Puzzling Pieces
After reading pages 43-63 in your socials text book Ancient Worlds 7, and listening to lessons presented in class, please answer the following questions to help you build and organize your notes. Our social studies tests contain questions directly taken from this note packages so be accurate!
1) One theory about our past is the theory of evolution. What is this theory?
-The scientific theory that humans developed from simpler lifeforms and changed over time to adapt to their environments.
2) Archeologists can create hypothesis about humans in the past based on fossil evidence they find. How are fossils created?
-Fossils form when the remains of a plant or animal change into rock or leave an impression.
-Bacteria eat the flesh of the animal, get covered in layers of debris and minerals replace the bone matter over time.
-Erosion reveals the fossils later for us to find (or they are found through excavation)
3) Archeologists believe that early humans lived in 3 stages. What are they? Why do you think these stages were named the way they were? (hint: we are currently in the Computer age)
-The three stages are: Stone age, bronze age, iron age
-They are so named for the materials that tools were made of in each time. Ex: tools such as hand axes, in the stone age, were made of stone
4) Explain how hunting was a way of life for early humans.
-Hunting was a way of life because farming was not used yet, so hunting provided much of the food needed to survive.
-They needed to hunt daily because food could not be refrigerated or kept fresh for very long
-It made people nomadic: because they had to follow the animals they were hunting
-Animal skin was used for tents and clothing
-Simple tools were used to hunt animals like spears and blades
5) How have the use of tools effected how early humans hunted?
-More advanced tools made hunting more efficient Examples: barbed harpoons and spears for hunting from a distance, bows and arrows too.
-New materials made life easier: example: hammers and tents for nomadic life
-More specific tools became designed for different needs (axe, or skinning tool)
Farming and City Life
6) In what ways is farming an improvement over hunting and gathering? List at least 3 ways it changed life for early humans.
-Settlement: farming allows you to stay in one place (no need to be nomadic)
-It is easier to get far more food than before (and ensured a steady supply of food)
-Less people are needed to get food, which freed up people for other jobs (like medic or teacher etc)
-Developed civilization through innovation
-Farming is less dangerous than hunting and gathering, and more reliable.
-Farming provided a larger variety
-People started to train animals. (Domesticate them)
-People had a lot more free time.
7) Archeologists have come up with three main guesses or hypothesizes as to how farming began. Describe each of the three:
Spilled-Grain Hypothesis:
-Someone in an early community spilled grain while collecting it. They came back to that place later and noticed that the spilled grain grew into a crop. They later did this on purpose to cultivate a variety of crops
Watching-The-Animals Hypothesis:
-Animals often find plants to eat in places with water and good soil. People noticed this and planted their own crops in the same place (early farming with irrigation)
Moov’en-and-Groov’en Hypothesis:
-Nomadic communities found locations they liked, and instead of moving on decided to stay and plant crops in the location.
Illustrate one of the three Hypothesis below (to help you remember it!):
8) The ancient cities of the world seem to all have developed by following a similar chain of events. Scientists have discovered evidence of these chains all over the world and noticed that they are almost exactly the same. On the next page, describe and illustrate each of the events that lead to the development of the first cities.
For assistance: Look at page 62 and 63. Read about each of the steps and then write a few notes of your own in each box. Illustrate your own drawings based on your own notes and you will greatly increase your ability to remember your work on the test