Paleolithic Period (500,000BC-10,000BC)

•Paleolithic age also called as old stone age, ancient cultural stage or level of human development characterised by use of rudimentary chipped stone tools.
•They were first in using tools made up off stone and bones.
•Paleolithic age started at 3.3 million years ago when human species started using stone to make tools.
•Paleolithic Period end with the beginning of neolithic period. About 10,000BC human learnt to raise crops and keep domestic livestock and no longer dependent on hunting, fishing and gathering.
Facts about Paleolithic age :-
•In 1865 an archeologist John Lubbock created the term Paleolithic, deprived from two Greek words 'Palaios' and 'lithos' which means 'old' and 'stone' respectively.
•During the paleolithic age man were hunters and gatherers for food. Food varies from animal flesh, fruits, wild vegetables, insects, nuts and legumes.
•They didn't experience malnutrition/famine cause they depend on a wide variety of food.
•They started to develope spiritual and religious beliefs.
•The stone made tools were spears, harpoons, hand axes, bow and arrows.
•Dogs were first domesticated during Upper Paleolithic age.
•In this age man started to built temporary shelters
•There were only about 1million people living during Paleolithic age.
•Climate change during Paleolithic age was characterized by glacial cycles. There were four major glacial cycles.
•The Paleolithic age ended with the end of ice age when the earth warmed up.

Timeline in history

_____________________|____________________
             BCE           Birth of             AD               
              BC       Jesus Christ         CE

CE- Common Era
BCE- Before Common Era/Before Current Era
BC- Before Christ
AD- Anno Domini ( in the year of the lord)/After Death

AUC- Ab Urba Condita (the Romans used AUC, it means from the founding of the city)
AM- Anno Mundi (in the year of the world)

An Introduction to History

Prehistory:-

Prehistoric means world history happening in the period of human history before there were written records. Painting originated in prehistoric times with murals drawn on cave wall.

Protohistory:-

Protohistory is the period in between prehistory and history during which the civilizations had developed some kind of writing or script but it is not recognizable till date.

History:-

Generally history is the whole series of past events connected with particular person or thing.
•According to John Jacob Anderson- "History is a narration of events which have happened among mankind, including an account of the rise and fall of nations as well as of other great changes which have affected the political and social condition of human race.

Brief History of Evolution of the Human Species

1.Homo Habilis:-
•Evolved in Africa before 2million years ago, extinct 1.5million years ago.
•Found- the fossils of Homo habilis in 1960 in Oduvai George in Tanzania.
•Human evolved in Africa from ‘ape people’ called “australopiths”.
•Homo Habilis are the species in between apes and humans.
•They supposed to be using stone tools that’s why they are named as Homo habilis, also called ‘handy man’.
•Later they became controversial species and researchers think it was actually an australopiths.

 2.Homo Erectus:-
•Evolved in Africa about 0.2 million years ago, quickly expanded and spread over Eurasia.
•Homo habilis, Homo erectus looked and behaved in human like way and used their long legs to stride out of Africa.
•They were probably also the earliest human to learn how to control fire and cool food.
•The use of cooked food may have increased the nutritional value of their diet and opened a way to evolution of a larger, energy demanding brains that fueled the emergence of more sophisticated behavior.
•They are also known as upright man.

3.Homo Neanderthalensis:-
•Appeared in Eurasia roughly 0.2million years ago and went extinct about 40,000 years ago.
•Most famous extinct human species as they were the first to discovered.
•Homo Neanderthalensis is sometimes labeled as the cousin of our species Homo sapiens.
•They shared the same parents as Homo Heiddbegensis. One branch evolved in Eurasia and other in Africa i.e. Neanderthal and Sapiens respectively.
•Neanderthal made sophisticated stone and bone tools.
•They could control fire by using chemical properties of minerals around them.
•They were self medicated and made art.

4.The Denisovans:-
•Discovered in 2010, may be evolved around 0.2 million years ago.
•They had skeleton structure very different from ours.
•Very little is known about them which prevent them from getting a scientific name.

5. Homo Floresiensis:-
• Known to have lived in Indonesia island between 100,000 and 50,000 years ago.
•It had features like a short body, usually long feet and surprisingly tiny brain.
•They have named after the land they were living i.e. Flores also called as 'the Hobbit'.

6.Homo Naledis:-
•Lived in South Africa in between 3million and 2 million years ago.
•They had strange mixed features, some parts were indistinguishable from those of living people and others were ape like.
•They had little bigger brain then that of chimpanzee but been capable of sophisticated behaviour.
•They disposed their dead in a rock chamber
•They may have in between Homo Habilis and Homo Erectus and may sit in branches near the bottom.

7. Homo Sapiens:-
(Wise man or modern human)
•First appeared in Africa in 200,000 years ago and moved out of Africa 100,000 years ago and spread out across the world.
•No other earlier human species have been able to compete with technological and artistic sophistication of our species.
•By 40,000 ours was the last human species surviving on earth.