summer work ap world Essay example

Submitted By magglemore
Words: 2625
Pages: 11

Word Count: 2,583

At about 35,000 to 10,000 years ago, advanced hunting and gathering by the species Homo sapiens were developed to complex stages, after a period of over 100,000 to 200,000 years. People started producing cave paintings, carvings, figurines, grave goods, ornamentation, and these symbolic speeches told of their lives at hunter-gatherers, otherwise known as foragers. These foragers worked together in small, nomadic groups, capable of defending themselves and dividing tasks, as well as food. They moved based on climatic changes and environment, and their ingeniousness showed through the way they built shelters. From south-facing caves, to constructing dwellings made of large animals’ bones, the hunter-gatherers built their shelters based on their needs. Not only did they build shelters, but they also crafted their own tools for specific activities. The men created the hunting tools most of the time, and the women created the containers, as well as the tools for cloth making. Children helped with collecting seeds and fruits, as well as hunting small creatures, when they weren’t playing. In their society, needs could be taken care of in just a few hours of work. This life might seem like the ideal setup, but they struggled through problems as we do today. Cave paintings that told the lives of all these people dated as far back as 28,000 years ago, whereas the most unmistakable art figures were found 25,000 to 23,000 years ago. They were small female statuettes known as Venus figures, thought to be for worship of fertility goddesses, although some were male and others were sexless. There is no sound evidence, however, of what the statuettes’ real purpose is. Homo sapiens used a kind of language to communicate with each other, not quite words but with symbolic speech. It was a neural change in the brain that gave us the ability to use things such as grammar and syntax in later days. Many linguists think that there might have been one common language among the first Homo sapiens in Africa, the original language, although it is too far back to reconstruct. After the Great Ice Age, during which humans spread out the most, there was a swift and intense period of thawing. Melting glaciers and ice caused Beringia to submerge, forming the Bering Strait. Many other small land bridges also sank below the surface of the rising waters. These drastic climate changes caused migrations and unstable populations. At 28,000 BCE, there were only around several hundred thousand people, but by 10,000 BCE, the population had grown to about 6 million. Skills and education, as well as adapted genes, were passed down, each generation becoming stronger and more likely to live longer than the last. Soon, there came a period of time where the hunter-gatherer lifestyle started faltering. After moving around and using the land for more than thousands of years, there were no longer a huge abundance of plentiful lands to move to. This change from a nomadic lifestyle to agriculture and domestication, genetic engineering by controlling the reproduction of a plant or animal that is predisposed to human interactions, started in the Fertile Crescent. The first animal to be domesticated was the dog, which proved to be extremely useful, guarding the villages as well as cleaning them by scavenging. Soon, sheep, pigs, cows, and horses were also domesticated, through a long procedure. Plants were just as difficult to domesticate. Women gathered the wild forms and, after studying them, figured out how to care for them. Permanent villages for this new agricultural lifestyle were established, and this new way of living spread out from the Middle East. Each continent domesticated different plants and animals, based on setting and environment. Africans domesticated donkeys, guinea fowls, and cats. Domesticated plants were millet, wild rice, and yams. Asia’s warm and wet climate allowed for rice to domesticated, and soybeans appeared later at