The Connection Between Problems And Parallels - Assignment Example

Problems and Parallels It is very difficult to know exactly when humankind began. One reason is because we can only rely on evidence that has been left behind by chance in the form of bones and a few tools and artefacts and this can only ever give us a partial picture. The other reason is that there are academic arguments about what exactly constitutes a human being. There are various other species that are now extinct, but have similar qualities, called hominids, and they all go through evolution, and so the answer really partly depends on how you define the term human. A widely accepted definition is that only the species homo sapiens fits the bill of being fully human. The species homo erectus was almost human, because it was an advanced hominid which walked upright on two legs. This species disappeared 230,000 years ago and was replaced by homo sapiens. The word sapiens comes from Latin and means “knowing” and it refers to the larger brain size and greater intelligence of homo sapiens. Humans share a large percentage of their genes with apes and chimpanzees but their larger brain size and differences in the physical structure of their hands and their speaking organs make it easier for humans to adapt and learn new skills like tool use and language. Quite a lot of the social behaviors of humans and apes are similar and some chimpanzees have even been taught to speak sign language, and so the overlap is perhaps bigger than we might expect just by looking at the hairy bodies of other primates. 2. It was once thought that Neanderthals with their larger body size and heavier skulls were an earlier form of humanoid but scholars now accept that they are part of the same species as homo sapiens and probably interbred with the more slender form of human that we resemble today. Archeologists have discovered that the two species overlapped in time by many thousands of years, and it may be that the higher intelligence and better adaptability of anatomically modern humans gradually squeezed the Neanderthals to the edges of the known world until they died out. Homo florensiensis skeletons found just a few years ago have set the scientists rethinking the whole definition of homo sapiens because these tiny 1 meter tall pygmy like people have some similarities with older forms of hominid, and yet apart from their reduced size, seem also very similar to modern humans. They, too, seem to have co-existed with modern humans in the same area at the same time, and may have lasted until about 12,000 years ago, which is longer than the Neanderthals who died out about 24,000 years ago. 3. Homo sapiens migrated out of Africa in response to a need for resources and living space. Africa had a varied climate, and widely differing geography and some of the terrain provides very good resources for the early humans. Difficult weather, lack of food, and growing populations or even conflict between different groups of humans in some areas, however, caused them to move. Their lifestyle was a hunter gatherer lifestyle, which meant that moving around was part of their mentality anyway. Africa has mostly desert in the centre and north, and so it seems that migration was channelled into the North Eastern part towards the middle east and Europe. This is just because there was no other fertile and feasible route for them to follow. Migration bound people together in groups, since they had to look after each other on the journeys but it also provided a lot of new challenges which sharpened their intelligence and got them using their brains and adapting. They learned how to use new plants and new types of stone and wood or to hunt new animals as they entered different regions over time. 4. A major reason for the rapid population growth of homo sapiens was an abundance of food, and a growing ability to use their brains to plan seasonal exploitation and avoid all the dangers of life in the stone age. They also appear to have had a very mixed diet containing both vegetarian and meat based calories which produced healthy mothers and children to carry on the species. Some scholars argue that the development of language in homo sapiens gave them an immediate evolutionary advantage because it enabled them to co-ordinate all their hunting and living arrangements very skilfully. There were, at that time, many species which were dangerous to individual humans, but even large predators could be outwitted by groups of humans using tools and weapons to attack. In the absence of any serious competition, the humans flourished and multiplied. 5. Stresses which could have caused early peoples to divide and fight each other include competition over particular resources or useful areas of land, or sudden shortages caused by weather patterns or other natural disasters. There may also have been kinship arguments, as indeed there are in modern human societies, and differences due to religious or other beliefs. There are different theories about how wars started, and one that seems most convincing is that human groups develop a psychological need to dominate other groups. This enhances their self-esteem and makes them feel safer, stronger and superior. It also removes any possible future attacks. There were likely also to have been inter family fights, and escalating competition over women etc. 6. The male of the species is typically a little taller and quite a lot stronger than the female. In modern times this does not make a lot of difference but in stone age times physical endurance and strength were very important survival advantages. The male hormone testosterone is also a cause of more aggression in males, while females have hormones which focus on emotions of tenderness and nurturing. These seem to be biological differences. Sexual economic specialization was useful to early societies because it allowed the women to spend time educating their young. Human children are born very weak and able to do very little on their own, unlike many other animals, and some which able to stand up and run with a herd within a few hours of birth. Taking time to teach the young could be done in the domestic area, along with food processing and clothes making, both of which take a lot of time sitting in one place. Fruit, firewood and plant gathering could also be done with youngsters and the separation allowed men to concentrate on the more dangerous activities like exploring, constructing and hunting. When women are pregnant and when they have very young children they are less efficient at the running and fighting skills needed for hunting, and so it was logical and useful to develop male and female roles in society. 7. In the ice age there was plenty of game looking for food in the areas which were near the melting edge and the humans could carry on their usual form of life. There were relatively few humans in relatively large areas and so they could move around at will. Shamans blessed the hunting trips and gave meaning and interpretations to the otherwise unpredictable world around. The art of the ice age shows that animals were central to the culture, and some half man half animal figures may show the use of dreams or trances to imagine themselves into the minds of animals. Some statues may indicate the worship of gods, who may have been ancestors. It seems that people lived in small bands but came together now and then for feasts. It is likely that these were occasions for trading in specialized goods and for marriages and other celebrations, perhaps related to the seasons. Sharing food was a key part of soiceties. 8. Foraging is a good means for sustaining small and mobile groups of humans. It was continued in areas which provided seasonal resources and where populations were not too large. Nowadays this kind of lifestyle is still possible in areas like the Amazon jungle where a warm climate and great biodiversity provide sufficient food all year round and in great abundance. It is practised also in the Australian bush, and both contexts require the handing down of knowledge over generations and a very close affinity with the natural world. Modern fishing is still a type of foraging. 9. The change to animal husbandry, rather than hunter gatherer lifestyles, was a challenge to evolution because for the first time conscious decisions were made about which animals to breed and which to eat or use for transport etc. This meant that species which may have died out naturally from lack of food or from local predators, were given an artificial survival advantage through feeding and protection by humans. The consequences of humans rather than nature choosing, meant that not always the best specimens survived, and over time this changed the gene pool of species like oxen, goats and sheep etc. There was also an element of interbreeding of different species of the same animal, which led to a faster rate in mutations and hybrids, some of which produced animals better for human food uses, but less good from the point of view of the animal itself. 10. Some civilisation, including the aborigines of Australia see themselves having a spiritual relationship with the land around them. There are aspects of religion and consciousness which means that they derive a lot of their world view and their mythology from the activities of hunting and just wandering through the bush.. 11. Farming is hard and monotonous work, and it commits the farming family to just the few types of food that they can grow and care for. They need to trade for so many commodities because they are highly specialized in one thing. The hunter gatherer has a more varied and interesting life, and can move around, collecting what he needs and adapting to weather conditions or other factors at will. The risk is spread more broadly and the hunter gatherer feels more in control of his own destiny and more in tune with the ancestors. 12. See Question 9. Farming is good if you want to stay in one place and have good land in which to grow your crops and keep a few animals. Herding allows you to manage a bigger number of animals because you can move them around in search of pasture. There was always a lot of violence between farmers and herders because they are naturally in competition with each other for resources. If both want to use the same piece of land, then there is immediate tension and no one can watch a field or a herd all the time in every corner, and so the temptation to take things by force when under pressure is very great. There was also no sort of organized law system or law enforcement agency, and so people often took whatever chance they could find to prosper. 13. Early agriculture needed good seed stock and good land, along with suitable weather and the skill and human workforce to do the preparation, planting and harvesting. Alluvial plains were the most hospitable environment for early agriculture communities because the soil was rich in nutrients, giving a good crop, and it was easy to work, with nearby water sources as well. 14. There is no one reason why farming should develop at a certain time in a certain place. The discovery of different grains through trade opened up new possibilities, and some grains, like wheat for example, do not grow very well in northern latitudes. Others, like rice, need a lot of water. There were also large areas which were deep forests, where hunter gatherer lifestyles provided easy and plentiful food and where land clearing for agriculture was a lot less attractive. Population growth may have encouraged some groups to engage in more intensive farming type activities simply to obtain enough calories to feed their children. Improvements in technology also helped to make farming more effective, for example the use of antlers and stone tools for plowing. 15. The beginning of food production is more of a climacteric than a revolution because it did not happen uniformly, and sometimes it was introduced, only to be dropped again when the climate changed or when the group moved on. There must have been a lot of crop failures until humans learned how to cope with the changes from season to season and from year to year. There was also a major cultural shift in terms of how people saw their relationship with the land and this took much longer to change . Read More