1. c. 8000 BCE – c. 600 BCE
KEY CONCEPT 1.1.1
BIG GEOGRAPHY AND
THE PEOPLING OF THE
EARTH
2. Key Concept 1.1.1 Big Geography and the
Peopling of the Earth
The term Big Geography draws attention to the global nature of
world history. Throughout the Paleolithic period, humans migrated
from Africa to Eurasia, Australia, and the Americas. Early humans
were mobile and creative in adapting to different geographical
settings from savanna to desert to Ice Age tundra.
By making an analogy with modern hunter- forager societies,
anthropologists infer that these bands were relatively egalitarian.
Humans also developed varied and sophisticated technologies.
3. Peopling of the Earth
I. Archeological evidence indicates that during the Paleolithic era,
hunting-foraging bands of humans gradually migrated from their
origin in East Africa to Eurasia, Australia, and the Americas,
adapting their technology and cultures to new climate regions.
5. A. Humans used fire in new ways: to aid hunting and
foraging, to protect against predators, and to adapt to
cold environments.
6. B. Humans developed a wider range of tools specially
adapted to different environments from tropics to tundra.
7. Clovis Points
Clovis points are the characteristically-fluted projectile points
associated with the North American Clovis culture. They date to the
Paleoindian period around 13,500 years ago. Clovis fluted points are
named after the city of Clovis, New Mexico, where examples were
first found in 1929.
8. Check for Understanding
• How many new technologies can you identify in use in this image?
Explain why early humans would have needed these tools.
9. C. Economic structures focused on small kinship groups of
hunting- foraging bands that could make what they needed to
survive. However, not all groups were self-sufficient; they
exchanged people, ideas, and goods.
A hunter-forager society is a nomadic society in which most or
all food is obtained from wild plants and animals, in contrast to
agricultural societies, which rely mainly on domesticated
species.
Foraging is the ancestral subsistence mode of homo sapiens. As
The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Hunter-Gatherers says: "Hunting
and gathering was humanity's first and most successful
adaptation, occupying at least 90 percent of human history.
Until 12,000 years ago, all humans lived this way.”Following the
invention of agriculture, hunter-gatherers have been displaced
by farming or pastoralist groups in most parts of the world.
Only a few contemporary societies are classified as hunter-
gatherers, and many supplement, sometimes extensively, their
foraging activity with farming and/or keeping animals.
10. Contemporary Hunter-Gatherers
By making an analogy with modern hunter- forager societies,
anthropologists infer that these bands were relatively egalitarian.
11. Exit Ticket
• List THREE innovations of early humans, and describe, in two to
three sentences, how these technologies aided human expansion.
(Hint: “Blender” is not one of these innovations!)
