African and Maya History - Study Guide Test 1 (Teacher: Yasser Musa | 1A, 1B, 1C)
What is history?
History may seem as simply the record of the past. From this assumption many questions may arise. Why does it matter? What it includes? When it started? What makes records meaningful?
The view that history is the past on its own is not true. It entails the involvement of humans and their decisions in changing their environments. History is the study about the human past. It is people interacting within and with each other in a given time and space. It is the story and study of humans and what they have done, suffered, or enjoyed. The history that we study is the record of human actions and interactions.
HISTORICAL PROCESS
“History is a system of analysis, it is a process of asking questions about the past, finding and analyzing sources and drawing conclusions supported by evidence” (Mandell, and Malone, P. 3). There are three parts when doing history
1.Questioning: History is the study of human past, not the past itself. History begins with questions. The historian asks a wide range of questions about the past. As we examine these questions we can find patterns and understand history.
2.Evidence: In order to answer historical questions we need information. This information, the historical evidence, comes from secondary sources and primary sources of history.
Primary sources: information or explanation produced at the time of the event and by people who were involved in the event.
Secondary sources: information produced after the historical event; resources that have been recovered by someone else
3.Interpretation: The final and essential step in doing history is historical interpretation. Historical interpretation answers a historical question using the reasonable available historical sources.
THINKING LIKE A HISTORIAN –
THE APPROACH
5 MAIN AREAS ON THE CHART
- Cause and Effect: What were the causes of past events? What were the effects?
- Change and Continuity: What has changed? What has remained the same?
- Using the Past: How does the past help us make sense of the present?
- Through Their Eyes: How did people in the past view their world?
- Turning Points: How did the past decisions or actions affect future choices?
Evolution is the process by which organisms change over the course of generations.
Creationism is the belief that the earth and universe and the various kinds of animals and plants were created by God or some other supreme being.
Charles Darwin was a British scientist who laid the foundations of the theory of evolution and transformed the way we think about the natural world.
Natural Selection
Complex creatures evolve from more simplistic ancestors naturally over time.
The beneficial mutations are preserved because they aid survival
These beneficial mutations are passed on to the next generation.
Human evolution is the lengthy process of change by which people originated from apelike ancestors. The central idea of biological evolution is that all life on Earth shares a common ancestor, just as you and your cousins share a common grandmother.