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Conclusion
Over thousands of generations, African hominins evolved from other primates, leading to new genera such as Australopithecus and Homo. The latter genus encompassed a range of now-extinct hominins, including the bipedal, toolmaking, fire-using Homo erectus, who migrated far from their native habitats to fill other landmasses. They did so in waves, often in response to worldwide cycles of climatic change. Homo sapiens, with bigger brains and consequently greater cognition, emerged in Africa about 300,000 years ago and migrated out of Africa beginning 180,000 years ago. With greater adaptive skills, they were better prepared to face the elements when a cooling cycle returned, and eventually they became the only surviving branch of the tree of human ancestors. Homo sapiens used language and art to engage in abstract, representational thought and to convey the lessons of experience to their neighbors and descendants. As modern humans stored and shared knowledge, their adaptive abilities increased.
Although modern men and women shared an African heritage, these individuals adapted over many millennia to the environments they encountered as they began to fill the earth’s corners and practice hunting and gathering ways of life. Some settled near lakes and took to fishing, while others roamed the northern steppes hunting large mammals. No matter where they went, their dependence on nature yielded broadly similar social and cultural structures. It took another warming cycle for people ranging from Africa to the Americas to begin putting down their hunting weapons and start domesticating animals and plants.
The changeover to settled agriculture was not uniform worldwide. As communities became more settled, the world’s regions began to vary as humans learned to modify nature to fit their needs. The varieties of animals that they could domesticate and the differing climatic conditions and topography that they encountered shaped the ways in which people drifted apart in spite of their common origins. What these settled communities shared, however, was increasing social hierarchy, including the unequal status of men and women.
TRACING THE GLOBAL STORYLINE
FOCUS ON: Prehistory and the Peopling of the Earth
- Bipedalism: Hominins become upright and walk on two legs.
- Big brains: Ancestors to modern humans make tools and fire and acquire larger brains.
- Cognitive skills: Homo sapiens hominins develop the capacity for language and learn to communicate with one another, develop a sense of self, and produce art.
- Village life: People domesticate plants and animals and begin to live in more socially complex communities.
KEY TERMS
THINKING ABOUT GLOBAL CONNECTIONS
- Thinking about Exchange Networks and Human Evolution Across several million years, the hominin ancestors of humans, especially Homo erectus, and then Homo sapiens, migrated out of Africa. What role did evolution play in making it possible for our hominin ancestors and then Homo sapiens to migrate across the globe?
- Thinking about the Environment and Human Evolution Climate change and environmental conditions have played a recurring role in the narrative recounted in this chapter. In what specific ways did the climate change, and in what specific ways did the environment help shape the evolution of humans and influence the shift from hunting and gathering to settled agriculture?
- Thinking about Changing Gender Relationships and the Agricultural Revolution Some scholars have argued that the hunting and gathering ways of life for both Homo erectus and Homo sapiens allowed women—biologically, through their lactation and child-rearing, and calorically, through their dominant role as gatherers—to make a larger and more significant contribution to their communities than their male counterparts did. In what ways might the development of settled agriculture have ushered in a shift in these gender roles?
Glossary
- australopithecines
- Hominin species, including anamensis, afarensis (Lucy), and africanus, that appeared in Africa beginning around 4 million years ago and, unlike other animals, sometimes walked on two legs. Their brain capacity was a little less than one-third of a modern human’s. Although not humans, they carried the genetic and biological material out of which modern humans would later emerge.
- creation narratives
- Narratives constructed by different cultures that draw on their belief systems and available evidence to explain the origins of the world and humanity.
- domestication
- Bringing a wild animal or plant under human control.
- evolution
- Process by which species of plants and animals change over time, as a result of the favoring, through reproduction, of certain traits that are useful in that species’ environment.
- hominids
- The family, in scientific classification, that includes gorillas, chimpanzees, and humans (that is, Homo sapiens, in addition to our now-extinct hominin ancestors such as the various australopithecines as well as Homo habilis, Homo erectus, and Homo neanderthalensis).
- hominins
- A scientific classification for modern humans and our now-extinct ancestors, including australopithecines and others in the genus Homo, such as Homo habilis and Homo erectus. Researchers once used the term hominid to refer to Homo sapiens and extinct hominin species, but the meaning of hominid has been expanded to include great apes (humans, gorillas, chimpanzees, and orangutans).
- Homo erectus
- Species that emerged about 1.8 million years ago, had a large brain, walked truly upright, migrated out of Africa, and likely mastered fire. Homo erectus means “standing human.”
- Homo sapiens
- The first humans; emerged in Africa as early as 315,000 years ago and migrated out of Africa beginning about 180,000 years ago. They had bigger brains and greater dexterity than previous hominin species, whom they eventually eclipsed.
- hunting and gathering
- Lifestyle in which food is acquired through hunting animals, fishing, and foraging for wild berries, nuts, fruit, and grains, rather than planting crops, vines, or trees. As late as 1500 CE, as much as 15 percent of the world’s population still lived by this method.
- pastoralism
- A way of life in which humans herd domesticated animals and exploit their products (hides/fur, meat, and milk). Pastoralists include nomadic groups that range across vast distances, as well as transhumant herders who migrate seasonally in a more limited range.
- settled agriculture
- Humans’ use of tools, animals, and their own labor to work the same plot of land for more than one growing cycle. It involves switching from a hunting and gathering lifestyle to one based on farming.
- Homo habilis
- Species, confined to Africa, that emerged about 2.5 million years ago and whose toolmaking ability truly made it the forerunner, though a very distant one, of modern humans. Homo habilis means “skillful human.”