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Chapter 1: The First Civilizations

The First Humans


Hominids3,000,000 – 195,000 BCE

About 70,000 years ago, a group of Homo sapiens migrated out of

Africa. This is their story . . .


Neanderthals and Homo sapiens

Neanderthals Homo sapiens

• Stocky bodies, well-suited to colder climates. • Thinner & taller; better for hunting.

• Large skull, sloping brow & protruding jaw. • Facial features similar to modern people.

• Lived from ~ 250,000 to 30,000 BCE. • Emerged ~ 100,000 to present.

• Made tools, used fire & buried dead. • Made tools, used fire & buried dead.

DNA Evidence of Interbreeding


Meet the Neanderthals and Homo sapiens250,ooo BCE

Neanderthals and Homo sapiens:

The First Encounter


Paleolithic Age (2.5 mya-10,000 BCE)

“Old” “stone”

Distinguishing Features of Paleolithic Humans:• Hunter-Gatherers

• Simple Tools & Weapons

• Small Nomadic Groups

• Gendered Division of Labor

• Systematic Use of Fire for Cooking & Heating

• Art for Religious & Decorative Use


• Agriculture & Domestication of Animals

• Flint Tools & Weapons

• Small Settlements

• Specialization of Labor

• Beginning of Trade in Products

• Men Tending Fields & Animals

• Women Raising Children &

Weaving

Distinguishing Features of Neolithic Humans:

“Ötzi the Iceman”: A Mummified Neolithic Hunter discovered in the Tyrolean Alps in 1999

Ötzi with the grass cape and weapons found with him.


The Characteristics of Civilization

3. Social & Economic Stratification

2. Organized Political & Military Bureaucracy

1. Urbanization

4. Complex Agricultural & Material Production

The Bronze Age ~ 3000 –1200 BCE

5. Organized Religion

6. Writing (although some civilizations, such as the Inca, had no written language)

7. Significant Artistic & Intellectual Activity

IMPORTANT STUFF!!!


• Primarily Agricultural

• Production of Textiles, Pottery & Metalwork• Built Ziggurats• Divine Kings• Highly Stratified Society

• Polytheistic• Cuneiform Writing


• Oldest Known “Flood” Myth, predates Genesis by nearly 1000

years

• Based on Gilgamesh, King of Sumer

~ 2700 BCE, and his quest for immortality

©2012 thepublichistorian.com#196: “If a free man has destroyed the eye of a member of the aristocracy, they shall

destroy his eye.”

#141: “If a man's wife, who lives in his house, wishes to leave it, plunges into debt, tries to ruin

her house, neglects her husband, and is judicially convicted: if her husband offer her release,

she may go on her way, and he gives her nothing as a gift of release. If her husband does not

wish to release her, and if he take another wife, she shall remain as servant in her husband's

house.”

#129: “If a man's wife be surprised having intercourse with another man, both shall be

tied and thrown into the water, but the husband may pardon his wife and the king his

slaves.”

• Best known for the “Code of

Hammurabi”, 282 laws governing

Babylonian society

• Conquered Sumer & Akkad by 1763 BCE

First Babylonian Empire ~ 1792-1750 BCE

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Education

bce2012 thepublichistorian

humans2012 thepublichistorian

ooo bce neanderthals

bce firs

homo sapiens250

group of homo sapiens

comsumerian citystates

king of sumer