Steps to civilization

Hunting and Gathering

• In early times, people could not be certain of getting dinner if they stayed in one place. People had to be resourceful and creative to get enough food.

Hunting and Gathering

• Hunting was a way of life for most early humans, starting with Homo erectus.
• Cro-Magnon people would follow great herds of animals that once travelled across Europe. Some lived in caves; others lived in tents made out of the skins of the animals they caught.

Hunting and Gathering

• Nomadic = this word describes people that have no permanent home; they travel from place to place.

Fire

• Control of fire meant that humans could cook food as well as stay warm. Homo erectus likely had control over fire.

Farming:A giant step

• When humans started to farm, they grew plants instead of foraging for them. They raised animals for food instead of hunting them.
• When people started to farm, they started to take control of their environments.
• A dependable source of food meant that people were no longer nomadic- they could settle in one place.

how did farming get started?

• Spilled-grain hypothesis: Neolithic women noticed that new grain plants grew when they accidentally spilled grain seeds. They tried scattering seeds on purpose and it worked!

How did farming get started?

• Moov’en-and-Groov’en Hypothesis: One season, nomads decided to stay at a site. They harvested a crop, and then saw it grow to harvest again. These groups learned how to grow a crop from seed to harvest and then move on.

Cities

• The development of farming brings people together in communities.
• When the farmlands produced more food than the farmers needed, some people stopped farming.
• These people developed other skills and moved closer together, forming villages.
• Sometimes these villages grew into towns, and then cities.

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