World History: Chapter 1
By: Karina Altamirano ( Matthews )
Early Hominini
The first kind of hominin/i was Lucy. She is/was an Australopithecus. She was the first Hominin to be bipedal. Even though she is bipedal she is not upright. She has ape-like features for example, a hairy body, skull flattened , small canine teeth, small brain, and being 5'1 or shorter. Then, there is Homo Habillis. Homo Habillis were/was the first person(s) to learn how to make tools for them to survive on. Then, Homo Erectus, being bipedal, were/was the first person(s) to stand upright (stand up straight), and also was the first to run. Last there is Homo Sapiens ,us, we are much more advanced then Australopithecus and we don't have any ape-like features at all. Their brain size is now bigger than before. They migrated out of Africa , mostly savanna ( grassy land) , due to the ice age Africa lacked water and food. It also caused dryness in the land. We now have civilizations and cultures to separate us by and more advanced programs, for example technology.
Archaeologists As Detectives
Early archaeologists weren't really archaeologists, but more like explorers. They were often driven by curiosity and greed. They didn't care that much for artifacts , but they did for money. They broke many artifacts and were focused primarily on valuable items. Today archaeologists are much more careful now. They study artifacts carefully and they remove them carefully . Even archaeologists have to follow a process when they are discovering an artifact. They first have to locate an artifact. They have to pick a dig site that was supported by sites or societies.Then they explore an artifact , take it out with a trowel and brush the dirt off the artifact. After that they examine the artifact for awhile and put the artifact in a bag. They name the bag and probably would put the artifact on display. There are 6 different types of artifacts, written records, fossils, tools, and sculptures. Not just archaeologists can discover artifacts, other people can too. For example, the famous cave paintings of Lascaux, France were discovered by 4 teenage boys chasing their runaway dog in 1940. Archaeologists are very important they discover artifacts and they are more like scientist than archaeologists.
Tools Of The Craft
Archaeologists don't just find an artifact. They have to locate artifacts depending if that site was supported by a large societies. They then have to deal with the climate mostly torrential downpour/ heavy rain and exhausting heat. They have to use many tools. The most helpful tool archaeologist use to help protect the artifact they find and/or study is the trowel. The trowel is a small shovel- like instrument/tool that can take the artifact out carefully. Many archaeologists use the trowel because they are afraid that using a big tool can break and/or fracture the artifact. The 6 artifacts that archaeologists study are fossils, tools, sculptures, written records art and pottery. The written records are considered the most valuable artifact because it tells us about who wrote it and how he/she felt. It also provides information that provides events that they described and were in.