AP History: Early Society

For thousands of years, humans lived in tiny communities without a permanent home.  Most societies consisted of a few dozen people. They traveled in pursuit of game and edible plants. Humans were set apart from other animals because they could build tool, using intelligence unmatched by other members of the animal kingdom. About 12 thousand years ago, early humans began experiment with agriculture. It soon became clear to native peoples that this provided a more steady food source than foraging. Groups that farmed their own food experienced rapid population growth. were able to settle in permanent communities. The world's first cities appeared 6 thousand years ago. These cities dominated political and economic affairs in their regions. The term "complex society" refers to a form of large-scale social organization that emerged in several parts of the ancient world. These were all dependent on farming in which more food was produced than was necessary to sustain their people. This meant that more people were able to live more closely together in urban areas, where they would be able to put their work into more specialized areas. This allowed their societies to take the form in which they are today. From 3500 to 500 B.C.E. complex societies arose independently in several widely scattered regions of the world. Most of these sprang up from small agricultrual communities, located in either river valleys or other sources of water that could be used to irrigate their crops. All of these set up a governmental system -- collected taxes in the form of food, build gov't institutions, set up states, and appointed political authorities. All of these societies generated more wealth than hunting and gathering groups did. These groups were able to preserve wealth and pass it on to their heirs.

All of the early societies created social traditions.  Most were either invented or borrowed a system of writing that made it possible to record information and store it for later use. Social traditions took different forms in different societies. Some were very religious, where others left it up the the individual family to decide what they wanted to worship. Skeletal remains were discovered on November 30th, 1974. The remains were called AL 288-1 by scientists, but she is commonly referred to as "Lucy." She is named after the Beatles song, "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds." The dig site was in Hadar; about 160 kilometers (100 miles) northeast of Addis Ababa. Her remains are 3.5 million years old. She was 25-30 at the time of her death. She stood about 1 meter tall (3.5 feet) and weighted about 25 kilograms (55 pounds). 40% of her remains were recovered. This means she is the most complete skeleton of very early humans, yet. Analysis of the remains found indicate that the earliest ancestors of modern humans walked upright on both feet. Although the brains of early human ancestors were only about the size of a grapefruit, most animals required all limbs for locomotion, whereas Lucy and her contemporaries were able to use their forelimbs to carry and wield tools and weapons. Eventually, human brains grew to  be larger and more sophisticated, but this process took about one million years. The earth came into being about 5 billion years ago. The first living organisms appeared hundreds of millions of years later. About thirty million years ago, short, hairy, monkey-like animals becan to  populate the tropical regions of the planet. Human-like cousins to these animals began to appear only about 4 or 5 million years ago. Modern humans appeared about forty thousand years ago. Human society did not develop in a vacuum. The earliest humans inhabited a world already stocked with flora and fauna. 

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