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134-489: Kalambo Falls is also considered one of the most important archaeological sites in Africa, with occupation spanning over 447,000 years. In 2023, archaeologists announced the discovery of wooden structures estimated to be 476,000 years old at the falls, predating Homo sapiens . Two worked wooden beams display evidence that burning was used to create an interlocking wooden structure, possibly a platform by what would have then been

268-415: A multi-layered network of cooperating, distinct, or even competing social groups – from families and peer groups to corporations and political states . As such, social interactions between humans have established a wide variety of values, social norms , languages , and traditions (collectively termed institutions ), each of which bolsters human society . Humans are also highly curious , with

402-668: A theory of mind . The human mind is capable of introspection , private thought , imagination , volition , and forming views on existence . This has allowed great technological advancements and complex tool development through complex reasoning and the transmission of knowledge to subsequent generations through language . Humans have had a dramatic effect on the environment . They are apex predators , being rarely preyed upon by other species. Human population growth , industrialization, land development, overconsumption and combustion of fossil fuels have led to environmental destruction and pollution that significantly contributes to

536-411: A clear sequence of steps to create perhaps several tools in one sitting. A hard hammerstone would first be used to rough out the shape of the tool from the stone by removing large flakes. These large flakes might be re-used to create tools. The tool maker would work around the circumference of the remaining stone core, removing smaller flakes alternately from each face. The scar created by the removal of

670-443: A consequence of better nutrition, healthcare, and living conditions. The average mass of an adult human is 59 kg (130 lb) for females and 77 kg (170 lb) for males. Like many other conditions, body weight and body type are influenced by both genetic susceptibility and environment and varies greatly among individuals. Humans have a far faster and more accurate throw than other animals. Humans are also among

804-419: A few other places), saw the emergence of agriculture and permanent human settlement ; in turn, this led to the development of civilization and kickstarted a period of continuous (and ongoing) population growth and rapid technological change . Since then, a number of civilizations have risen and fallen, while a number of sociocultural and technological developments have resulted in significant changes to

938-498: A functional purpose. Recently, it has been suggested that the Acheulean tool users adopted the handaxe as a social artifact, meaning that it embodied something beyond its function of a butchery or wood cutting tool. Knowing how to create and use these tools would have been a valuable skill and the more elaborate ones suggest that they played a role in their owners' identity and their interactions with others. This would help explain

1072-463: A great capacity for altering their habitats by means of technology, irrigation , urban planning , construction, deforestation and desertification . Human settlements continue to be vulnerable to natural disasters , especially those placed in hazardous locations and with low quality of construction. Grouping and deliberate habitat alteration is often done with the goals of providing protection, accumulating comforts or material wealth, expanding

1206-436: A group gathering, it is suggested that they would discard their axes, perhaps explaining why so many are found together. This popular sexual selection hypothesis is controversial due to the assumptions made about sexual selection among extinct organisms. Stone knapping with limited digital dexterity makes the center of mass the required direction of flake removal. Physics then dictates a circular or oval end pattern, similar to

1340-612: A higher body fat percentage. At puberty , humans develop secondary sex characteristics . Females are capable of pregnancy , usually between puberty, at around 12 years old, and menopause , around the age of 50. As omnivorous creatures, they are capable of consuming a wide variety of plant and animal material, and have used fire and other forms of heat to prepare and cook food since the time of Homo erectus . Humans can survive for up to eight weeks without food and several days without water . Humans are generally diurnal , sleeping on average seven to nine hours per day. Childbirth

1474-820: A horizontal pattern of delineated lines. There has yet to be found any evidence for an interface between this Luangwa tradition and the Early Iron Age tradition at Kalambo Falls, whereas sites at the Eastern Province of Zambia exhibit this interrelationship. Exact dates for this transition in the Kalambo area are inconclusive, but the tradition has continued through to the present. Attempts to date artifacts from Kalambo Falls have resulted in inconsistent results, ranging from 110,000 years ago with racemization to 182,000 ±10,000 to 76,000 ±10,000 years ago with applied uranium series dating . These studies underscore

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1608-475: A human can lose personhood (such as by going into a persistent vegetative state ). Humans are apes ( superfamily Hominoidea ). The lineage of apes that eventually gave rise to humans first split from gibbons (family Hylobatidae) and orangutans (genus Pongo ), then gorillas (genus Gorilla ), and finally, chimpanzees and bonobos (genus Pan ). The last split, between the human and chimpanzee–bonobo lineages, took place around 8–4 million years ago, in

1742-581: A more barrel-shaped chests in contrast to the funnel shape of other apes, an adaptation for bipedal respiration. Apart from bipedalism and brain size, humans differ from chimpanzees mostly in smelling , hearing and digesting proteins . While humans have a density of hair follicles comparable to other apes, it is predominantly vellus hair , most of which is so short and wispy as to be practically invisible. Humans have about 2 million sweat glands spread over their entire bodies, many more than chimpanzees, whose sweat glands are scarce and are mainly located on

1876-504: A much clearer picture of life at the time. Between the 8th and 6th century BCE, Europe entered the classical antiquity age, a period when ancient Greece and ancient Rome flourished. Around this time other civilizations also came to prominence. The Maya civilization started to build cities and create complex calendars . In Africa, the Kingdom of Aksum overtook the declining Kingdom of Kush and facilitated trade between India and

2010-640: A protected World Heritage site. Today, both human and animal populations traverse the Kalambo Falls area, which has a basin above the falls that attracts many of both populations as an important stopping place. On the Zambian border, the area is now a game preserve for the protection of many animals. The falls' cliff-face ledges provide nesting places and breeding sites for a marabou stork colony. Homo sapiens Humans ( Homo sapiens , meaning "thinking man" or "wise man") or modern humans are

2144-451: A result, humans are a cosmopolitan species found in almost all regions of the world, including tropical rainforest , arid desert , extremely cold arctic regions , and heavily polluted cities; in comparison, most other species are confined to a few geographical areas by their limited adaptability. The human population is not, however, uniformly distributed on the Earth 's surface, because

2278-639: A similar species. Migrating out of Africa , they gradually replaced and interbred with local populations of archaic humans. Multiple hypotheses for the extinction of archaic human species such as Neanderthals include competition, violence , interbreeding with Homo sapiens , or inability to adapt to climate change . Humans began exhibiting behavioral modernity about 160,000–60,000 years ago. For most of their history, humans were nomadic hunter-gatherers. The Neolithic Revolution , which began in Southwest Asia around 13,000 years ago (and separately in

2412-469: A similar theme. The term Acheulean does not represent a common culture in the modern sense, rather it is a basic method for making stone tools that was shared across much of the Old World . The very earliest Acheulean assemblages often contain numerous Oldowan -style flakes and core forms and it is almost certain that the Acheulean developed from this older industry. These industries are known as

2546-515: A simple linear or branched progression but involved interbreeding between related species . Genomic research has shown that hybridization between substantially diverged lineages was common in human evolution. DNA evidence suggests that several genes of Neanderthal origin are present among all non sub-Saharan-African populations, and Neanderthals and other hominins, such as Denisovans , may have contributed up to 6% of their genome to present-day non sub-Saharan-African humans. Human evolution

2680-429: A small basin lake upstream of the falls. Excavations in 1953, 1956, 1959, and 1963 allowed Clark to make conclusions about the multiple different cultures inhabiting the area over thousands of years of time. J.D. Clark's work incorporated both questions of the cultures who lived at the Kalambo Falls site as well as what their environment was like during times of occupation. Using plant (floral) and pollen analyses , Clark

2814-451: A successful labor increased significantly during the 20th century in wealthier countries with the advent of new medical technologies. In contrast, pregnancy and natural childbirth remain hazardous ordeals in developing regions of the world, with maternal death rates approximately 100 times greater than in developed countries. Both the mother and the father provide care for human offspring, in contrast to other primates, where parental care

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2948-503: A suitable stone with a hammerstone . The resulting flake that broke off would have a natural sharp edge for cutting and could afterwards be sharpened further by striking another smaller flake from the edge if necessary (known as "retouch"). These early toolmakers may also have worked the stone they took the flake from (known as a core ) to create chopper cores although there is some debate over whether these items were tools or just discarded cores. The Mode 2 Acheulean toolmakers also used

3082-436: A temperature drop of 4.1 °C with a fringing forest that was well developed with the return of swamp plants is indicated in the pollen collected. Zone Z The final zone indicates a much poorer fringing forest and a reduced shift of vegetation growth at the time. The Early Stone Age is described by Barham and Mitchell as the time period where the ancient ancestors of Homo sapiens sapiens first emerged, branching from

3216-559: A water source for the early hominid residents. This is the earliest known hominid structure. Archaeologically, Kalambo Falls is one of the most important sites in Africa. It has produced a sequence of past human activity stretching over more than two hundred and fifty thousand years, with evidence of continuous habitation since the Late Early Stone Age until modern times. It was first excavated in 1953 by John Desmond (J.D.) Clark who recognized archaeological activity around

3350-406: A wide variety of plant and animal material. Human groups have adopted a range of diets from purely vegan to primarily carnivorous . In some cases, dietary restrictions in humans can lead to deficiency diseases ; however, stable human groups have adapted to many dietary patterns through both genetic specialization and cultural conventions to use nutritionally balanced food sources. The human diet

3484-540: A wooden club and digging sticks as well as the dietary evidence for fruit consumption. Tools excavated from Kalambo Gorge have been analyzed and OSL dating of quartzite within the soil context to between 500,000 and 50,000 years ago, with amino acid racemization dating some contexts to 100,000 years ago. In 2023, archaeologists announced the discovery of wooden structures and other wooden artifacts, which were determined to be at least 476,000 years old using luminescence dating . The discovery predates Homo sapiens , so

3618-511: Is 38 weeks, but a normal pregnancy can vary by up to 37 days. Embryonic development in the human covers the first eight weeks of development; at the beginning of the ninth week the embryo is termed a fetus . Humans are able to induce early labor or perform a caesarean section if the child needs to be born earlier for medical reasons. In developed countries, infants are typically 3–4 kg (7–9 lb) in weight and 47–53 cm (19–21 in) in height at birth. However, low birth weight

3752-485: Is a mixture of the two parental sets. Among the 23 pairs of chromosomes, there are 22 pairs of autosomes and one pair of sex chromosomes . Like other mammals, humans have an XY sex-determination system , so that females have the sex chromosomes XX and males have XY. Genes and environment influence human biological variation in visible characteristics, physiology, disease susceptibility and mental abilities. The exact influence of genes and environment on certain traits

3886-424: Is a population decline in the winter months of this realm. Humans established nation-states in the other seven realms, such as South Africa , India , Russia , Australia , Fiji , United States and Brazil (each located in a different biogeographical realm). By using advanced tools and clothing , humans have been able to extend their tolerance to a wide variety of temperatures, humidities , and altitudes. As

4020-410: Is another site where Acheulean tools were found. In 1968, a lower jaw of a new type of hominid was discovered in the fifth layer (so-called Acheulean layer) of the cave. Specialists named this type " Azykhantropus ". Only limited artefactual evidence survives of the users of Acheulean tools other than the stone tools themselves. Cave sites were exploited for habitation, but the hunter-gatherers of

4154-402: Is characterized by a number of morphological , developmental , physiological , and behavioral changes that have taken place since the split between the last common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees . The most significant of these adaptations are hairlessness , obligate bipedalism, increased brain size and decreased sexual dimorphism ( neoteny ). The relationship between all these changes

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4288-572: Is characterized by two-sided, or bifacial , stone tools like core axes and double-ended points that were possibly for hafting as spearheads. Geological studies by J.D. Clark indicate that the frequency of these tools is possibly due to factors that exemplified the amount of large pieces of breakable, or knappable , raw materials. The Later Stone Age is the final age of the Paleolithic Era of Africa, and generally refers to more recent hunter/gatherer sites. Around 10,000 years ago Kalambo Falls

4422-456: Is common in developing countries, and contributes to the high levels of infant mortality in these regions. Compared with other species, human childbirth is dangerous, with a much higher risk of complications and death. The size of the fetus's head is more closely matched to the pelvis than in other primates. The reason for this is not completely understood, but it contributes to a painful labor that can last 24 hours or more. The chances of

4556-430: Is considered by Clark as a result of an ecological shift to a cooler and wetter climate. It is at this time in the archaeological record that the large, Acheulean handaxe disappears and is replaced by the core axe and chopping tools characteristic of Sangoan technologies. Heavy woodworking tools and small, notched and denticulated tools, collected by Clark, were dated to have been made before 41,000 BC. This rapid change

4690-421: Is dangerous, with a high risk of complications and death . Often, both the mother and the father provide care for their children, who are helpless at birth . Humans have a large, highly developed, and complex prefrontal cortex , the region of the brain associated with higher cognition. Humans are highly intelligent and capable of episodic memory ; they have flexible facial expressions, self-awareness , and

4824-479: Is generally aging, with the median age around 40 years. In the developing world , the median age is between 15 and 20 years. While one in five Europeans is 60 years of age or older, only one in twenty Africans is 60 years of age or older. In 2012, the United Nations estimated that there were 316,600 living centenarians (humans of age 100 or older) worldwide. Humans are omnivorous , capable of consuming

4958-587: Is generally credited as being the first to suggest a very ancient date for Acheulean hand-axes. In 1797, he sent two examples to the Royal Academy in London from Hoxne in Suffolk . He had found them in prehistoric lake deposits along with the bones of extinct animals and concluded that they were made by people "who had not the use of metals" and that they belonged to a "very ancient period indeed, even beyond

5092-640: Is impossible to know for sure whether Homo ergaster was the only maker of early Acheulean tools, since other hominin species, such as Homo habilis , also lived in East Africa at this time. From geological dating of sedimentary deposits, it appears that the Acheulean originated in Africa and spread to Asian, Middle Eastern, and European areas sometime between 1.5 million years ago and about 800 thousand years ago. In individual regions, this dating can be considerably refined; in Europe for example, it

5226-443: Is inherited only from the mother, geneticists have concluded that the last female common ancestor whose genetic marker is found in all modern humans, the so-called mitochondrial Eve , must have lived around 90,000 to 200,000 years ago. Most human reproduction takes place by internal fertilization via sexual intercourse , but can also occur through assisted reproductive technology procedures. The average gestation period

5360-408: Is mostly done by the mother. Helpless at birth , humans continue to grow for some years, typically reaching sexual maturity at 15 to 17 years of age. The human life span has been split into various stages ranging from three to twelve. Common stages include infancy , childhood , adolescence , adulthood and old age . The lengths of these stages have varied across cultures and time periods but

5494-764: Is no correlation between spatial abilities in tool making and linguistic behaviour, and that language is not learned or conceived in the same manner as artefact manufacture. Lower Palaeolithic finds made in association with Acheulean hand-axes, such as the Venus of Berekhat Ram , have been used to argue for artistic expression amongst the tool users. The incised elephant tibia from Bilzingsleben in Germany, and ochre finds from Kapthurin in Kenya and Duinefontein in South Africa , are sometimes cited as being some of

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5628-580: Is not well defined, depending on whether Sangoan (also known as "Epi-Acheulean") is included, it may be taken to last until as late as 130,000 years ago. In Europe and Western Asia, early Neanderthals adopted Acheulean technology, transitioning to Mousterian by about 160,000 years ago. The type site for the Acheulean is Saint-Acheul , a suburb of Amiens , the capital of the Somme department in Picardy , where artifacts were found in 1859. John Frere

5762-521: Is not well understood. While no humans – not even monozygotic twins  – are genetically identical, two humans on average will have a genetic similarity of 99.5%-99.9%. This makes them more homogeneous than other great apes, including chimpanzees. This small variation in human DNA compared to many other species suggests a population bottleneck during the Late Pleistocene (around 100,000 years ago), in which

5896-627: Is predicted to be a result of population movement during this time period, as the "Acheulean man" who lived in open settlements were replaced by a culture associated with Homo rhodesiensis found at Kabwe mine , the Sangoan culture. Evidence of Sangoan habitation has been collected from less open Rock Shelters and Cave areas, possibly due to the persisting, wetter climate. Evidence of fire technologies, such as hearths, charred logs, reddened clay, and stone heat spalls were also collected and found in association with charcoal remains. Radiocarbon dates of

6030-571: Is prominently reflected in human culture and has led to the development of food science . Acheulian Acheulean ( / ə ˈ ʃ uː l i ə n / ; also Acheulian and Mode II ), from the French acheuléen after the type site of Saint-Acheul , is an archaeological industry of stone tool manufacture characterized by the distinctive oval and pear-shaped " hand axes " associated with Homo erectus and derived species such as Homo heidelbergensis . Acheulean tools were produced during

6164-445: Is the subject of ongoing debate. Hylobatidae ( gibbons ) Pongo abelii Pongo tapanuliensis Pongo pygmaeus Gorilla gorilla Gorilla beringei Pan troglodytes Pan paniscus Homo sapiens (humans) Until about 12,000 years ago, all humans lived as hunter-gatherers . The Neolithic Revolution (the invention of agriculture ) first took place in Southwest Asia and spread through large parts of

6298-654: Is typified by an unusually rapid growth spurt during adolescence. Human females undergo menopause and become infertile at around the age of 50. It has been proposed that menopause increases a woman's overall reproductive success by allowing her to invest more time and resources in her existing offspring, and in turn their children (the grandmother hypothesis ), rather than by continuing to bear children into old age. The life span of an individual depends on two major factors, genetics and lifestyle choices. For various reasons, including biological/genetic causes, women live on average about four years longer than men. As of 2018 ,

6432-502: The Australopithecus afarensis , evolving into Homo habilis and then Homo erectus 2.6 million years ago to 280,000 years ago . Archaeologists hypothesize that the technological progression over time can be examined in the morphological characteristics of tools that are associated with different eras of habitation. The earliest identified stone tools, made by Homo habilis are known as Oldowan tools, and they consist of

6566-659: The Arabian Peninsula , across modern day Iran and Pakistan, and into India, and beyond. In Europe their users reached the Pannonian Basin and the western Mediterranean regions, modern day France, the Low Countries , western Germany, and southern and central Britain. Areas further north did not see human occupation until much later, due to glaciation. In Athirampakkam at Chennai in Tamil Nadu

6700-548: The British Empire expanded to become the world's largest empire . A tenuous balance of power among European nations collapsed in 1914 with the outbreak of the First World War , one of the deadliest conflicts in history. In the 1930s, a worldwide economic crisis led to the rise of authoritarian regimes and a Second World War , involving almost all of the world's countries . The war's destruction led to

6834-580: The Caral–Supe civilization is the oldest complex civilization in the Americas. Astronomy and mathematics were also developed and the Great Pyramid of Giza was built. There is evidence of a severe drought lasting about a hundred years that may have caused the decline of these civilizations, with new ones appearing in the aftermath. Babylonians came to dominate Mesopotamia while others, such as

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6968-511: The Church would provide centralized authority and education. In the Middle East, Islam became the prominent religion and expanded into North Africa. It led to an Islamic Golden Age , inspiring achievements in architecture , the revival of old advances in science and technology, and the formation of a distinct way of life. The Christian and Islamic worlds would eventually clash, with

7102-487: The Clactonian and then later with the more sophisticated Mousterian , as well. It is therefore important not to see the Acheulean as a neatly defined period or one that happened as part of a clear sequence but as one tool-making technique that flourished especially well in early prehistory. The enormous geographic spread of Acheulean techniques also makes the name unwieldy as it represents numerous regional variations on

7236-703: The Dead Sea rift in the southern Hula Valley of northern Israel, have revealed evidence of human habitation in the area from as early as 750,000 years ago. Archaeologists from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem claim that the site provides evidence of "advanced human behavior" half a million years earlier than has previously been estimated. Their report describes an Acheulean layer at the site in which numerous stone tools, animal bones, and plant remains have been found. Azykh cave located in Azerbaijan

7370-474: The Homo genus. The name " Homo sapiens " means 'wise man' or 'knowledgeable man'. There is disagreement if certain extinct members of the genus, namely Neanderthals , should be included as a separate species of humans or as a subspecies of H. sapiens . Human is a loanword of Middle English from Old French humain , ultimately from Latin hūmānus , the adjectival form of homō ('man' – in

7504-579: The Kingdom of England , the Kingdom of France and the Holy Roman Empire declaring a series of holy wars to regain control of the Holy Land from Muslims . In the Americas, between 200 and 900 CE Mesoamerica was in its Classic Period , while further north, complex Mississippian societies would arise starting around 800 CE. The Mongol Empire would conquer much of Eurasia in the 13th and 14th centuries. Over this same time period,

7638-552: The Lower Palaeolithic era across Africa and much of West Asia, South Asia, East Asia and Europe, and are typically found with Homo erectus remains. It is thought that Acheulean technologies first developed about 2 million years ago, derived from the more primitive Oldowan technology associated with Homo habilis . The Acheulean includes at least the early part of the Middle Paleolithic . Its end

7772-748: The Mali Empire in Africa grew to be the largest empire on the continent, stretching from Senegambia to Ivory Coast . Oceania would see the rise of the Tuʻi Tonga Empire which expanded across many islands in the South Pacific. By the late 15th century, the Aztecs and Inca had become the dominant power in Mesoamerica and the Andes , respectively. The early modern period in Europe and

7906-531: The Old World over the following millennia. It also occurred independently in Mesoamerica (about 6,000 years ago), China, Papua New Guinea , and the Sahel and West Savanna regions of Africa. Access to food surplus led to the formation of permanent human settlements , the domestication of animals and the use of metal tools for the first time in history. Agriculture and sedentary lifestyle led to

8040-541: The Palaeolithic also possibly built shelters such as those identified in connection with Acheulean tools at Grotte du Lazaret and Terra Amata near Nice in France. The presence of the shelters is inferred from large rocks at the sites, which may have been used to weigh down the bottoms of tent-like structures or serve as foundations for huts or windbreaks. These stones may have been naturally deposited. In any case,

8174-652: The Poverty Point culture , Minoans and the Shang dynasty , rose to prominence in new areas. The Late Bronze Age collapse around 1200 BCE resulted in the disappearance of a number of civilizations and the beginning of the Greek Dark Ages . During this period iron started replacing bronze, leading to the Iron Age . In the 5th century BCE, history started being recorded as a discipline , which provided

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8308-525: The Stone Age , but due to wood decaying quickly in the ground archaeologists could not find such tools. The Middle Stone Age , dated at 280,000 years ago to roughly 40,000 years ago, is the period where the final stages of hominid evolution brought what is known today as " modern human behavior ". During this time, the Acheulean industry of Kalambo Falls was superseded by the Sangoan culture. This shift

8442-795: The colonization of the Americas and the Columbian Exchange . This expansion led to the Atlantic slave trade and the genocide of Native American peoples . This period also marked the Scientific Revolution , with great advances in mathematics , mechanics , astronomy and physiology . The late modern period (1800–present) saw the Technological and Industrial Revolution bring such discoveries as imaging technology , major innovations in transport and energy development . Influenced by Enlightenment ideals,

8576-407: The 11th century. In 1971, Robert C. Soper studied different assemblages of Iron Age pottery in eastern and southern Africa and consolidated them into two major groups, known as Urewe and Kwale wares. He indicated that Kalambo and Mwabulambo pot traditions may also be included in these. David W. Phillipson used these conclusions to form a north to south chronology of artifacts and comprised many of

8710-545: The Acheulean age started at 1.51 mya and it is also prior than North India and Europe. Until the 1980s, it was thought that the humans who arrived in East Asia abandoned the hand-axe technology of their ancestors and adopted chopper tools instead. An apparent division between Acheulean and non-Acheulean tool industries was identified by Hallam L. Movius , who drew the Movius Line across northern India to show where

8844-564: The Acheulean from the West Turkana region of Kenya were described which have been dated through the method of magnetostratigraphy to about 1.76 million years ago, and in 2023 finds from Ethiopia were reported dating to 1.95 million years ago. The earliest user of Acheulean tools may have been Homo ergaster , who first appeared about 1.8 million years ago (not all researchers use this formal name, and instead prefer to call these users early Homo erectus ). However, it

8978-518: The Americas and Europe experienced a period of political revolutions known as the Age of Revolution . The Napoleonic Wars raged through Europe in the early 1800s, Spain lost most of its colonies in the New World , while Europeans continued expansion into Africa  – where European control went from 10% to almost 90% in less than 50 years  – and Oceania. In the 19th century,

9112-682: The Developed Oldowan and are almost certainly transitional between the Oldowan and Acheulean. Regionally subdivided end times of the Acheulean show that it persisted long after the diffusion of Middle Palaeolithic technologies in multiple continental regions and ended over 100,000 years apart – in Africa and the Near East: 175–166 kya, in Europe: 141–130 kya and in Asia: 57–53 kya. In

9246-486: The Kalambo River. The tests also indicated that the surrounding woodland grew during dry and hot climates. Clark concludes that the ground-water levels must have been high in order for a swamp and fringing, or riparian forest , to grow along the water's edge during a period of reduced rainfall. Zone V Pollen collected from the next zone indicate an identical environment with the swamp and woodland vegetation that

9380-876: The Mediterranean. In West Asia, the Achaemenid Empire 's system of centralized governance became the precursor to many later empires, while the Gupta Empire in India and the Han dynasty in China have been described as golden ages in their respective regions. Following the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476, Europe entered the Middle Ages . During this period, Christianity and

9514-467: The Mode 1 flake tool method but supplemented it by using bone, antler, or wood to shape stone tools. This type of hammer, compared to stone, yields more control over the shape of the finished tool. Unlike the earlier Mode 1 industries, it was the core that was prized over the flakes that came from it. Another advance was that the Mode 2 tools were worked symmetrically and on both sides indicating greater care in

9648-832: The Near East ( c.  1450 –1800) began with the final defeat of the Byzantine Empire , and the rise of the Ottoman Empire . Meanwhile, Japan entered the Edo period , the Qing dynasty rose in China and the Mughal Empire ruled much of India. Europe underwent the Renaissance , starting in the 15th century, and the Age of Discovery began with the exploring and colonizing of new regions. This included

9782-693: The Roe Line, Acheulean hand-axes were made directly from large stone nodules and cores; while, to the south and west, they were made from flakes struck from these nodules. Most notably, however, it is Homo ergaster (sometimes called early Homo erectus ), whose assemblages are almost exclusively Acheulean, who used the technique. Later, the related species Homo heidelbergensis (the common ancestor of both Neanderthals and Homo sapiens ) used it extensively. Late Acheulean tools were still used by species derived from H. erectus , including Homo sapiens idaltu and early Neanderthals . The symmetry of

9916-403: The apparent over-sophistication of some examples which may represent a "historically accrued social significance". One theory goes further and suggests that some special hand-axes were made and displayed by males in search of a mate, using a large, well-made hand-axe to demonstrate that they possessed sufficient strength and skill to pass on to their offspring. Once they had attracted a female at

10050-478: The available food, improving aesthetics , increasing knowledge or enhancing the exchange of resources. Humans are one of the most adaptable species, despite having a low or narrow tolerance for many of the earth's extreme environments. Currently the species is present in all eight biogeographical realms , although their presence in the Antarctic realm is very limited to research stations and annually there

10184-495: The basic large pounding stones and small pebble flakes, known as Mode 1 technology. As time progressed and Homo habilis evolved into Homo erectus, so did the technology as more specialized stone tools were being developed, even tools that were used for making other tools, Mode 2 and 3 technologies. These Late Acheulean stone tools, along with hearths and well-preserved organic objects were found at Kalambo Falls and documented by JD Clark. These organic artifacts collected included

10318-561: The best long-distance runners in the animal kingdom, but slower over short distances. Humans' thinner body hair and more productive sweat glands help avoid heat exhaustion while running for long distances. Compared to other apes, the human heart produces greater stroke volume and cardiac output and the aorta is proportionately larger. Like most animals, humans are a diploid and eukaryotic species. Each somatic cell has two sets of 23 chromosomes , each set received from one parent; gametes have only one set of chromosomes, which

10452-665: The collapse of most global empires, leading to widespread decolonization. Following the conclusion of the Second World War in 1945, the United States and the USSR emerged as the remaining global superpowers . This led to a Cold War that saw a struggle for global influence, including a nuclear arms race and a space race , ending in the collapse of the Soviet Union. The current Information Age , spurred by

10586-787: The combined eastern and western Roman Empire in the 4th century AD. Bubonic plagues , first recorded in the 6th century AD, reduced the population by 50%, with the Black Death killing 75–200 million people in Eurasia and North Africa alone. Human population is believed to have reached one billion in 1800. It has since then increased exponentially, reaching two billion in 1930 and three billion in 1960, four in 1975, five in 1987 and six billion in 1999. It passed seven billion in 2011 and passed eight billion in November 2022. It took over two million years of human prehistory and history for

10720-478: The continent, gradually replacing or interbreeding with local populations of archaic humans. Humans began exhibiting behavioral modernity about 160,000–70,000 years ago, and possibly earlier. This development was likely selected amidst natural climate change in Middle to Late Pleistocene Africa. The "out of Africa" migration took place in at least two waves, the first around 130,000 to 100,000 years ago,

10854-423: The desire to understand and influence phenomena having motivated humanity's development of science , technology , philosophy , mythology , religion , and other frameworks of knowledge ; humans also study themselves through such domains as anthropology , social science , history , psychology , and medicine . There are estimated to be more than eight billion living humans . Although some scientists equate

10988-516: The development of the Internet and Artificial Intelligence systems, sees the world becoming increasingly globalized and interconnected. Early human settlements were dependent on proximity to water and – depending on the lifestyle – other natural resources used for subsistence , such as populations of animal prey for hunting and arable land for growing crops and grazing livestock. Modern humans, however, have

11122-465: The difficulty in establishing a chronology for human habitation at the falls, which has led some archaeologists to disregard its significance in the African archaeological record. However, optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) on quartz artifacts has recently improved understanding of the site's chronology. OSL works by sending signals through a crystalline material and collects data on how long ago

11256-639: The earlier cultures of the East African Rift as opposed to the Kalambo region. The Iron Age in Zambia is split into an earlier, regionally categorized period and a later period of materialistically differing traditions. Early assemblages of iron tools and pottery have been collected from the Kalambo Falls and are categorized as being from the Kalambo Group tradition. At Kalambo falls, Early Iron Age traditions are believed to have continued into

11390-628: The earliest examples of an aesthetic sensibility in human history. There are numerous other explanations put forward for the creation of these artefacts; however, evidence of human art did not become commonplace until around 50,000 years ago, after the emergence of modern Homo sapiens . The kill site at Boxgrove in England is another famous Acheulean site. Up until the 1970s these kill sites, often at waterholes where animals would gather to drink, were interpreted as being where Acheulean tool users killed game, butchered their carcasses, and then discarded

11524-640: The early 20th century, there has been continuous human presence in Antarctica through research stations and, since 2000, in space through habitation on the International Space Station . All modern humans are classified into the species Homo sapiens , coined by Carl Linnaeus in his 1735 work Systema Naturae . The generic name " Homo " is a learned 18th-century derivation from Latin homō , which refers to humans of either sex. The word human can refer to all members of

11658-685: The emergence of early civilizations . An urban revolution took place in the 4th millennium BCE with the development of city-states , particularly Sumerian cities located in Mesopotamia . It was in these cities that the earliest known form of writing, cuneiform script , appeared around 3000 BCE. Other major civilizations to develop around this time were Ancient Egypt and the Indus Valley Civilisation . They eventually traded with each other and invented technology such as wheels, plows and sails. Emerging by 3000 BCE,

11792-431: The finds were spurned by his colleagues, until one of de Perthes' main opponents, Marcel Jérôme Rigollot , began finding more tools near Saint Acheul. Following visits to both Abbeville and Saint Acheul by the geologist Joseph Prestwich , the age of the tools was finally accepted. In 1872, Louis Laurent Gabriel de Mortillet described the characteristic hand-axe tools as belonging to L'Epoque de St Acheul . The industry

11926-483: The first and second stages. More complex Mode 3 tools came from the first three stages and are also found in Stage 4, whose corresponding layers contain a mix of Stone and Iron Age artifacts. In 1964, the archaeological site was gazetted as a national monument by Zambia's National Heritage Conservation Commission. It has since been protected under Zambia's 1989 National Heritage Conservation Act. In 2009, Kalambo Falls

12060-481: The four divisions of prehistoric stone-working, Acheulean artefacts are classified as Mode 2, meaning they are more advanced than the (usually earlier) Mode 1 tools of the Clactonian or Oldowan / Abbevillian industries but lacking the sophistication of the (usually later) Mode 3 Middle Palaeolithic technology, exemplified by the Mousterian industry. The Mode 1 industries created rough flake tools by hitting

12194-566: The genomes of 1,184 individuals from 11 populations and identified 1.6 million single nucleotide polymorphisms . African populations harbor the highest number of private genetic variants. While many of the common variants found in populations outside of Africa are also found on the African continent, there are still large numbers that are private to these regions, especially Oceania and the Americas . By 2010 estimates, humans have approximately 22,000 genes. By comparing mitochondrial DNA , which

12328-595: The global average life expectancy at birth of a girl is estimated to be 74.9 years compared to 70.4 for a boy. There are significant geographical variations in human life expectancy, mostly correlated with economic development – for example, life expectancy at birth in Hong Kong is 87.6 years for girls and 81.8 for boys, while in the Central African Republic , it is 55.0 years for girls and 50.6 for boys. The developed world

12462-633: The groups studied by Soper into one, Mwitu tradition. This tradition is exhibited by pots that range from the first millennium AD. The Kalambo group was replaced by the Luangwa tradition, whose pottery is similar to the Early Iron Age Chondwe Group of the Central African Copperbelt . Luangwa Pottery is characteristic of necked pots and shallow bowls, with the most common comb-stamped decoration pressed in

12596-469: The hand-axes has been used to suggest that Acheulean tool users possessed the ability to use language ; the parts of the brain connected with fine control and movement are located in the same region that controls speech. The wider variety of tool types compared to earlier industries and their aesthetically as well as functionally pleasing form could indicate a higher intellectual level in Acheulean tool users than in earlier hominines . Others argue that there

12730-589: The handaxe, for a leftover core after flake production. This would explain the abundance, wide distribution, proximity to source, consistent shape, and lack of actual use, of these artifacts. Mimi Lam, a researcher from the University of British Columbia, has suggested that Acheulean hand-axes became "the first commodity: A marketable good or service that has value and is used as an item for exchange." Fertile Crescent : Europe : Africa : Siberia : The geographic distribution of Acheulean tools – and thus

12864-443: The human lifestyle. Genes and the environment influence human biological variation in visible characteristics, physiology , disease susceptibility, mental abilities, body size, and life span. Though humans vary in many traits, humans are among the least genetically diverse species. Any two humans are at least 99.5% genetically similar. Humans are sexually dimorphic : generally, males have greater body strength and females have

12998-555: The human population to reach one billion and only 207 years more to grow to 7 billion. The combined biomass of the carbon of all the humans on Earth in 2018 was estimated at 60 million tons, about 10 times larger than that of all non-domesticated mammals. In 2018, 4.2 billion humans (55%) lived in urban areas, up from 751 million in 1950. The most urbanized regions are Northern America (82%), Latin America (81%), Europe (74%) and Oceania (68%), with Africa and Asia having nearly 90% of

13132-517: The human population was reduced to a small number of breeding pairs. The forces of natural selection have continued to operate on human populations, with evidence that certain regions of the genome display directional selection in the past 15,000 years. The human genome was first sequenced in 2001 and by 2020 hundreds of thousands of genomes had been sequenced. In 2012 the International HapMap Project had compared

13266-567: The late Miocene epoch. During this split, chromosome 2 was formed from the joining of two other chromosomes, leaving humans with only 23 pairs of chromosomes, compared to 24 for the other apes. Following their split with chimpanzees and bonobos, the hominins diversified into many species and at least two distinct genera. All but one of these lineages – representing the genus Homo and its sole extant species Homo sapiens  – are now extinct. The genus Homo evolved from Australopithecus . Though fossils from

13400-501: The most common and widespread species of primate , and the last surviving species of the genus Homo . They are great apes characterized by their hairlessness , bipedalism , and high intelligence . Humans have large brains , enabling more advanced cognitive skills that enable them to thrive and adapt in varied environments, develop highly complex tools , and form complex social structures and civilizations . Humans are highly social , with individual humans tending to belong to

13534-523: The older group being thicker and less symmetric and the younger being more extensively trimmed. The primary innovation associated with Acheulean hand-axes is that the stone was worked symmetrically and on both sides. For the latter reason, handaxes are, along with cleavers , bifacially worked tools that could be manufactured from the large flakes themselves or from prepared cores. Tool types found in Acheulean assemblages include pointed, cordate, ovate, ficron , and bout-coupé hand-axes (referring to

13668-559: The ongoing mass extinction of other forms of life. Within the last century, humans have explored challenging environments such as Antarctica , the deep sea , and outer space . Human habitation within these hostile environments is restrictive and expensive, typically limited in duration, and restricted to scientific , military , or industrial expeditions. Humans have visited the Moon and made their presence known on other celestial bodies through human-made robotic spacecraft . Since

13802-442: The only primates to have short, relatively flush canine teeth . Humans have characteristically crowded teeth, with gaps from lost teeth usually closing up quickly in young individuals. Humans are gradually losing their third molars , with some individuals having them congenitally absent. Humans share with chimpanzees a vestigial tail, appendix , flexible shoulder joints, grasping fingers and opposable thumbs . Humans also have

13936-474: The palm of the hand and on the soles of the feet. It is estimated that the worldwide average height for an adult human male is about 171 cm (5 ft 7 in), while the worldwide average height for adult human females is about 159 cm (5 ft 3 in). Shrinkage of stature may begin in middle age in some individuals but tends to be typical in the extremely aged . Throughout history, human populations have universally become taller, probably as

14070-603: The peoples who made them – is often interpreted as being the result of palaeo-climatic and ecological factors, such as glaciation and the desertification of the Sahara Desert . Acheulean stone tools have been found across the continent of Africa, save for the dense rainforest around the River Congo which is not thought to have been colonized by hominids until later. It is thought that from Africa their use spread north and east to Asia: from Anatolia , through

14204-423: The period of Acheulean tool use is so vast, efforts have been made to classify various stages of it such as John Wymer 's division into Early Acheulean, Middle Acheulean, Late Middle Acheulean and Late Acheulean for material from Britain. These schemes are normally regional and their dating and interpretations vary. In Africa, there is a distinct difference in the tools made before and after 600,000 years ago with

14338-515: The population density varies from one region to another, and large stretches of surface are almost completely uninhabited, like Antarctica and vast swathes of the ocean. Most humans (61%) live in Asia; the remainder live in the Americas (14%), Africa (14%), Europe (11%), and Oceania (0.5%). Estimates of the population at the time agriculture emerged in around 10,000 BC have ranged between 1 million and 15 million. Around 50–60 million people lived in

14472-440: The preceding flake would provide a striking platform for the removal of the next. Misjudged blows or flaws in the material used could cause problems, but a skilled toolmaker could overcome them. Once the roughout shape was created, a further phase of flaking was undertaken to make the tool thinner. The thinning flakes were removed using a softer hammer, such as bone or antler. The softer hammer required more careful preparation of

14606-428: The present world". His ideas were, however, ignored by his contemporaries, who subscribed to a pre- Darwinian view of human evolution . Later, Jacques Boucher de Crèvecœur de Perthes , working between 1836 and 1846, collected further examples of hand-axes and fossilised animal bone from the gravel river terraces of the Somme near Abbeville in northern France. Again, his theories attributing great antiquity to

14740-545: The production of the final tool. Mode 3 technology emerged towards the end of Acheulean dominance and involved the Levallois technique , most famously exploited by the Mousterian industry. Transitional tool forms between the two are called Mousterian of Acheulean Tradition, or MTA types. The long blades of the Upper Palaeolithic Mode 4 industries appeared long after the Acheulean was abandoned. As

14874-492: The removal of a flake running along (parallel to) the blade of the axe to create a neat and very sharp working edge. This distinctive tranchet flake can be identified amongst flint-knapping debris at Acheulean sites. Loren Eiseley calculated that Acheulean tools have an average useful cutting edge of 20 centimetres (8 inches ), making them much more efficient than the 5-centimetre (2 in) average of Oldowan tools. Use-wear analysis on Acheulean tools suggests there

15008-539: The scattered charcoal indicate people were using fire systematically there some 60,000 years ago. The cool, wet climates of the region were similar to that of the Congo, and similar cultural practices have been identified at Kalambo Falls, known as Lupemban industries . Evidence suggests that the Sangoan tradition was replaced by the Lupemban industry around 250,000 years ago and continued through to 117,000 years ago. It

15142-404: The second ( Southern Dispersal ) around 70,000 to 50,000 years ago. H. sapiens proceeded to colonize all the continents and larger islands, arriving in Eurasia 125,000 years ago, Australia around 65,000 years ago, the Americas around 15,000 years ago, and remote islands such as Hawaii , Easter Island , Madagascar , and New Zealand in the years 300 to 1280 CE. Human evolution was not

15276-547: The sense of humanity). The native English term man can refer to the species generally (a synonym for humanity ) as well as to human males. It may also refer to individuals of either sex. Despite the fact that the word animal is colloquially used as an antonym for human , and contrary to a common biological misconception , humans are animals . The word person is often used interchangeably with human , but philosophical debate exists as to whether personhood applies to all humans or all sentient beings , and further if

15410-618: The shapes of the final tool), cleavers, retouched flakes, scrapers , and segmental chopping tools. Materials used were determined by available local stone types; flint is most often associated with the tools but its use is concentrated in Western Europe; in Africa sedimentary and igneous rock such as mudstone and basalt were most widely used, for example. Other source materials include chalcedony , quartzite , andesite , sandstone , chert , and shale . Even relatively soft rock such as limestone could be exploited. In all cases

15544-527: The soil below, so the conclusions are not finite in his study. Plants indicated show a fringing forest that was poorly developed with a very open woodland. Within these woodland conditions, there seems to be an influence of evergreen elements that emerged. Zone Y Clark was able to date this zone to approximately 27,000 to 30,000 years ago, because conditions were comparable to those dated in European soils from this time. Evidence of an increase in rainfall and

15678-504: The stone was exposed to light or heat. OSL results have led to the creation of a new chronology for the site, broken into six stages. Stage 1 ranges between approximately 500,000 to 300,000 years ago. Stage 2 ranges from 300,000 to 50,000 years ago. Stage 3 dates range from 50,000 to 30,000 years ago. Stage 4 deposits date to 1,500 to 500 years ago and Stage 5 follows after 490 years ago. Acheulean stone tools (Mode 2 and 3 technologies) were collected from stratigraphic layers corresponding to

15812-415: The striking platform and this would be abraded using a coarse stone to ensure the hammer did not slide off when struck. Final shaping was then applied to the usable cutting edge of the tool, again using fine removal of flakes. Some Acheulean tools were sharpened instead by the removal of a tranchet flake . This was struck from the lateral edge of the hand-axe close to the intended cutting area, resulting in

15946-434: The surface of the earth today. He separated these layers into 6 different spectra, labeled zones U through Z. The law of superposition is important to note when discussing sedimentary layers; this law states that more recent layers of soil dispersal will overlie older ones. Zone U The bottom of Clark's core sample is the oldest layer. Pollen samples collected indicate that swamp vegetation and an abundance of grass grew on

16080-433: The term "humans" with all members of the genus Homo , in common usage it generally refers to Homo sapiens , the only extant member. All other members of the genus Homo , which are now extinct, are known as archaic humans , and the term "modern human" is used to distinguish Homo sapiens from archaic humans. Anatomically modern humans emerged around 300,000 years ago in Africa, evolving from Homo heidelbergensis or

16214-474: The toolmakers worked their handaxes close to the source of their raw materials, suggesting that the Acheulean was a set of skills passed between individual groups. Some smaller tools were made from large flakes that had been struck from stone cores. These flake tools and the distinctive waste flakes produced in Acheulean tool manufacture suggest a more considered technique, one that required the toolmaker to think one or two steps ahead during work that necessitated

16348-427: The tools may have potentially been made by Homo heidelbergensis , of which a 300,000 year old skull was found at another Zambian site. The discovery was considered unusual because wood does not usually survive for so long. Archaeologists such as Larry Barham of the University of Liverpool , one of the discoverers of the wooden structures, believes that wooden tools were potentially even more common than stone tools in

16482-498: The tools they had used. Since the advent of zooarchaeology , which has placed greater emphasis on studying animal bones from archaeological sites, this view has changed. Many of the animals at these kill sites have been found to have been killed by other predator animals, so it is likely that humans of the period supplemented hunting with scavenging from already dead animals. Excavations at the Bnot Ya'akov Bridge site, located along

16616-526: The traditions seemed to diverge. Later finds of Acheulean tools at Chongokni in South Korea and also in Mongolia and China, however, cast doubt on the reliability of Movius's distinction. Since then, a different division known as the Roe Line has been suggested. This runs across North Africa to Israel and thence to India, separating two different techniques used by Acheulean toolmakers. North and east of

16750-427: The transition are scarce, the earliest members of Homo share several key traits with Australopithecus . The earliest record of Homo is the 2.8 million-year-old specimen LD 350-1 from Ethiopia , and the earliest named species are Homo habilis and Homo rudolfensis which evolved by 2.3 million years ago. H. erectus (the African variant is sometimes called H. ergaster ) evolved 2 million years ago and

16884-440: The world's 3.4 billion rural population. Problems for humans living in cities include various forms of pollution and crime , especially in inner city and suburban slums . Most aspects of human physiology are closely homologous to corresponding aspects of animal physiology. The dental formula of humans is: 2.1.2.3 2.1.2.3 . Humans have proportionately shorter palates and much smaller teeth than other primates. They are

17018-405: Was able to conduct the process of paleoenvironmental reconstruction. By studying pollen that settled on the earth during different environmental settings, Clark was able to form a general idea of what ecological factors affected the Kalambo Falls region at different times. In order to do this, Clark used a tool for drawing out sediment cores in order to observe and analyse the different layers below

17152-991: Was generally no specialization in the different types created and that they were multi-use implements. Functions included hacking wood from a tree, cutting animal carcasses as well as scraping and cutting hides when necessary. Some tools, however, could have been better suited to digging roots or butchering animals than others. Alternative theories include a use for ovate hand-axes as a kind of hunting discus to be hurled at prey. Puzzlingly, there are also examples of sites where hundreds of hand-axes, many impractically large and also apparently unused, have been found in close association together. Sites such as Melka Kunturé in Ethiopia , Olorgesailie in Kenya, Isimila in Tanzania , and Kalambo Falls in Zambia have produced evidence that suggests Acheulean hand-axes might not always have had

17286-434: Was included on UNESCO list of tentative World Heritage Sites . Justifications for the inclusion are that the Kalambo Falls are the 2nd highest waterfalls in Africa, the evidence of one of the longest examples of human occupation in sub-Saharan Africa , and the collected stone tools are from one of the world's earliest tool industries, the Acheulean. As of today, Kalambo Falls remains on the tentative list for recognition as

17420-428: Was not affected by climate conditions, such as the drop of 3° Celsius (C) in the area. Zone W Pollen of plants that grow in more open areas with more rainfall were taken from Zone W. This indicates an increase in rainfall to about 75–100 cm and a woodland with an open canopy to allow that rainfall to reach the ground below. Zone X Clark indicates that the study of this zone was only on one sample drawn from

17554-579: Was occupied by the Magosian culture which in turn gave way to Wilton activity. Around the fourth century AD, a more industrialized Bantu -speaking people began to farm and occupy the area. These Bantu-speaking people made ceramic vessels that have characteristics of East African pottery, which suggests a population movement from the Rift Valley . Burials from this period are characterized by Clark as shaft grave burials, which are similar to those of

17688-730: Was renamed as the Acheulean in 1925. Providing calendrical dates and ordered chronological sequences in the study of early stone tool manufacture is often accomplished through one or more geological techniques, such as radiometric dating , often potassium-argon dating , and magnetostratigraphy . From the Konso Formation of Ethiopia, Acheulean hand-axes are dated to about 1.5 million years ago using radiometric dating of deposits containing volcanic ashes. Acheulean tools in South Asia have also been found to be dated as far as 1.5 million years ago. However, in 2003 examples of

17822-402: Was the first archaic human species to leave Africa and disperse across Eurasia. H. erectus also was the first to evolve a characteristically human body plan . Homo sapiens emerged in Africa around 300,000 years ago from a species commonly designated as either H. heidelbergensis or H. rhodesiensis , the descendants of H. erectus that remained in Africa. H. sapiens migrated out of

17956-605: Was thought that Acheulean methods did not reach the continent until around 500,000 years ago. However, more recent research demonstrated that hand-axes from Spain were made more than 900,000 years ago. Relative dating techniques (based on a presumption that technology progresses over time) suggest that Acheulean tools followed on from earlier, cruder tool-making methods, but there is considerable chronological overlap in early prehistoric stone-working industries, with evidence in some regions that Acheulean tool-using groups were contemporary with other, less sophisticated industries such as

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