World History: Patterns of Interaction: Chapter 1

Artifacts are human-made objects, such as tools and jewelry.

Scientists called anthropologists study culture, or a people’s unique way of life.

Humans and other creatures that walk upright, such as australopithecines, are called hominids.

The earlier and longer part of the Stone Age, called the Old Stone Age or Paleolithic Age, lasted from about 2.5 million to 8000 B.C.

The New Stone Age, or Neolithic Age, began about 8000 B.C. and ended as early as 3000 B.C. in some areas. People who lived during this second phase of the Stone Age learned to polish stone tools, make pottery, grow crops, and raise animals.

Homo erectus people used intelligence to develop technology—ways of applying knowledge, tools, and inventions to meet their needs.

For tens of thousands of years, men and women of the Old Stone Age were nomads. Nomads were highly mobile people who moved from place to place foraging, or searching, for new sources of food.

Nomadic groups whose food supply depends on hunting animals and collecting plant foods are called hunter-gatherers. Prehistoric hunter-gatherers, such as roving bands of Cro-Magnons, increased their food supply by inventing tools.

Nomadic groups whose food supply depends on hunting animals and collecting plant foods are called hunter-gatherers. Prehistoric hunter-gatherers, such as roving bands of Cro-Magnons, increased their food supply by inventing tools.

Meanwhile, hunters’ expert knowledge of wild animals likely played a key role in the domestication, or taming, of animals. They tamed horses, dogs, goats, and pigs.

A civilization is often defined as a complex culture with five characteristics: (1) advanced cities, (2) specialized workers, (3) complex institutions, (4) record keeping, and (5) advanced technology.

Food surpluses provided the opportunity for specialization—the development of skills in a specific kind of work.

Some city dwellers became artisans—skilled workers who make goods by hand.

Government is an example of an institution—a long-lasting pattern of organization in a community. Complex institutions, such as government, religion, and the economy, are another characteristic of civilization.

Around 3000 B.C., Sumerian scribes—or professional record keepers—invented a system of writing called cuneiform, meaning “wedge-shaped.”

Around 3000 B.C., Sumerian scribes—or professional record keepers—invented a system of writing called cuneiform, meaning “wedge-shaped.”

Coins are not used to make purchases because money has not yet been invented. But merchants and their customers know roughly how many pots of grain a farmer must give to buy a jug of wine. This way of trading goods and services without money is called barter.

This pyramid-shaped monument is called a ziggurat, which means “mountain of god.” On the exterior of the ziggurat, a flight of perhaps 100 mud-brick stairs leads to the top.