Enhanduana of Sumer

Enhanduana was the daughter of King Sargon who rulde from 2334 to 2279 B.C. Along with her he had twin sons named Rimush and Manishtusu. Her wather grew up from being a farmers child to being a cup bearer to being King. No one knows how he became king. When Enhanduana was a teenager she became the high priestess. She is most famous today for being the first credited writer who wrote both stories and poetry. When her father died the eldest of the twin  brothers took over and ruled cruel. He had a lust for blood. So the people rebelled. They overthrew her brother and her nephew took over, exiling her and placing his daughter as high priestess. But she had the last laugh because we know next to nothing about her nephew but we know tons, because of her writing, about her.

Hammurabi's Babylonia

Hammurabi became king of Babylonia in around 1792 B.C. He is famous for inventing the 280 different laws varying from topics like  marriage and divorce to slaves and surgery. He was and still is famous for coming up with the phrase "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth".  He united all of the Mesopotamian city states into one Empire., and was the king during one of the most successful times in Babylonia. Their trading flourished as farming improved when he created more dams for irrigation. Some of his laws I found fair whereas some others not so fair, for example: one of his laws states that if a house collapses and kills the owner the builder should die. OK, even though this is horrible it still has some sense in it because the builder did a poor job but then it also says that if the son of the owner is killed the builders son is killed too. How fair is that? Another example is with a surgeon if he kills a patient whilst operating he may have his hand cut off even though the medical equipment in those was was unclean and basic. 

A Day In The Life of a Bronze Age Trader

Hello, I’m Hamish. I’m a very well known trader in Mesopotamia and since the discovery of bronze my fame has increased dramatically. Today I am going to go up to the Tigris River to meet a friend, Drake. He is not the cleverest of traders and is easiest to fool. I think it should be even easier now that my people have discovered a new type of metal, Bronze. Everyone wants bronze now because it lasts a long time, it’s very hard and of course, it’s shiny. The way was relatively easy because of another great invention, the wheel. Well actually the cart. To bring all of my stuff with me I simply throw it all into the cart sit on top and whip my mule into motion.

When I arrived after travelling many miles the trades had already started. I spied my friend Drake at the corner of the market place trading slingshots for food. I pushed throught the crowd of bodies and shouting voices until my friend could see me. I waved to him gleefully and he waved back. This was the first time we had seen each other in years. As I walked through the crowd people stared at the bronze in my bag. They had never seen it before and I have to admit it is pretty amazing.

But when I got closer I realized that had actually come for food so we said hello and then I walked away. The main reason why I came was for food so when I saw man trading venison I went right over to him, along with my bag of bronze. But when I was talking to him a young boy stole a golden shield, and then fled. I ran after him but it was no use. That was hours of craftsmanship wasted. I gave up, I’m getting too old. Anyway after that calamity I showed the man my bronze tools he asked him if I could give him the whole bag for the deer. But I thought otherwise. I haggled and after ten minutes we agreed that I would give him a necklace and a spear made of gold for the deer. Now that’s what I call a day’s work!

Becoming Human: Last Human Standing

It has always been an interesting topic of trying to under why we are the last human standing. The Neanderthals were an amazing opponent that has outlived us by more than double the amount of time we have been on Earth but they did have some flaws. Even though their brains were significantly larger than ours they still have been proven to have been stupider than us. They were very strong and they only hunted meat so if there was no meat they would die. They used very heavy spears so that they needed to get very close to their prey. Then they need to thrust it right into the heart and lung area. But that means that they need to get close and they can very easily be injured. Whereas Homo Sapiens used bone tipped spears so they could throw and kill from a distance. These are just a few examples of why we think Homo Sapiens wiped out the Neanderthals.

From Grunts to Grammar: the Evolution of Language

Today in humanities class we all read a really interesting article that investigates a scientific mystery, when did we start to talk? This is a very intriguing subject because all different scientists have their opinion on this topic. Some scientists have a theory that the genus Homo has been able to communicate with each other in grunts with Homo Habilis and sophisticated speech by Homo Sapiens. The thing that controls the speech is a small part of the brain that is apparent in all of the genus, Homo even though it's more developed in Homo Sapiens. One of the reasons that we have such effective speech is the fact that we can breath through both our mouth and nose unlike other animals that can only breath through their nose. Some evidence that Homo Erectus used developed speech is that they could hunt in groups and use their highly effective hunting method. So as you can see the evidence that our genus, Homo could use some form of primitivelanguage to developed is pretty strong.

MLA Citation: Miller , Jeanne. "From Grunts to Grammar: the Evolution of Language." Odyssey 1 Oct. 2009: 34-36. Print.

Taming Fire: the First Scientist? Article Summary

Scientist have always estimated that the first time humans used fire was up to 250 thousand years ago. But new studies suggest that fire was used up to one million years ago by Homo Erectus due to the evidence of charred bones and a hearth in just about every Homo Erectus camp. One of the ways that archaeologists can tell whether animal bones have been cooked and not burned in a forest fire is by looking at the heat that it was exposed to. Wildfires create a lot less heat than hearth fires. Scientists can't really tell why our ancestors started using fire, maybe it was because it warded off predators and prey. Maybe it was because it made food a lot tastier and easier to digest. Cooking meat on the fire also gets rid of parasites like intestinal worms. Scientists think that the reason we started to eat cooked meat was because before we could harness fire we would scavenge for the corpses of animals after forest fires because they would taste a lot better than raw, uncooked meat. So as you can see scientists still arent sure when and why we started using fire but we do know that if we didn't we might not be here today.

MLA Citation: Cox, Mary Beth. "Taming Fire: the First Scientist?" Odyssey 1 Oct. 2009: 29-30. Print.

A Day in the Life of Homo Sapiens

Roughly 200,000 years into the evolution of us and 50,000 years ago a much unexpected thing happened. A large hole appeared in the fabric of the universe and through it came an average twelve year old boy with blond hair and green eyes. He was called Adam and he flew through the hole at roughly 20 kilometres an hour and landed in a patch of grass in England. Not just any patch of grass though, a path of grass a fifth fifty thousand years ago. The particular place that he landed was in the middle of a group of a family group of three Homo sapiens. Leader was called Hulu. He lived with his wife Lara and his son Frelek.

When Adam landed in the middle of the family group he looked up in shock at the people. They Lara’s mouth open wide in wordless shock. The boy Frelek asked in perfect English, “Where are you from?” Adam just looked at him for a long ten seconds and then answered, “London.” Hulu asked “where is this, London?” Adam realized that this was never going to work so he decided to lie to earn their trust. “London is the name we gave to a place just north of here.”  “You must have been imagining the portal I came through too”

The Homo sapiens seemed to have accepted this fact and were now moving on to introduce themselves. The boy turned out to be called Frelek and seemed very nice. The man was called Hulu and his wife had a nice name of Lara. It turned out that they were walking to a place called Cheddar Gorge which is famous for having the oldest human remains in Europe. They offered me a drink of water from a carved ostrich egg and I took it, drank, it tasted old and unclean but I drank it anyway.

It turned out that the Homo sapiens were trying to find an abandoned cave where they could settle. But rumour had it that there were some creatures living in there that were stronger than any human, and could rip your throat out with its bare hands. Adam decided to ignore the stories and convince himself that they weren’t real. Soon after I was found we started walking in the direction of the cave. On the way there Lara stopped at a Ginkgo tree and took some seeds that we all cracked and ate. I found them quite hard and strong tasting, a bit like an un-roasted chestnut but I accepted a few happily.

Towards the end of the day they stopped to set up camp and sleep. Lara found us all some lovely soft leaves to sleep on whilst Frelek light a fire. The way Frelek lit a fire was amazing to watch. First he made a stone circle. Then he bundled some dry leaves and kindling and put them in a pile. After that he made a neat little pyramid out of sticks on top. Finally he took out two pieces of flint from his leather pouch and started rubbing them together. After some time sparks flew off and the fire went blazing up. Meanwhile Hulu set himself down to make a spear. First he carved out a shaft out of wood with his stone knife. Then he started knapping away at the flint.

After some time Hulu came up with a deadly sharp point, perfect for killing a deer or defending yourself from a wild cats. After a while we all lay down and fell asleep. In the morning Hulu was the first to wake up he patted each of us gently to wake up and pointed at a deer grazing in the distance. He told Lara and me that Frelek and himself would go hunting and kill that deer to eat. They approached it soundlessly but Frelek tripped and startled the deer. But Hulu was fast and speared the animal straight through the heart and lung area. The animal made a helpless shriek, gurgled and fell to the ground, dead.

Hulu and Frelek hauled back the animal; Hulu butchered the animal with a stone knife whilst Frelek light yet another fire. Lara set up a contraption made of wood which she hung the chunks of venison on to cook.  The smell of venison was overwhelming for Adam and he couldn’t help but watch the meat turning slowly and cooking.

Not long after they set off again on a long trek to the distant cave. This time it wasn’t as long though. Half way they stopped for a water break. Lara offered the water from the ostrich egg once again. Adam had grown used to it now and it tasted great. After roughly six hours of trekking they arrived at the cave. The entrance loomed over them, it looked huge. Slowly, one by one they entered the cave and were surrounded by huge cave paintings, they were enormous. There were pictures of deer and big cats and all kinds of other creatures.

On the way in they also found skulls and skeletons of people, except they had slightly bigger brains and large brows. Adam suddenly had a flash-back of a history class. Their teacher, Mr. Haggis, was telling them about the Stone Age in Britain. He had told them that there were Homo sapiens in Britain but until 30,000 years ago there were also a separate species of Homo called Neanderthals.

As they walked deeper into the cave they started to hear voices. But not the voices of Homo sapiens, they were deeper and they spoke a different language. And suddenly it struck him, they were Neanderthals! Neanderthals were around at the same time as Homo sapiens but they died out during the last ice age. They were very strong and had big bones, they had large brow ridges just like on the skeleton and they even had larger brains than humans. That made them a formidable opponent. Suddenly they heard a scream and Lara was gone.

They were being attacked by Neanderthals! Adam remembered something else too they were also supposed to be cannibals, which ate other humans and even in some case their own kind. They were coming in from all sides now, cutting off the escape routes. They were trapped. The Neanderthals kept coming. Hulu and Frelek took out there weapons. The Neanderthals stopped advancing, looked at them, and then ATTACKED.

The end, or is it?