Professional Documents
Culture Documents
2.6Mya-1.2Mya
SUB-SAHARA, AFRICA
5000 B.C. TO 3000 B.C.
Ages and Stages
Stone tools (2.5Mya, EAfrica by H. habilis)
Fire (1.5Mya?)
Language (150kya, EAfrica)
Numbers on bones (30kBC W+C Europe)
Farming, domestication of wolves (10kBC),
sheep (9kBC)
Wheat farming (7kBC) → beer?
Goats (6.5kBC) → milk → cheese, yogurt
War weapons (5.5kBC Turkey), walled
communities
http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Chronology/30000BC_500BC.html
http://www.sciencetimeline.net/prehistory.htm
Technology
Decimal number system (5kBC Egypt)
Astronomical calendars (4.8kBC Sudan)
4kBC-3.5kBC
Horses (Eurasia); plows, irrigation (Iraq)
3.2kBC: wheeled vehicle (Russia),
sailboat (Egypt)
3kBC: cotton (India); draft oxen, potter’s
wheel (Iraq); abacus (ME, Med);
hieroglyphs (Egypt)
5
1 4
2 3
http://astrosun2.astro.cornell.edu/academics/courses//astro201/eratosthenes.htm
Other Greek Technology
Calculating
machine
Geared machines, simple clocks
War machinery
Steam power
Magnets
If the Greeks were so smart, why didn’t
the scientific revolution start with them?
Too much war?
Too academic (ivory tower), no
popularization?
Too few scientists?
Slaves and disdain for menial work?
Too much Aristotle (and other irrational
ideas)?
Too much theorizing, too little experiment?
After Aristotle (~0 AD)
Strabo (ca. 100 BC) Geographika: 17-
volume atlas
Pliny (23-79 AD) Natural History: 37-
volume error-filled encyclopedia
Ptolemy (ca. 130 AD), Almagest; wrong
model, but excellent observations
Galen (ca. 170 AD), medicine; pneuma
(senses, reason, imagination, memory),
“seeds of disease” (germs?)
Two Questions:
http://crux.astr.ua.edu/4000WS/timelist.shtml
Hypatia (370 – 415 AD)
Educated by her father Theon, Alexandria scholar
Socrates Scholasticus (b.380) in Ecclesiastical
History:
Hypatia “made such attainments in literature and science,
as to far surpass all the philosophers of her own time.
Having succeeded to the school of Plato and Plotinus, she
explained the principles of philosophy to her auditors, many
of whom came from a distance to receive her instructions.”
Head of Neo-Platonists; considered a heretic by Cyril,
Christian Patriarch of Alexandria, whose followers
later kill her
They allegedly burn later the Library of Alexandria, though
there are other suspects
Her death and destruction of the Library mark the start of the
Dark Ages in Western History
Philippine Prehistory
Wave theory (H. O. Beyer): Negritos (25kBC) →
Indonesians (3k-1kBC) → Malays (200BC
onward)
Almost certainly wrong!
Current theories:
“Express Train” (P. Bellwood) left S. China in 7000
BC, in RP ca. 4500 BC
“Slow Boat” (S. Oppenheimer) from Polynesia
Philippine prehistory still unclear
More archaeological data need to be collected and
reconciled with linguistic, and genetic data