The Super Summary of World History - Alan Dale Daniel [9]
The history of the human race is short in comparison to its prehistory. If we start with Homo erectus there are well over one million years in prehistory, and about five thousand years for history. In addition, the world’s most important inventions and discoveries take place in prehistory. The invention of agriculture, animal husbandry, the wheel, the discovery of how to make and use fire, how to mine and refine metals, the invention of language, and the invention of writing all take place in prehistory. It was in the prehistoric era that humans began burying their dead, establishing early cities, and developing new ways of living together. Every foundational theme underlying the human race began in prehistory.
During the prehistoric era humans must have engaged in mass migrations that eventually led to Homo sapiens covering the globe by about 9,000 BC. Anthropologist theorize that modern humans originally migrated out of Africa into the Middle East and Europe, thereafter into Russia, India, China, Indochina, the Pacific Ocean area, including Australia, and finally across the Bering Sea to North and then South America[6]. Great disagreements exist over the timing of the crossing to North America with the old theories claiming a 10,000 BC crossing, but newer theories putting the migration at 16,000 BC or earlier. No one is certain what happened because time covers up a lot of evidence; thus, the activities and movements of the earliest humans are largely unknown. Another set of facts lost to time is how humans developed into three races. As early humans are so few it seems they had to start as one race, separating out thereafter; however, all our explorations have failed to find a widely accepted explanation for racial differences in humans.
Figure 2 Cave Painting 30,000 BC, Valtorta Cave
There are certain fundamental processes that identify the human race. Wherever Homo sapiens have wandered we find important fundamental traits—here is a list of 10 important ones:
Ten Human Traits
1. Art—Homo sapiens constantly create beautiful things. Rock carvings and paintings, statuettes, antler carvings, flutes, bead necklaces, and rope adornments of all kinds. This is not an exhaustive list, but art is a common commodity with modern humans. Not so with proto humans as we find almost no art from their era, and the few samples we do find are not sophisticated.
2. Buildings—Humans like to construct shelters. Some of the most impressive structures were the mammoth bone houses put together by early hunters. As time went forward the buildings became more elaborate. Some proto-humans managed to construct long houses and huts, but only modern humans construct monuments like the Mayan pyramids in Meso-America or the skyscrapers of Chicago.
3. Machines—mankind has moved forward using machines. Some machines are very simple like the bow and other extremely complex like a moon rocket, but only machines allowed people to advance from the caves to the stars. The invention and use of ever more impressive machines is the hallmark of human kind. There are six basic machines: the wheel and axial, the lever, inclined plane, wedge, pulley, and screw. From these seemingly easy ideas men reached the moon and sent machines beyond our solar system.
4. Governments—wherever humans go, at least since the advent of writing, we find governance. For good or evil people organize. Groups form and leaders emerge. Then the leaders assume the task of making sure the group prospers. Once government is in place it never goes away, unless by annihilation through disease, disaster, or enemy action—after which it soon returns.
5. Communication—people not only organize they communicate with one another in various ways. The spoken word for communication purposes (language) starts about 250,000 BC. The fact that humans organized into groups leads to speculation that language was required; however, it is nearly impossible to know when true language