PREHISTORY:

Searching for the Truth about Early Humans

We refer to history as the story of humankind. Written text has been the way that most pieces
of this story have been gathered. Because of this, We typically refer to history as beginning
when writing began,
However, humans or hominids (human like species) frst appeared on the Earth about 4 and
a half million years ago and writing only began about 5 and a half thousand years ago.
Therefore, the total story of humans cannot be told just by looking at the time from which
humans have written down their own story. We must also look to the millions of years before
humans developed writing. We refer to this time period as prehistory.
How do we know about early humans if they did not leave us writings?
To do this we must examine remains that were left behind by these early people.
Archaeologists are scientists that study prehistoric life by examining artifacts, the objects
used or made by humans that have been left behind and survived the test of time.
Artifacts- anything shaped by humans. We study those left behind to learn about the past.
Paleontologists study physical fossil remains to try and determine what life was like during
certain time periods.
Physical Anthropologists try to trace development and changes that occur in humans.
Anthropologists, Paleontologists and Archaeologists all work closely together to try to form an
accurate conception of what early humans were like.
Dating the Evidence
Advances in science have allowed those who studied the past to somewhat accurately
determine what time period the things they are examining were created in.
Radio Carbon Dating is used for organic material (any thing that was once living) and can
accurately guess dates for fossils that are less than 50,000 years old.
Other methods can make rough approximates for how old a fossil or artifact is up to 2 billion
years ago.

The Early Hominids/Humans
Australopithecus

Lucy the famous Australopithecus
Australopithecus is the earliest species to resemble humans. They frst appeared 4.4 million
years ago in East Africa. They gathered fruit and nuts to live and probably scavenged dead
meat. They were nomads, traveling in search of food.
While similar to humans they can not be linked for certain to humans because of the vast
diferences.
They are not considered to be in the same genus as humans.
The Three Human Species
Scientists use the latin phrase Homo (meaning man) to identify species relating to modern
man. The early humans mainly lived as hunter-gatherers who depended on the ability of wild
plants and animals.
There are three main species.
Homo Habilis: person with ability
-appeared in Africa 2 million years ago
- frst Hominids to use and develop tools
Homo Erectus person who walks upright
What innovations shown above were made by homo erectus?
Homo erectus frst appeared about 1.5 million to 250,000 years ago
Unlike Homo habilis, Homo erectus walked upright and used advanced tools. In addition
they
- were able to control fre
- hunted their food
- made clothing
These advancements and development changes allowed Homo Erectus to become more mobile.
Homo Sapiens person who thinks
- frst appeared 100,000 to 400,000 years ago
- Early Homo sapiens were known as Homo Sapien Neanderthal. Named after the
neanderthal valley in europe in which their remains were frst found.
Neanderthal
The Neanderthals were larger than the earlier humans and had a larger brain. They were
also more stocky with larger, thicker bones.
- Modern man belong to the Homo Sapiens Sapiens species and appeared about 50,000
years ago. Modern man is taller and has a much larger brain than the Neanderthal. Homo
Sapiens Sapiens was the frst species not to live as nomads.
MIGRATION PATTERNS
Humans have occupied all habitable continents and have for thousands of years.
However man did not appear independently in these continents. The human species trace
their roots back to east Africa, However many moved from Africa into the continents of
Europe and Asia.
Man was eventually able to move into North and South America across a land bridge
connecting Asia and North America