["200,000 YA HOMO SAPIENS 135,000 YA FIRST USE 110,000 YA LAST ICE AGE 41,000 YA EARLIEST PAINTED APPEARS OF SYMBOLS BEGINS CAVE ART THE FIRST HOMO SAPIENS Of all the hominin species, and all the variants of genus Homo, only Homo sapiens remains today, having survived the challenges of the last ice age. It did so thanks to its unique anatomy, which came together in Africa nearly 200,000 years ago. The distinctive \u201cpackage\u201d of anatomical BEGINNING THE LONG WALK features that identify living people today By 120,000 to 80,000 years ago, early as Homo sapiens developed gradually, Homo sapiens had moved into the Middle beginning around 500,000 years ago. East and western Asia. The remains of over Some key characteristics include: globular 20 individuals recovered from the caves at skulls, very large brains, shorter tucked- Skhul and Qafzeh in Israel still show some under faces, and smaller teeth, together morphological differences. However, 47 with a more slender, lighter skeleton, distinctly modern teeth, with flat crowns smaller arm-to-lower-limb proportions, and thin roots, have been found thousands and narrower ribs. The appearance of of miles farther east in Fuyan Cave, these modifications was complex, occurring Daoxian, China. It is clear from this that at different times and places, and in we are missing fossils from large swathes different combinations, but brain size of Homo sapiens\u2019 long journey into Asia, and continued to increase everywhere. that at least some of the stone tools found The oldest Homo sapiens fossils come along their route in this period, such as in from Omo Kibish, Ethiopia. Dated to India, were made by anatomically modern around 195,000 years ago, the fragmented people. It also makes it very likely that the skulls and skeletons of two individuals oldest stone tools in Australia, dating show a modern morphology (form and back 55,000 years, were made structure), but one has less modern features by Homo sapiens, since they had than the other. Other early modern fossils already been in Asia a long time. have been discovered at Herto in Ethiopia, We cannot be sure what Singa in Sudan, Laetoli in Tanzania, Jebel stimulated Homo sapiens\u2019 dispersal Irhoud in Morocco, and Border Cave from Africa, leading eventually to and Klasies River Mouth in South Africa. a single global human species. It is All of these are between 200,000 and unlikely to have been technological 100,000 years old and display modern progress, since their stone tools were little characteristics, albeit with variation more advanced than those made 100,000 in morphology. years previously. Populations may have been increasing and climate change may Skhul-Qafzeh have played a part, but important Jebel Irhoud cognitive and social changes were also taking place at the time. Increased symbolic expression after 150,000 years ago point Singa Herto to innovations that probably Omo Kibish coincided with Homo sapiens acquiring a brain size similar \u25b6 African origins to that of people living today. Early Homo sapiens fossils have been found at a Laetoli variety of African sites. \u25b6 Sole survivor Genetic and skeletal Homo sapiens is the last hominin evidence shows that species, but for long periods it African populations were Border Cave\/ coexisted with other humans, already regionally distinct Klasies river mouth including Homo erectus, Homo by 120,000 years ago. floresiensis, and the Neanderthals. THE FIRST HOMO SAPIENS 199","8 MYA HOMININS 2.6 MYA STONE TECHNOLOGY 2.5 MYA GENUS HOMO 300,000 YA FIRST WEAPONS APPEAR IS DEVELOPED APPEARS WITH HANDLES A family affair Unlike the young of other primates, human children spend decades being cared for by parents, grandparents, and friends of the family. These prolonged childhoods provide ample time for learning the ways of the world. 200 THRESHOLD 6","200,000 YA HOMO SAPIENS 135,000 YA FIRST USE 110,000 YA LAST ICE AGE 41,000 YA EARLIEST PAINTED 12,000 YA LAST ICE APPEARS OF SYMBOLS BEGINS CAVE ART AGE ENDS BRINGING UP BABIES Changes in the human reproductive cycle played an important part in the success of Homo sapiens. Increasing brain size probably made childbirth harder, but it also enabled us to evolve the very culture we need to rear our relatively undeveloped young. The labors of Homo sapiens are long, than expected given our body size. It painful, and risky. Our infants are large, may be that the upper limit on pregnancy have big heads, are mostly helpless, and are length is actually metabolic\u2014the point at born with only 30 percent of their adult which mothers can no longer biologically brain size. Pregnancies would need to support a growing baby. be 16 months long to attain the same development as newborn chimpanzees. COOPERATIVE BREEDING Our childhood development is also Anatomical changes also affected how we extended, demanding high levels of care, bring up our young. As australopithecine not just by parents, but by other family feet lost the \u201cbig toe\u201d associated with tree members and friends. climbing, infants were less able to cling to their mothers, and required greater care. To explain these complications, it It is possible that the exploitation of animal is often said that greater brain size (see skins may have been driven more by the pp.188\u201389) coupled with bipedalism\u2014 need to make baby slings and wraps than which gave us narrower pelvises\u2014created a need for warm clothing. a biological trade-off. Potentially fatal births were avoided by limiting the length Although the length of time spent of pregnancies, forcing babies to be born breastfeeding was probably comparable early. It is certainly possible that by to that of other apes\u2014lasting several years, about 500,000 years ago, hominins were as it does today\u2014the greater demands of already experiencing tricky births, and a hominin infant may have promoted the that women may have had some level of evolution of cooperative breeding, by assistance, or at least company, during which several adults bring up a child. labor. Other social primates, such as The role of nonrelated adults and older bonobos, exhibit similar behavior. generations in caring for children probably However, it is also true that nonbipedal became important too, creating a rich primates have a tight fit in the birth canal, environment in which experienced that capuchins and chimpanzee babies individuals could be observed finding food have relatively undeveloped brains, and and making tools\u2014vital skills that were that human gestation is actually longer then passed on to the next generation. Large hip bones Small hips center support the gorilla\u2019s the human torso for walking on two feet extensive gut Baby\u2019s head Large head must turn passes through sideways to pass pelvis with through birth canal room to spare \u25b2 Gorilla birth \u25b2 Human birth Due to its small brain, a baby gorilla\u2019s The head of a human baby must rotate head passes through its mother\u2019s birth to descend through its mother\u2019s birth canal with room to spare, making canal, making childbirth longer and labor shorter and less risky. more painful. BRINGING UP BABIES 201","8 MYA HOMININS 2.6 MYA STONE TECHNOLOGY 2.5 MYA GENUS HOMO 300,000 YA FIRST WEAPONS APPEAR IS DEVELOPED APPEARS WITH HANDLES HOW LANGUAGE EVOLVED Many animals call to each other with sounds that stand for \u201cDanger!,\u201d 2. Broca\u2019s area 3. The motor cortex \u201cFood!,\u201d or \u201cHere!,\u201d but only humans can think conceptually\u2014can talk, plans the controls the muscles for example, about the nature of food or danger. For this, language had response used in the response to evolve, and with it came storytelling, information-sharing, and our first attempts at understanding the world. Tongue Hyoid bone In evolutionary terms, the ability to 1. Wernicke\u2019s area speak emerged as a result of the hominin deciphers speech Larynx larynx lowering in the throat, enabling our ancestors to produce more diverse 4. Mouth, tongue, sounds than those of any other primate. and throat articulate The biological price of this was high, as an elevated larynx had enabled us to the response breathe and swallow simultaneously; now, we ran the risk of choking when we ate. \u25b2 How humans process speech At the same time, the hyoid bone, which The emergence of speech required the evolution connects the larynx to the root of the of several key structures in the throat and brain. tongue, also changed position in a This included the hyoid bone, which is vital in way that helped facilitate vocalization. producing varied vocal sounds. Judging from the fossil record, this happened between 700,000 and 600,000 SYMBOLS AS EVIDENCE years ago, as Neanderthals and probably The artifacts left by our ancestors are better our common ancestor both had a forms of evidence. Among the most striking \u201cmodern\u201d hyoid bone. Our exceptional are those created by early Homo sapiens in breath control, essential when speaking, South Africa between 100,000 and 50,000 also seems to date from this time. years ago. At Blombos Cave, for example, red ocher blocks were shaped and carefully Casts of fossil skulls show that covered with delicate crosshatch designs Neanderthals had structures in the brain (see p.207). Even more impressive are the that were equivalent to our own \u201cBroca\u2019s ostrich eggshells found at Diepkloof Cave, also in South Africa (see p.208). These were TODAY THERE ARE NEARLY engraved with complex geometric patterns 7,000 LANGUAGES, BUT EACH that show changes over time, hinting at USES ONLY A SMALL NUMBER shifts in meaning. Very much older than these, however, is a seashell from Trinil, OF THE SOUNDS THAT A Indonesia, which bears the incised zigzag HUMAN BEING CAN MAKE markings of a Homo erectus who lived some 540,000\u2013430,000 years ago (see p.206). It area.\u201d This area is vital to speaking reveals that the common ancestor of several and understanding language, and to hominins used graphic symbols, and so had perceiving meaningful gestures. Indeed, probably developed language\u2014a fact that is gestures may have been key: studies show supported by anatomical evidence. that chimpanzees repeatedly use hand signs when vocalizing, indicating that Another type of symbolic evidence comes early language may not have been purely from personal ornaments, which often vocal. However, the functions performed communicate social meanings\u2014for instance, by different parts of the brain can change over time, so even if other hominins had brain structures similar to ours, they may not have been used for language. 202 THRESHOLD 6","200,000 YA HOMO SAPIENS 135,000 YA FIRST USE 110,000 YA LAST ICE AGE 41,000 YA EARLIEST PAINTED 12,000 YA LAST ICE APPEARS OF SYMBOLS BEGINS CAVE ART AGE ENDS about personal status or group affiliation\u2014 from Hohlenstein-Stadel, Germany (see \u25c0 Almost talking which can only be established through p.208) was carved around 40,000 years ago. Campbell\u2019s monkeys language. For example, the first use of shell It merges a lion\u2019s head with a human body, from Ivory Coast seem beads occurs at the same time as engravings indicating both an imaginative leap by the to be on the verge of become more common; beads from Skhul artist, and a narrative to give it meaning. speaking. They have Cave in Israel date from 135,000\u2013100,000 a \u201cproto-syntax\u201d years ago, while those from Grotte des The most striking examples of Paleolithic composed of alert Pigeons in Morocco date from 80,000 years narrative come from later European cave calls, which they use to ago. At Blombos Cave, too, groups of beads art. One scene painted at Lascaux, France, communicate detailed were excavated from layers dating from around 17,000 years ago, features a wounded information\u2014such as around 80,000 years ago, many showing bison charging a male figure who lies above what type of predator areas of polish that suggest they were strung some fallen spears and a line topped by a is coming and how it together, possibly as necklaces. The markings bird. There are many interpretations of the was detected. also show that the arrangement of the beads scene, but all of them agree that the man, changed over time, suggesting not only that the bison, and the bird only make sense in a meaning and symbolism, were part of they were symbolic, but that their meanings storytelling context. This and other examples Paleolithic life, and likely had been for evolved, like those of the Diepkloof eggshells. indicate that rich oral traditions, full of many thousands of years. They were our first attempts at fathoming the world around us\u2014of giving it a narrative shape. FROM SYMBOLS TO STORIES A COMPLEX TRAIN OF THOUGHT CAN BE NO MORE CARRIED OUT WITHOUT WORDS\u2026 THAN A Taken together, the evidence shows that CALCULATION WITHOUT THE USE OF FIGURES. Homo sapiens had evolved symbolic culture and language by 70,000 years ago\u2014and Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man, 1871 that Neanderthals did this independently. However, the evidence for language being used in narrative, storytelling senses comes much later, after 45,000 years ago. For example, the famous Lion-man ivory statue \u25c0 The birdman of Lascaux Dating from around 17,000 years ago, this strange image of a man\u2014apparently dressed as a bird\u2014being charged by a bison is probably evidence of story-telling. It may also show a shamanic experience. HOW LANGUAGE EVOLVED 203","8 MYA HOMININS 2.6 MYA STONE TECHNOLOGY 2.5 MYA GENUS HOMO 300,000 YA FIRST WEAPONS APPEAR IS DEVELOPED APPEARS WITH HANDLES COLLECTIVE The ibex seems to be LEARNING giving birth, or possibly excreting. The projection The emergence of language set Homo sapiens apart was needed to make a from other species, for with language came the ability durable hook for the spear to share and store information across generations. This ensured that new generations could know more than the last, and so be more effective in the world. The practice of storing and sharing relationships and Hook holds the spear in information is called \u201ccollective learning.\u201d friendships. However, place until it is launched At its simplest, this means that we only need humans live in unusually by the hunter to invent the wheel once, for that knowledge diverse societies, and our can then be stored and shared publicly. high level of cooperation is \u25b2 Mas d\u2019Azil atlatl The alternative is to imagine us as a a unifying characteristic. Found in the Mas d\u2019Azil Cave in the group of networked computers. Without Hunter-gatherer groups, for Pyrenees, France, this exquisite atlatl, made the network\u2014without connectivity\u2014how example, typically number between of reindeer antler, is an early example of could human history unfold? 25 and 50 individuals, but they are usually mass-produced art. Its mysterious symbolism part of extended social networks, consisting was briefly common in the region, proof of SURVIVING COOPERATIVELY of blood relations and other types of shared storytelling devices. Humans appear to be predisposed to work kinship. Within and between these groups, together to a far greater degree than other food, labor, and childcare are shared\u2014as is common artistic tradition, and probably animals. The roots of this tendency can be vital information about water, predators, some level of apprenticeship. Moreover, seen in primates, the majority of which and the availability of food. an atlatl, like a bow, is a \u201ctool for using live in social groups, with strong kin a tool\u201d\u2014in this case a tool for propelling The evolution of this ability to cooperate spears\u2014which is of a whole new order of \u25b6 Sharing information can be seen in the archaeological record. complexity. It shows that by 17,000 years Today, the San people Stone tools began to be transported ago we were adapting ourselves ever more of the Kalahari make increasingly long distances around 200,000 cleverly to our environment\u2014alone of all fire using knowledge years ago, pointing to expanding social creatures through cultural rather than passed down for tens networks. By then, multipart tools, such genetic change. Thanks to collective of thousands of years as spears, were being made, probably learning, human history could begin. by their forebears. collaboratively. More spectacular examples of these, such as atlatls and bows, came later, and after 40,000 years ago many of these were lavishly ornamented. The Mas d\u2019Azil atlatl, for example, is one of five almost identical objects found at different sites in the Pyrenees. Each is carved into the shape of an ibex, demonstrating a \u25b6 Throwing power MULTIPART TOOLS ARE EASIER An atlatl, or spear- TO REPAIR, AND SO ARE MORE thrower, is a device that uses leverage to amplify COMMONLY FOUND IN throwing power. The spear is kept in place HARSHER, HIGHER LATITUDES by a hook at the rear of the atlatl, and this gains ENERGY GAIN ENERGY INCREASE ENERGY RELEASE energy as the hunter throws the spear. 204 THRESHOLD 6","200,000 YA HOMO SAPIENS 135,000 YA FIRST USE 110,000 YA LAST ICE AGE 41,000 YA EARLIEST PAINTED 12,000 YA LAST ICE APPEARS OF SYMBOLS BEGINS CAVE ART AGE ENDS A GROUP CAN POOL THE HARD-WON Ibex motif is carved DISCOVERIES OF MEMBERS, PRESENT AND in naturalistic detail PAST, AND END UP FAR SMARTER THAN from a single piece A RACE OF HERMITS. of antler Steven Pinker, cognitive scientist, 1954\u2013 \u25b6 Strange symbolism Lines represent There are subtle differences changes of color between the five versions of in the ibex\u2019s fur the Mas d\u2019Azil atlatl, but all share the motif of the ibex looking back at her rear. Its meaning remains a mystery. The spear is held FULL VIFULL against this side VIEW of the atlatl DVZXCVXV FULL VIEW Great skill went into hollowing out the space between the animal\u2019s legs, leaving only the denser outer cortex of the antler","AUSTRALOPITHECINES cuVbteomrnifBaaeireroskoduausrtsniaGt,pdoEopnt2nhee.a5iaotraoMponoiYndaAl,. stsohTanhohneaDewidfnorraEduatnHcbahltoeixeuxo-emrppssoeiieaaredtmrpeaeerpgdccroet\u201cahauusbranisipnfdinaocm1cfs.aK.e7eks5en\u201drysMoarYA. 3 MYA Mc(T\u201cnc.c2aouahn.mrt6ozeppeMaaldnpaYdnieAaavrt.f)asstTcn,ea\u201dhorcnbinetsdohsd\u201ctieaOshsntOtlosidomlfodonwafwuelshvtatiaimionscios\u201dhpGultlaseeeorcasrfehg.rlaeuenks,moeelsaoddagtneyod 2 MYA Ofolduonwd aant mchaonptypseirtsesa\u2014rensetiallrtlhy a milleiomnoysetacros mafptelerxthteecirhinnovleongtyion. H. HABILIS H. ERECTUS ThdeaLteioaHnmrgolaeitmeuokssow3tt,r.ifta,3lShKaloMtekeobpyYennoiAadtypen,hraoseaeet.tasrosctPoesfhoiirrinnnmebeielceevl-Dcwaaydisauddniomapkrteuettreimnakiiksacnfd.cataioagIeee,fcrfEsgkobgta.tesefsynhn,nmaiAuoureusepinasilateet-r,,feacttalh.oo3teinp.n4yiagtaMhnbreYiemyActhu,ahoslemoilndiensst. Oldowan chopper Taht Ge eeashrleiersBtecnoonttYr a\u2019a 1 MYA TbhaeeIsntmfwHdiareoodsenmteneebos1xyieatMrr.eaeYTnfcAhdttaeueondsrcdrbcso7oyes0lasos0wicnn,ri0igmzo0ewsm0ssaiiYnsnAgg, ,. H. HEIDELBERGENSIS TIMELINES qoovl,lIesdrauesle. of fire, 790,000 YA, Prep5s5atrr0ue,0dcp0k-rce0fodr\u2013ori5cem0tta0eabc,p0lhyr0nes0tphooaaYlooArpelg.esdWydaselfsitmltooahknertereehgsm\u201ciecsoasortiiernbneclp.hKa\u201drdnBeeeinivqfsyaauaalceer,in,eatl . 500,000 YA THE BIRTH OF Hand ax CREATIVITY TarirnSeiylm,mJtaahbdveoeaal,bspcya.p5rHe4eao0erma,n0nog0cre0ear\u2013voee4cfd3tHu0oos,n,0mla0oo0nssegYaaApbs.ieheTfneohlsrel.eayt With the evolution of genus Homo an entirely new form of complexity appeared\u2014the first to be shaped not by natural selection, but by intelligence and design\u2014namely culture. This uniquely creative ability can be traced through HTohme foirhsetikdnelobwerngewnosoisd. eItnwsapseparroisbably umsaeddetionhCulnacttloarng,eUgKa,mbey. Engraved shell from the archaeological record, which itself has been through Trinil, java a revolution recently. Many \u201cfirst appearances\u201d have 206 THRESHOLD 6 shifted back in time, and the popular idea that all major Tmhc.ea5df0eir0is,nt0FKb0laal0ekranee\u2013Rddyma4e4naba0su6odatc00anhenc,r,e0eii0odeon0tfr,0oigF0IrIostaso0YatnrlnAysatYit,.coaAeaTomnrl.hloasaeutmseneradiadarele. of innovations were made over the last 50,000 years\u2014and only by Homo sapiens\u2014can no longer be supported. The H. NEANDERTHALENSIS first hints of symbolic communication can be seen in Homo erectus, and the oldest synthetic material, birch 400,000 YA bark pitch, was made by Neanderthals. Overall, however, there is a clear trend toward increasing complexity over time, albeit punctuated by long periods in which creativity seems to pause. Innovations appear, flourish, and then disappear again for tens of thousands of years, suggesting that the complexity of a culture is determined as much by social conditions as by innate cognitive capacity.","H. SAPIENS tlheeasgtetCln1oe7tti0h,ci0na0gna i0anlsYdiyAsn,ibvsobeadonfsytelehidedc,aeo.adnt IsrbaeelTa,hd1se3fa5i,rre0st0m0oar\u2013dn1ea0a0tm,e0Snk0th0aluYlsA.Chaelvle, ucrnAafdfHreisercaamattw.-etaPnTriytgehnaroaernetsaiopapcrtunllieognetrcdssPaett1socoios6cnnn5uet,e,ern0taSawc0oiobytl0o.ulehtYssAhi,s 200,000 YA c.S2aN5i0nwe,taT0e-nVwa0dpa0oeao-YrspnAttha,s. FaratlrrsahenaamtcfBetae,idadecthbheyr-owing PfilgomweenritnsguosfeadrtaisstpicatinalteinntB. SlotimckbsoosfCoacvhee,rSpoiugtmheAnftraicrae,e1n0g0r,a0v0e0d YwAi,thsusgygmebstoinlsg. a Katanda Harpoon 90,K0aat0rae0BnfYodaAna.s,ehiZhoaainrreep,doaotns inpTvrEeheLupneeraytvoeraapedlredlebo-2ayci5sorH0peroe,fo0imnti0neeo0ctmshe\u2013erna2enpo0ctpl0tooeu,g0fasy0rt. hi0neYA . 100,000 YA Levallois 9at0n,Ndw0eitS0satht0nreeidYdnTeACN.grhapetiIlvetttsaheaie,hanbksIlaetrseesrlifrlsiiimaanenabpeglnsled,tFadruercs9sksa.eo2Gneb,nfaeodyct0ret0wmbaQa0ynnanfYnby,Aze.ued1rLii0hena0al,t0Nhe0eu0r iYmsAa.rbke,ing points PeigxpmtoeesxRenspnicsivbrt.ie3evslryes0asslf0ry,ioeoZ,c0rnao0s,mly0alemtbYcTiAbtawe.o, dliin,c Tmheatpfeiirtrmsciathuls,3,lyabt0iNnnip0rdtCpace,h0rharatetho0nmbtted0dioapcu\u2013efroiicrtk2rletes5ahltdlr0aoeb,l,0syI0taat0lyY,A. 300,000 YA \u25b6 Prepared-core technology Top of core Core struck Core struck Core struck a The ability to visualize a rock prepared by twice to a third time fourth time as a material volume in 3D is to reprepare to produce a milestone in cognitive striking remove two large point development. The first such blades surface \u201cprepared core\u201d method appeared about 800,000 YA. Raw stone nodule A refinement was the Levallois technique, in which Sides of core tools were struck from prepared by striking hierarchically organized core surfaces using a harder stone as a hammer. Step 1 Step 2 Step 3 Blade Small point Large point Step 4 Step 5 Step 6 THE BIRTH OF CREATIVITY 207","gpivrBiiznloegmdthboeoustcPorCrafteafhtstvhesseemu,fir7sanet5naof,l0nglsa0rehke0raaianpYttegAehr.oeocSrffomttsnhhtataoelrlnnotfoellsaootbkrvluee.egscrkian,rseat SCULPTURE AND CAVE ART, WHICH EMERGED ABOUT paotsFBsiolborlmmy bsapollesya8Cwr4at,oiv0pre0ks,,0eSad\u2013or7eub6tpoh,0rnoA0ed0fturoiYccoAea.ld,s, 7M5G,S0ormoo0rouBt0acttdeehYcaeAodAd.a,eft8nsrB2iePclc,iao0gk,m0elaao0bncn\u2013odessst,hCaeraeve, Decorated SboPeuldtahdniAtnsgfraaircreaeu,a7sse7ind,0St0oi0bciYdrAeu.a,te ostrich eggshell 40,000 YEARS AGO, PROVIDE EVIDENCE OF THE USE OF 70,000 YA SYMBOLS TO REPRESENT IDEAS RoecgkSg1ySs0mhh0eeb,0lllots0ela0sr,t\u2013aStr6ohe0uee,tD0nh0giAer0pafYvrkAielco.dao,ofn Aubsyt5roa5cl,ei0aa0ni0s-wcYoAo,lrortenhqiyzuceiradinnoges. a6lPst4Pooe,ri0cpnoh0rtjo,ne0SdcoYoutlAioucl.egetGhidaeenAsaodtfemrSmmiecibetaicrur,igrd7coe1upba,.o0ltai0Pnd0itens\u2013naarecle 60,000 YA 80,000 YA 43,0m0a0mG\u2013Fem4liuo2sotls,dte0ehesn0simk0vtloakY\u00d6rAdnisyn.etoTseawotrhrrlefneeubps,mmieGrroeudaendsrrbeitumcoscta.anhelneedyaa,ntd adediuncEeldCoanstailcloav, Sepwaainll,inc.4Su0l,a0w0e0sYi,AI.ndonesia. 40,000 YA TAthealolmdosetstthpeaisnatmeedticamve,e ahratnd\u2014parirentdsdarote p\u2014riso m Figurative sculpture emerges in Europe, c.40,000 YA. The Lion-man of the Hohlenstein-Stadel is the oldest known work; the contemporaneous Hohle fels Venus (see p.213) is the oldest human figure. OceaiOnn Jcfeiesr4aihmn2in-,a0gglo0aiiip0s,nrE\u2013ugoa3ncbs8daat,enb0Trol0iywme0usaoYsyarAe,r.de. Ground stone technology dToci.hnme3Cley4K,salait0yirsc0esh\u201ct0oefhu\u2013aurer3rat,e2n,hiatsr0Glruia0rere0eees.t\\\"YcbAe.,uilt appears in Jawoyn, Australia, The earliest known around 35,000 YA. Tools are made sewing needle is made by grinding their surfaces into in Russia c.34,000\u2013 shape rather than by striking them. 30,000 YA. 208 THRESHOLD 6 OhPaec.attasg3tholife2ea,crde0cepilaa,0rgtaIlr0itnoeGtaYlrsufAty.o,notpdtTorahdaoi.nsc idesssing Lion-man sculpture","The Lascaux Caves, France, are painted. Ma FislahrfgihseJohe-oisr2nickm3gas,l0aaeflr0oaeo0ri,cm\u2013Ee1aaa6dsnt,e0Ti0nim0 YoAr,. iSnhdaivmidaunaislsmbiusrpieodsswibitl h t ypiycaplrlaycsthicaemdainnicEuerfofepcetbs,ys2u6ch,0a0s0oYcAh.eTrh, biseiasdss, anduagsgteasftf.ed by 20,000 YA ny of the images have storytelling elements. mt2Re5Vaxien,dsetp0tbiesPul0rWetaaiobo0nssvnlnokgiwYlcoivaAecae,ve.tler2rornTaee,8yonthtp,p,hmd0eenrrexo0o.lDeitCd0bntiosulaze\u2013el,cbnensaeclil,nyidhkde ChinTahaercX.iefi2arp0nr,srto0ecd0nlu0dacoyYeAn.pdgi,otns TiCTnhbwhzeoDiteenfohcyielrhdnsasiartRaeVunhebmedops.uuaptbdsooelensiscsioc,iafbecrml,e.y2tbah6cmueo,0iaml0tteo0dtYhA. Replica of house made from Atlatl mammoth bones and hide Clovis poinHtPoalmParrinougotseWssweoaadpnirhliseideno,ebnptMcfa1eseeraadn\u20197cooOrrdpseo,sreo0iipoarmevfwn0lcertsio.ecnla0iyaodfngt,\u2013n,esesta1d1iutllc5m2yyocse,,hrt0uac0sayj0aashor0-se0crtri0hpevda\u2013ptyle1.YaliG4idAnrpnt,.rl0WgaaooT0nt,fthl0taetaeensfYtdoiAtdlreeso.dtsrd(hnessepcEaioerruearuraros-tpetiohepnrrooiwsoefrs) The dog is cuioMnsriMenicgtoreaoncbphgolnraeliidqpaueacsre.e.2ad8r-e,0p0r0odYAu,ced appear in New Mexico domesticated , Frashnocwe,nisinpapienrtsepde,cbteivgein, annindgs3o2m,0e0w0itYhAa. Tsehnesiemoafgmesoavreemlaerngte. ly of local a c.13,500 YA. These are struck from a stone core, then c.30,000 YA. pressure-flaked around the edges. mTahney oCfhawuhivcehtaCreave nimals, The bow and arrow is widely used in Europe, particularly among the Ahrensburgian people of Germany, 15,000\u201310,000 YA. 30,000 YA The earliest known fish trap is made in Clovis point Dublin, Ireland, 10,000\u20139,000 YA. 10,000 YA Fish resources are increasingly exploited.","8 MYA HOMININS 2.6 MYA STONE TECHNOLOGY 2.5 MYA GENUS HOMO 300,000 YA FIRST WEAPONS APPEAR IS DEVELOPED APPEARS WITH HANDLES Ancient practices The San people have been hunting the landscapes of the Kalahari for thousands of years. Large game accounts for about 20 percent of their diet\u2014the remainder is made up of plants and smaller animals caught in traps. 210 THRESHOLD 6","200,000 YA HOMO SAPIENS 135,000 YA FIRST USE 110,000 YA LAST ICE AGE 41,000 YA EARLIEST PAINTED 12,000 YA LAST ICE APPEARS OF SYMBOLS BEGINS CAVE ART AGE ENDS HUNTER-GATHERERS EMERGE From the earliest times, most hominins survived by gleaning what they could from the world around them, rather than producing their own food. The range of items eaten and the ways of sourcing them varied according to the environment, and demanded high levels of social organization. Early members of the hominin family had whether the elephants were hunted or \u25bc Evolving technologies diverse diets\u2014primarily of fruit, leaves, and scavenged. Various plant resources are also Homo sapiens spread insects\u2014and some probably used cobbles to thought to have been important during the across the globe by crack nuts, as primates do today. The first European ice ages, both for Neanderthals inventing new stone tools made food processing easier, and and, later, Homo sapiens, but large amounts technologies, such while these were being made by pre-Homo of fat and meat were still vital for survival. as this three-pronged species at least 3.3 MYA, the earliest evidence spear used by the of their function comes from around a LEARNED ADAPTABILITY Inuit for fishing in million years later. Analysis of the surfaces of Making the most of varied food resources the Arctic. tools found at Kanjera South, Kenya, shows across different environments required an that plants and meat were being processed, investment in complicated technologies and probably by Homo habilis. Dating to about 2 a dedication to preserving knowledge. The MYA, the tools were made using an early ability to hunt large animals suggests that technology known as Oldowan. At the same hominins from Homo erectus onward were site, there is also evidence of hunting\u2014or at learning how to track, probably from early least of scavenging kills made by other childhood. From 200,000 YA, Neanderthals animals. Whole carcasses of small gazelles were hunting birds, and at least 120,000 YA were brought in and cut up; because tooth Homo sapiens were exploiting shellfish. Our marks from carnivores overlie them, it is species colonized the harshest environments, clear that hominins had first access. including the Arctic, suggesting that we had especially flexible skills. Around 1.8 MYA, with the emergence of Homo erectus and an improved way of making Foragers typically lived in mobile handaxes, called Achelean technology, communities, which were broadly egalitarian. hunting seems to have increased. Hundreds However, abundant and predictable of footprints found at Ileret, Kenya, dating resources, such as fish, could to 1.5 MYA, reveal that small groups of adults encourage people to stay in the circled the lake shore\u2014just as carnivores same locations, and even to do. At the very least, it shows cooperative become semi-sedentary\u2014 foraging was under way. eventually, an alternative to By around 700,000 years ago, diets had the hunter- diversified. At Gesher Benot Ya\u2019aqov, in gatherer Israel, there is evidence of nut-cracking as way of life well as the exploitation of large animals, would emerge. including elephants, although it is unclear THERE WAS NOTHING THAT THEY COULD NOT ASSEMBLE IN ONE MINUTE, WRAP UP IN THEIR BLANKETS, AND CARRY ON THEIR SHOULDERS FOR A JOURNEY OF A THOUSAND MILES. Laurens van der Post, writer and conservationist, 1906\u20131996, on the San bushmen of the Kalahari HUNTER-GATHERERS EMERGE 211","8 MYA HOMININS 2.6 MYA STONE TECHNOLOGY 2.5 MYA GENUS HOMO 300,000 YA FIRST WEAPONS APPEAR IS DEVELOPED APPEARS WITH HANDLES PALEOLITHIC ART For many, the word \u201cart\u201d means representational imagery, and \u201cPaleolithic art\u201d is shorthand for a purely European tradition. However, Paleolithic art is much more diverse than this, and can be traced back to symbolic graphic creations produced over 100,000 years ago. \u25bc Painted cave Early stirrings of artistic expression can examples are European. The Chauvet Cave soon after (c.28,000 YA), and from 20,000 The Chauvet Cave, be seen in the engraved eggshells found in France, for instance, preserves some of the years ago multiple traditions began flowering in France, features at the Diepkloof Rock Shelter in South most stunning images of the era, including across the world. Throughout this time, huge panels of animals, Africa (see p.208), dating to over 100,000 representations of nearly 450 animals. They \u201cportable\u201d art was also produced, including including bison, horses, years ago. However, we have no clear were painted in two phases, the first starting a female carved pendant discovered at Hohle and lions\u2014but not depictions of recognizable figures before nearly 37,000 years ago, the second over Fels, Germany (c.40,000 YA). Known as the one single complete 50,000 years ago. Currently, the two oldest 2,000 years later. The walls of the cave Hohle Fels \u201cVenus,\u201d it is the oldest known human being. paintings in the world (both c.40,000 YA) were carefully prepared by the artists, and depiction of a human being. Other traditions are a single red dot found in El Castillo the images show a profound understanding included the carving of ivory, bone, and cave, Spain, and a hand stencil found in of movement and perspective. antlers, and, in Eastern Europe, firing clay Leang Timpuseng cave in Sulawesi, to make animal and human figurines. The Indonesia. This proves that art was being Around the same time, a piglike meaning of these works can only be guessed practiced far beyond Europe at the time, animal was painted in Leang Timpuseng. at, but their growing significance to the even though most of the surviving dated The very first Australian Aboriginal cave people of the time is beyond doubt. painting to have been firmly dated appeared 212 THRESHOLD 6","200,000 YA HOMO SAPIENS 135,000 YA FIRST USE 110,000 YA LAST ICE AGE 41,000 YA EARLIEST PAINTED 12,000 YA LAST ICE APPEARS OF SYMBOLS BEGINS CAVE ART AGE ENDS \u25b6 Hohle Fels Venus \u25c0 The Zaraysk bison This ivory pendant This reconstructed figurine from Russia is is the oldest known a masterpiece of naturalistic carving. Made female figurine. from ivory and rubbed with red pigment, it was smashed before being buried in a pit. [ANCIENT ART] MAY BE AN ATTEMPT TO NEGOTIATE... WITH THE HUMAN INTELLECT AND ITS CAPACITY TO OCCUPY OFTEN ILLUSORY REALMS DISTINCT FROM THE REALITY OF THE REST OF NATURE. Jill Cook, archaeologist, 1960 \u2013 PALEOLITHIC ART 213","8 MYA HOMININS 2.6 MYA STONE TECHNOLOGY 2.5 MYA GENUS HOMO 300,000 YA FIRST WEAPONS APPEAR IS DEVELOPED APPEARS WITH HANDLES THE INVENTION OF CLOTHING Clothing protects us from the cold, from sunburn, from insect bites, and even from certain weapons. In short, it makes us more adaptable. In Paleolithic times, it allowed us to live in a range of hostile environments, and to begin our spread across the globe. We know from physical evidence that least 80 percent of their body, especially humans led to both the habit of wearing early Homo sapiens and Neanderthals used their hands and feet.\u00a0Another clue comes clothes and the spread of these parasites. pigments and may have worn jewellery, but from the study of parasites. Body lice the earliest evidence for clothing is mostly are adapted to living in clothes, and the THE FIRST FABRICS indirect as clothing does not survive well in estimated age for their split from head The earliest clothes were probably animal- the ground. Biological studies suggest that lice, based on DNA studies, is at least based. Tiny scraps of tannin-soaked organic during very cold glacial phases, hominin 170,000 years ago. That long ago there material were found stuck to a stone tool in species in the northern hemisphere needed were numerous types of humans\u2014including Neumark-Nord, Germany, suggesting that tailored body coverings. Even the Neanderthals, Denisovans, Homo floresiensis, over 100,000 years ago Neanderthals were Neanderthals, who are thought to have been and ourselves\u2014and it is possible that tanning skins. They didn\u2019t have needles, but physically cold-adapted, needed to cover at exchanges between the different types of could have sewn pieces of leather and fur using existing tools designed for piercing [THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN HEAD AND BODY LICE] and threading. Bone tools with rounded PROBABLY AROSE WHEN HUMANS BEGAN TO MAKE ends have been found in 40,000-year-old FREQUENT USE OF CLOTHING. Neanderthal sites, and these were probably \u201clissoirs\u201d\u2014leather-softening tools very like Mark Stoneking, American geneticist, 1956\u2013 the ones still used today. The oldest bone needles date to 20,000 years ago, but these \u25b6 Buried prince were probably used for bead embroidery as Only the shells remain of much as sewing other materials. the clothes worn by the \u201cYoung Prince\u201d found in The use of plants for producing fabrics the Arene Candide cave, seems to begin with Homo sapiens. Dyed Italy. He was buried over plant fibers have been found at Dzudzuana 23,000 years ago. Cave in Georgia, dating to 30,000 years ago. Other sites show that from at least 28,000 years ago, fabric was being woven. Tiny impressions in baked clay fragments from the sites of Pavlov and Dolni Vestonice, in the Czech Republic, show fine textiles comparable to linen, possibly made from flax or nettle, alongside netting and basketry. We cannot be sure that these fabrics were used for clothing, but some of the carved human figurines from the same region and period seem to show that plaited or woven caps and belts were worn. Other carvings from the Siberian site of Mal\u2019ta, a few thousand years later, may represent full-body outfits with hoods, possibly made from fur. The production of plant-fiber textiles continued through Mesolithic times, when bast (from tree bark) was spun into clothes. However, there is no evidence for their replacement with softer animal fibers, such as wool, until the advent of farming. 214 THRESHOLD 6","200,000 YA HOMO SAPIENS 135,000 YA FIRST USE 110,000 YA LAST ICE AGE 41,000 YA EARLIEST PAINTED 12,000 YA LAST ICE APPEARS OF SYMBOLS BEGINS CAVE ART AGE ENDS \u25b6 Prehistoric dress Hair may have been twined together This reconstruction of a prehistoric person is to form dreadlocks, to keep it easy to based on remains found in the Abri Pataud site clean and to avoid the potential illnesses in Aquitaine, France. The site contained human associated with matted hair. Evidence for remains, figurines, tools, and cave paintings from caps or simple hats has also been found, between 47,000 and 17,000 years ago, a period as have bandeaux\u2014thin strips of fiber during which archaeologists believe clothing that hold the hair in place had become relatively sophisticated. EVIDENCE SUGGESTS THAT Snoods made from fur HUMANS MAY HAVE BEEN would have provided WEARING JEWELRY AS FAR warmth during winter BACK AS 75,000 YEARS AGO and at night Tunics may have been made from woven nettle and hemp fiber Clothes may have been dyed, with the dyes obtained from berries, roots, and leaves of plants Elaborate jewelry made Long string skirts and from stone, shell, bone, simple belts may have been common, as were ivory, and antler was boots made from animal worn around the wrists skins laced together and neck, and sewn onto clothing","TIMELINES HUMANS Birch tar and \u25b2 Copper weapons HARNESS FIRE leather lashings Copper was the first metal to be smelted, probably hold the blade in the Middle East around 5,800 years ago. The first The ability to use fire is uniquely human, and may have in place furnaces were simple holes in the ground, in which been a significant impetus for the evolution of genus copper was extracted from ores such as malachite. Homo. However, we may not have fully controlled it Blades such as the one belonging to \u00d6tzi the Iceman until relatively late in hominin evolution. were then cold-hammered into shape (see pp.282\u201383). The earliest evidence of fire comes from Wonderwerk Cave, South HeaArbtrhics aRroemaasnuir,eSpsiaginn,tahnadt feirveidisenbceeinsgucgognetsrtosltlhedat. Mat alenays hav e Africa, where careful analysis of sediments nearly a million years old reveals that bones and plants were deliberately burned deep inside the bteseonmfoeuwnedreaut sthede cave. However, it is possible that early hominins took advantage of fires started by natural events, such as lightning strikes. The first repeated, Neanderthal site controlled use of fire dates from just after 800,000 years ago, at Gesher at the same time. Benot Ya\u2019aqov, Israel, where burned materials recur over a 100,000-year period, showing that Homo erectus was both making and maintaining fire. TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIAL LIFE of After 400,000 years ago, the increased frequency of sites with deep layers of ashes, charcoal, and burned bone reveals a habitual control of 50N,0ceo0faoo0npkodYrdspAeotslrvfaa,toernhacudstahnlbsdgyroanintseeth fire. In Europe, this coincides with the appearance of the Neanderthals, Ac2Ptb0iave0licet,oo0yomnl0aitr0ehhecieaYcAeassnriinttth1eer6saeHr5dee,ta0aos0tsitmt0ormepYnaaAeretokamtsivronaleeyogSpnlHoib-teuyontm3sh0ionAN0f,ef0raiir0cneba0date\u2013osrkry2mtn5phta0iahtkl,ces0ehtu0bi,cs0tirehmcYehAaftierrsital who seem to have been the first to use it for manufacturing purposes. At the Italian site of Campitello (c.300,000 YA), stone tools were foundat hsahdelsttearretdedfronmatuthraelleyl.ements. Impression made covered in birch bark tar, which was used to make multipart tools. by wooden haft, probably for a knife Familiarity with fire also changed our social life. Domestic spaces centered on fires appear by 200,000 years ago, and may have played a key \u25b2 Birch bark tar role in the development of language. The campfire increased the amount This 80,000-year-old piece of birch of light to work by, but not sufficiently to perform difficult tasks, thereby bark tar comes from K\u00f6nigsaue, creating opportunities for conversation and storytelling. It was also where Germany. On its reverse side, it bears the first experiments in cooking took place, nearly 800,000 years ago. the thumbprint of a Neanderthal\u2014 possibly its maker\u2014who used it as an From around 35,000 years ago, in eastern Europe, people experimented adhesive to attach a piece of flint to with fire and clay for some 5,000 years, producing animal and human a wooden shaft. aFfibgroaumnridntoehnse;endbToyThhny2uep,0fnicfi,rita0sreltle0ryc-,0dagamrafyiotpreehvfaiweerrerosmseuawrladgelnbiorfeey,epkstnrethopyeebtwlaeafblsiitlr.vyeessctionhpuanroccoetatdvleoef,rrgwoyimheewbsreu,aistehswsfaipprserseotchdiaulclyedasinpeCohpilneaE.HvilsadaetbeeeindtHcusceaooslomuoufgkosbgiene7ueorg8srefnt0csfe,ti0drue0sb.0byYeAcosmucechsoamns4torb0oru0elrl,ecEn0dove0midu0dsmbe\u2013eno3oocn0n5efe0fso0,i,r0fe00t,h0,e0YA00 YA 1 MYA 1 mya Early hominins use fire occasionally, perhaps sourced from bush blazes 216 THRESHOLD 6","\u25c0 Clay vessels The3e,a8or0fliie0rso\u2013tn3e,sv2mid0ee0lntYicnAeg bGel2ga,is0nss0pmi0ona\u2013snEs1ugi,b8fylap0yct0ItnauYdnrAeida Clay vessels, such as this pot made by the Jomon people from Japan, greatly enhanced our ability 3,000000,YYAA to cook and store food. Their production became Tchoenp2ftioa0rsit,nt0teek0rrnsy0ion,fYmwoCAoanhddinea widespread with the adoption of the agricultural5T,c8hor0euf 0cceioaYbrpAllepieses,rtesvmideelnticneg 5Pw,vo0ooat0frtr0eimledrdYaywAntvieudecfesahs, cenwtlisuiqtrfhueoeusnd 35C,c0loal0laydy0-elli\u2013sant3mef0dipr,0hes,de0aa0cnfreidtYgrhAuatshmr,ienices lifestyle, when strong containers for grain and other foodstuffs were needed. 5,500 YA 13,500 YA Skull-shaped helmet made from a single piece of bronze 40,000 YA \u25c0 Clay figurines \u25b2 Bronze armor The oldest fired figurine is the \u201cVenus of Bronze was produced by adding tin to copper Dohlni Vestonice,\\\" from Croatia. Made during the smelting process. It was considerably some 29,000\u201325,000 years ago, she is harder than copper, giving bronze-clad soldiers a proof that her makers were experimenting distinct advantage in battle. This helmet was worn with fire. by a Greek soldier around 2,650 years ago. HEARTHS ARE PLACES TO SIT AND EXCHANGE NEWS... MAKE AND REPAIR STONE TOOLS, DISCUSS THE DAY\u2019S HUNT, AND MAKE PLANS FOR THE FUTURE. \u25bc Making birch bark pitch John McNabb, archaeologist, 1960 \u2013 Birch bark pitch, the first synthetic substance, was used as an adhesive from Palaeolithic times onward. First made by the Neanderthals, it was produced by \u201ccooking\u201d birch bark in a fire for several hours under controlled temperatures. The liquefied tar was then collected and allowed to cool. As it was hardening, it was applied like putty to the joints of multipart tools. Fire maintained above Bark is packed 658OF (348OC) into pit under fire Strips of bark Packed earth Tar applied Spear point wrapped tightly to retain high to spear joint temperatures together Preparing the bark Spear shaft Finishing a spear HUMANS HARNESS FIRE 217 After 4\u20138 hours, all the tar is released Extracting the tar","8 MYA HOMININS 2.6 MYA STONE TECHNOLOGY 2.5 MYA GENUS HOMO 300,000 YA FIRST WEAPONS APPEAR IS DEVELOPED APPEARS WITH HANDLES BURIAL PRACTICES The Paleolithic period saw the emergence of that most human of characteristics\u2014having respect, even concern, for the dead. The rituals of the day were simple, but they foreshadowed a time when tombs would be built for entire generations of ancestors. Practices relating to death are important THE FIRST BURIALS because they point to key intellectual capacities, such as an understanding of The earliest evidence of hominins time. The ability to comprehend that an acknowledging the dead is the practice individual has moved from a living state of \u201ccaching,\u201d or collecting, bodies. to one of death seems uniquely human, but Around 430,000 years ago, at Sima de other species show hints of understanding. Los Huesos, Spain, at least 28 hominins Elephants, for example, can be reluctant were deliberately placed in a deep pit, to leave the bodies of dead group members, accompanied by a single strikingly and chimpanzees show an extraordinary colored stone tool. The complete interment range of reactions, from extreme agitation of bodies began much later. Some 92,000 to quietly staying by a body for hours, and years ago, a number of Homo sapiens were sometimes carrying infants\u2019 corpses for buried at Qafzeh and Skhul, in Israel. weeks. However, it is impossible to know These included a young adult and a child if these reactions are simply the effects of who were buried together, and a teenager confusion and distress or true expressions who was interred with antlers covering of loss and sadness. his chest. THE FIRST OPEN-AIR BURIALS After 40,000 years ago, the frequency TOOK PLACE AROUND 40,000 of burials increases, as does the number of bodies buried with objects. In Sungir, YEARS AGO. BEFORE THEN, Russia, around 25,000 years ago, two children were buried head-to-head in ALL FUNERARY PRACTICES a single grave, accompanied by spears, TOOK PLACE IN CAVES thousands of beads, and a single adult femur filled with red pigment. Such rich burials were rare, however. Simpler burials were common, and isolated body parts were sometimes interred separately. The area of EATING THE DEAD the skull used as a cup Cut marks from stone tools found on both Neanderthal and Homo sapiens remains Cut marks show suggest another facet of Paleolithic that the interior funerary practices. The marks, which of the skull was occur on various bones, were caused by the cleared of tissue deliberate removal of flesh from the body or by cutting the body to pieces. This may \u25b6 Skull cup have been a means to interact with or The skull remains found at Gough\u2019s Cave show all honor the dead, but may also indicate the signs of manufacture. that the population had to resort to The meticulous cutting cannibalism for nutritional and cleaning of the purposes. A number of such bones bone suggests that was found at Gough\u2019s Cave, in the the skull was used for UK, in 1898. Dating to 14,000 ritualistic purposes. years ago, and almost certainly evidence of cannibalism, the bones included several carved \u201cskull cups\u201d\u2014 the earliest examples of human skulls being used as drinking vessels. 218 THRESHOLD 6","200,000 YA HOMO SAPIENS 135,000 YA FIRST USE 110,000 YA LAST ICE AGE 41,000 YA EARLIEST PAINTED 12,000 YA LAST ICE APPEARS OF SYMBOLS BEGINS CAVE ART AGE ENDS Ice Age burial The grave of two Paleolithic children, buried head-to-head, was discovered in Sungir, Russia, in 1955. The bodies were interred at least 25,000 years ago, making it one of the oldest Homo sapiens burials in Europe. BURIAL PRACTICES 219","BIG IDEAS HUMANS BECOME the average size of some shellfish species DOMINANT decreased around 50,000 years ago, which \u25bc Fire-stick farming indicates that collecting had become more The practice of burning The end of the last Ice Age nearly 12,000 years ago marked the beginning intense. This may, perhaps, be due to vegetation to create of the Holocene\u2014our current geological epoch. Climatic change was changing settlement patterns, with more grassland habitats that nothing new for the hominin family. However, two things were different: humans moving to coastal areas, or may suit the animals humans there was now only one surviving human species, and we had already have been caused by an increase in the wish to hunt may have begun to alter the habitats and landscapes around us. existing local human population. There been in use in Australia were similar reductions in shellfish size for 50,000 years. It can T he end of the Pleistocene brought and fauna. These new relationships, in turn, following the human colonization of Papua radically change the warmer, wetter conditions to most started to shape the local environments in New Guinea 30,000 years ago and southern landscape and even of the planet. In many areas, grasslands which Homo sapiens lived. California 10,000 years ago. a region\u2019s climate. gave way to mixed deciduous forests, and desert areas grew increasingly moist. Over EFFECT ON ANIMAL LIFE Most animal populations no doubt tens of thousands of years, Homo sapiens\u2019 The earliest known examples of hominins recovered from temporary local pressure dispersal had resulted in settlement all the way exploiting marine resources are the exerted by humans, but our species may from the South African coast, through gathering of shellfish by Homo sapiens at have a deep history of more permanent, Eurasia, into Australia and up to the tip Pinnacle Point, South Africa, around catastrophic impacts on biodiversity. The of South America. The unfamiliar, often 160,000 years ago, and by Neanderthals at so-called megafaunal \u201coverkill\u201d hypothesis harsh, surroundings they found, along Bajondillo Cave, Spain, some 150,000 years correlates reductions in the diversity of with climatic changes, required innovative ago. Such small-scale activity made little large animal species with evidence of survival strategies. Humans exploited their impact on shellfish populations, but as increasing Homo sapiens occupation toward ability to problem-solve and learn skills\u2014 harvesting escalated over time, it began the end of the last Ice Age. This is most including forging new relationships with flora to have a negative effect. In South Africa, obvious in Australia and North America, where the arrival of humans, 55,000 years ago and 15,000 years ago respectively, MELTING GLACIAL ICE AT THE BEGINNING OF THE HOLOCENE EPOCH CAUSED WORLD SEA LEVELS TO RISE 115FT (35M)","corresponded with the disappearance even ventured beyond. But not so far back was conducted so systematically that it of a great number of animal species, in time\u2014within the blink of an eye in could justifiably be described as quarrying. including the spectacular giant ground geological terms\u2014humans were few in Even if this occurred over a long period sloths. However, climate changes around number, scattered, and surviving on what of time, the mounds of waste material the same time may also have played a part, they could find or catch. Yet even during dramatically changed the local\u00a0landscape. and certainly Homo sapiens had been present these early stages of our history, we were in Europe since before 40,000 years ago making an impact on the world around More subtle open-air artistic traditions with no clear associated mass extinctions. us through our daily lives. begin to appear around 40,000 years ago, sometimes involving the transformation of THE FACT THAT HOMO SAPIENS IS THE ONLY HOMINID SPECIES ON THE EARTH TODAY MAKES IT EASY TO ASSUME THAT OUR LONELY EMINENCE IS HISTORICALLY A NATURAL STATE OF AFFAIRS\u2014WHICH IT CLEARLY IS NOT. Ian Tattersall, British paleoanthropologist, 1945 \u2013 It may be that in especially challenging By persistent activity at a particular place, entire valleys into outdoor symbolic environments the arrival of a new, skilled organisms begin to change their arenas, such as the 5,000 engravings at predator, Homo sapiens, was just enough to surroundings. For hominins, this can C\u00f4a, Portugal. The alteration of stone push particular species into extinction. be seen in the accumulations of detritus on such a large scale foreshadows the One of the strongest cases to support the within caves. Thousands of caves around oldest megalithic structures, built at overkill hypothesis is the Caribbean ground the world show deep sediments formed Gobekli Tepe, Turkey. They were made sloth, which went extinct less than 5,000 from the waste of countless generations. by hunter-gatherers some 11,000 years years after the arrival of humans; even These unintentional creations were not ago, within a few centuries of the then, however, the process seems to have limited to caves, but also occurred where beginnings of early agriculture. taken about 1,000 years. people continually inhabited the same open-air sites, and they provide evidence WE ARE PROBABLY THE MOST While there is no evidence of Homo of how people lived. For example, some ADAPTABLE MAMMAL THAT sapiens having an extinction-scale impact shell middens (refuse heaps) may have HAS EVER EVOLVED ON EARTH. on plant communities at this time, we had symbolic significance. At some sites may have been significantly altering some they contain human remains, as well as Rick Potts, American paleoanthropologist, 1953\u2013 environments. Charcoal from sediment discarded mollusk shells. One such place cores may indicate that people were is Klasies River Mouth, South Africa, burning forests in Southeast Asia around in a region where very few burials have 50,000 years ago and also in Australia been found. between 60,000 and 50,000 years ago. Although natural causes of forest fires Hominins interacted with cultural cannot be entirely dismissed, \u201cfire-stick deposits in other ways, too, including farming,\u201d where forest is burned to increase the digging of burial pits through older ecological productivity and attract animals, occupational layers left by Neanderthals is known to have a long history in North and Homo sapiens. They often found America and Australia, and there is cultural deposits to be a useful resource, evidence that Mesolithic communities and it became common practice to recycle may also have developed similar practices old stone tools made centuries earlier. in some areas. The overall effect on the landscape CULTURAL LANDSCAPES of using vast amounts of rock for stone Homo sapiens\u2019 world-spanning civilization tools over millions of years is hard to is today easily visible from space; our robotic calculate, but some sites show intense crafts have explored the solar system and activity. The exploitation of flint in Israel over 500,000\u00a0years ago, for example, HUMANS BECOME DOMINANT 221","THRESHOLD","CIVILIZATIONS DEVELOP As our highly adaptable and ingenious species starts to modify nature in order to sustain itself, we turn from hunter-gatherers into farmers. This is a pivotal point in the story of our species. Farming sets us on a path of expansion. The population grows, and small nomadic communities turn into permanent cities, states, and\u2014eventually\u2014empires with complex new power structures.","GOLDILOCKS CONDITIONS Agriculture developed after years of collective learning enabled humans to extract more resources from their environment. The ability to innovate and manipulate nature altered both the biosphere and society itself: larger populations required organization to function effectively, and new, more complex power structures began to emerge. Warmer climate ressurrneisngof denser human communities BPuoiplduulaptioofncaonlldecrteisvoeulerace p Hunter-gatherers Armed with information What changed? accrued through generations of collective learning, foragers The warmer climate transforms the band together to collect a landscape, and the food and energy variety of seasonal foods from large sources available to humans, reducing areas of land. Populations remain the need to move on. With the elderly, small and highly mobile, but infirm, and very young no longer left teamwork is important, particularly behind, communities settle, grow, and when hunting or trapping large learn to cultivate their own food, and animals for their meat. extract more from the environment. Fire-stick farmers Hunters with knowledge of local flora and fauna use fire to clear land to create favourable grassland habitats for hunting and gathering. Affluent foragers Foraging communities in areas with abundant natural resources devise methods of storing food to consume out of season, and enjoy a more settled way of life.","Secondary Draft animal products animals Wheeled transport Trade develops Domesticate plants and animals Towns New diet New innovations New diseases SETTLED COMMUNITIES GROW Larger exchange networks Larger, more diverse population Cities and states develop Conflict Trade and Empires commerce emerge increase AGRICULTURE SOCIAL HIERARCHIES Specialized AND POWER labor STRUCTURES DEVELOP Surplus Tributes Institutionalized food and taxes religion Plow TECHNOLOGICAL Irrigation Written laws INNOVATIONS Pottery and codes INCREASE Writing Metal tools and equipment Textiles Collective learning increases","8000 BCE AGRICULTURE EMERGES 6000 BCE FIRST CITIES 4000 BCE WRITING DEVELOPS 3100 BCE FIRST CIVILIZATIONS FORM EMERGE CLIMATE CHANGES THE LANDSCAPE From around 9600 BCE, global temperatures rose rapidly, beginning the current geological period known as the Holocene (\u201cwholly recent\u201d). Humans were forced to find new ways to hunt and gather. Eventually, they discovered a very different way of life\u2014one based on farming. As the climate warmed up, the ice sheets and error, people discovered which plants melted. This raised sea levels and released were poisonous and which could be made more water into the atmosphere, which edible. In fact, some coastal regions were increased rainfall. Asia was cut off from so rich in food resources that hunters and America, and Britain and Japan became gatherers were able to settle down, for islands. The wetter climate produced the first time, in permanent villages. forests, grasslands, and new lakes and rivers. There was a mass extinction of Throughout this period, people were Ice Age big game, such as the mammoth, building up and sharing their knowledge the woolly rhino, and the giant elk. about plants and animals, which would contribute toward the new way of life. MESOLITHIC ABUNDANCE During a transitional period called the At the same time, there was a dramatic Mesolithic, or Middle Stone Age (280,000\u2013 rise in the human population, which had 25,000 BCE), people adapted to the new by now spread to every inhabitable part conditions by hunting smaller animals, such of the world. Rising sea levels also meant as deer, using the bow and arrow\u2014a new that huge areas of land that were once rich invention, ideal for stalking animals in hunting grounds were now lost under water. woodland. They also caught more fish Our planet may have reached its carrying and learned to eat a wider range of plant capacity for the hunter-gatherer way of foods, including grasses and acorns, which life. Climate change, and the pressure required processing or cooking. By trial of competition for resources, eventually led some people, in different parts of the world, to begin farming. IN MANY PARTS OF THE HABITABLE GLOBE, THE CHANGE IN CLIMATE MUST HAVE BEEN REMARKABLE EVEN IN ONE LONG LIFETIME. Geoffrey Blainey, Australian historian, 1930\u2013, A Short History of the World (2000) \u25b6 Climatic ups and downs End of glaciations Postglacial optimum Although the Holocene era has been generally warm, climatic fluctuations 8000 have occurred within it, as shown on 7000 this chart. The first farmers may have 6000 begun to grow crops in response to 5000 cool and dry periods, when there was 4000 a decline in the availability of wild 3000 food plants. 2000 1000 1 CE 1000 2000 KEY Warmer Cooler BCE CE 226 THRESHOLD 7","1 BCE 1 CE 1300 CE RENAISSANCE 1439 CE PRINTING PRESS SPARKS THE 1600 CE COLUMBIAN BEGINS INFORMATION REVOLUTION EXCHANGE A good day\u2019s hunting This African rock painting shows hunters using bows and arrows to kill deer. During the Mesolithic period, Africa\u2019s Sahara\u2014 which is now desert\u2014was a grassland habitat, and a plentiful source of game. CLIMATE CHANGES THE LANDSCAPE 227","8000 BCE AGRICULTURE EMERGES 6000 BCE FIRST CITIES 4000 BCE WRITING DEVELOPS 3100 BCE FIRST CIVILIZATIONS FORM EMERGE Hunter-gatherers\u2014Band 1 SUMMER \u25c0 Nomads Approximately 20 people CAMP 23,000\u201313,000 BCE who migrate between People are organized into small SPRING MIGRATION summer and winter camps NOMADS\u2014FIRST PHASE family groups (bands) that rely on hunting and gathering for FALL MIGRATION food. They live a nomadic lifestyle, moving to new sites WINTER Hunting as the seasons and resources CAMP grounds change. A nomadic lifestyle puts natural restrictions on SUMMER population growth. CAMP \u25bc Early settlers and Hunter-gatherers\u2014Band 2 affluent foragers The camps have simple 13,000 BCE structures that can be The climate becomes warmer and moved or rebuilt easily wetter. Rivers swell, grasslands and forests spread, creating a richer landscape. Some bands continue their nomadic lifestyle, but others settle in one prime spot. SPRING MIGRATION FALL MIGRATION Wild wheat growing Hunter-gatherers\u2014Band 1 near a river WINTER Foraging resources at MIGRATION CAMP the winter camp improve FALL MIGRATION as the climate warms SPRING FORAGERS WINTER BECOME FARMERS CAMP As the warming climate transformed the landscape, hunter-gatherers Settlers\u2014Band 2 and foragers across the world discovered new ways to boost their food This group stops moving supplies, most dramatically by farming. Instead of continually moving between winter and summer to find food, they could now settle permanently in one place. camps and settles in one place, where the river floods Settling down had many unforeseen consequences. Without the need to move on, and creates fertile land technology became heavier and more complicated. This led to quern stones for grinding grain, looms for weaving, and pottery. More permanent settlements meant children did not SETTLED CAMP have to be carried over long distances on the annual migrations, and the elderly and infirm were no longer left behind to fend for themselves until the band returned. As a result, the birth rate went up and people lived longer, but there were now more mouths to feed. Gradually, these settled populations came to depend on the limited number of crops they could grow, rather than the wide but seasonal range of wild foods obtained by foraging. In many ways, settling down was a trap. Although farming could support significantly larger populations than foraging, people had to work much harder for their food. 228 THRESHOLD 7","1 BCE 1 CE 1300 CE RENAISSANCE 1439 CE PRINTING PRESS SPARKS THE 1600 CE COLUMBIAN BEGINS INFORMATION REVOLUTION EXCHANGE Settlers\u2014Band 1 LAKE Band 1 stops moving between winter and summer camps and settles permanently EARLY FARMING COULD SUPPORT 50 TO 100 TIMES AS MANY PEOPLE AS FORAGING IN A SIMILAR AREA \u25b6 Growing settlements PERMANENT TRATHDEE DTWEVOELSOETPTS LBEEMTWENETESN Settlers\u2014Bands 2 and 3 6000 BCE CAMP Two bands join together into The population has continued one large settlement, now to rise and people are more firmly Defensive stone with a population of 100 tied to their land: buildings wall surrounds are permanent and villages are the village Buildings become defended. With more mouths more substantial to feed, wild cereal crops are and permanent deliberately cultivated, and animals are penned to supply the community with meat. EARLY SET TLERS\u2014SECOND SUMMER CAMP PHASE LAKE Land is organized into cultivated plots Animals are kept inside compound Settlers\u2014Band 3 SMALL VILLAGE An influx of people near GROWING SETTLEMENTS\u2014THIRD PHASE the river creates a new permanent settlement \u25c0 Always on the move Modern pastoralists continue PERMANENT to follow the nomadic way of CAMP life, moving with their animals to find better pasture and Wild wheat has water if climatic conditions spread due to change. This gives them harvesting a substantial advantage over settled farmers, who can lose their crops and animals in periods of drought. 229","8000 BCE AGRICULTURE EMERGES 6000 BCE FIRST CITIES 4000 BCE WRITING DEVELOPS 3100 BCE FIRST CIVILIZATIONS FORM EMERGE Jomon hunters caught game, including wild boar, Jomon houses were usually This cross-section shows how the huts may have been constructed. deer, and bears, using pit traps and bows and arrows 10\u201313ft (3\u20134m) across The main evidence comes from sunken floors and post-holes for timber Meat was a vital food source in winter, when fresh plant foods were scarce Outlet for Pots with their bases smoke buried in the earth floor of the hut Sunken floor, whose soil sides provided natural insulation from the weather SiunbsisduerfJaocmeocnhihuts, omnnweyhiaclhloJwoemdosnmwookme teonepsrcoabpaebflryocmoofikreeds meals. Smoke escapes Cooking pot enables Pots being fired to use through channel the Jomon to boil shellfish for cooking food below ground and nuts 230 THRESHOLD 7","1 BCE 1 CE 1300 CE RENAISSANCE 1439 CE PRINTING PRESS SPARKS THE 1600 CE COLUMBIAN BEGINS INFORMATION REVOLUTION EXCHANGE It is likely that the roofs and sides were The forest was rich in plant foods, such as berries, walnuts, thatched, helping to ventilate the interior chestnuts, and acorns, which the women gathered in fall Life in the village This is a typical Japanese Jomon village of c.13,000 BCE. At the time, villages were small, consisting of around five pit-houses. Settlements gradually grew larger until, by 9000 BCE, some contained as many as 50 or 60 houses. Salmon drying on a wooden The Jomon fished using frame. This process involved specialized tools: spears, many people, and is evidence nets, basket traps, and lines of community cooperation Rivers and lakes yielded salmon and other freshwater fish, while tuna, Boat made from a mackerel, turtles, and shellfish were hollowed-out log harvested from the sea Acorns and other plant AFFLUENT foods were kept in FORAGERS pots and storage pits At the end of the last ice age, climates became warmer and wetter, which enabled human communities to stay Grinding grain in the same place for longer, while still living as hunter- collected from gatherers. They are described as \u201caffluent foragers.\u201d wild plants Affluent foragers settled in areas of natural abundance and were \u25b6 Flame-rimmed vessel able to live off the fruits of the land. Among the most successful Jomon pottery was fired in the affluent foragers were the Jomon of Japan, who first settled in open air, in bonfires. From simple villages around 14,000 BCE. They lived in small communities\u2014 beginnings, Jomon pots grew more without adopting farming\u2014for more than 13,000 years. The elaborate. This richly decorated vessel Jomon lived beside forests, but also stayed close to the coasts, river dates from the late Jomon period. estuaries, and lakes. Their mixed environment provided a rich, varied diet of seasonally available plant foods, fish, and wild AFFLUENT FORAGERS 231 animals. This, combined with their more sedentary lifestyle, allowed affluent foragers to invest more energy in larger specialized tools and technology rather than just portable objects. The Jomon were the first people to invent pottery, in around 13,000 BCE, which they used to cook fish and store food to consume out of season.","8000 BCE AGRICULTURE EMERGES 6000 BCE FIRST CITIES 4000 BCE WRITING DEVELOPS 3100 BCE FIRST CIVILIZATIONS FORM EMERGE HUNTERS BEGIN TO GROW FOOD The first farmers worked the land with wooden digging sticks and stone-bladed hoes and adzes. This method, called horticulture, was not productive enough to create a surplus. It was subsistence farming, in which people grew only enough crops to feed their own families. \u25b2 Wooden adze The simplest agricultural tool is a digging practical where there are relatively few Flint-bladed tools are stick\u2014a strong, straight, pointed stick, often people and the area of forest is large remarkably strong. hardened in a fire. To remove weeds, farmers enough to support the population\u2019s size. An adze can cut a used a hoe, which had a blade made of stone large hardwood tree or antler set at an angle to the handle. Slash-and-burn proved unsustainable in a matter of hours. Without plows or draft animals, people in the cooler, drier latitudes of Eurasia, where farming began. The short growing could grow crops only in light, easily season meant that vegetation took much worked soils, such as loess, a longer to recover after a fire. As the fertile topsoil formed by population grew, people were forced to windblown dust. invent new ways to increase the yield from their fields. Their challenge was to find FARMING WITH FIRE better tools than the hoe and digging stick, Long before farming, hunter-gatherers had and new ways to fertilize the soil. burned forests to create open areas where they could hunt grazing animals, and Despite this, we know that slash-and- encourage the growth of useful plants such burn was once practiced across large areas as hazel and willow for making baskets. The of Eurasia. Studies of ancient peat bogs in first farmers used fire in a similar way. After northern Europe show the disappearance of cutting down an area of forest with stone- pollen from oak trees, accompanied by a rise bladed adzes, they left the vegetation to dry in pollen from cereal crops along with layers and then burned it. The ash made the soil of powdered charcoal\u2014clear evidence of fertile for planting seeds. But after two years, slash-and-burn farming. the fertility of a field dropped, and farmers had to move on to create a new one. FOREST GARDENING Human interaction with the forest was not Using fire to create fields is called always quite so devastating. As people living slash-and-burn or swidden farming, from beside rain forest rivers and on wet foothills an old Norse word for \u201cburned ground.\u201d It is in monsoon regions began to adapt to their still practiced by between 200 million and immediate surroundings, they learned 500 million people worldwide, mostly in which species were helpful to the growth the tropical rain forests of South America, of food plants, and which were a hindrance. Southeast Asia, and Melanesia. Slash-and- They protected useful plants and removed burn is sustainable in these regions because unwanted species. Later, they introduced high rainfall and a warm climate permit beneficial plants from elsewhere to these a year-round growing season. But it is only \u201cforest gardens.\u201d THE PROUD GETAE LIVE HAPPILY, GROWING FREE FOOD FOR THEMSELVES ON LAND THEY DO NOT WANT TO CULTIVATE FOR MORE THAN A YEAR. Horace, Roman poet, 1st century BCE 232 THRESHOLD 7","1 BCE 1 CE 1300 CE RENAISSANCE 1439 CE PRINTING PRESS SPARKS THE 1600 CE COLUMBIAN BEGINS INFORMATION REVOLUTION EXCHANGE Destructive harvest Areas of Laos still follow a tradition of slash-and-burn cultivation. However, it is highly destructive to the rain forest\u2014crops are only grown for one year as they quickly deplete the soils, and harvests are poor. The area then has to be left for between four and six years to regenerate. HUNTERS BEGIN TO GROW FOOD 233","8000 BCE AGRICULTURE EMERGES 6000 BCE FIRST CITIES 4000 BCE WRITING DEVELOPS 3100 BCE FIRST CIVILIZATIONS FORM EMERGE Northeast America 2000\u20131000 bce AMERICAS In the Americas, native foods included sunflowers, sumpweed, and goosefoot, which were gradually domesticated, even though these plants were not very nutritious. There were no potential animal domesticates in this region Mesoamerica 3000\u20132000 bce Mesoamerican farmers had an ideal combination of crops, with maize and beans grown alongside each other. Turkeys and dogs were the only domesticable animals, and were raised for meat FARMING Maize became the most important BEGINS crop in Mesoamerica. It was easy to store for long periods and soon Farming began once people started to store and plant domesticated. seeds and tubers. Archaeology shows that within a few millennia, agriculture had emerged separately in different The llama was domesticated in the parts of the world that had no contact with each other. Andes. Llamas were a source of meat and wool, and also beasts of burden. Reasons for becoming farmers may have varied. In some places, people responded to a shortage of wild foods, due to climate change or a rising population. In other areas, they may simply have preferred one food crop over others. They would not have made a conscious decision to become farmers\u2014they had no idea what the new way of life would be like. However, food production could only begin where there was a source of animals and plants suitable for domestication. The range varied from region to region and as a result, farming had different impacts in each world zone. The crops of eastern North America and New Guinea were much less nutritious than those of other farming areas, so people continued to depend on wild foods, and farmers lived alongside hunter-gatherers. It was very different in the Fertile Crescent and China, where agriculture offered such a complete food production package that farmers were able to outcompete their hunter-gatherer neighbors. EACH OF THE FOUR WORLD ZONES WAS ITS The Andes 3000\u20132000 bce OWN WORLD FOR A TIME. The main crops of the Andes region were quinoa, potatoes, Cynthia Stokes Brown, American historian, 1938\u2013 and amaranth\u2014all were highly nutritious. Only two large animals 234 THRESHOLD 7 were suitable for domestication in the whole of the Americas, and both\u2014the llama and the alpaca\u2014were found in the Andes","1 BCE 1 CE 1300 CE RENAISSANCE 1439 CE BEGINS The Fertile Crescent 9000 bce EURASIA The range of plants and animals available in this region, including cereals (wheat and barley), cattle, goats, and sheep, may explain why farming emerged here in very early times AFRICA Sheep were first domesticated in the Fertile Crescent and herding remains a way of life in Egypt today. China 7000 bce The first Chinese farmers grew rice along the Yangtze River, in the warm, wet south, and millet along the Yellow River, in the cool, drier north. They domesticated water buffalo, pigs, and chickens New Guinea 7000\u20134000 bce In this zone, true agriculture only emerged in New Guinea, where the main crop was taro. This is very low in protein, which was provided instead by frogs, mice, and insects AUSTRALASIA Sub-Saharan Africa The cowpea was first domesticated in Polynesia 3000\u20132000 bce Africa and remains an important and 1400 bce\u20131100 ce Early crops were sorghum, widely cultivated legume there today. millet, yam, groundnut, Farming was only cowpea, and oil palm. adopted after the \u25b2 Agriculture in the four world zones KEY Australasia settlement of Each zone is an area in which humans Australia, the island of Papua Polynesia began interacted. This map shows how and The Americas New Guinea, and neighboring around 1400 bce, when when agriculture emerged in each of North, Central, and South islands in the Pacific Ocean. people from Southeast the four unconnected world zones, and America, and islands including reveals that, with the right conditions the Caribbean Islands. The Pacific Islands Asia moved and resources, humans have the ability Societies such as New out into the ocean, to innovate and often find similar Afro-Eurasia Zealand, Micronesia, bringing taro, pigs, and solutions to similar problems. Africa and the Eurasian Melanesia, and Hawaii. chickens with them landmass, including islands such as Britain and Japan. FARMING BEGINS 235","8000 BCE AGRICULTURE EMERGES 6000 BCE FIRST CITIES 4000 BCE WRITING DEVELOPS 3100 BCE FIRST CIVILIZATIONS FORM EMERGE WILD PLANTS BECOME CROPS Domestication is a process through which plants are brought under human control. As a result of human selection, plants changed until they were unable to reproduce successfully in the wild. Domestication was a two-way process, which benefited plants as well as people. \u25bc Held for harvest The most important domesticated plants are domesticated plants. As farming developed, \u25b2 Vital commodity The difference between the grasslike grain crops, which offer little people found themselves forced to spend wild and domesticated nutrition individually but can be gathered in long days caring for wheat, rice, and corn. Rice now provides one-fifth of all the calories wheat grains is subtle, bulk. The heads of wild grasses shatter when but significant. The ripe, so that the grains can spread in the FIRST CROPS consumed by humans worldwide. It can be grown change from an easily wind. However, it was easier for early foragers Domestication of wheat began in the region breakable rachis (shaft) to harvest grains that stayed longer on the known as the Fertile Crescent, in the Middle even on steep hillsides, using terraces. on wild plants to one plants. Eventually, a new plant developed East. Here, between 11,000 and 9000 BCE, that needed to be with heads that no longer needed to shatter: early farmers domesticated two types of to regenerate itself. Domesticated rice threshed meant that domesticated plants wait to be harvested. wheat\u2014wild emmer and einkorn. Then, developed a bigger grain, and lost its awn, more grain could be in Iran around 7000 BCE, domesticated hard husk, and ability to regenerate itself. collected\u2014but it took The growing season was also changed by emmer wheat crossed with a wild goatgrass a lot more effort. domestication. Wild seeds tend to germinate to become bread wheat; this has larger In the 5th millennium BCE, farmers in piecemeal over a long period, which ensures grains, easily removable husks, and higher southwest Mexico transformed the wild that in a changing climate some plants will gluten levels, which creates an elastic dough teosinte plant into maize, or corn. Teosinte survive. Humans created plants that all that rises to form soft bread. yields less than 12 kernels, while corn germinated at the same time. Domesticated produces up to 600. Teosinte kernels are plants also grew to around the same height, Unlike other cereals, rice is a marsh protected by a hard outer covering, but corn which made them easier to harvest. The plant, suitable for growing in water. It was kernels are naked. The plants look so grains themselves grew bigger and became domesticated between 4900 and 4600 BCE in different that the relationship between them easier to remove from their husks. southern China, south of the Yangtze River. was only discovered in the 20th century. Wild rice has a long awn, a hard husk, a tiny These changes were not consciously grain, and a strong stem, allowing the plant Beans were domesticated 6,000 years planned by farmers. They occurred as a ago in Mesoamerica and also in the Andes. natural result of selecting seeds from the The plants selected produced bigger beans most desirable plants to harvest and sow in or better yields and were easier to harvest. the following year. Yet the more plants were In the Andes, the plant changed from a tall brought under human control, the more vine to a more productive bush. human lives revolved around the needs of Long awn (bristle), which helps seed pull itself into soil Large seed Tight husk around small seed (\u201cgrain\u201d) Smooth, Rough, hard-to- brittle break rachis rachis Domesticated Wild wheat wheat 236 THRESHOLD 7","1 BCE 1 CE 1300 CE RENAISSANCE 1439 CE PRINTING PRESS SPARKS THE 1600 CE COLUMBIAN BEGINS INFORMATION REVOLUTION EXCHANGE Larger, fatter head with many easily husked grains \u25b6 More gatherable grains Slim heads with Seed head Over time, wheat evolved from wild small grains remains intact shattering varieties with small grains, until threshing to a plant with nonshattering heads Tight husks and bigger grains. Farmers also make it hard selected for head size, plant height, to remove seed growing season, and grains that were easy to remove from their husk. Wild wheat Wild einkorn Domesticated Modern bread wheat Scientists have recently begun making wheat emmer wheat hybrids by crossing modern varieties Pods have to be with their wild relatives to reintroduce shucked by hand old characteristics such as resistance to release beans to drought, heat, and pests. Casing splits and \u25b6 Bigger beans flings out beans Wild beans were a staple of the Mesoamerican diet because they Small pods Longer pods contain amino acids that corn does contain 3\u20134 contain more not have. Wild plants have small pods small beans or bigger that twist when ripe, splitting open beans to release their seeds (the beans). Domesticated species have more beans in bigger pods, but the beans stay in their pods until humans split them open. In Mesoamerica, beans were planted alongside corn, which acted as a support, and squashes, to suppress weeds, in what is known as the \u201cthree sisters\u201d planting scheme. Wild bean Ripe wild bean Domesticated bean Ripe domesticated bean PLANTS DOMESTICATED HOMO SAPIENS, RATHER Modern corn THAN VICE VERSA. has 400\u2013600 kernels arranged Yuval Noah Harari, Israeli historian, 1976\u2013, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind in 16\u201320 rows \u25b6 Gigantic improvement 6\u201312 kernels Naked kernels Multiple Teosinte, a wild form of maize (corn), in two interleaved fixed to the stem rows of has only a few kernels on a head less rows kernels than 1in (2.5cm) long. A modern domesticated corn cob, packed with kernels, can measure more than 12in (30cm). The discovery of phytoliths (plant microfossils) and starch grains from a number of sites in Mexico suggests that domesticated forms of corn may have existed much earlier than previously thought. Teosinte Early domesticated Later domesticated Modern corn corn corn WILD PLANTS BECOME CROPS 237","HARD EVIDENCE POLLEN GRAINS The spiny surface of pollen from the morning glory vine (Ipomoea) helps it to attach itself to pollinating insects Small amounts of plant residue can reveal a wealth of information about climatic conditions, the history of agriculture, and the lives of our ancestors thanks to forensic techniques like pollen analysis. The study of pollen, plant spores, and Palynologists use an electron microscope to microscopic plant organisms is known as identify individual pollen grains, counting palynology. Pollen grains, which are the the grains of each type. Using this data, male reproductive bodies of flowering they recreate a picture of the climate and plants, are produced in vast quantities in environment in one area at a particular nature. Thanks to its hard outer shell, a time. By repeating the study with different pollen grain can survive for millions of depths of soil deposits, they build up a pollen years in favorable conditions. Different chronology, which shows how the range of plants have distinctively shaped pollen plants changed over time. Archaeological grains, which makes it possible to identify sites can be dated by matching the range of the plants that produced them. pollen collected with the known chronology. Pollen survives best in peat bogs, lake Palynology has revealed the huge impact beds, and cave sediments. Ancient pollen that early farming had on the environment. associated with humans is also found in mud Wherever it was practiced, agriculture was bricks, storage pits, boats, pottery vessels, marked by a decline in tree pollen and a rise tombs, preserved bodies, and coprolites in pollen from cereals and opportunistic (fossil feces). It can also be detected on the weeds, such as darnel, that are associated surfaces of grinding stones and stone tools. with their growth. Orange Primula Geranium (Citrus sinensis) (Primula sp.) (Geranium sp.) Scots pine Maize Rapeseed (Pinus sylvestris) (Zea mays) (Brassica napus) Silver birch Narrow-leaved hawksbeard Wheat Travel and trade (Betula pendula) (Crepis tectorum) (Triticum spp.) Pollen grains from pottery \u25b2 Pollen gallery found on a shipwreck can This selection of pollen shows how distinctly shaped the identify the ship\u2019s cargo, and pollen from different plants is. Pollen also ranges widely pollen trapped in the resin used in size, from 5 to 500 microns (1 micron is 0.001 mm). to seal the hull may reveal where the ship was made. The hull of a small, 2,000-year-old boat wrecked off the French coast contained pollen that showed it was built east of Italy\u2014which indicates that small boats traded farther afield than previously thought. 238 THRESHOLD 7","Pollen evidence in context The amount of pollen plants produce Morning glory vine varies from species to species, and is spread in different ways, so the results of palynology are interpreted alongside findings from other disciplines such as archaeology or climate science. The Ipomoea genus includes plants with hallucinogenic properties; Ipomoea pollen in a cave in Belize suggests the plants may have been taken there by pre-Mayan people for ritual purposes. The tough, rigid, waterproof shell prevents the pollen grain from rotting or drying out. Climate change Global warming at the end of the Ice Age caused a dramatic change in vegetation across northern latitudes. Pollen collected from lake sediments in Britain shows that before 9600 BCE the only trees there were cold-hardy dwarf birches. As the climate warmed, birches were replaced by Scots pines, which in turn gave way to a wider variety of trees, including hazels, elms, and oaks. This pollen grain can be identified as Ipomoea purpurea from its size, shape, and surface features Agriculture and food Pollen can help us understand what past peoples farmed and ate. Pollen from grass and other fodder plants stored in dwellings tells us how livestock were fed. Similarly, pollen clinging to grinding stones used by New Mexico\u2019s Anasazi people shows that alongside domesticated maize they also harvested a wide variety of wild plants. In the American Southwest, palynologists recreated a prehistoric individual\u2019s diet from pollen found in coprolites (fossilized feces), while in Scotland pollen on 5,000-year-old pottery shards was used to recreate the recipe for heather ale, drunk by early Celtic farmers. Stone quern with sandstone rubber POLLEN GRAINS 239","8000 BCE AGRICULTURE EMERGES 6000 BCE FIRST CITIES 4000 BCE WRITING DEVELOPS 3100 BCE FIRST CIVILIZATIONS FORM EMERGE FARMERS DOMESTICATE ANIMALS The domestication of animals began at roughly the same time and in the same areas as the domestication of plants. The process probably began with men guarding a local herd of animals as it moved, assisted by dogs. Eventually the herd was enclosed, fed, and protected. A domesticated animal is one that has are more aggressive, faster, and can leap and long horns, were no longer necessary. been bred in captivity and has become 6ft (1.8m) into the air. Similarly, zebras Domesticated animals did not have to modified from its wild ancestor. Some are more aggressive than horses, and have fear predators or search for new sources animals, such as elephants and bears, better peripheral vision, which makes them of food, and so their brains reduced in size. can be tamed, but this is not the same as almost impossible to catch with a rope. domestication. Tamed elephants remain Gazelles have a tendency to panic, and are In the wild, male mammals are much wild animals, and never adapt completely likely to batter themselves to death when larger than females because they have to to their new conditions. placed in an enclosure. compete with other males for mates. This competition ended in captivity, because Animals needed certain characteristics HOW ANIMALS CHANGED breeding was controlled by humans. to be suitable for domestication. They Animals separated from their natural As a result, male cattle, sheep, and goats had to be a manageable size and relatively environment began to change as farmers became the same size as the females, docile with social structures, early sexual bred from specimens that met their needs. as well as losing their long horns. maturity, and a high reproductive rate. Because people selected smaller animals Herbivores were better than carnivores that were easier to manage, domesticated The willingness of these animals because they would survive on local plants. cattle became smaller than their wild to become domesticated ultimately Just 14 large mammals met all these ancestor, the aurochs. Evolution by natural ensured their evolutionary success. requirements, almost all of them in Eurasia. selection also played a part\u2014adaptations There are now 1.4 billion cattle for survival in the wild, such as intelligence on the planet\u2014but their wild Attempts to domesticate other animals ancestor, the aurochs, became failed: bison are related to cattle, but they extinct during the 17th century. DOMESTICABLE ANIMALS ARE ALL ALIKE; EVERY UNDOMESTICABLE ANIMAL IS UNDOMESTICABLE IN ITS OWN WAY. Jared Diamond, American scientist, 1937\u2013, Guns, Germs, and Steel \u25b6 Wild at heart Although warthogs WARTHOG Bees are semi- live in social herds, domesticated. Through they can be highly selective breeding, humans modified bee aggressive behavior, making them less likely to sting and swarm than wild bees. Although managed by humans, bees still forage for their food and retain the ability to survive in the wild. HIPPOPOTAMUS ELEPHANT 240 THRESHOLD 7","1 BCE 1 CE 1300 CE RENAISSANCE 1439 CE PRINTING PRESS SPARKS THE 1600 CE COLUMBIAN BEGINS INFORMATION REVOLUTION EXCHANGE DOGS WERE DOMESTICATED The cat is the only FROM WOLVES 35,000 nonsocial animal YEARS AGO to be domesticated PIG COW GOAT DOG CDAOTMESTICc\u25c0AhDNanIoMgmeAdeLsgStriecaattleydtharnoimugahlshaulmmaonstcaolnl trol. CHICKEN SHEEP HORSE When boars became pigs, they became less aggressive, lost their tusks and Goats have been Domesticated muscular shoulders, and developed selectively bred to animals tolerate fatter hind quarters. The most extreme reduce their horns humans and other change was in sheep, which developed farm animals a thick, woolly fleece. AUROCHS BEZOAR GOAT WOLF AFRICAN WILD CAT Przewalski\u2019s is the Junglefowl were the DOMESTICABLE ANIMALS last surviving wild ancestors of the \u25c0 The wild ancestors of the most horse species chicken, now the common domesticated animals are most common bird the Asian mouflon (sheep), the bezoar in the world (goat), the wild boar (pig), the aurochs (cattle), and the south Asian junglefowl (chicken). Most of these WILD BOAR MOUFLON PRZEWALSKI\u2019S HORSE JUNGLEFOWL animals had social hierarchies, allowing them to accept human control. Others that proved domesticable include camels, yaks, Undomesticable animals are generally guanacos, turkeys, and donkeys. too aggressive or flighty to live in close confinement with other animals Bison roam over Big cats have courtship large territories and rituals that usually can be aggressive involve running over large distances. They also need large quantities of meat BISON GAZELLE FOX LION Bighorn sheep Some species have would not accept human control been semi-domesticated ANIMALS but most species are AMERICAN BIGHORN SHEEP ZEBRA SWAN too aggressive \u25c0 Most wild animals are unsuitable for domestication, for many different Hyenas were tamed Tame baboons NON-DOMESTICABLE reasons. Swans, zebras, and bison are in Egypt, but never were kept as too aggressive. Foxes and gazelles are domesticated sacred animals easily scared, and will always attempt in Egyptian to escape from humans. Elephants temples are unsuitable because of their slow growth rate\u2014it takes 15 years for an elephant to reach adult size, and two years to produce a calf. PANDA HYENA BABOON FARMERS DOMESTICATE ANIMALS 241","8000 BCE AGRICULTURE EMERGES 6000 BCE FIRST CITIES 4000 BCE WRITING DEVELOPS 3100 BCE FIRST CIVILIZATIONS FORM EMERGE With nutritious crops like corn and beans arriving from Mesoamerica, farming continued to spread through North America Corn, or maize, transformed farming in EASTERN eastern North America when it arrived NORTH AMERICA from Mesoamerica in c.2000 BCE. 2000\u20131000 BCE FARMING MESOAMERICA Squashes, pumpkins, and other SPREADS 3000\u20132000 BCE members of the gourd family were grown in eastern North America AMERICAS before corn and beans. WEST AFRICA 3000\u20132000 BCE After its original adoption in several areas of the planet, AMA ZONIA Farming in Amazonia farming spread in all directions. The new way of life 3000\u20132000 BCE may have originated expanded much more rapidly in Eurasia than in the here, or spread here Americas, due to the different shapes of each landmass. from the Andes Agriculture spread in two ways. The most common was where ANDES In Africa, farming may farmers were forced to leave their homeland due to the pressures 3000\u20132000 BCE have begun in any of three of a rising population and competition over land. Moving on, they took their animals and crops with them. The second, less usual, was Potatoes and sub-Saharan regions for hunter-gatherers to partly adopt the new way of life. As they quinoa were came into contact with farmers, some hunter-gatherers acquired \u25b2 How agriculture spread domesticated cattle, sheep, and goats, and so became herders. grown in from 9000\u20131000 BCE the Andes This map shows how farming spread, The differing rates of spread were determined by the continents\u2019 rapidly along the east-west axis axes. While Eurasia stretches east to west, the Americas stretch of Eurasia and more slowly along north to south. It was much easier for farmers to move their crops north-south axes in the Americas and livestock within the same latitude, because they found similar and Africa. There is still uncertainty climactic conditions, seasonality, day lengths, pests, and diseases. about exactly where in sub-Saharan But for crops to move from one latitude to another\u2014as corn did in Africa farming was first adopted. the Americas\u2014the plant had to evolve to suit different conditions. KEY WHY SHOULD WE PLANT WHEN THERE ARE SO MANY MONGONGO NUTS IN THE WORLD? Spread of farming Continental axis direction African Kalahari bushman, quoted by Richard Lee, 1937\u2013, What Hunters Do for a Living Earliest farming regions, Americas Earliest farming regions, Eurasia Earliest farming regions, Africa Earliest farming regions, China Earliest farming regions, Australasia 242 THRESHOLD 7","1 BCE 1 CE 1439 CE PRINTING PRESS SPARKS THE 1600 CE COLUMBIAN INFORMATION REVOLUTION EXCHANGE Wheat, evolved from wild grasses Rice, today one of the in the Fertile Crescent over 11,000 world\u2019s most common years ago, is the earliest crop to be staples, spread throughout domesticated (see p.237). Asia, reaching Europe during antiquity and the EURASIA Americas at the time of European colonization. FERTILE CRESCENT Farming spread CHINA (YELLOW RIVER 9000 BCE most rapidly from BASIN) 7000 BCE the Fertile Crescent Millet and rice farming CHINA (YANGTZE RIVER spread from China\u2019s BASIN) 7000 BCE Yellow and Yangtze River Valleys SAHEL 3000\u20132000 BCE AFRICA ETHIOPIA 3000\u20132000 BCE Ethiopian farmers Taro spread from Southeast Asia adopted animals to Oceania and New Guinea, from the north, where both its root and its leaves including camels, remain popular food staples. domesticated in southern Arabia NEW GUINEA 7000\u20134000 BCE When Asian pigs reached New Guinea, farming became much more productive Sorghum, a gluten-free cereal rich in nutrients, was first domesticated in Africa, possibly in Ethiopia, around 5,000 years ago. FARMING SPREADS 243","8000 BCE AGRICULTURE EMERGES 6000 BCE FIRST CITIES 4000 BCE WRITING DEVELOPS 3100 BCE FIRST CIVILIZATIONS FORM EMERGE MEASURING TIME \u25b6 Aztec calendar stone This carved stone from the late Agriculture gave a new importance to keeping track of time, since 15th or early 16th century shows farmers needed to know when to plow, sow, and gather the harvest. cosmic history as understood With the rise of states, calendars became a means of social control, by the Aztecs of Mexico. regulating work and coordinating the activities of large populations. Hunter-gatherers knew about time passing festivals and for divination. The ability to because of seasonal changes, including the predict eclipses was a particularly good way migrations of animals, birds, and fish, and to keep the populace in line at key moments. the fall appearance of fruits and nuts. Written calendars later came to be used for They could see the passage of time in more mundane things\u2014when to collect the sky, evidenced by the moon\u2019s phases, taxes, when to go to war, and to establish the sun\u2019s daily journey, and the regular the sailing season for merchant ships. reappearance of constellations, such as the Pleiades and Orion, throughout the year. THE WORKING WEEK Different cultures developed differing CONTROL BY CALENDAR understandings of the passage of time. Agriculture requires long-term planning, Mesoamericans, such as the Aztecs, saw so early farmers built on their astronomical time as a cyclical pattern of recurring knowledge to invent the first calendars. events, in which the world was In the northern hemisphere, where people regularly destroyed and recreated. were especially aware of the sun\u2019s seasonal movements, standing stones were used to Early societies devised a cycle of track the progress of the year from where it work days and rest days. The week rose and set on the horizon. Stonehenge in was ten days long in China and Egypt, England, for example, was aligned with the and seven in Mesopotamia. The day midwinter sun. was divided into hours measured by clocks, the earliest types being water There was also a religious motivation in clocks and sundials. As societies grew the creation of written calendars. Often the more complex, people\u2019s lives were work of priests\u2014who had the time and skills increasingly ruled by calendars and to make astronomical observations\u2014such clocks, which measured human, social calendars were made for the regulation of time rather than the cycles of nature. Solar disk decorated with motifs \u25bc Sun chariot and patterns on both sides This Danish model, from around 1400 BCE, imagines the sun\u2019s journey through the sky as made by horse and chariot. Markings on the sun\u2019s disk have led one archaeologist to suggest that it may have functioned as a calendar. The model is made of bronze; only one side of the disk is gilded 244 THRESHOLD 7","1 BCE 1 CE 1300 CE RENAISSANCE 1439 CE PRINTING PRESS SPARKS THE 1600 CE COLUMBIAN BEGINS INFORMATION REVOLUTION EXCHANGE Symbols around the edge of the stone represent aspects of the heavens, including stars, the sun\u2019s rays, and the planet Venus \u25b2 Observing the heavens This curved structure was built in the 1420s as part of Sultan Ulugh Beg\u2019s Samarkand observatory. It allowed his astronomers to calculate when sunrise and sunset would fall each day, as well as the length of a year. In the center is the face of Tonatiuh, the fifth and present sun god Each square around the face represents a previous era and sun, named after Jaguar, Wind, Rain, and Water The fifth and current era and sun are represented by the shape of the frame enclosing the central signs This circle shows the 20 signs used to name the Aztec days THE GODS CONFOUND THE MAN WHO FIRST FOUND OUT HOW TO DISTINGUISH HOURS. Aulus Gellius, Roman author, c.125\u2013185 CE, Attic Nights MEASURING TIME 245","8000 BCE AGRICULTURE EMERGES 6000 BCE FIRST CITIES 4000 BCE WRITING DEVELOPS 3100 BCE FIRST CIVILIZATIONS FORM EMERGE NEW USES FOR ANIMALS Animals were first domesticated to provide a ready source of meat and hides. Later, farmers discovered that animals could also be used as a renewable resource, to provide milk, wool, and power. This new way of using animals is known as the secondary products revolution. The first secondary product was milk. The quality hair for breeding. As a result, sheep earliest evidence, from the 7th millennium developed thick woolly fleeces between BCE, is pottery found in Turkey containing 7000 BCE and 5000 BCE. traces of milk. At the time, adults\u2014unlike babies\u2014lacked the enzyme needed to break POWER AND MOTION down lactose, the main sugar in milk. But The most important secondary product early farmers were able to reduce lactose was animal power, which gave humans their levels by fermenting heated milk, making first new source of energy since the control yogurt and cheese. Fermentation was also of fire. Around 4500 BCE, donkeys were the best way to preserve and store milk. domesticated as pack animals. Later, people Around 5500 BCE, people in Central Europe in western Asia harnessed oxen to pull loads, developed lactose tolerance. They were able at first on simple sleds. Then, in about 3500 to digest milk, giving them a rich new BCE, the plow was invented and wheels\u2014 source of protein. Lactose tolerance spread devised for turning clay pots\u2014were fitted across Europe and also appeared later in to sleds to make carts. Horses were also West Africa and parts of Asia. Today, about domesticated around this time. Riding a third of humanity can drink milk. horses gave humans their first fast mode of transportation. Horses and carts enabled Another new product that came into use people to move with their grazing animals around this time was sheep\u2019s wool, which and survive on Eurasia\u2019s grassy steppes\u2014an was spun and woven into textiles. Farmers in unsuitable environment for growing crops. western Asia selected animals with the best \u25b6 Pulling power Wheeled carts spread so quickly across Eurasia that it is difficult to know exactly where they originated. This 4,000-year-old pottery model of an ox cart comes from the Indus civilization of India. THE\u2026 REVOLUTION TURNED DOMESTICATED HERBIVORES INTO EFFICIENT MACHINES FOR TRANSFORMING GRASS INTO ENERGY USABLE BY HUMANS. David Christian, Big History historian, 1946\u2013, Maps of Time 246 THRESHOLD 7","1 BCE 1 CE 1300 CE RENAISSANCE 1439 CE PRINTING PRESS SPARKS THE 1600 CE COLUMBIAN BEGINS INFORMATION REVOLUTION EXCHANGE Milking time Early milking scenes often show calves. In the early days of dairying, the calf\u2019s presence was needed to make the cow release her milk. This 7th-century CE carving is from a cave temple in Tamil Nadu, India. NEW USES FOR ANIMALS 247","8000 BCE AGRICULTURE EMERGES 6000 BCE FIRST CITIES 4000 BCE WRITING DEVELOPS 3100 BCE FIRST CIVILIZATIONS FORM EMERGE INNOVATIONS Wooden handle INCREASE YIELDS that the farmer used to steer Larger, settled populations inevitably needed to produce more food. the plow Farmers began to innovate and develop new agricultural methods, such as plowing and the use of fertilizers. These new technologies Wooden share cut enabled farmers to intensify production and increase yields. a shallow furrow through the soil With a pair of oxen and a plow, one man The plow was never invented in the could prepare a whole field for planting Americas, where there were no domesticated in much less time than it took a team of animals strong enough to pull such a device. workers with digging sticks. Plows made it possible to farm in heavier soils, greatly IMPROVING THE SOIL increasing the area of land available for One great advantage of the use of draft cultivation. Plowing is also an efficient way animals is that their dung enriches the soil. of removing weeds. American farmers, who did not have draft animals, found other kinds of fertilizer. The plow was an adaptation of the The Incas of Peru collected vast amounts of digging stick, allowing it to be dragged seabird droppings (guano) that they spread continuously through the ground. It may on their fields. Guano is an ideal fertilizer have been invented in Mesopotamia, where because it is rich in nitrogen, potassium, and images of plows have been found dating phosphate\u2014all vital nutrients for growing from the 4th millennium BCE. The earliest plants. In ancient China, farmers used type was the scratch plow, or ard, which had human manure (nightsoil), collected from a wooden tip (share) that could cut only a towns at night. shallow furrow. To plow efficiently with an ard, farmers had to cross-plow, UNEXPECTED CONSEQUENCES going over the field twice, with the second Agricultural intensification had its problems plowing at right angles to the first. Later as well as its benefits. Despite better improvements included metal-tipped shares harvests, which sparked increases in the and a blade called the coulter, which sliced population, food remained scarce for most the soil in front of the share. people. Intensive irrigation and farming fields without a fallow period eventually In the 1st century BCE, the Chinese impoverished the soil. Communities further refined the plow with the addition of regularly faced shortages and the moldboard\u2014a curved blade that turned periodic famines, which over the soil, burying weeds and bringing led to malnourishment, nutrients to the surface. Use of this plow disease, and shorter was carried west across Eurasia, reaching lifespans. Scarcity Europe by the 7th century CE. Thanks to the also brought moldboard, farmers no longer had to social disorder cross-plow. This doubled the amount of land and led to war, a plow team could prepare. mass migration, and cultural disruption. Plows could only be used where there were suitable draft animals, such as oxen, water buffalo, horses, mules, and camels. OX PLOWS COULD NOT BE USED \u25b6 Early plow IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA, BECAUSE This model of a farmer using an ard, or scratch plow, comes from an Egyptian tomb of c.2000 BCE. The Nile CATTLE WERE VULNERABLE TO floods deposited nutrients on the surface, so the plow did TRYPANOSOMIASIS, A DEADLY not need to turn over the soil, merely break it up for sowing. DISEASE PASSED ON BY THE TSETSE FLY 248 THRESHOLD 7"]
Search
Read the Text Version
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
- 13
- 14
- 15
- 16
- 17
- 18
- 19
- 20
- 21
- 22
- 23
- 24
- 25
- 26
- 27
- 28
- 29
- 30
- 31
- 32
- 33
- 34
- 35
- 36
- 37
- 38
- 39
- 40
- 41
- 42
- 43
- 44
- 45
- 46
- 47
- 48
- 49
- 50
- 51
- 52
- 53
- 54
- 55
- 56
- 57
- 58
- 59
- 60
- 61
- 62
- 63
- 64
- 65
- 66
- 67
- 68
- 69
- 70
- 71
- 72
- 73
- 74
- 75
- 76
- 77
- 78
- 79
- 80
- 81
- 82
- 83
- 84
- 85
- 86
- 87
- 88
- 89
- 90
- 91
- 92
- 93
- 94
- 95
- 96
- 97
- 98
- 99
- 100
- 101
- 102
- 103
- 104
- 105
- 106
- 107
- 108
- 109
- 110
- 111
- 112
- 113
- 114
- 115
- 116
- 117
- 118
- 119
- 120
- 121
- 122
- 123
- 124
- 125
- 126
- 127
- 128
- 129
- 130
- 131
- 132
- 133
- 134
- 135
- 136
- 137
- 138
- 139
- 140
- 141
- 142
- 143
- 144
- 145
- 146
- 147
- 148
- 149
- 150
- 151
- 152
- 153
- 154
- 155
- 156
- 157
- 158
- 159
- 160
- 161
- 162
- 163
- 164
- 165
- 166
- 167
- 168
- 169
- 170
- 171
- 172
- 173
- 174
- 175
- 176
- 177
- 178
- 179
- 180
- 181
- 182
- 183
- 184
- 185
- 186
- 187
- 188
- 189
- 190
- 191
- 192
- 193
- 194
- 195
- 196
- 197
- 198
- 199
- 200
- 201
- 202
- 203
- 204
- 205
- 206
- 207
- 208
- 209
- 210
- 211
- 212
- 213
- 214
- 215
- 216
- 217
- 218
- 219
- 220
- 221
- 222
- 223
- 224
- 225
- 226
- 227
- 228
- 229
- 230
- 231
- 232
- 233
- 234
- 235
- 236
- 237
- 238
- 239
- 240
- 241
- 242
- 243
- 244
- 245
- 246
- 247
- 248
- 249
- 250
- 251
- 252
- 253
- 254
- 255
- 256
- 257
- 258
- 259
- 260
- 261
- 262
- 263
- 264
- 265
- 266
- 267
- 268
- 269
- 270
- 271
- 272
- 273
- 274
- 275
- 276
- 277
- 278
- 279
- 280
- 281
- 282
- 283
- 284
- 285
- 286
- 287
- 288
- 289
- 290
- 291
- 292
- 293
- 294
- 295
- 296
- 297
- 298
- 299
- 300
- 301
- 302
- 303
- 304
- 305
- 306
- 307
- 308
- 309
- 310
- 311
- 312
- 313
- 314
- 315
- 316
- 317
- 318
- 319
- 320
- 321
- 322
- 323
- 324
- 325
- 326
- 327
- 328
- 329
- 330
- 331
- 332
- 333
- 334
- 335
- 336
- 337
- 338
- 339
- 340
- 341
- 342
- 343
- 344
- 345
- 346
- 347
- 348
- 349
- 350
- 351
- 352
- 353
- 354
- 355
- 356
- 357
- 358
- 359
- 360
- 361
- 362
- 363
- 364
- 365
- 366
- 367
- 368
- 369
- 370
- 371
- 372
- 373
- 374
- 375
- 376
- 377
- 378
- 379
- 380
- 381
- 382
- 383
- 384
- 385
- 386
- 387
- 388
- 389
- 390
- 391
- 392
- 393
- 394
- 395
- 396
- 397
- 398
- 399
- 400
- 401
- 402
- 403
- 404
- 405
- 406
- 407
- 408
- 409
- 410
- 411
- 412
- 413
- 414
- 415
- 416
- 417
- 418
- 419
- 420
- 421
- 422
- 423
- 424
- 425
- 426
- 427
- 428
- 429
- 430
- 431
- 432
- 433
- 434
- 435
- 436
- 437
- 438
- 439
- 440
- 441
- 442
