Human beings evolved over several million years from primates in
Africa. Able to walk upright and possessing large brains, hands with opposable thumbs, and the capacity for speech, early humans used teamwork and created tools to survive in diverse environments. They spread relatively quickly to almost every habitable area of the world, hunting and gathering wild plant products. Around 10,000 years ago some groups began to cultivate plants, domesticate animals, and make pottery vessels for storage. This led to permanent settlements—at first small villages but eventually larger towns as well.
The earliest complex societies arose in the great river valleys of Mesopotamia, Egypt, Pakistan, and northern China. In these arid regions agriculture depended on river water, and centers of political power arose to organize the labor required to dig and maintain irrigation channels. Kings and priests dominated these early societies from the urban centers, helped by administrators, scribes, soldiers, merchants, craftsmen, and others with specialized skills. Surplus food grown in the countryside by a dependent peasantry sustained the activities of these groups.
Certain centers came to dominate broader expanses of territory, seeking access to raw materials, especially metals. This development also stimulated long-distance trade and diplomatic relations between major powers. Artisans made weapons, tools, and ritual objects from bronze. Culture and technology spread to neighboring regions, such as southern China, Nubia, Syria-Palestine, Anatolia, and the Aegean.
In the Western Hemisphere, different geographical circumstances called forth distinctive patterns of technological and cultural response in the early civilizations in southern Mexico and the Andean region of South America.
• African Genesis
• Technology and Culture in the Ice Age
• The Agricultural Revolutions
• Life in Neolithic Communities
• Conclusion
DIVERSITY + DOMINANCE Cave Art ENVIRONMENT + TECHNOLOGY The Iceman
0{ Visit the website and ebook for additional study materials and interactive tools: Www. cengage. com/history/bullietearthpeople5e
World History
