How do we know that the earliest people were hunter gatheres? Give 2 examples to support your answer
Answers
Answer:
A hunter-gatherer is a human living in a society in which most or all food is obtained by foraging (collecting wild plants and pursuing wild animals). Hunter-gatherer societies stand in contrast to agricultural societies, which rely mainly on domesticated species.
Hunting and gathering was humanity's first and most successful adaptation, occupying at least 90 percent of human history.[ Following the invention of agriculture, hunter-gatherers who did not change have been displaced or conquered by farming or pastoralist groups in most parts of the world.
In West Eurasia, agriculture led to widespread genetic changes[clarification needed] when older hunter-gatherer populations were largely replaced by Middle Eastern farmers during the Neolithic who in turn were overrun by Indo-Europeans during the Bronze Age.
Only a few contemporary societies are classified as hunter-gatherers, and many supplement their foraging activity with horticulture or pastoralism.
Explanation:
The early hunter-gatherers used simple tools. During the Stone Age, sharpened stones were used for cutting before hand-axes were developed, marking the onset of Acheulean technology about 1.6 million years ago.
Controlled use of fire for cooking and warding off predators marked a crucial turning point in the early history of these groups, though debate remains as to when this was accomplished. Use of hearths dates back almost 800,000 years ago, and other findings point to controlled heating as far back as 1 million years ago.
Evidence of fire exists at early Homo erectus sites, including 1.5 million-year-old Koobi Fora in Kenya, though these may be the remains of wildfires. Fire enabled hunter-gatherers to stay warm in colder temperatures, cook their food (preventing some diseases caused by consumption of raw foods like meat), and scare wild animals that might otherwise take their food or attack their camps.
After Homo heidelbergensis, who developed wooden and then stone-tipped spears for hunting, Neanderthals introduced refined stone technology and the first bone tools. Early Homo sapiens continued to develop more specialized hunting techniques by inventing fishhooks, the bow and arrow, harpoons and more domestic tools like bone and ivory needles. These more specialized tools enabled them to widen their diet and create more effective clothing and shelter as they moved about in search of foodHunter-gatherer culture developed among the early hominins of Africa, with evidence of their activities dating as far back as 2 million years ago. Among their distinguishing characteristics, the hunter-gatherers actively killed animals for food instead of scavenging meat left behind by other predators and devised ways of setting aside vegetation for consumption at a later date.
The culture accelerated with the appearance of Homo erectus (1.9 million years ago), whose larger brain and shorter digestive system reflected the increased consumption of meat. Additionally, these were the first hominins built for long-distance walking, pushing nomadic tribes into Asia and Europe.
Hunting and gathering remained a way of life for Homo heidelbergensis (700,000 to 200,000 years ago), the first humans to adapt to colder climates and routinely hunt large animals, through the Neanderthals (400,000 to 40,000 years ago), who developed more sophisticated technology.
It also spanned most of the existence of Homo sapiens, dating from the first anatomically modern humans 200,000 years ago, to the transition to permanent agricultural communities around 10,000 B.C.