Introduction, Instructor S Manual Resources
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Introduction, Instructor’s Manual Resources
Study Questions
Factual
1.Describe the primary characteristics of Paleolithic and Neolithic cultures, citing similarities and differences.
2.Why did early people originate forms of sacrifice and rituals?
3.Distinguish between hominid, Homo habilis, and Homo sapiens.
4.Give a rough description of the sequence of tool making. How does each development better insure an early humans’ success in their environment?
5.What was the relative span of time occupied by Homo sapiens in the life of the species Homo?
6.What is the Rosetta Stone? Why was its discovery so significant?
7.What makes the Neolithic Age “revolutionary”?
8.Put into your own words the term sympathetic magic.
9.What do all the “creation myths” in the introduction have in common?
Challenge
1.The reconstruction of prehistory depends on “documents,” such as tools made of durable materials like stone. How might this basis of evidence distort our view of cultures remote in time? What aspects of early human life have left no records?
2.When asked what distinguishes existing hunter/gatherers from urban societies, one feature Margaret Mead singled out was that the former could not imagine learning anything from a book. Have we personally learned what is most important to living from books?
3. Give a general description of the new tool kit required by an agricultural society. How did these tools extend control over nature?
4.Survey the art in the introduction: How are people and nature depicted? Do you see any significant changes in the art that comes from the transition to urban life?
5.What circumstances contributed to the development of writing? What purpose did it serve? Did the entire population master this new technique?
6.Make two lists describing “art” as conceived and executed by early humans and how we think of “museum art.” Include (a) who makes it, (b) for what reason, (c) who owns it,
(d) where it is displayed, (e) what it is made out of.
7.Research the tribes of people still living by hunting and gathering, and describe the environment in which they live.
8. What other creation myths can you uncover? How do they compare with those in the introduction? What role does the union of male and female deities play in some creation myths?
Strategies for Discussion/Lecture
1.Some time should be spent with the term “sympathetic magic” as basic to ritual, both ancient and modern. What is the relationship between ritual and myth? The word mythos is defined by some anthropologists as the “spoken part of the ritual”; why is this so? Do we still celebrate rituals of seasonal change? Rites of passage in our individual lives? How do these contribute to our well-being? To our sense of “control” over time and nature?
2.What can we reliably assume about the roles males and females might have played in prehistoric culture? Keep in mind Challenge question 1, regarding the physical record: have we lost the physical evidence of important human activities in the remotest times? A brief lecture might even take the form of a “thought experiment” like this: “Let us imagine that writing and musical notation/recordings do not exist; what effect would that have on the survival into the future of what we consider our present-day culture?”
3. It is often said that the need for survival and security were the driving forces of humankind’s earliest development, during which time the ideal self consisted in fertility for women and physical prowess for men. Only slowly did the community and community values come to play a dominant role. This theme might be carried through the treatment of Chapters 1 through 7 of this textbook.
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