Page 71 - Berkshire Encyclopedia Of World History Vol I - Abraham to Coal

this fleeting world / beginnings: the era of foragers tfw-11

our romantic images of civilized progress.... Hobbes was probably wrong by almost any measure when he
characterized primitive life as “nasty, brutish and short” while speaking from the perspective of urban
centers of seventeenth-century Europe. • Mark Cohen, Medical Anthropologist

environments, including tropical forests and deserts. Evi- tering the Americas, some groups had reached the far
dence that communities exchanged objects over dis- south of South America.
tances up to several hundred kilometers suggests that Each of these migrations required new technologies,
communities were also exchanging information over new botanical and biological knowledge, and new ways
considerable distances, and these exchanges may have of living; thus, each represents a technological break-
been a vital stimulus to technological experimentation. through, within which numerous lesser technological
adjustments took place as communities learned to exploit
Migrations from Africa the particular resources of each microregion. However,
From about 100,000 years ago humans began to settle no evidence indicates that the average size of human
outside Africa; communities of modern humans existed communities increased. During the era of foragers, tech-
in southwestern Asia, and from there humans migrated nological change led to more extensive rather than more
west and east to the southern, and warmer, parts of the intensive settlement; humans settled more of the world,
Eurasian landmass. These migrations took humans into but they continued to live in small nomadic communities.
environments similar to those of their African homeland;
thus, they do not necessarily indicate any technological Human Impacts on the Environment
breakthroughs. Indeed, many other species had made The technological creativity that made these migrations
similar migrations between Asia and Africa. However, the possible ensured that, although foragers normally had a
appearance of humans in Ice Age Australia by forty limited impact on their environments, their impact was
thousand to fifty thousand years ago is a clear sign of increasing. The extinction of many large animal species
innovation because traveling to Australia demanded (megafauna) and the spread of what is known as “fire-
sophisticated seagoing capabilities, and within Australia stick farming” provide two spectacular illustrations of the
humans had to adapt to an entirely novel biological increasing human impact on the environment, although
realm.We know of no other mammal species that made controversy still surrounds both topics.
this crossing independently.
Equally significant is the appearance of humans in Megafaunal Extinctions
Siberia from about thirty thousand years ago. To live in Within the last fifty thousand years many species of large
the steppes (vast, usually level and treeless tracts) of Inner animals have been driven to extinction, particularly in
Asia during the last ice age, you had to be extremely good regions newly colonized by humans, whether in Aus-
at hunting large mammals such as deer, horse, and mam- tralia, Siberia, or the Americas. Australia and the Ameri-
moth because edible plants were scarcer than in warmer cas may have lost 70–80 percent of all mammal species
climates.You also had to be able to protect yourself from weighing more than 44 kilograms; Europe may have lost
the extreme cold by using fire, making close-fitting about 40 percent of large-animal species; whereas Africa,
clothes, and building durable shelters. By thirteen thou- where humans and large mammals had coexisted for
sand years ago humans had also reached the Americas, much longer, lost only about 14 percent. As archaeolo-
traveling either across the Ice Age land bridge of Beringia, gists pinpoint the date of these extinctions more precisely,
which linked eastern Siberia and Alaska, or by sea around they appear to coincide with the first arrival of modern
the coasts of Beringia.Within two thousand years of en-
For more on these topics, please see the following articles:
For more on these topics, please see the following articles: Art, Paleolithic p. 180 (v1)
Afro-Eurasia p. 44 (v1) Extinctions p. 722 (v2)
Asia p. 184 (v1) Fire p. 745 (v2)
Europe p. 691 (v2) Technology—Overview p. 1806 (v5)