Human Prehistory And The First Civilizations. Part 3. Brian M. Fagan,Used

Where Do We Come From? How Did Our Ancestors Settle This Planet? How Did The Great Historic Civilizations Of The World Develop? How Does A Past So Shadowy That It Has To Be Painstakingly Reconstructed From Fragmentary, Largely Unwritten Records Nonetheless Make Us Who And What We Are?This Course Brings You The Answers That The Latest Scientific And Archaeological Research And Theorizing Suggest About Human Origins, How Populations Developed, And The Ways In Which Civilizations Spread Throughout The Globe.It Is A Narrative Of The Story Of Human Origins And The Many Ties That Still Bind Us Deeply To The World Before Writing.What Is 'Prehistory'?Prehistorymeaning Human Societies Without Writing Or Widespread Written Recordssurvived Until Western Culture And Industrial Society Completed Their Globalization In The 20Th Century, Making The Topic Of A Course That Begins With Some Very Old Fossils Seem More Current Than You May Think.You Learn About Dozens Of Archaeological Sites All Over The World And Learn About Stonetool Making, Mammoth Hunting, And Temple Building As You Explore Man'S Earliest Origins And The Earliest Civilizations.Themes To Human Achievementwoven Through This Narrative Is A Set Of Pervasive* Emerging Human Biological And Cultural Diversity (As Well As Our Remarkable Similarities Across Surprising Expanses Of Time And Space)* The Impact Of Human Adaptations To Climatic And Environmental Change* The Importance Of Seeing Prehistory Not Merely As A Chronicle Of Archaeological Sites And Artifacts, But Of People Behaving With The Extraordinary Intellectual, Spiritual, And Emotional Dynamism That Distinguish The Human.This Is A World Tour Of Prehistory With Profound Links To Who We Are And How We Live Today.2.5 Million Years Of Historythis 36Lecture Narrative Covers Human Prehistory From Our Beginnings More Than 2.5 Million Years Ago Up To And Beyond The Advent Of The World'S First Preindustrial Civilizations.Due To The Large Spans Of Time And Geography Covered In This Series, These Lectures Are Divided Into Sixsection Beginningsthis Section Surveys The Archaic World Of The First Humans, You Travel Into The Remote Past, Learning Why The Late Harvard Biologist Stephen Jay Gould Was Probably Right To Observe That We All Come From The Same African Twig On The Bushy Tree Of Human Evolution.You Examine Prehistory From Australopithecus Africanus Through Homo Habilis (The First Toolmaking Hominid), And Homo Erectus (Whose Remains Were First Found On Java But Whose Origins Lie In Africa) Through The Hardy Neanderthals Who Lived And Hunted Successfully In Europe Despite The Bitter Grip Of The Last Ice Age 100,000 And More Years Ago. You Focus On The First Human Settlement Of Africa As Early As 800,000 Years Ago.Section Modern Humansthis Section Tells The Story Of The Great Diaspora Of Anatomically Modern Humans In The Late Ice Age. Whether And How These Modern Humans Spread From The African Tropics Into Southwestern Asia And Beyond Remains One Of The Great Controversies Among Scholars Of Prehistory.You Follow Homo Sapiens Sapiens North Into Europe Some 45,000 Years Ago. You Meet The Cromagnons, Among The First Known Artists As Well As Huntergatherers, Who Exhibited Degrees Of Spiritual Awareness, Social Interaction, And Fluid Intelligence.You Venture Into The Frigid Open Plains Of The Ukraine And Eurasia, Where Biggame Hunters Flourished In Spite Of Ninemonth Winters. Moving To The Americas, Debate Over The Origins Of The First Human Settlement Continues.Section Farmers And Herdersthis Section Describes Perhaps The Most Important Development In All Human The Beginnings Of Agriculture And Animal Domestication.This Defining Chapter Began About 12,000 Years Ago, When Huntergatherers In The Near East Broke From The Long Human Tradition Of Intensely Mobile Foraging And Turned To More Settled Ways Of Life Built Around Cultivating Cereal Grains Or Tending Animals.Section Eastern Mediterranean Civilizationsprofessor Fagan Describes Early Civilizations In An Increasingly Complex Eastern Mediterranean World, Discussing Many Theories Accounting For The Appearance Of Urban Civilization And Overall Attributes Of Preindustrial Civilizations.You Examine Sumerian Civilization In Mesopotamia And The Intricate Patchwork Of Citystates Between The Tigris And Euphrates Rivers. You Explore Ancient Egypt, The Minoan Civilization Of Crete, The Mycenaeans, And The Hittites.You Learn About The Uluburun Shipwreck Of Southern Turkey, A Sealed Capsule Of International Trade From 3,000 Years Ago.Section Africans And Asiansyou Analyze The Beginnings Of South Asian Civilization And The Mysterious Harappan Civilization Of The Indus, Which Traded With Mesopotamia. Professor Fagan Resumes The Story Of South Asian Civilization After The Collapse Of The Harappan And Shows How Mauryan Rulers On The Ganges Encouraged Trading Much Farther Afield.You See The Impact Of Monsoons Which Revolutionized Maritime Trading Among Africa, India, And