Chapters One Through Three

Ok! Now that we had our second class and the requirements for the blog are more clear to me, I can write my review of the first three chapters...

These chapters talk mostly about the earliest people. I didn't study a lot of this part of history in my other classes, because it seems most of this material is saved for anthropology classes. It is shocking that it is not talked about more the Paleolithic Era takes up 95% of our human existence. Even though it lasted for so many years, it still fits into just a section of our history books. This shows how little we really know about this period of our existence, and how much of it is still considered speculation. I understand why people are so fascinated by it. It is all such a mystery! All we can do is make educated guesses based on what we find.

I thought it was really interesting to find out that the organization of cities and states is considered a recent phenomenon. This organizational pattern has been around for centuries, so compared to our lives, it seems like they have been around forever. However, when compared to our human existence as a whole, the amount of time that people have been living in cities and states is minuscule. I realized that in order to read this material, I needed to change my mindset. It made me realize how small my existence really is in the grand scheme of things.

One thing I really liked talking about in class was the differences between Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens. I liked looking at the bone structure and recreations of their faces based on skulls that were found. I found an article online that really high lights the differences between the two. Even just looking at the pictures and charts is interesting.

http://www.biblestudy.org/basicart/who-was-neanderthal-man-was-he-the-missing-link.html

The link is to a site called biblestudy.org which is a site that seeks to answer science related questions with religious answers. However, the information on the Neanderthals is interesting!

I also really liked the part in the book (mainly chapter three) that talks about the introduction of cities and states. It talks about Mesopotamia, the Olmecs, and others. I liked reading about this because it shows pictures and talks about art forms from these cultures, like the Olmec Heads. I am really interested in art and architecture, and I love it when it is applied to my history classes!

One of the most fascinating things about the Olmec Heads is that La Venta, the site where the Olmec civilization flourished and where the heads are located, is a swamp land. So, how did the Olmecs, without tools, move these huge pieces of stone without any tools are wheels from their nearest basalt source to La Venta? This video that I found seeks to answer these questions, as modern day archeologists use ancient Olmec methods to move 10-20 ton stones. There are two separate parts to the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpAdEmR2PW4&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4pm5Q4Dnp8&NR=1

I don't know how to attach the links here so that you can just view the video from my blog, so just copy and paste the link!