ROBERT FLORESSEPTEMBER 25, 2011

DR. ARGUELLO

World History 4 Midterm: Journey to

Civilization

Paleolithic Era

The Paleolithic era’s hunter gatherer was bound to the area he was in to maintain his way of life . However, as resources became scarce early man began to explore and expand to other areas.

This new way of life helped bring about the expansion of humans colonizing every land mass round the planet.

Exploring New Territory

In Jared Diamonds Guns, Germs, and Steel early humans began dispersing around the globe, unknowingly to similar climates.

New Surroundings and New Ideas

These Paleolithic bands were seasonally mobile in regular patterns to exploit the resources of wild plants and animals on which they depended (Strayer, pg. 20).

Evidence of hunting and fishing, not just scavenging of dead animals, marks a new phase in human food collection (Strayer, pg. 12).

The people in the middle east developed early understanding of crops and how to benefit the most from the strongest crops

Agriculture and Early tools

This resourcefulness allowed early humans to harness the power of fire, exploit the uses of animals and plant life, and also leading to self expression

Homo sapiens colonized the world, making themselves at home in every environmental niche, from the frigid arctic to the rain forest of central Africa and Brazil, in mountains, deserts, and plains (Strayer, pg. 4).

Rise of Civilization

Using such technologies, and benefiting from global warming at the end of the last ice age, gathering and hunting peoples in various places were able to settle down and establish more permanent villages, abandoning their nomadic ways and more intensively exploiting their local area (Strayer, pg. 38).

Civilization: Social Structures

With the advancement of agricultural technology, grew more time for people to philosophize, create, think, and develop ideas on society.

The Banpo people showed greatest technological advancement early on in civilizations.

Eventually the patriarchal system emerged in early Mesopotamia, that led to control of trade and power.

Political Power and Social Division

The social hierarchies of these new civilizations brought about a greater inequality among its people, through slaves, conquered people, peasants, and merchants.

This system gave rise to riots, upheaval and revolution.