01 From Foraging Societies to the First Cities Free Online FlashCards

What is foraging?

Foraging means obtaining food by hunting animals, fishing, and gathering wild plants.

Where and approximately when did Homo sapiens evolve?

Homo sapiens evolved in Africa about 300,000 years ago. Human populations later migrated out of Africa in multiple movements.

How did food production begin after the last Ice Age?

After the last Ice Age, beginning roughly 12,000 years ago, some communities gradually added cultivation and animal management to their food practices.

What does ancient Jericho show about early settlement?

By the ninth to eighth millennium BCE, ancient Jericho was a sizeable permanent settlement. More settled life began in some places before fully developed farming.

What defines a city?

A city is a large, densely populated settlement with specialized occupations and shared institutions.

How did early writing develop in Uruk, and what was it used for?

In Uruk, clay tokens and other accounting practices came before the earliest known writing there, which appeared near the end of the fourth millennium BCE. Early proto-cuneiform often recorded economic information.

What factors shaped human migrations across the globe?

They unfolded over thousands of years and were shaped by changing climates, landscapes, and available food.

What is domestication?

Domestication is a long-term process in which human management changes plants or animals across generations.

Which crops and animals were domesticated in Southwest Asia?

People cultivated wild grains and eventually domesticated wheat and barley, as well as sheep and goats.

What were some possible effects and costs of farming?

Farming could support population growth, food storage, and specialists, but these outcomes were not automatic. It also required sustained work and closer ties to particular land.

What do Jericho's wall, ditch, and tower indicate?

Jericho's wall, ditch, and tower show that early communities could organize major building projects.

What were distinctive features of life at Çatalhöyük?

At Çatalhöyük, people lived in closely packed houses, often entering from the roof. The settlement was occupied from about 7400 to 6200 BCE.