Andrew Nguyen
Period 5
Please use the following video l ink to answer the questions below. Please start at 45:00.
After nearly 14 billion years, humans take center stage on the earth. If we were to compress the history of the solar system into 14 days the earth has existed the past billion y ears large complex creatures emerged
7 months ago dinosaurs became extinct 3 weeks ago the entire recorded history of humans has only been the last 3 minutes the modern industrial society began
6 seconds ago Mankind has waited billions of years to shine. 12,000 years ago man has reached South America and adapted to the climate changes
. Man becomes more intelligent and is able to colonize the entire globe through adaptation. As the ice begins to melt, humans are separated and the map as we know it emerges.
Major rivers emerge as the ice melts. The river valleys become important as they allow the first seeds of civilizations to be planted. As temperatures rise, plants and animals become more plentiful. Man can choose to stop moving. Permanent settlements spring up and populations grow. As populations grow, the need to increase the amount of food becomes apparent.
Humans learn to plant seeds.
Grass is the unheralded hero of human history. As the grasses spread and take over the land, primates are driven from the habitat , their ancestral home.
Grasses became the most important food crops in the world. Sugar cane, wheat, barley, etc., made up the majority of caloric intake. The switch to farming resulted in a revolution. Whereas a huntergatherer needed 10 square miles to provide for himself, a farmer needed only 1/10 of a square mile. In the warming after the Ice Age, horses begins to take place in 2 dozen places around the globe. The humans has the greatest concentration of plants and animals susceptible for domestication. There are more available resources and the area gets a head start on the road to the modern world. The horses gives people who have domesticated it an edge. It had disappeared from
North America, but had made it back to central Asia. It was used for work and warfare.
Columbus brought the horse back to America on his second voyage. 6000 years ago, progress centers around the domestication of plants and animals.
Centers of power and innovation appear. By 3000 B.C., some of these Sumarian centers can be called our first cities . Urek has 50,000 living in one square mile, a density that rivals present day
New York City.
With a change in diet, humans become dependent on one or two species. There is a need to plant, reap and store enough for an entire year in one try.
Reaps a re needed to plan to avoid famine. In the first cities, crops are kings. To keep track of them, the first planners emerges. To protect them, the first army . To administer them, the beginnings of p olitics
. 5000 years ago mankind has begun to settle down in the R ivers of the Tigrus/Euphrates,
Nile, Indus, Yellow and Yangtze rivers. But man must master trade to allow urban civilization.
The communication becomes the key to this trade. It becomes the highway and internet of it’s day as goods, ideas and stories are passed between these settlements. The routes converge in the donkey Caravamn
. Just like today, where we converge and trade creates hubs, and power is the result. By 2000 BC, humans have gone from huts to massive monuments such as the pyrammids , Stonehenge, ziggurats, etc. builders turn to bitumen to cement these structures together. This is the first form of petroleum used by mankind. G asoline o ozes out and is considered a nuisance. It eventually turns the cradle of civilization into a center of astronomy and the chariot
.
The legacy of these first civilizations can be seen in surprising ways: the Sumarian counting system based on 12; the invention of the wheel;