Fire, Tools and Humanity

NTI Day #1

In this lesson, you will explore the role of fire and stone tools in early human society as both a means of survival and important aspects of culture. Then, test your understanding with a brief quiz.

Picture an ancient human in your mind. What do you see? A caveman wearing some tattered animal furs and holding some stone tools - and maybe with a fire in his cave? Okay, scrap the image of the tattered furs - this is the Ice Age, people. Early humans were smart enough to dress warmer than that.

Other than that, the stone tools and the fire are pretty good things to picture. Tools and fire are two things that are practically synonymous with human evolution. Not only did early humans rely on them, these two aspects may have been leading factors in what makes us human. Fire and stone tools were critical parts of early human culture that went beyond helping people survive. Both of these were central to early societies and served important functions in ceremonies, trade relations and social interaction.

Fire and Tools Before Humans

Our species is calledHomo sapiens. We first evolved in Africa around 250,000 years ago, and we had stone tools and fire from the beginning. The evidence of stone tools goes all the way back to 3.5 million years ago, when early members of theHomo genusevolved big enough brains to take two rocks, hit them together and make a sharp edge.

A later species,Homo erectus, had a slightly larger brain and learned how to create and control fire. A larger brain meant that their bodies needed to eat meat for more nutrients, and they started cooking their meals over the fire. Eating meat that was free of bacteria, because it was cooked, allowed for even bigger brains, eventually leading to us.

Fire in Early Human Culture

As you can see, the use of fire and tools is encoded in our DNA. Fire and stone tools were necessary for the evolution of humans as a species, so naturally they were pretty important to early humans. These early humans were living in a time called thePaleolithicera, which roughly means Stone Age. During the Paleolithic, humans lived in small bands that werenomadic, meaning they traveled to follow food sources and did not live permanently in one place. These early humans mostly foraged for food, like nuts or berries, although their diet also included meat that they either hunted or scavenged. A culture that lives like this is called a 'hunter-gatherer' society.

Fire was very important to hunter-gatherer societies. For one, it let them cook their food, making it safe to eat. Fire also kept them warm, protected them from danger and provided light at nighttime, so they could keep working on chores, like cooking, setting up tents or sewing clothes, even after dark. With fire being so critical to the life of a hunter-gatherer society, it should be no surprise that many early humans saw it as sacred.

Archaeologists can observe the importance of fire to hunter-gatherers in the Paleolithic throughhearths. A hearth is a term for a campfire or a fireplace. In many archaeological sites, hearths show evidence of food, stone tool pieces, clothing fragments, beads and other objects. This indicates that all of these different tasks were taking place around the fire, leading archaeologists to believe that a lot of nomadic society was centered around the hearth. Religious rituals, ceremonies, socializing, gossiping and art were probably all done around the hearth. It's not that surprising; think about when you go camping. Where does everyone hang out? Around the campfire!

Stone Tools and Early Humans

The other aspect of hunter-gather society that was critical to their survival was stone tools. Early humans, whose brains were just as large and creative as our own, had a wide range of tools they made out of stone. Some tools were used to scrape animal skins so they could be made into clothes. Some tools were fishhooks, sewing needles or carving tools to make beads. Some stone tools were used to make other stone tools. Some, called 'projectile points', were tied onto a spear or arrow and used for hunting or defense. Ancient humans made tools for pretty much every part of daily life.

The process of making stone tools, calledknapping, is intense. It could take hours, and with a single wrong move, the entire stone could shatter into a hundred pieces. The first step was picking the right stone. Rocks like flint, chert, quartzite and obsidian were very popular because they are strong enough to make good tools but fracture in very predictable ways, which works best with knapping. The earliest human stone tools were made by hitting a large piece of stone, called the core, with a harder rock or bone to chip off several pieces. These pieces were then slowly, carefully, chipped into the desired shape.

Stone tools were important in hunter-gather societies. Obviously, they made life a lot easier and helped them survive. Beyond that, however, stone tools had cultural value. Since it took a long time to make them, it is likely that a few members of the group spent all of their time knapping, making them the first specialized profession in history. This changes how a group thinks. Your hunters have to bring back more than what they can eat because they have to provide for the guys who make the stone tools, which the hunters need. Your group is working together and developing their own roles in society.

Additionally, stone tools were very important as trade items. If one group lived near a quarry of really good stone, their tools were valuable. If another group invented a new stone tool that made hunting or daily life easier, then everybody wanted to trade for that tool. It's not that different from today; whoever has the latest technology is ahead of the curve, and everybody wants to buy, or steal or copy it.

Lesson Summary

Both fire and tools are part of us. The way that our genetic ancestors used fire and tools resulted in their evolution intoHomo sapiens- human beings. Therefore, early humans had fire and tools from the beginning. These early humans, living in the Stone Age, orPaleolithic, would have lived in small bands that continually moved to find food. We call a culture that did not live in one single place anomadicsociety. They were also hunter-gatherers, meaning they foraged and hunted for food, as opposed to farming or raising animals.

For these early humans, fire and stone tools were incredibly important parts of daily life. In terms of survival, fire kept them warm, cooked their food and kept them safe. Tools helped them hunt, sew and perform other chores. Besides that, fire and tools also had cultural impacts. Fire was the center of society, where people socialized, celebrated and did their work. Making stone tools, a process calledknapping, took a lot of work, so they developed into the first skilled profession. The tools they made became important trade items and helped different groups interact, compete and work towards better technology.

1. What defines a hunter-gatherer society?

A society that values hunting over gathering.
Survival from farming or raising domesticated animals.
A society that uses hunting to indicate social status.
Survival from foraging for fruits or nuts and hunting, fishing or scavenging for meat.

2. How did fire influence early human culture?

The hearth was the center of culture where people socialized, performed ceremonies, and ate together.
It lead to the development of s'mores.
It didn't; early humans only used fire for cooking.
It made them brave enough to fight wild animals.

3. What is a nomadic society?

A society that has domesticated crops or animals and stays in one place.
A term for a culture that uses stone tools.
A society that continually moves, following food sources.
A term for a culture that has hearths.

4. What was the Paleolithic era?

The era when early humans used stone tools but lived on small farms.
The era before the evolution of humans when ancestral members of the Homo genus developed fire.
The era of human development with metal tools and the rise of farming.
The era of human development with hunter-gatherers who used stone tools.

5. What is knapping?

The process of making fire.
The process of making stone tools.
A style of survival composed of both hunting and gathering.
Taking a rest in the middle of the day.

NTI DAY #2

In this lesson, you will explore the rise of the first early human communities and the changes that lead people to settle down and build cities. Then, you will be able to test your understanding with a brief quiz.

The Neolithic Revolution

For thousands and thousands of years, people lived in small bands of hunter-gatherers and livednomadiclifestyles, meaning they had to continually follow food supply and never lived in one single place. Then, everything changed. People realized that if they controlled the way that certain plants grew, and raised animals to live with them, they could stay in one place. This change, called asedentarylifestyle, changed human history. Humans domesticated plants and animals and developed agriculture to help them grow food. The change from nomadic to sedentary societies is called theNeolithic era, or 'New Stone Age.'

Agriculture had a dramatic impact on human society. Rather than move around, people stayed in one place. For the first time, they had sturdy homes and other buildings. Villages, towns, and finally cities were the result. Thanks to agriculture, people could grow more food than they needed and save the extra for the future. This let the population size increase, and the small bands of hunter-gatherers turned into towns with hundreds of people.

Additionally, farming provided enough food so that not everybody had to devote their time to finding food. Some people didn't have to farm, so they could spend all their time building houses, making tools, or creating art. Suddenly, people had professions, and society became more complex. To govern these complex societies, there had to be rulers and officials to determine how food was divided and what was a fair value for trading. The first early human communities owed their existence to agriculture, and they quickly developed into complex societies around the world.

The Rise of Agriculture Across the World

The first human cultures to develop agriculture were in theFertile Crescent, an area in the modern-day Middle East between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. The term 'Fertile Crescent' refers to the shape of this region, which is between two rivers and has very fertile soil. Across the Middle East, the long growing season with short periods of rain helped early humans grow grains that were large enough to support their population.

The oldest evidence of domestication of plants dates back almost 20,000 years ago, in modern-day Jordan and Lebanon along the Jordan River. With agriculture, these people could live in one place, and were able to plan for the future by growing more than they needed. These pioneers in agriculture grew wheat, barley, lentils, and chickpeas, and created some of the first sedentary societies in human history.

The humans of the Middle East and Mediterranean regions were not the only ones to start creating more complex communities. In Asia, the first evidence of agriculture and sedentary societies appeared in China around 8,000 years ago, in between the Yellow and Yangtze Rivers. Millet was the grain that inspired these people to settle down, and rice came later.

The Americas were not exempt from this revolution, either. The first people to start domesticating plants and animals in the Western Hemisphere were the inhabitants of Central Mexico in the fertile highland valleys where volcanic soil and mountain lakes provided the conditions for agriculture. These people domesticated maize, which is the ancestral form of corn, and squash. In a few centuries, they added beans to the menu. Agriculture spread south from Mexico into South America after a few centuries, north into the American Southwest.

The Neolithic World

These were not the only people to develop agriculture and were definitely not the only people affected by this change in society. The cultures we talked about were just some of the first to start settling in one place, but they influenced hundreds of other cultures to become sedentary within the next centuries. Even for cultures that decided to remain nomadic, the rise in agriculture changed their lives.

Agricultural societies always had a supply of high-quality food, so they often traded with nomadic cultures for the wild game that sedentary people might not want to chase after. Many nomadic cultures moved from city to city, trading items across the world. Trade items, people, ideas, and technology were spread around the world through this style of trade.

The Neolithic world was infinitely more complex than the world before humans developed agriculture. The small communities around the world grew and interacted with each other. Some were partners in trade, others competed for the best farming land and went to war. The importance of farming led people to use their creative thinking and make new tools that would help planting or harvesting, like pottery, and led to new inventions, like irrigation, to ensure that the harvest would be consistent every season. With a surplus of food, people could devote all of their time to thinking, imagining, dreaming, and creating.

Lesson Summary

In theNeolithic era, the period defined by the development of agriculture and the change to non-mobile societies, humanity entered an amazing stage of development. Before, all people werenomadic, meaning they had to continually move to find food. With agriculture, many humans developedsedentarysocieties, meaning they stayed in one place to build sturdy, non-mobile homes. Suddenly, the small bands of people grew into large communities and, eventually, cities.

The first cultures to develop agriculture lived in theFertile Crescent, in the modern Middle East 20,000 years ago. Cultures in China and Mesoamerica also discovered ways to domesticate plants, introducing agriculture in those parts of the world. With the ability to grow food, and the growth of cities, people had time to spend thinking about other activities, and professional artists, builders, rulers, and philosophers became part of life. As more cultures developed agriculture and settled down, society became more and more complex. The world was never the same.

1. How did agriculture change human society?

Humans started eating fruits and vegetables for the first time.
Population size decreased and more people had to move around to find food.
Population size grew and people were able to devote more time to things besides finding food.
Everybody had to move to the Fertile Crescent.

2. Which was the first area to develop agriculture?

The Great Plains of America.
The Fertile Crescent.
China, between the Yellow and Yangtze Rivers.
The Highlands of Mexico.

3. What defined the Neolithic era?

The rise of hunter-gatherer culture.
The rise of metal tools.
The invention of fire and stone tools.
The rise of agriculture and the move towards non-mobile culture.

4. Which of these regions never developed agriculture?

The area in China between the Yellow and Yangtze Rivers.
All of these areas developed agriculture.
The Highlands of Mexico.
The Fertile Crescent.

5. What is a sedentary society?

A culture that continually moves to find its food supply.
A culture that stays in one place and does not move.
A culture that uses stone tools.
A culture in the ancient Middle East.

NTI Day #3

This lecture discusses the need for law and the benefits of a judicial system. Next, it reviews the history of early law codes, like those of Ur-Nammu and Hammurabi. Finally, we look at the implications of law for kings.