Hello Everybody!

Hi and welcome to my Humanities blog. Here is where I will be putting all of my humanities work throughout the 2011-2012 school year at ISB (the International School of Belgrade). I hope you will enjoy and please follow!

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

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.

Monday, November 21, 2011

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.

Thursday, November 17, 2011

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.

Sunday, November 13, 2011

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?


Tuesday, November 1, 2011

On Our Own Two Feet by Stephen Whitt

Many famous anthropologists debate about the reason we walk on our two feet. Some of them believe it was the climate change and the switch between tropical and dry and others believe it was for reproduction or getting a mate. But they all do agree that we did become bipedal roughly seven million years ago. Although humans are quite similar to apes there are some quite significant differences for example, an apes snout protrudes from it's face and it has relatively no forehead. It has a very large brow and a much smaller brain case even though it's brain is still very big for it's size. Whereas humans have large foreheads with virtually no protruding brow. In Homo Sapiens, because we stand up straight whilst walking, the hole where our spinal cord enters the skull ( the Foranum Magnum) is at the bottom. Whereas for our ape-like ancestors, the oldest of them walked on all fours. Because of that their walking habits their Foranum Magnum is more to the back of the skull, to make it easier for them to see whilst walking on all fours.

MLA Citation: Whitt, Stephen. "On Our Own Two Feet." Odyssey: Adventures in Science Oct. 2009: 26-28. Print.

Monday, October 31, 2011

Who's Who Among The Early Hominins

Homo sapiens skull from Zhoukoudian angled viewMost people that I know only think that there are two kinds of homonids, Homo Sapiens and Neanderthals. Actually there are way more. There are at least eight types of early hominmids dating back at least eight million years. We are the final product of millions of years of evolution, from primitive small brained quadrupeds with long, protruding snouts and large canines for eating meat. We on the other hand are large brained bipeds with a relatively flat face and smaller canines. The oldest relatively complete skeleton is called Orrorin Tugenensis the oldest remains found of this hominid date back to roughly six and a half million years ago. The biggest leap after that is the Homo Habilis who started using stone tools that it had actually created. Homo habilis lived around 2 and a halfmillion years ago. And later on came us, the infamous Homo Sapiens the latests step in the evolution of hominids.

MLA Citation: Susman, Randall. "Who's Who Among the Early Hominins?" Odyssey 1 Oct. 2009. Print.



Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Why We Study Human Origins by Randall Susman Calliope: Exploring World History


This is quite an inspiring article that we read during and outside humanities class. It was written by an author called Randal Susman for the magazine Calliope in September 1999. This article tells you all about why we study human origins and what are the developments and achievements. Since writing began people have been wondering the same things over and over again. Things such as how were we created. The Christians came up with a pretty good answer, Adam and Eve the two first humant who where both magically dropped from the sky.


But scientists and historians such as Charles Darwin thought otherwise. They believed in evolution which of course contradicted everything the Christian church said. As a result  Nineteenth century scientists and religious people got into long rows about who was right but obviously in the mid- Nineteen hundreds there was no fossil evidence of our Ape like ancestors. Well not until Henry Huxley came along and foumd the first complete skeleton of our ancestors. Huxley also made some other important discoveries like as the author states “Huxley believed that anatomically, African apes and humans were similar, more similar in fact than apes were to monkeys.” I think this blog post proves that there were apes before us and we didn't simply fall out of the sky.

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Stonehenge Theories

Stonehenge has many theories on the reason of its existence some slightly mad to some others that may be plausible.v Here are some examples. Some of the crazy ones are: Stonehenge is in the shape of female genitalia and represents fertility, it was created by the famous magician Merlin who transported stones made by giants others state that it was an ancient Roman temple or a alien landing site. Some of the more plausible theories are it was an ancient observatory, it was the burial place of the dead or it was a place to worship the gods. In my opinion most of these theories are completely barmy and the answer is still out there.


Sunday, October 2, 2011

Huge Gladiator School Found Buried in Austria

A huge gladiator training school has been discovered in Austria using new technology to detect underground objects and produce 3D images. This gladiator school is even bigger than two wallmarts, even larger than the training grounds outside the colloseum. They have found gladiator graves completely changing the perspective on a gladiators life. It was probably built in A.D 150 during the rule of Marcus Aurelius. The school contains a moch arena bleacher, dormatries a courtyard and cages where wild animals would be kept. The arena covers 19,000 square meters. But will probably never be excavated.

Human Ancestor May Put Twist in Origin Story

Hey people! This is another post that we had to do for  homework in humanities class. We are currently learnin why people study archaeology, its techniques and the basics. Enjoy! A group of archaeologists recently discovered two two million year old primate that has been proved to have be related to humans.  There is one roughly thirty year old female and another teenage male. It seems they both fell into an ancient chasm which was also responsible for countless other animals, as was proven by the countless animal bones littered around the chasm. Unlike other skeletons found from our ancestors these ones have a presision grip wich means that the thumb is longer than usual which means that they would be able to use tools. Another human trait found on these skeletons was the pelvis and the feet suggest that they would have been able to walk but they would also climb trees. At 1.2 meters tall they are also quite short. So as you can see thanks to this discovery we now know a lot more about our ancestors.

Monday, September 26, 2011

How do Historians Learn About History?



Hey guys this Alfie and this is my 21st post and I hope you will enjoy it. In this post I will investigate how do historians learn about history.There are five basic steps that every historian/archaeologist should take. First they need to gather a reasonable amount of primary and secondary  sources. Then they categorise and label the sources into written and non written. After that Historians evaluate their sources with the five w's, who, what, where, why and when. Next they interpret the information by examining the sources taking nites and trying to work out what they mean. And finally they publish and share their theory. Thanks for reading and please comment.

Friday, September 16, 2011

In the Past Where did Humans Tend to Settle and Why



In the past and the present the most popular place to settle would be by a river because of the abundance of freshwater for bathing in drinking and getting fish to eat also it would be a good idea to live close to a forest with an abundance of animals for meat and wild berries and plants to eat. Another good use of living close to a wood is the wood. Our ancestors would have been able to collect wood for fires to cook food and keep warm. The forest can also provide good shelter. Close by to an extinct volcano would be an ideal place with excellent farming land, forests and probably a river.

Thursday, September 15, 2011

What is History



History is the study of our ancestors and their lives, beliefs and cultures. We find out this information through, written works, evidence and artefacts. We study history to learn about the past to find patterns and predict the future we can also discover the pasts creations and inventions and improve on them to make modern day technology. Here are some history quotes: Never forget the importance of history. To know nothing of what happened before you took your place on earth, is to remain a child for ever and ever, Unknown Source. 

Wednesday, August 31, 2011

From around the World Presentations









For my presentations I chose England and New Zealand. I reall like them bothe because I am from both countries and I would like to live in both of them. My personal connection to New Zealand is that my Granddad on my mums side is from there and lived ther for a third of his life. My mum was born in New Zealand and lived there until she was seven before she moved to England. I would also love to live in New Zealand because I visited there once with my cousins and we had a great time looking at all of the scenery in the middle of christmas, which was summer there. My personal connection to England is that my Dad is from there he was born there and lived there until I was four when we all moved to Croatia. I also have the majority of my family living there which makes visiting England so fun. I have got both a British and New Zealand passport and I am proud of them!

Thursday, May 26, 2011

Imperialism



“1 a : the power or the government of an emperor : imperial authority : an imperial system *the imperialism of Caesar* *educational imperialism Current Biography*  b : an imperial quality *with dramatic imperialism and disarming gentility T the epitome of mysterious womanhood Louis Mace* 2 a : the policy, practice, or advocacy of seeking or the acquiescing in the extension of the control or empire of a nation by the acquirement of new territory or dependencies especially when lying outside the nation's natural boundaries, by the extension of its rule over other races of mankind (as where commerce demands the protection of the flag), or by the closer union of more or less independent parts (as for war, copyright, or internal commerce)  b : any extension of power or authority or an advocacy of such extension.”

Merriam Websters Third New Unabridged Dictionary
  1. Queen Victoria was the Empress of the British imperialism.
  2. The British imperialism started in the 19th century.
  3. The British and French imperialism's (and Germany too|) fought over Africa.
  4. The Roman imperialism built Hadrian’s Wall in the north of England to keep out the Scots
  5. The Roman imperialism was defeated by the smaller German tribes.





Good
Bad
  • They built railways in India.
  • They introduced law and government to uncivilised countries.
  • The newly found countries gave British people places to migrate to.
  • They spread the English language around the world.
  • They made trade links all over the world.
  • They made uncivilised cultures civilised.
  • The British Empire tried to convert other cultures to Christianity.
  • They made slaves of Africans and later brought them to the US.
  • They hunted and killed the Aborigines for sport.
  • They denied the right to self government to the indigenous peoples.
  • They made a bad reputation of the American Indians,


  • In 1922 the British empire contained a quarter of the world’s population.


If I were the ruler of an imperialism I would spread my empire fairly and have a democratic vote from the rulers of that country whether we should rule over them. the only reason my imperialism would exist would be to unite countries in a successful economical bond that could join together during wars and to prevent discrimination and racism. There is a democratic vote for each law. In my empire everyone is equal the rules are fair and everyone gets a chance every person gets 500 pounds per month which can allow people without jobs not to live in squalor. When a country becomes part of my imperialism they get a common government with the rest of the countries even though each country can make their own decisions. The goal of my empire is to create world peace and to unite the world. So as you can see my empire is powerful yet fair and gives everyone a chance.

Thursday, March 31, 2011

Notes


Natural Resources
  1. Renewable resources: Resources, such as soils and forests, that can be replaced by Earth’s natural processes .
  2. Nonrenewable resources: Resources, such as coal and oil, that cannot be replaced by Earth’s natural processes.
  3. Deforestation: The destruction or loss of forest area.
  4. Reforestation: The planting of trees in places where forests have been cut down.
  5. Fossil Fuels: Nonrenewable resources formed from the remains of ancient plants and animals.
  6. Petroleum: An oily liquid that can be refined into gasoline and other fuels and oils.
  7. Hydroelectric Power: A renewable energy resource produced from dams that harness the energy of falling water to power generators.
  8. Geothermal Energy:  A renewable energy resource produced from the heat of Earth’s interior.
  9. Solar power: Heat and light from the sun.



Notes
  • Soil is made of decayed plants and trees.
  • Forests are a renewable resource.



Questions:
  1. What effect will these trees have on erosion?  They hold the soil in place.
  2. How can people help preserve forest resources? By trying not to buy as many wood products.
  3. How does this photo show human adaptation to the environment? It shows that humans have found other ways to conserve our resources.
  4. What body of water is used to produce hydroelectric power? Rivers.
  5. What are the main advantages of using renewable energy sources? Because there is always more of that resource.
  6. How can people conserve mineral resources? By not using as much of them.
  7. Why do you think the pipeline is above ground? Because it is cheaper and if it spills it is easier to clean up.
  8. How do you think the loss of land affects people who live in the rain forest? They lose everything.
  9. How does the lack of resources affect people? We have less ways to power our vehicles.




Section Review
  1. Environment and Society What are fossil fuels, and how are they used? They are the corpses of millions of year old sea life and they power cars and other energy needing appliances.
  2. Environment and Society What are the main renewable energy sources? Trees, solar power and wind power.
  3. Analyzing Information How are preserving soil and forest resources related to resource and land management?
  4. Making Generalizations and Predictions How may a country that has only one or two valuable resources develop its economy?
  5. Categorizing Copy the following graphic organizer. Use it to describe the mineral resources that may be used in a typical home.