If anyone outside my school sees this blog, then let me explain that I made this blog for school. I will talk about the readings from a book called "Ways of the World: A Brief Global History" (the third edition, more specifically) and try to make it as engaging as possible. In each post, I'll list the sections of the book that will be talked about today, so you can follow along, and then give my thoughts on each reading.
Now then, let's talk about the beginning of humanity, according to scientists.
Prologue: From Cosmic History to Human History
... okay, to be honest, when I was reading last night, I thought I had read the Prologue. I had not, so right before I typed this, I read the entirety of it. And I regret not reading it last night, because it's really good.
This chapter starts from the very beginning, when the Big Bang happened and the stars formed, and goes up to present-day world history debates. That might sound a bit random out of context, but let me explain what I mean.
History books are biased. Okay, that's obvious, but back then, history books were more biased.
For example, European countries were known for going to "unknown" civilizations and introducing their culture and diseases to the native people. American history has taught about that for decades. What they haven't taught for decades is the fact that China also went to other countries and introduced their culture to the native people. That's why other languages also have Chinese characters.
This bias became more troublesome when the world wars hit, so other countries decided to teach about world history instead, and that's why we have more inclusive books.
After reading a few more sections of the book, this seems like the most inclusive and in-depth history book ever, especially in regards to the Patheolithic Era. I'm very impressed. Then again, this is an over 900-page doorstopper, so it would be very concerning if it wasn't that.
In short, this is a book about all of human history, not just European history. This includes the Big Bang, the Patheolithic Era, Asian history, and much, much more.
Turning Points In Early World History (Intro to Part One)
As Homo sapiens, we are the only species of the genus Homo left in the world. That's mostly because we can live in almost any climate and in almost every continent (except for Antarctica).
The section talks about how amazing humanity is, from migrating everywhere to using other species to our benefit to starting an Industrial Revolution. And no other species has done all of this before!
Though, after reading this section, I wonder what life would be like if other hominid species existed today. Would we be able to communicate with them? Would they learn in the same schools as us? Would they ever achieve personhood? We may never know the answers to these questions, but I really want to know!
Oh, and if anyone reads this section and thinks Homo sapiens are the only non-extinct species to use and make tools, here's one of the several counterarguments to that point:
Chapter 1 (Out of Africa & The Ways We Were)
Homo sapiens are a relatively recent species that started in Africa roughly 200,000 years ago. I always knew humans first started in Africa, but 200,000 years ago? We took over the world very quickly!
And yet, history books tend to ignore this amazing fact because humans couldn't write back then. This means that modern-day humans think of their ancestors as "uncivilized" until Mesopotamia started creating civilizations, despite some ancient humans migrating with boats, unlike other species.
So imagine my reaction to learning about actual ancient human culture and their inventions.
They created cave paintings, pottery, clay sculptures, and rock art. They had their own religion and burial grounds (even for dogs!). They even had their own rules in society that were more advanced than I thought. They were people, just not in the modern day.
It's also pretty impressive how humans survived a massive volcanic eruption, even when their numbers went down to 10,000. It shows how human extinction is about as easy as trying to make E. Coli go extinct. Hopefully, that isn't disproved in the future by global warming.
Speaking of global warming, the section mentioned the Ice Age. The Clovis people have tried to hunt mammoths and bison, since they provide enough for weeks. Nowadays, bison species are near-threatened at best, and the woolly mammoth, well, we all know what happened to them. Mysteriously, around the same time the woolly mammoth became extinct, the Clovis people stopped appearing in fossil records. Experts disagree on why both went extinct, but I believe the Clovis people hunted woolly mammoths to extinction, so due to a lack of food, they also went extinct. Considering humans are sadly good at killing off other species, I wouldn't be surprised if I was correct.
