stone tools were excavated from the site of Lomekwi 3 in West Turkana, northwestern Kenya, and date to 3.3 million years old. Prior to the discovery of these Lomekwian tools, the oldest known stone tools had been found at sites at Gona, Ethiopia, on the sediments of the paleo-Awash River. All the tools come from the Busidama Formation, which lies above a disconformity, or missing layer, the oldest sites containing tools are dated to 2. 6–2.55 mya. One of the most striking circumstances about these sites is that they are from the Late Pliocene, excavators at the locality point out that. the earliest stone tool makers were skilled flintknappers. The possible reasons behind this seeming abrupt transition from the absence of tools to the presence thereof include. The species who made the Pliocene tools remains unknown, fragments of Australopithecus garhi, Australopithecus aethiopicus and Homo, possibly Homo habilis, have been found in sites near the age of the Gona tools. Innovation of the technique of smelting ore ended the Stone Age, the first most significant metal manufactured was bronze, an alloy of copper and tin, each of which was smelted separately. The Chalcolithic by convention is the period of the Bronze Age. The Bronze Age was followed by the Iron Age, the transition out of the Stone Age occurred between 6000 BCE and 2500 BCE for much of humanity living in North Africa and Eurasia. Note the Rudna Glava mine in Serbia, Ötzi the Iceman, a mummy from about 3300 BCE carried with him a copper axe and a flint knife. In regions such as Sub-Saharan Africa, the Stone Age was followed directly by the Iron Age, the Middle East and southeastern Asian regions progressed past Stone Age technology around 6000 BCE. Europe, and the rest of Asia became post–Stone Age societies by about 4000 BCE, the proto-Inca cultures of South America continued at a Stone Age level until around 2000 BCE, when gold, copper and silver made their entrance
19.
Homo
–
The genus is between 2 and 3 million years old, taken to emerge with the appearance of Homo habilis. It is derived from the genus Australopithecus, which itself had previously split from the lineage of Pan, taxonomically, Homo is the only genus assigned to the subtribe Hominina which, with the subtribes Australopithecina and Panina, comprise the tribe Hominini. All species of the genus Homo plus those species of the australopithecines that arose after the split from Pan are called hominins, Homo erectus appeared about two million years ago in East Africa and, in several early migrations, it spread throughout Africa and Eurasia. It was likely the first hominin to live in a hunter-gatherer society, the subspecies Homo sapiens sapiens or anatomically modern humans emerged about 200,000 years ago in East Africa. DNA analysis provides evidence of interbreeding between archaic and modern humans. See Hominidae for an overview of taxonomy, the Latin noun homō means human being or man in the generic sense of human being, mankind. The binomial name Homo sapiens was coined by Carl Linnaeus, names for other species of the genus were introduced beginning in the second half of the 19th century. Even today, the genus Homo has not been properly defined, since the early human fossil record began to slowly emerge from the earth, the boundaries and definitions of the genus Homo have been poorly defined and constantly in flux. Because there was no reason to think it would ever have any additional members, the discovery of Neanderthal brought the first addition. The genus Homo was given its name to suggest that its member species can be classified as human. Many such names are now dubbed as synonyms with Homo, including Pithecanthropus, Protanthropus, Sinanthropus, Cyphanthropus, Africanthropus, Telanthropus, Atlanthropus, classifying the genus Homo into species and subspecies is subject to incomplete information and remains poorly done. Some recently extinct species in the genus Homo are only recently discovered, john Edward Gray was an early advocate of classifying taxa by designating tribes and families. Several species, including Australopithecus garhi, Australopithecus sediba, Australopithecus africanus and these species have morphological features that align them with Homo, but there is no consensus as to which gave rise to Homo. The advent of Homo was traditionally taken to coincide with the first use of stone tools, the emergence of Homo also coincides roughly with the onset of Quaternary glaciation, the beginning of the current ice age. A fossil mandible fragment dated to 2.8 million years ago which may represent a stage between Australopithecus and Homo was discovered in 2015 in Afar, Ethiopia. Some authors would push the development of Homo past 3 Mya, the most salient physiological development between the earlier australopithecine species and Homo is the increase in cranial capacity, from about 450 cm3 in A. garhi to 600 cm3 in H. habilis. Within the genus Homo, cranial capacity again doubled from H. habilis through Homo ergaster or H. erectus to Homo heidelbergensis by 0.6 million years ago, the cranial capacity of H. heidelbergensis overlaps with the range found in modern humans. Homo erectus has often been assumed to have developed anagenetically from Homo habilis from about 2 million years ago
20.
Pliocene
–
The Pliocene Epoch is the epoch in the geologic timescale that extends from 5.333 million to 2.58 million years BP. It is the second and youngest epoch of the Neogene Period in the Cenozoic Era, the Pliocene follows the Miocene Epoch and is followed by the Pleistocene Epoch.588 to 1.806 million years ago, and is now included in the Pleistocene. As with other geologic periods, the geological strata that define the start and end are well identified but the exact dates of the start. The boundaries defining the Pliocene are not set at an easily identified worldwide event, the upper boundary was set at the start of the Pleistocene glaciations. The Pliocene was named by Sir Charles Lyell, the name comes from the Greek words πλεῖον and καινός and means roughly continuation of the recent, referring to the essentially modern marine mollusc faunas. H. W. Fowler called the term a regrettable barbarism, in the official timescale of the ICS, the Pliocene is subdivided into two stages. From youngest to oldest they are, Piacenzian Zanclean The Piacenzian is sometimes referred to as the Late Pliocene, in the system of North American Land Mammal Ages include Hemphillian, and Blancan. The Blancan extends forward into the Pleistocene, South American Land Mammal Ages include Montehermosan, Chapadmalalan and Uquian. In the Paratethys area the Pliocene contains the Dacian and Romanian stages, as usual in stratigraphy, there are many other regional and local subdivisions in use. In Britain the Pliocene is divided into the stages, Gedgravian, Waltonian, Pre-Ludhamian, Ludhamian, Thurnian, Bramertonian or Antian, Pre-Pastonian or Baventian, Pastonian and Beestonian. The exact correlations between these stages and the ICS stages is still a matter of detail. The formation of an Arctic ice cap is signaled by a shift in oxygen isotope ratios and ice-rafted cobbles in the North Atlantic. Mid-latitude glaciation was probably underway before the end of the epoch, the global cooling that occurred during the Pliocene may have spurred on the disappearance of forests and the spread of grasslands and savannas. Continents continued to drift, moving from positions possibly as far as 250 km from their present locations to positions only 70 km from their current locations, africas collision with Europe formed the Mediterranean Sea, cutting off the remnants of the Tethys Ocean. The border between the Miocene and the Pliocene is also the time of the Messinian salinity crisis, Sea level changes exposed the land-bridge between Alaska and Asia. Pliocene marine rocks are exposed in the Mediterranean, India. Elsewhere, they are exposed largely near shores, the change to a cooler, dry, seasonal climate had considerable impacts on Pliocene vegetation, reducing tropical species worldwide. Deciduous forests proliferated, coniferous forests and tundra covered much of the north, tropical forests were limited to a tight band around the equator, and in addition to dry savannahs, deserts appeared in Asia and Africa
21.
Paleolithic
–
It extends from the earliest known use of stone tools, probably by Homo habilis initially,2.6 million years ago, to the end of the Pleistocene around 10,000 BP. The Paleolithic era is followed by the Mesolithic, the date of the Paleolithic–Mesolithic boundary may vary by locality as much as several thousand years. During the Paleolithic period, humans grouped together in small societies such as bands, the Paleolithic is characterized by the use of knapped stone tools, although at the time humans also used wood and bone tools. Other organic commodities were adapted for use as tools, including leather and vegetable fibers, however, due to their nature, surviving artifacts of the Paleolithic era are known as paleoliths. About 50,000 years ago, there was a increase in the diversity of artifacts. For the first time in Africa, bone artifacts and the first art appear in the archaeological record, the first evidence of human fishing is also noted, from artifacts in places such as Blombos cave in South Africa. The new technology generated an explosion of modern humans which is believed to have led to the extinction of the Neanderthals. Humankind gradually evolved from members of the genus Homo—such as Homo habilis. The climate during the Paleolithic consisted of a set of glacial and interglacial periods in which the climate periodically fluctuated between warm and cool temperatures, by c. 50,000 – c. 40,000 BP, the first humans set foot in Australia. By c. 45,000 BP, humans lived at 61°N latitude in Europe, by c. 30,000 BP, Japan was reached, and by c. 27,000 BP humans were present in Siberia, above the Arctic Circle. At the end of the Upper Paleolithic, a group of humans crossed Beringia, the term Paleolithic was coined by archaeologist John Lubbock in 1865. It derives from Greek, παλαιός, palaios, old, and λίθος, lithos, stone, human evolution is the part of biological evolution concerning the emergence of anatomically modern humans as a distinct species. The Paleolithic Period coincides almost exactly with the Pleistocene epoch of geologic time and this epoch experienced important geographic and climatic changes that affected human societies. During the preceding Pliocene, continents had continued to drift from possibly as far as 250 km from their present locations to positions only 70 km from their current location. South America became linked to North America through the Isthmus of Panama, most of Central America formed during the Pliocene to connect the continents of North and South America, allowing fauna from these continents to leave their native habitats and colonize new areas. Africas collision with Asia created the Mediterranean Sea, cutting off the remnants of the Tethys Ocean, climates during the Pliocene became cooler and drier, and seasonal, similar to modern climates. The formation of an Arctic ice cap around 3 million years ago is signaled by a shift in oxygen isotope ratios and ice-rafted cobbles in the North Atlantic. Mid-latitude glaciation probably began before the end of the epoch, the global cooling that occurred during the Pliocene may have spurred on the disappearance of forests and the spread of grasslands and savannas
22.
Lower Paleolithic
–
The Lower Paleolithic is the earliest subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age. It spans the time from around 3, the Middle Paleolithic followed the Lower Paleolithic and recorded the appearance of the more advanced prepared-core tool-making technologies such as the Mousterian. Whether the earliest control of fire by hominins dates to the Lower or to the Middle Paleolithic remains an open question. The Lower Paleolithic began with the appearance of the oldest stone tools in the world, roughly 3.3 million ago in eastern Africa, the Gelasian, some 2.5 million years ago, saw the appearance of the Homo genus, possibly developing from australopithecine forebears. Homo habilis is assumed to have lived primarily on scavenging, using tools to cleave meat off carrion or to break bones to extract the marrow, decreasing oceanic evaporation produced a drier climate and the expansion of the savannah at the expense of forests. Reduced availability of fruits stimulated some proto-australopithecines to search out new food sources found in the drier savannah ecology, Homo erectus appeared by about 1.8 million years ago, via the transitional variety Homo ergaster. Homo erectus moved from scavenging to hunting, developing the hunting-gathering lifestyle that would remain dominant throughout the Paleolithic into the Mesolithic, Homo erectus migrated out of Africa and dispersed throughout Eurasia. Stone tools in Malaysia have been dated to be 1.83 million years old, the Peking Man fossil, discovered in 1929, is roughly 700,000 years old. In Europe, the Olduwan tradition split into two parallel traditions, the Clactonian, a tradition, and the Acheulean, a hand-axe tradition. The Levallois technique for knapping flint developed during this time, the carrier species from Africa to Europe was undoubtedly Homo erectus. This type of human is more linked to the flake tradition. Many Mousterian finds in the Middle Paleolithic have been knapped using a Levallois technique, monte Poggiolo, near Forlì, Italy, is the location of an Acheulian littoral handaxe industry dating from 1.8 to 1.1 million years ago. The appearance of Homo heidelbergensis about 600,000 years ago heralds a number of new varieties, such as Homo rhodesiensis. Homo heidelbergensis is a candidate for first developing a form of symbolic language. Whether control of fire and earliest burials date to this period or only appear during the Middle Paleolithic is an open question, the hand-axe tradition originates in the same period. The intermediate may have been Homo heidelbergensis, held responsible for the manufacture of improved Mode 2 Acheulean tool types, in Africa, flakes and axes coexisted in Europe, sometimes at the same site. The axe tradition, however, spread to a different range in the east and it appears in Arabia and India, but more importantly, it does not appear in southeast Asia. Homo sapiens first appear about 200,000 years ago, control of fire by early humans Lomekwi, site of the oldest tools discovered The First People and Culture at Indiana University Bloomington
23.
Control of fire by early humans
–
The control of fire by early humans was a turning point in the cultural aspect of human evolution. Fire provided a source of warmth, protection, and a method for cooking food and these cultural advancements allowed for human geographic dispersal, cultural innovations, and changes to diet and behavior. Additionally, creating fire allowed the expansion of activity to proceed into the dark. Claims for the earliest definitive evidence of control of fire by a member of Homo range from 0.2 to 1.7 million years ago, evidence for the controlled use of fire by Homo erectus, beginning some 600,000 years ago, has wide scholarly support. Evidence of widespread control of fire by anatomically modern humans dates to approximately 125,000 years ago, most of the evidence of controlled use of fire during the Lower Paleolithic is uncertain and has limited scholarly support. The inconclusiveness of some of the lies behind the fact that there exist other plausible explanations, such as natural processes. Recent findings strongly support that the earliest known controlled use of fire took place in Wonderwerk Cave, over time, early humans figured out how to create fire. Archaeological evidence, suggests that happened between 700,000 years ago and 120,000 years ago. Findings from the Wonderwerk Cave site, in the Northern Cape province of South Africa, east African sites, such as Chesowanja near Lake Baringo, Koobi Fora, and Olorgesailie in Kenya, show some possible evidence that fire was controlled by early humans. In Chesowanja archaeologists found red clay clasts dated to be from 1.4 Mya and these clasts must have been heated to 400 °C to harden. However, deliberate use of fire in Chesowanja is still debatable because there are reasons to believe that the burning of clay might have happened by chance. In Koobi Fora, sites FxJjzoE and FxJj50 show evidence of control of fire by Homo erectus at 1.5 Mya with findings of reddened sediment that could come from heating at 200–400 °C. A hearth-like depression that could have used to burn bones was found at a site in Olorgesailie. However, it did not contain any charcoal and no signs of fire have been observed, some microscopic charcoal was found, but it could have resulted from a natural brush fire. In Gadeb, Ethiopia, fragments of welded tuff that appeared to have been burned were found in Locality 8E, in the Middle Awash River Valley, cone-shaped depressions of reddish clay were found that could have been formed by temperatures of 200 °C. These features are thought to be burned tree stumps such that the early hominids could have fire away from their habitation site, burned stones are also found in Awash Valley, but volcanic welded tuff is also found in the area which could explain the burned stones. In Xihoudu in Shanxi Province, China, the black, blue, in 1985, a parallel site in China, Yuanmou in the Yunnan Province, archaeologists found blackened mammal bones which date back to 1.7 Mya BP. A site at Bnot Yaakov Bridge, Israel, has claimed to show that H. erectus or H. ergaster controlled fires between 790,000 and 690,000 BP
24.
Stone tool
–
A stone tool is, in the most general sense, any tool made either partially or entirely out of stone. Although stone tool-dependent societies and cultures still exist today, most stone tools are associated with prehistoric, archaeologists often study such prehistoric societies, and refer to the study of stone tools as lithic analysis. Ethnoarchaeology has been a research field in order to further the understanding and cultural implications of stone tool use. Stone has been used to make a variety of different tools throughout history, including arrow heads, spearpoints. Stone tools may be made of ground stone or chipped stone. Chipped stone tools are made from materials such as chert or flint, radiolarite, chalcedony, obsidian, basalt. One simple form of reduction is to strike stone flakes from a nucleus of material using a hammerstone or similar hard hammer fabricator, if the goal of the reduction strategy is to produce flakes, the remnant lithic core may be discarded once it has become too small to use. In some strategies, however, a flintknapper reduces the core to a rough unifacial or bifacial preform, more complex forms of reduction include the production of highly standardized blades, which can then be fashioned into a variety of tools such as scrapers, knives, sickles and microliths. Archaeologists classify stone tools into industries that share distinctive technological or morphological characteristics and he assigned to them relative dates, Modes 1 and 2 to the Lower Palaeolithic,3 to the Middle Palaeolithic,4 to the Advanced and 5 to the Mesolithic. They were not to be conceived, however, as either universal—that is, they did not account for all lithic technology, Mode 1, for example, was in use in Europe long after it had been replaced by Mode 2 in Africa. Clarkes scheme was adopted enthusiastically by the archaeological community, one of its advantages was the simplicity of terminology, for example, the Mode 1 / Mode 2 Transition. The transitions are currently of greatest interest, Kenya Stone tools found from 2011 to 2014 at Lake Turkana in Kenya, are dated to be 3.3 million years old, and predate the genus Homo by half million years. The oldest known Homo fossil is 2.8 million years old compared to the 3.3 million year old stone tools. Dating of the tools was by dating volcanic ash layers in which the tools were found, Oldowan tools were characterised by their simple construction, predominantly using core forms. The blunt end is the surface, the sharp, the distal. Grasping the proximal surface, the hominid brought the surface down hard on an object he wished to detach or shatter. The earliest known Oldowan tools yet found date from 2.6 million years ago, during the Lower Palaeolithic period, and have been uncovered at Gona in Ethiopia. Homo habilis was the hominin who used the tools for most of the Oldowan in Africa, eventually, more complex, Mode 2 tools began to be developed through the Acheulean Industry, named after the site of Saint-Acheul in France
25.
Middle Paleolithic
–
The Middle Paleolithic is the second subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age as it is understood in Europe, Africa and Asia. The term Middle Stone Age is used as an equivalent or a synonym for the Middle Paleolithic in African archeology, the Middle Paleolithic broadly spanned from 300,000 to 30,000 years ago. There are considerable dating differences between regions, the Middle Paleolithic was succeeded by the Upper Paleolithic subdivision which first began between 50,000 and 40,000 years ago. Activities such as catching fish and hunting large game animals with specialized tools connote increased group-wide cooperation. Both Neandertal and modern human societies took care of the members of their societies during the Middle Paleolithic. Typically, it has assumed that women gathered plants and firewood. Anthropologists such as Tim D. Cannibalism in the Middle Paleolithic may have occurred because of food shortages, around 200,000 BP Middle Paleolithic Stone tool manufacturing spawned a tool-making technique known as the prepared-core technique, that was more elaborate than previous Acheulean techniques. Wallace and Shea split the core artifacts into two different types, formal cores and expedient cores, formal cores are designed to extract the maximum amount from the raw material while expedient cores are more based on function need. This method increased efficiency by permitting the creation of more controlled and this method allowed Middle Paleolithic humans correspondingly to create stone-tipped spears, which were the earliest composite tools, by hafting sharp, pointy stone flakes onto wooden shafts. The use of fire became widespread for the first time in human prehistory during the Middle Paleolithic, some scientists have hypothesized that hominids began cooking food to defrost frozen meat which would help ensure their survival in cold regions
26.
Middle Stone Age
–
The Middle Stone Age was a period of African prehistory between the Early Stone Age and the Later Stone Age. It is generally considered to have begun around 280,000 years ago, the beginnings of particular MSA stone tools have their origins as far back as 550–500,000 years ago and as such some researchers consider this to be the beginnings of the MSA. The MSA is associated with anatomically modern humans as well as archaic Homo sapiens, sometimes referred to as Homo helmei. Early physical evidence comes from the Gademotta Formation in Ethiopia, the Kapthurin Formation in Kenya and it is difficult to discuss the MSA of Africa without first considering the immense size of the continent. Preservation in these two regions are alternately superb and lamentable, yet the sites that have been uncovered document the adaptive nature of early hominins to climatically unstable environments. Eastern Africa represents some of the most reliable dates, due to the use of radiocarbon dating on volcanic ash deposits, faunal preservation, however, is not spectacular, and standardization in site excavation and lithic classification was, until recently, lacking. Central Africa reflects similar patterning to eastern Africa, yet more archaeological research of the region is certainly required, southern Africa consists of many cave sites, most of which show very punctuated starts and stops in stone tool technology. Research in southern Africa has been continuous and quite standardized, allowing for reliable comparisons between sites in the region. Much of the evidence for the origins of modern human behavior is traced back to sites in this region, including Blombos Cave, Howiesons Poort, Still Bay. The origins of the MSA are characterized in most regions by the Acheulian to MSA transition and this transition is considered to be a gradual process, rather than a singular event wherein hominin technologies advanced rapidly. Although the dates for this vary widely, the oldest reliably dated MSA site is Gademotta in Ethiopia at greater than 276 thousand years ago. The Middle Awash valley of Ethiopia and the Central Rift Valley of Kenya constituted a major center for behavioural innovation and this suggests a possible overlap of 100-150 thousand years. The Cave of Hearths and Montague Cave in South Africa contain evidence of Acheulian technologies, as well as later MSA technologies, Early blades have been documented as far back as 550-500,000 years in the Kapthurin Formation in Kenya and Kathu Pan in South Africa. Backed pieces from the Twin Rivers and Kalambo Falls sites in Zambia, a high level of technical competence is also indicated for the c.280 ka blades recovered from the Kapthurin Formation, Kenya. The stone tool technology in use during the Middle Stone Age shows a mosaic of techniques, however, the use of blades is seen at many sites as well. In Africa, blades may have used during the transition from the Early Stone Age to the Middle Stone Age onwards. Artifact technology during the Middle Stone Age shows a pattern of innovation followed by disappearance and this occurs with technology such as the manufacture of shell beads, arrows and hide working tools including needles, and gluing technology. These pieces of evidence provide a counterpoint to the classic Out of Africa scenario in which increasing complexity accumulated during the Middle Stone Age, perhaps only in small numbers initially, but by 30 ka they had replaced Neanderthals and H. erectus
27.
Neanderthal
–
Neanderthals, or more rarely Neandertals, were a species or subspecies of archaic humans in the genus Homo that became extinct about 40,000 years ago. Neanderthals and modern humans share 99. 7% of their DNA and are closely related. Neanderthals left bones and stone tools in Eurasia, from Western Europe to Central, from the 1950s to the early 1980s, however, Neanderthals were widely considered a subspecies of Homo sapiens and a minority of scholars still hold this view. Several cultural assemblages have been linked to the Neanderthals in Europe, the earliest, the Mousterian stone tool culture, dates to about 160,000 years ago. Late Mousterian artifacts were found in Gorhams Cave on the south-facing coast of Gibraltar, male Neanderthals had cranial capacities averaging 1600 cm3, females 1300 cm3, extending to 1736 cm3 in Amud 1. This is notably larger than the 1250–1400 cm3 typical of modern humans, males stood 164–168 cm and females 152–156 cm tall. Recent studies also show that a few Neanderthals began mating with ancestors of modern humans long before the out of Africa migration of present day non-Africans. Claims that Neanderthals deliberately buried their dead, and if they did, the debate on deliberate Neanderthal burials has been active since the 1908 discovery of the well-preserved Chapelle-aux-Saints 1 skeleton in a small hole in a cave in southwestern France. In 2013, scientists sequenced the genome of a Neanderthal for the first time. The genome was extracted from the bone of a 50. In 2016, elaborate constructions of rings of broken stalagmites made by early Neanderthals around 176,000 years ago were discovered 336 m inside Bruniquel Cave in southwestern France and this would have required a more advanced social structure than previously known for Neanderthals. Thal is a spelling of the German word Tal, which means valley. Nevertheless, Kings name had priority over the proposal put forward in 1866 by Ernst Haeckel, the practice of referring to the Neanderthals and a Neanderthal emerged in the popular literature of the 1920s. The German pronunciation of Neanderthaler or Neandertaler is in the International Phonetic Alphabet, in British English, Neanderthal is pronounced with the /t/ as in German, but different vowels. In laymans American English, Neanderthal is pronounced with a /θ/ and /ɔ/ instead of the longer British /aː/, during the early 20th century the prevailing view was heavily influenced by Arthur Keith and Marcellin Boule, who wrote the first scientific description of a nearly complete Neanderthal skeleton. During the 1930s scholars Ernst Mayr, George Gaylord Simpson and Theodosius Dobzhansky reinterpreted the existing fossil record, Neanderthal man was classified as Homo sapiens neanderthalensis - an early subspecies contrasted with what was now called Homo sapiens sapiens. The obviously unbroken succession of fossil sites of both subspecies in Europe was considered evidence that there was a slow and gradual evolutionary transition from Neanderthals to modern humans, contextual interpretations of similar excavation sites in Asia lead to the hypothesis of multiregional origin of modern man in the 1980s. Current scientific ideas hold that both evolved from a common African ancestor, Homo erectus
28.
Anatomically modern human
–
Anatomically modern humans evolved from archaic humans in the Middle Paleolithic, about 200,000 years ago. The emergence of modern human marks the dawn of the species Homo sapiens. Other fossils include the proposed Homo sapiens idaltu from Herto in Ethiopia that are almost 160,000 years old and the Skhul hominids from Israel, which are 90,000 years old. The oldest human remains from which an entire genome has been extracted belongs to Ust-Ishim man, however, it can and has been argued that Homo sapiens have been fully capable of modern behavior from the time they first evolved. The binomial name for the species of the human population is Homo sapiens. The species is taken to have emerged from a predecessor within the Homo genus around 200,000 years ago. Generally, modern humans are more lightly built than archaic humans from which they have evolved, Humans are a highly variable species, modern humans can show remarkably robust traits, and early modern humans even more so. Despite this, modern humans differ from archaic people in a range of anatomical details, the cranium lacks a pronounced occipital bun in the neck, a bulge that anchored considerable neck muscles in Neanderthals. Modern humans, even the ones, generally have a larger fore-brain than the archaic people. This will usually give a higher forehead, and reduced brow ridge and this splits the ridge into a central part and two distal parts. In current humans, often only the section of the ridge is preserved. This contrasts with archaic humans, where the ridge is pronounced. Modern humans commonly have a steep, even vertical forehead whereas their predecessors had foreheads that sloped strongly backwards, according to Desmond Morris, the vertical forehead in humans not only houses larger brains, but plays an important role in human communication through eyebrow movements and forehead skin wrinkling. Compared to archaic people, anatomically modern humans have smaller, differently shaped teeth and this results in a smaller, more receded dentary, making the rest of the jaw-line stand out, giving an often quite prominent chin. The central part of the forming the chin carries a triangularly shaped area forming the apex of the chin called the mental trigon. Particularly in living population, the use of fire and tools require fewer jaw muscles, giving slender, compared to archaic people, modern humans have smaller, lower faces. The body skeletons of even the earliest and most robustly built modern humans were less robust than those of Neanderthals, particularly regarding the long bones of the limbs, the distal bones are nearly the same size or slightly shorter than the proximal bones. In ancient people, particularly Neanderthals, the bones were shorter
29.
Recent African origin of modern humans
–
According to this model, modern humans evolved in East Africa, and started to disperse through the world roughly 50,000 to 100,000 years ago. The single-origin hypothesis is cited as having the scientific consensus as of the mid-2000s, in the 2010s, the discovery of evidence of archaic admixture of modern humans outside of Africa with Neanderthals and Denisovans has complicated the picture. As of 2011, it likely that there were two waves of migration out of Africa. The first took place between 130, 000–115,000 years ago via northern Africa, and appears to have died out or retreated. A second dispersal took place via the so-called Southern Route, following the coastline of Asia. Europe was populated by an offshoot which settled the Near East. Anatomically modern humans originated in Africa by about 200,000 years ago, in the Recent African Origin scenario, migration within and out of Africa eventually replaced the earlier dispersed H. erectus. Homo sapiens idaltu, found at site Middle Awash in Ethiopia, beginning about 100,000 years ago, evidence of more sophisticated technology and artwork begins to emerge and by 50,000 years ago, fully modern behaviour becomes more prominent. Stone tools show regular patterns that are reproduced or duplicated with more precision while tools made of bone, fossils of early Homo sapiens were found in Qafzeh cave in Israel and have been dated to 80,000 to 100,000 years ago. A fossil of a modern human dated to 54,700 years ago was found in Manot Cave in Israel, named Manot 1, fossils from Lake Mungo, Australia, have been dated to about 42,000 years ago. The Tianyuan cave remains in Chinas Liujiang region have a date range between 38,000 and 42,000 years ago. The Tianyuan specimens are most similar in morphology to Minatogawa Man, anatomically modern humans originated in Africa by about 200,000 years ago. The first dispersal took place between 130, 000–115,000 years ago via northern Africa, but died out or retreated, chinese researchers question this extinction, claiming that modern humans were present in China already 80,000 years ago. A second dispersal took place via the so-called Southern Route, either before or after the Toba event and this dispersal followed the southern coastline of Asia, crossing about 250 kilometres of sea, and colonized Australia by around 50,000 years ago. The early northern Africa dispersal took place between 130, 000–115,000 years ago, fossils of early Homo sapiens were found in Qafzeh cave in Israel and have been dated 80,000 to 100,000 years ago. These humans seem to have become extinct or retreated back to Africa 70,000 to 80,000 years ago. Hua Liu et al. analyzed autosomal microsatellite markers dating to about 56,000 years ago and they interpret the paleontological fossil as an isolated early offshoot that retracted back to Africa. According to Kuhlwilm and his co-authors, Neanderthals received gene flow from modern humans around 100,000 years ago, chinese research questions the extinction of this early dispersal
30.
Upper Paleolithic
–
The Upper Paleolithic is the third and last subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age. Very broadly, it dates to between 50,000 and 10,000 years ago, roughly coinciding with the appearance of behavioral modernity, modern humans are believed to have emerged about 195,000 years ago in Africa. Although these humans were modern in anatomy, their lifestyle changed very little from their contemporaries, such as Homo erectus, about 50,000 years ago, there was a marked increase in the diversity of artifacts. In Africa, bone artifacts and the first art appear in the archeological record, between 45,000 and 43,000 years ago, this new tool technology spread with human migration to Europe. The new technology generated an explosion of modern humans which is believed to have contributed to the extinction of the Neanderthals. The Upper Paleolithic has the earliest known evidence of organized settlements, in the form of campsites, artistic work blossomed, with cave painting, petroglyphs, carvings and engravings on bone or ivory. The first evidence of fishing is also noted, from artifacts in places such as Blombos cave in South Africa. More complex social groupings emerged, supported by more varied and reliable food sources and this probably contributed to increasing group identification or ethnicity. By 50, 000–40,000 BP, the first humans set foot in Australia, by 45,000 BP, humans lived at 61° north latitude in Europe. By 30,000 BP, Japan was reached, and by 27,000 BP humans were present in Siberia above the Arctic Circle, at the end of the Upper Paleolithic, a group of humans crossed the Bering land bridge and quickly expanded throughout North and South America. Both Homo erectus and Neanderthals used the same crude stone tools, archaeologist Richard G. Klein, who has worked extensively on ancient stone tools, describes the stone tool kit of archaic hominids as impossible to categorize. It was as if the Neanderthals made stone tools, and were not much concerned about their final forms and he argues that almost everywhere, whether Asia, Africa or Europe, before 50,000 years ago all the stone tools are much alike and unsophisticated. These new stone-tool types have been described as being distinctly differentiated from each other, the invaders, commonly referred to as the Cro-Magnons, left many sophisticated stone tools, carved and engraved pieces on bone, ivory and antler, cave paintings and Venus figurines. The Neanderthals continued to use Mousterian stone tool technology and possibly Chatelperronian technology and these tools disappeared from the archeological record at around the same time the Neanderthals themselves disappeared from the fossil record, about 40,000 years ago. Settlements were often located in valley bottoms, possibly associated with hunting of passing herds of animals. Hunting was important, and caribou/wild reindeer may well be the species of single greatest importance in the anthropological literature on hunting. Technological advances included significant developments in flint tool manufacturing, with industries based on fine blades rather than simpler and shorter flakes, burins and racloirs were used to work bone, antler and hides. Advanced darts and harpoons also appear in period, along with the fish hook, the oil lamp, rope
31.
Later Stone Age
–
The Later Stone Age is a period in African prehistory that follows the Early Stone Age and Middle Stone Age. All three periods are often confused with the Lower Paleolithic, Middle Paleolithic, and Upper Paleolithic, in the 1920s, it became clear to archaeologists that the existing chronological system of Upper, Middle, and Lower Paleolithic was not a suitable correlate to the prehistoric past in Africa. The terms Early, Middle, and Later Stone Age were developed to address this issue, some scholars, however, still view these two chronologies as parallel, arguing that they both represent the development of behavioral modernity. The Later Stone Age is associated with the advent of human behavior in Africa, although definitions of this concept. The transition from the Middle Stone Age to the Later Stone Age is thought to have occurred first in eastern Africa between 50,000 and 39,000 years ago. It is also thought that Later Stone Age peoples and/or their technologies spread out of Africa over the several thousand years. LSA peoples were linked with biologically and behaviorally modern populations of hunter/gatherers. This definition has changed since its creation with the discovery of ostrich eggshell beads, the Later Stone Age was also long distinguished from the earlier Middle Stone Age as the time in which modern human behavior developed in Africa. This definition has become more tenuous as evidence for modern human behaviors is found in sites which predate the LSA significantly. The LSA follows the Middle Stone Age and begins about 50,000 years ago, the LSA is characterized by a wider variety in stone artifacts than in the previous MSA period. These artifacts vary with time and location, unlike Middle Stone Age technology which appeared to have been unchanged for several hundreds of thousands of years. LSA technology is characterized by the use of bone tools. The LSA was associated with human behavior, but this view was modified after discoveries in MSA sites such as Blombos Cave. LSA sites also greatly outnumber MSA sites in Africa, a trend that could indicate an increase in population numbers, the greater number of LSA sites could also result from bias towards better preservation of younger sites which have had fewer chances to be destroyed. Differences in stone tool technologies are used to distinguish between the Middle Stone Age and the Later Stone Age. They have been broken into four stages within the LSA. Microlithic industries with bladelets dated between ca.18,000 and ca.12,000 B. P, nonmicrolithic, bladelet-poor industries dating between 12,000 and 8000 B. P. The end of the Later Stone Age took place when groups adopted technologies such as metallurgy to replace the use of stone tools, Upper Paleolithic Middle Stone Age Enkapune Ya Muto Mumba Cave Mumbwa Cave Deacon, Hilary
32.
Behavioral modernity
–
Behavioral modernity is a suite of behavioral and cognitive traits that distinguishes current Homo sapiens from other anatomically modern humans, hominins, and primates. Underlying these behaviors and technological innovations are cognitive and cultural foundations that have been documented experimentally and ethnographically, some of these human universal patterns are cumulative cultural adaptation, social norms, language, cooperative breeding, and extensive help and cooperation beyond close kin. Arising from differences in the record, a debate continues as to whether anatomically modern humans were behaviorally modern as well. There are many theories on the evolution of behavioral modernity and these generally fall into two camps, gradualist and cognitive approaches. The Later Upper Paleolithic Model refers to the idea that human behavior arose through cognitive, genetic changes abruptly around 40. Other models focus on how human behavior may have arisen through gradual steps. In order to classify what traits should be included in human behavior. Some examples of human universals are abstract thought, planning, trade, cooperative labor, body decoration, control. Along with these traits, humans possess a heavy reliance on social learning and this cumulative cultural change or cultural ratchet separates human culture from social learning in animals. As well, a reliance on social learning may be responsible in part for humans rapid adaptation to environments outside of Africa. Since cultural universals are found in all including some of the most isolated indigenous groups. Archaeologically a number of empirical traits have been used as indicators of human behavior. While these are often debated a few are generally agreed upon, shea outlines a variety of problems with this concept, arguing instead for behavioral variability, which, according to the author, better describes the archaeological record. Some researchers argue that a greater emphasis should be placed on identifying only those artifacts which are unquestionably, or purely and these authors note that traits used as a metric for behavioral modernity do not appear as a package until around 40–50,000 years ago. Klein specifically describes evidence of fishing, bone shaped as a tool, hearths, significant artifact diversity, although assemblages before 50,000 years ago show some diversity the only distinctly modern tool assemblages appear in Europe at 48,000. According to these authors, art only becomes common beyond this switching point, most researchers argue that a neurological or genetic change, perhaps one enabling complex language such as FOXP2, caused this revolutionary change in our species. Howiesons Poort, Blombos, and other South African archaeological sites, for example, show evidence of marine resource acquisition, trade, and abstract ornamentation at least by 80,000 years ago. Given evidence from Africa and the Middle East, a variety of hypotheses have put forth to describe an earlier
33.
Spear-thrower
–
A spear-thrower or atlatl is a tool that uses leverage to achieve greater velocity in dart-throwing, and includes a bearing surface which allows the user to store energy during the throw. It may consist of a shaft with a cup or a spur at the end that supports, the spear-thrower is held in one hand, gripped near the end farthest from the cup. The dart is thrown by the action of the upper arm, the throwing arm together with the atlatl acts as a lever. The spear-thrower is a low-mass, fast-moving extension of the throwing arm and this extra length allows the thrower to impart force to the dart over a longer distance, thus imparting more energy and ultimately higher speeds. Common modern ball throwers use the same principle, a spear-thrower is a long-range weapon and can readily impart to a projectile speeds of over 150 km/h. In the United States the Nahuatl word atlatl is often used for revived uses of spear-throwers, the ancient Greeks and Romans used a leather thong or loop, known as an ankule or amentum, as a spear-throwing device. Spear-thrower designs may include such as thong loops to fit the fingers, the use of flexible shafts, stone balance weights. Darts resemble large arrows or thin spears and are typically from 1.2 to 2.7 m in length and 9 to 16 mm in diameter, another important improvement to the spear-throwers design was the introduction of a small weight strapped to its midsection. Some atlatlists maintain that stone weights add mass to the shaft of the device, causing resistance to acceleration when swung and resulting in a more forceful, others claim that spear-thrower weights add only stability to a cast, resulting in greater accuracy. Based on previous work done by William S. Webb, William R, the use of the device would reduce the telltale zip of a swung atlatl to a more subtle woof sound that did not travel as far and was less likely to alert prey. The woomera design is different from most other spear-throwers, in that it has a curved, hollow shape. Several Stone Age spear-throwers are decorated with carvings of animals, the British Museum has a mammoth, many pieces of decorated bone may have belonged to Bâtons de commandement. The Aztec atlatl was often decorated with designs and feathers. Wooden darts were known at least since the Middle Paleolithic, while the spear-thrower is capable of casting a dart well over one hundred meters, it is most accurately used at distances of twenty meters or less. The spearthrower is believed to have been in use by Homo sapiens since the Upper Paleolithic, most stratified European finds come from the Magdalenian. In this period, elaborate pieces, often in the form of animals, are common, the earliest secure data concerning atlatls have come from several caves in France dating to the Upper Paleolithic, about 21,000 to 17,000 years ago. The earliest known example is a 17, 500-year-old Solutrean atlatl made of antler, found at Combe Saunière. In Europe, the spear-thrower was supplemented by the bow and arrow in the Epi-Paleolithic and this allowed for more forgiving flint knapping, dart heads designed for a particular spear thrower tend to differ in mass by only a few percent
34.
Origin of the domestic dog
–
The origin of the domestic dog is not clear. The domestic dog is a member of genus Canis that forms part of the wolf-like canids, the closest living relative of the dog is the gray wolf and there is no evidence of any other canine contributing to its genetic lineage. The dog and the extant gray wolf form two clades, with modern wolves not closely related to the wolves that were first domesticated. The archaeological record shows the first undisputed dog remains buried beside humans 14,700 years ago and these dates imply that the earliest dogs arose in the time of human hunter-gatherers and not agriculturists. The dog was the first domesticated species, where the genetic divergence of dog and wolf took place remains controversial, with the most plausible proposals spanning Western Europe, Central Asia, and East Asia. The Western Eurasian dog population was partially and gradually replaced by East Asian dogs introduced by humans at least 6,400 years ago. Six million years ago at the close of the Miocene era, the climate was gradually cooling and this would lead to the glaciations of the Pliocene. In many areas the forests and savannahs were being replaced with steppe or grasslands, on opposite sides of the planet, two very different lineages would adapt to these changes and their evolution would produce two species that would become the most widely distributed of mammals. In eastern Africa, a split was occurring among the large primates, the two lineages would ultimately meet on the Eurasian continent. Further Information, Canid evolution Dog evolution is the descent with modification that led to the domestic dog. This process encompasses small-scale evolution and large-scale evolution, the domestic dog is the most widely abundant large carnivore. When and where dogs were first domesticated has vexed geneticists for the past 20 years, the range of natural variation among these characters that may have existed in ancient wolf populations, and the time it took for these traits to appear in dogs, are unknown. However, recent studies based on genetics propose four generalizations about dogs, over the past million years, numerous wolf-like forms existed but their turnover has been high, and modern wolves are not the lineal ancestors of dogs. This indicates that an extant wolf population that is the ancestor to dogs has not been found and is presumed extinct, the dog is not a separate species to the wolf. The dog was the first domesticated species and appeared more than 15,000 years before present, studies support two population bottlenecks had occurred to the dog lineage, one due to the initial domestication and one due to the formation of dog breeds. Dogs show both ancient and modern lineages, the ancient lineages appear most in Asia but least in Europe because the Victorian era development of modern dog breeds used little of the ancient lineages. All dog populations show some evidence of admixture between modern and ancient dogs. Some ancient dog populations that once occupied Europe and the New World no longer exist and this implies that some ancient dog populations were entirely replaced and others admixed over a long period of time
35.
Microlith
–
A microlith is a small stone tool usually made of flint or chert and typically a centimetre or so in length and half a centimetre wide. They were made by people from 35,000 years ago to about 3,000 years ago, in Europe, north Africa, across Asia and in Australia, and used in spear points and arrowheads. Microliths are produced either a small blade or a larger blade-like piece of flint by abrupt or truncated retouching. The microliths themselves are sufficiently worked so as to be distinguishable from workshop waste or accidents, two families of microliths are usually defined, laminar and geometric. An assemblage of microliths can be used to date an archeological site, laminar microliths are associated with the end of the Upper Paleolithic and the beginning of the Epipaleolithic era, geometric microliths are characteristic of the Mesolithic and the Neolithic. Geometric microliths may be triangular, trapezoid or lunate, microlith production generally declined following the introduction of agriculture but continued later in cultures with a deeply rooted hunting tradition. Regardless of type, microliths were used to form the points of hunting weapons, such as spears and arrows, and other artifacts and are found throughout Africa, Asia and Europe. They were utilised with wood, bone, resin and fiber to form a tool or weapon. An average of six and eighteen microliths may often have been used in one spear or harpoon. Laminar microliths date from at least the Gravettian culture or possibly the start of the Upper Paleolithic era, noilles Burins and Microgravettes indicate that the production of microliths had already started in the Gravettian culture. This style of flint working flourished during the Magdalenian period and persisted in numerous Epipaleolithic traditions all around the Mediterranean basin. These microliths are slightly larger than the geometric microliths that followed and were made from the flakes of flint obtained ad hoc from a nucleus or from a depleted nucleus of flint. They were produced either by percussion or by the application of a variable pressure, there are three basic types of laminar microlith. The truncated blade type can be divided into a number of depending on the position of the truncation and according to its form, for example. Raclette scrapers are notable for their form, being blades or flakes whose edges have been sharply retouched until they are semicircular or even shapeless. Raclettes are indefinite cultural indicators, as they appear from the Upper Paleolithic through to the Neolithic, backed edge blades have one of the edges, generally a side one, rounded or chamfered by abrupt retouching. There are fewer types of blades, and may be divided into those where the entire edge is rounded. They are fundamental in the processes, and from them
36.
Bow and arrow
–
The bow and arrow is a projectile weapon system that predates recorded history and is common to most cultures. Archery is the art, practice, or skill of applying it, a bow is a flexible arc that shoots aerodynamic projectiles called arrows. A string joins the two ends of the bow and when the string is drawn back, the ends of the bow are flexed, when the string is released, the potential energy of the flexed stick is transformed into the kinetic energy of the arrow. Archery is the art or sport of shooting arrows from bows, today, bows and arrows are used primarily for hunting and for the sport of archery. Someone who makes bows is known as a bowyer, and one who makes arrows is a fletcher —or in the case of the manufacture of arrow heads. The bow and arrow appears around the transition from the Upper Paleolithic to the Mesolithic, at the site of Nataruk in Turkana County, Kenya, obsidian bladelets found embedded in a skull and within the thoracic cavity of another skeleton, suggest the use of stone-tipped arrows as weapons. After the end of the last glacial period, use of the bow seems to have spread to every inhabited continent, including the New World, the oldest extant bows in one piece are the elm Holmegaard bows from Denmark which were dated to 9,000 BCE. High-performance wooden bows are made following the Holmegaard design. Microliths discovered on the south coast of Africa suggest that arrows may be at least 71,000 years old, the bow was an important weapon for both hunting and warfare from prehistoric times until the widespread use of gunpowder in the 16th century. Organised warfare with bows ended in the mid 17th century in Europe, the British upper class led a revival of archery from the late 18th century. Sir Ashton Lever, an antiquarian and collector, formed the Toxophilite Society in London in 1781, under the patronage of George, the basic elements of a bow are a pair of curved elastic limbs, traditionally made from wood, joined by a riser. Both ends of the limbs are connected by a known as the bow string. By pulling the string backwards the archer exerts compressive force on the section, or belly, of the limbs as well as placing the outer section, or back. While the string is held, this stores the energy released in putting the arrow to flight. The force required to hold the string stationary at full draw is used to express the power of a bow. Other things being equal, a draw weight means a more powerful bow. The various parts of the bow can be subdivided into further sections, the topmost limb is known as the upper limb, while the bottom limb is the lower limb. At the tip of each limb is a nock, which is used to attach the bowstring to the limbs, the riser is usually divided into the grip, which is held by the archer, as well as the arrow rest and the bow window
37.
Canoe
–
A canoe is a lightweight narrow boat, typically pointed at both ends and open on top, propelled by one or more seated or kneeling paddlers facing the direction of travel using a single-bladed paddle. In International Canoe Federation nomenclature used in some European countries such as the United Kingdom the term refers to kayaks. Canoes are used for racing, whitewater canoeing, touring and camping, freestyle, the intended use of the canoe dictates its hull shape and length and construction material. Historically, canoes were dugouts or made of bark on a wood frame, most modern canoes are made of molded plastic or composites such as fiberglass. Until the mid-1800s the canoe was an important means of transport for exploration and trade, canoeing has been part of the Olympics since 1936. In places where the played a key role in history, such as the northern United States, Canada, and New Zealand. Canoes can be adapted to many purposes, for example with the addition of sails, outboard motors, the word canoe comes from the Carib kenu, via the Spanish canoa. Constructed between 8200 and 7600 BC, and found in the Netherlands, the Pesse canoe may be the oldest known canoe, excavations in Denmark reveal the use of dugouts and paddles during the Ertebølle period. Australian Aboriginal people made canoes using a variety of materials, including bark, the indigenous people of the Amazon commonly used Hymenaea trees. Many indigenous peoples of the Americas built bark canoes and they were usually skinned with birch bark over a light wooden frame, but other types could be used if birch was scarce. At a typical length of 4.3 m and weight of 23 kg, although susceptible to damage from rocks, they are easily repaired. When you reach them you load canoe and baggage upon your shoulders and go overland until the navigation is good, and then you put your canoe back into the water, and embark again. American painter, author and traveler George Catlin wrote that the canoe was the most beautiful. Native American groups of the north Pacific coast made dugout canoes in a number of styles for different purposes, from western red-cedar or yellow-cedar, different styles were required for ocean-going vessels versus river boats, and for whale-hunting versus seal-hunting versus salmon-fishing. The Quinault of Washington State built shovel-nose canoes, with double bows, the Kootenai of British Columbia province made sturgeon-nosed canoes from pine bark, designed to be stable in windy conditions on Kootenay Lake. The first explorer to cross the North American continent, Alexander Mackenzie, used extensively, as did David Thompson. Its dimensions were, length approximately 11 m, beam 1.2 to 1.8 m and it could carry 60 packs weighing 41 kg, and 910 kg of provisions. With a crew of eight or ten, they could make three knots over calm waters, four to six men could portage it, bottom up
38.
Natufian culture
–
The Epipaleolithic Natufian culture /nəˈtuːfiən/ existed from around 12,500 to 9,500 BC in the Levant, a region in the Eastern Mediterranean. It was unusual in that it supported a sedentary or semi-sedentary population even before the introduction of agriculture, the Natufian communities may be the ancestors of the builders of the first Neolithic settlements of the region, which may have been the earliest in the world. Natufians founded Jericho which may be the oldest city in the world, some evidence suggests deliberate cultivation of cereals, specifically rye, by the Natufian culture, at Tell Abu Hureyra, the site of earliest evidence of agriculture in the world. Generally, though, Natufians exploited wild cereals, Dorothy Garrod coined the term Natufian based on her excavations at Shuqba cave in Wadi an-Natuf, in the western Judean Mountains. The Natufian culture was discovered by British archaeologist Dorothy Garrod during her excavations of Shuqba cave in the Judaean Hills, prior to the 1930s, the majority of archaeological work taking place in Palestine was biblical archaeology focused on historic periods, and little was known about the regions prehistory. She discovered a layer sandwiched between the Upper Palaeolithic and Bronze Age deposits characterised by the presence of microliths. She identified this with the Mesolithic, a period between the Palaeolithic and the Neolithic which was well represented in Europe but had not yet been found in the Near East. A year later, when she discovered similar material at el-Wad Terrace, Garrod suggested the name the Natufian culture, as early as 1931, both Garrod and Neuville drew attention to the presence of stone sickles in Natufian assemblages and the possibility that this represented very early agriculture. Radiocarbon dating places this culture from the terminal Pleistocene to the beginning of the Holocene. The period is split into two subperiods, Early Natufian and Late Natufian. The Late Natufian most likely occurred in tandem with the Younger Dryas, the Natufian developed in the same region as the earlier Kebaran industry. It is generally seen as a successor, which evolved out of elements within that preceding culture, more generally there has been discussion of the similarities of these cultures with those found in coastal North Africa. In fact, Weiss et al. have shown that the earliest known usage of plants was in the Levant 23,000 years ago at the Ohalo II site. Loring Brace cross-analysed the craniometric traits of Natufian specimens with those of ancient and modern groups from the Near East, Africa. Settlements occur in the belt where oak and Pistacia species dominated. The underbrush of this woodland was grass with high frequencies of grain. The habitations of the Natufian are semi-subterranean, often with a dry-stone foundation, the superstructure was probably made of brushwood. No traces of mudbrick have been found, which became common in the following Pre-Pottery Neolithic A, the round houses have a diameter between three and six meters, and they contain a central round or subrectangular fireplace
39.
Khiamian
–
The Khiamian is a period of the Near-Eastern Neolithic, marking the transition between the Natufian and the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A. Some sources date it from about 10,000 to 9,500 BCE and it currently dates between 10,200 and 8800 BC according to the ASPRO chronology. They have served to identify sites of this period, which are found in Israel, as well as in Jordan, Sinai, aside from the appearance of El Khiam arrow heads, the Khiamian is placed in the continuity of the Natufian, without any major technical innovations. However, for the first time houses were built on the level itself. Otherwise, the bearers of the El Khiam culture were still hunter-gatherers, the Khiamien also sees a change occur in the symbolic aspects of culture, as evidenced by the appearance of small female statuettes, as well as by the burying of aurochs skulls. According to Jacques Cauvin, it is the beginning of the worship of the Woman, zivilisationen – wie die Kultur nach Sumer kam. The birth of the gods and the origins of agriculture, catastrophic early Holocene sea level rise, human migration and the Neolithic transition in Europe
40.
Heavy Neolithic
–
The type site for the Qaraoun culture is Qaraoun II. The industry was also termed Gigantolithic and confirmed as Neolithic by Alfred Rust, Gigantolithic was initially mistaken for Acheulean or Levalloisian by some scholars. Diana Kirkbride and Henri de Contenson suggested that it existed over an area of the fertile crescent. Heavy Neolithic industry occurred before the invention of pottery and is characterized by huge, coarse, heavy tools such as axes, picks, there is no evidence of polishing at the Qaraoun sites or indeed of any arrowheads, burins or millstones. Henri Fleisch noted that the culture that produced this industry may well have led a forest way of life before the dawn of agriculture, jacques Cauvin proposed that some of the sites discovered may have been factories or workshops as many artifacts recovered were rough outs. Maya Haidar Boustani has called for discussion on the problem when reliable data on the flint workshops becomes available. She looked towards the work of Ron Barkai and H. Taute as being of use in this research. A notable stratified excavation of Heavy Neolithic material took place at Adloun II, conducted by Diana Kirkbride, materials extracted from the upper layers were however disturbed. The morphology of the tools has noted similarities to the Campignian industry in France, the industry has been found at surface stations in the Beqaa Valley and on the seaward side of the mountains. Heavy Neolithic sites were found near sources of flint and were thought to be factories or workshops where large, coarse flint tools were roughed out to work, chisels, flake scrapers and picks were also found with little, if any sign of arrowheads, sickles or pottery. Finds of waste and debris at the sites were usually plentiful, normally consisting of Orange slices, thick and crested blades, discoid, andrew Moore suggested that many of the sites were used as flint factories that complimented settlements in the surrounding hills. The identification of Heavy Neolithic sites in Lebanon was complicated by the fact that the assemblages found at these sites included tools made with all techniques used during earlier periods. Bifaces are found both with and without a cortex, along with grattoir de cote, triangular flakes, tortoise cores, discoid cores and steep scrapers. This presented particular problems with sites where Heavy Neolithic material was mixed with that from the Lower Paleolithic and Middle Paleolithic, such as at Mejdel Anjar I and Dakoue. Not enough exploration has been carried out yet to conclude whether the bands of Neolithic surface sites continues north into the areas around Zahle and Rayak. The Heavy Neolithic industry has also identified at the Palestinian archaeological sites around Wadi al-Fara, (Wadi Farah, Shemouniyeh
41.
Shepherd Neolithic
–
Shepherd Neolithic is a name given by archaeologists to a style of small flint tools from the Hermel plains in the north Beqaa Valley, Lebanon. The Shepherd Neolithic industry has been studied and was provisionally named based on a limited typology collected by Jesuit archaeologist Père Henri Fleisch. Lorraine Copeland and Peter J. Wescombe suggested it was possibly of late date. Shepherd Neolithic material can be dispersed over a wide area of the north Beqaa Valley in low concentrations. M. Billaux and Henri Fleisch suggested that the flints were of a higher quality than the brittle flint in the nearby conglomerates indicating that they had imported from somewhere else. Three groups of flint could be determined, light brown, red-brown, characteristics of the industry include smallness in size, commonly between 2.5 cm and 4 cm and frequently being quite thick, unlike geometric microliths. They also display a lack of recognizable typology although Levallois technique was occasionally observed to have been used and they also show signs of having been heavily worked with cores being re-used and turned into scrapers. Fleisch suggested the industry was Epipaleolithic as it is evidently not Paleolithic, Mesolithic or even Pottery Neolithic and he further suggested that the industry could have been used by nomadic shepherds. Not enough exploration had been carried out to conclude whether the bands of Neolithic surface sites continues south into the areas around Zahle and Rayak
42.
Pre-Pottery Neolithic
–
The Pre-Pottery Neolithic represents the early Neolithic in the Levantine and upper Mesopotamian region of the Fertile Crescent. It succeeds the Natufian culture of the Epipaleolithic as the domestication of plants and animals was in its beginnings, the Pre-Pottery Neolithic culture came to an end around the time of the 8.2 kiloyear event, a cool spell lasting several hundred years centred on 6200 BCE. The Pre-Pottery Neolithic is divided into Pre-Pottery Neolithic A and the following Pre-Pottery Neolithic B and these were originally defined by Kathleen Kenyon in the type site of Jericho. The Pre-Pottery Neolithic precedes the ceramic Neolithic, at Ain Ghazal in Jordan the culture continued a few more centuries as the so-called Pre-Pottery Neolithic C culture. Around 8000 BCE during the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A the worlds first town Jericho appeared in the Levant, PPNB differed from PPNA in showing greater use of domesticated animals, a different set of tools, and new architectural styles. Work at the site of Ain Ghazal in Jordan has indicated a later Pre-Pottery Neolithic C period, cultures practicing this lifestyle spread down the Red Sea shoreline and moved east from Syria into southern Iraq. Pre-history of the Southern Levant History of pottery in the Southern Levant Ofer Bar-Yosef, J. Cauvin, Naissance des divinités, Naissance de l’agriculture. La révolution des symboles au Néolithique, translation The birth of the gods and the origins of agriculture
43.
Neolithic
–
It ended when metal tools became widespread. The Neolithic is a progression of behavioral and cultural characteristics and changes, including the use of wild and domestic crops, the beginning of the Neolithic culture is considered to be in the Levant about 10, 200–8800 BC. It developed directly from the Epipaleolithic Natufian culture in the region, whose people pioneered the use of wild cereals, which then evolved into true farming. The Natufian period was between 12,000 and 10,200 BC, and the so-called proto-Neolithic is now included in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic between 10,200 and 8800 BC. By 10, 200–8800 BC, farming communities arose in the Levant and spread to Asia Minor, North Africa, Mesopotamia is the site of the earliest developments of the Neolithic Revolution from around 10,000 BC. Early Neolithic farming was limited to a range of plants, both wild and domesticated, which included einkorn wheat, millet and spelt, and the keeping of dogs, sheep. By about 6900–6400 BC, it included domesticated cattle and pigs, the establishment of permanently or seasonally inhabited settlements, not all of these cultural elements characteristic of the Neolithic appeared everywhere in the same order, the earliest farming societies in the Near East did not use pottery. Early Japanese societies and other East Asian cultures used pottery before developing agriculture, unlike the Paleolithic, when more than one human species existed, only one human species reached the Neolithic. The term Neolithic derives from the Greek νέος néos, new and λίθος líthos, stone, the term was invented by Sir John Lubbock in 1865 as a refinement of the three-age system. In the Middle East, cultures identified as Neolithic began appearing in the 10th millennium BC, early development occurred in the Levant and from there spread eastwards and westwards. Neolithic cultures are attested in southeastern Anatolia and northern Mesopotamia by around 8000 BC. The total excavated area is more than 1,200 square yards, the Neolithic 1 period began roughly 10,000 years ago in the Levant. A temple area in southeastern Turkey at Göbekli Tepe dated around 9500 BC may be regarded as the beginning of the period. This site was developed by nomadic tribes, evidenced by the lack of permanent housing in the vicinity. At least seven stone circles, covering 25 acres, contain limestone pillars carved with animals, insects, Stone tools were used by perhaps as many as hundreds of people to create the pillars, which might have supported roofs. Other early PPNA sites dating to around 9500–9000 BC have been found in Jericho, Israel, Gilgal in the Jordan Valley, the start of Neolithic 1 overlaps the Tahunian and Heavy Neolithic periods to some degree. The major advance of Neolithic 1 was true farming, in the proto-Neolithic Natufian cultures, wild cereals were harvested, and perhaps early seed selection and re-seeding occurred. The grain was ground into flour, emmer wheat was domesticated, and animals were herded and domesticated
