Class 11th History Easy Notes Ch 1 FROM THE BEGINNING OF TIME

Headings From Textbook

• The story human evolution

          a) The precursors of modern human beings
          b) Modern human beings

• The replacement and regional continuity models 
• Early humans : ways of obtaining food 
• Early humans : from trees, to caves and open-air spaces
• Early humans : making tools
• Modes of communication: language and art
• Early encounters with hunter-gatherers in Africa
• Hunter-gatherer societies : from the present to past

From The Beginning Of Time

• 5.6 million years ago that the first human like creature first appeared on the earth.
• Modern humans originated about 160,000 years ago.
• During this long period they learn, how to hunt animals, gathering plants, make stone tools, and communicate with each other.
• Human fossils, stone tools and cave paintings helps us to understand about early humans.
• Fossils can be dated either through direct chemical analysis or indirectly by the sediments in which they are buried.

The Precursors Of Modern Human Beings

• Study suggest that, by about 24 Maya, there emerged subgroup amongst primates, called hominoids. This includes apes.
• And much later, about 5.6 Maya, we find the traces of first hominids.
• Hominids have evolved from hominoids and share certain common features, there are major differences also.
• Two evidence suggests an African origin for hominids.
• First, it's the group of African apes that are most closely associated with hominids.
• Second, the earliest hominid fossils, which belong to the genus Australopithecus , had been found in East Africa and go back to about 5.6 Maya.
• Hominids belong to a family known as Hominidae, which includes all forms of human beings.
• Hominids are further subdivided into branches, referred to as genus, of which Australopithecus and Homo are important. Each of these in turn includes several species.
• The main differences between Australopithecus and Homo relate to brain size, jaws and teeth. The former has a smaller brain size, heavier jaws and larger teeth than the latter.
• Many human characteristics developed Over time, as tool making and long distance walking increased.
• For instance , bipedalism enabled hands to be freed for carrying infants or objects, and as hands were used more and more, upright walking gradually became more efficient.
• Far less energy is consumed while walking as compared to the movement of a quadruped.
• Around 2.5 Maya, with the onset of a phase of glaciation (or an Ice Age) there were major changes in climate and vegetation.
• Homo is a Latin word, meaning ‘man’.
• Scientists distinguish amongst several types of Homo.
• The names assigned to those species are derived from what are considered their typical characteristics.
• Fossils are grouped as Homo habilis (the tool maker).
• Homo erectus (the upright man).
• Homo sapiens (the wise or thinking man).
• Because of the reduction in temperatures as well as rainfall, grassland areas expanded at the expense of forests, resulting in the gradual extinction of the early kinds of Australopithecus (that were adapted to forests), and therefore the replacement by species, that were better adapted to the drier conditions. Among those, some were the earliest representatives of the genus Homo.
• Some names for fossils were derived from where the first fossil of a particular type was found.
• Fossils found in Heidelberg were called as homo heidelbergensis.
• Those found in Neander valley categorized as homo Neaderthalensis.
• They both belong to the species of archaic (that is, old) Homo sapiens .

a) Modern human beings

• The issue of the place of origin of modern humans has been much debated.
• One advocating the regional continuity model (with multiple regions of origin).
• The other replacement model (with a single origin in Africa). 

The Replacement And Regional Continuity Models

• The regional continuity model of human origin asserts that modern Homo sapiens developed from regional population of regional archaic Homo sapiens that had previously evolved from regional population of Homo erectus.
• The replacement model claims that there was a single origin of Homo sapiens in Africa and these anatomically modern humans migrate out from Africa replaced all other lesser evolved humans throughout Europe and Asia.

Early Humans : Ways Of Obtaining Food

• Early humans obtained food by gathering, hunting, scavenging and fishing.
• Gathering also involves collecting plant food.
• We found organic matter that were preserved for an extended span of time because of carbonization.
• Planned hunting and slaughtering of huge mammals, this idea came from two sites : Boxgrove in southern England (500,000 years ago) and Schoningen in Germany (400,000 years ago).
• there's evidence of planned hunting in European sites.
• Some migratory animals probably crossed river during their autumn and spring migration and were killed on an outsized scale.
• This means that they knew about the movement of the animals.

Early Humans : From Trees, To Caves And Open-Air Spaces

• A technique to reconstruct the evidence for patterns of residence is by plotting the distribution of artifacts.
• Some places were visited repeatedly, where food resources were abundant.
• The places that were less visited would have fewer artifacts.
• A similar locations could had been shared by hominids, other primates and carnivores.
• Between 400,000 and 125,000 years ago cave and open-air sites began to be used, evidence of this comes from sites in Europe.
• Terra Amata on the coast of southern France, at another site, flimsy shelter with roof of wood and grasses were built, for short-term seasonal visits.
• Pieces of baked clay and burnt bone along side stone tools, dated between 1.4 and 1 Mya, were found at Chesowanja, Kenya and Swartkrans, South Africa.
• This was a natural bushfire or volcanic eruption? Or were they produced through the deliberate, controlled use of fire?
• Hearth are the indication of controlled use of fireside.
• This had several advantage :

1. Fire provided warmth and light inside caves.
2. Fire might be used for cooking.
3. Fire was used to harden wood, as as an example the tip of the spear.
4. The utilization of heat also facilitated the flaking of tools. 
5. Fire might be used to frighten off dangerous animals.

Early Humans : Making Tools

• The use of tools and tool making aren't confined to humans.
• While foraging for food some chimpanzees use tools that they have made.
• There are some features of human tool making that aren't known among apes.
• The ways during which humans use and make tools often require greater memory and complicated organizational skills, both of which are absent in apes.
• The earliest proofs for the making and use of stone tools comes from sites in Ethiopia and Kenya. it's likely that the earliest stone tool makers were the Australopithecus.
• As within the case of other activities, we don't know whether tool making was done by men or women or both.
• Women especially may have made and used tools to get food for themselves as well as to sustain their children after weaning.
• About 35,000 years ago, improvements within the techniques for killing animals are evident from the looks of latest sorts of tools like spear-throwers and the bow and arrow.
• The meat, thus obtained was perhaps processed by removing the bones, and then followed by drying, smoking and storage. May be food was stored for later consumption.
• There have been other changes, like the trapping of fur-bearing animals (to use the fur for clothing) and therefore the invention of stitching needles.
• The earliest proofs of sewn clothing comes from about 21,000 years ago. Besides, with the introduction of the punch blade technique to form small chisel-like tools, it had been now possible to form engravings on bone, antler, ivory or wood.

Modes Of Communication : Language And Art

• Among living beings, it's humans alone that have a language.
• There are several views on language development.
• That hominid language involved sign or hand movements.
• That speech was preceded by vocal but non-verbal communication like singing or humming.
• That human speech probably began with calls just like the ones that are observed among primates.
• When did speech emerge? it's been suggested that the brain of Homo habilis had certain features which might have made it possible for them to talk.
• Language may have developed as early as 2 Maya. The evolution of the vocal tract was equally important. This occurred around 200,000 years ago.
• A third suggestion is that language developed around 40,000-35,000 years ago, at the same time when art develops.
• Many paintings of animals (done between 30,000 and 12,000 years ago) are discovered within the caves of Lascaux and Chauvet, both in France, and Altamira, in Spain. These include depictions of ibex, deer, mammoths, lions, bears, panthers, bison, horse, rhinos, hyenas and owls.
• More questions are raised than answered regarding these paintings. For instance :

1. Why do few areas of caves have paintings and not others?
2. Why were few animals painted and not others?
3. Why men were painted both individually or in groups, whereas women were depicted only in groups?
4. Why men were painted near animals but never women?
5. Why groups of animals were painted within the sections of caves where sounds carried well?

• Several explanations are offered.
• One is that due to the importance of hunting, the paintings of animals were related to ritual and magic.
• Painting could had been a ritual to confirm a successful hunt.
• These caves were possibly meeting places for little groups of individuals or locations for group activities.
• These groups could share hunting techniques and knowledge, while paintings and engravings served because the media for passing information from one generation to successive.
• Early encounters with hunter-gatherers in Africa.
• An African rustic group about its initial contact in 1870 with the! Kung San, a hunter-gatherer society living within the Kalahari Desert: once we first came into this area, all we saw were strange footprints within the sand. We wondered what kind of people these were. They were very scared of us and would hide whenever we came to visit. We found their villages, but they were always empty because as soon as they saw strangers coming, they might scatter and conceal within the bush. We said: ‘Oh, this is often good; these people are scared of us, they're weak and that we can easily rule over them.’ So we just ruled them. There was no killing or fighting.

The Hadza

• The Hadza were small group of hunters and gatherers, living in the vicinity of lake Eyasi, a salt, rift-valley lake. 
• Elephants, rhinoceros, and hyenas are all common as are smaller animals such as porcupine, hare, jackal and many others.
• All animals except elephants were hunted and eaten by Hazda.
• Vegetable food – roots, berries, the fruits of the baobab tree etc. though not often obvious to the casual observer, is always abundant even at the height of dry season in a year of drought.
• The Hazda consider that about 5-6 kilometer is the maximum distance over which water can reasonably be carried and camps are normally sited within a kilometer of a water course.
• Camps are invariably sites among trees or rocks. And, by preference, among both the trees and rocks.
• The eastern Hazda asserts no rights over land and its resources. A person may live wherever he likes and can hunt animals, collect berries, roots, honey and other things of his/her needs and can draw water from anywhere, without any sort of restrictions.

Hunter - Gatherer Societies : From The Present To Past

• The data about living hunters and gatherers might be used to understand past societies. Currently, there are two opposing views on this issue.
• Some archaeologists have suggested that the hominid sites, dated to 2 Maya, along the margins of Lake Turkana could have been seasonal camps of early humans, because such a practice has been observed among the Hadza and therefore the !Kung San.
• On the opposite side are scholars who feel that ethnographic data can't be used for understanding past societies because the two are totally different.
• As an example , present-day hunter-gatherer societies pursue several other economic activities along side hunting and gathering.
• These include engaging in exchange and trade minor forest produce, or working as paid laborers within the fields of neighboring farmers. Moreover, these societies are totally marginalized in all senses – geographically, politically and socially. The conditions during which they live are very different from those of early humans.
• There are conflicting data on many issues like the relative importance of hunting and gathering, group sizes, or the movement from place to place.
• Although today generally women gather and men hunt, there were societies, where both women and men hunt, gathered food and made tools.
• The important role of women in contributing to the food supply in such societies can't be denied.

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