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3.2 How Humans Occupied the World: Archaeology Version 1.2 March 2012
3.2 Prehistory Conclusions (Statement
15) History explains how people spread
across the world and civilizations started: ● People – homo sapiens sapiens - spread around the world
from Africa, as hunter gatherers, walking and on short river and sea crossings,
from Africa across Eurasia, to ● People developed minor differences between “races”, such as
lighter skin and different facial characteristics, as they moved further from
the equator, but there are still more genetic differences between individuals
of one “race” than there are between races – we are all much the same. ● Many large animals, such as mammoths, died out as humans
occupied the new lands, hunting and using fire technology, and the environment
changed in many places. ● Different parts of each continent had their own variety of
natural resources, plants and animals, more or less suited to
domestication. This meant that farming
developed earliest in South West Asia, then in East Asia, and later,
separately, in North and South America and This brief summary will be updated after more work and review against the experts, and over the longer term it can be updated as we learn more, but it will only be replaced by a better story. Human history starts when homo sapiens sapiens, as hunter
gatherers, spread out of Africa, across Eurasia about 50,000 years ago and,
because the sea levels were then low, across Indonesia to Australia about
40,000 years ago, across a land bridge to the Americas about 13,000 years ago,
and in boats to the Pacific islands from about 1,500 to 800 years ago. Dogs were domesticated early in The mega fauna (very large animals) which used
to live there became extinct as humans occupied new lands. Humans’ use of fire also changed the
environment in many places. As they moved further from the equator people
acquired lighter skin and various other characteristics called “racial”
differences, though these are extremely small compared to the differences
between any two randomly chosen individuals in the same “race”. Food production – settled farming in villages –
began about 13,000 years ago, after the last ice age, and developed at
different rates in different places. A
few areas in Eurasia had the right climate and a variety of plants (eg wheat
and rice) and animals (cows, sheep, goats and horses) suitable for
domestication, whereas Africa and the Because of these geographical
differences, civilisation began earlier in ancient * * * * * * *
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