Essay questions for history Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Questions for history - Essay Example Since the earliest humans lived a nomadic lifestyle, mainly foraging, or hunting, and they no doubt used wooden spears and wood for shelter there is very little lasting evidence of where they lived. Some groups appear to have become isolated and this turned out to be a risk factor, since they did not develop so many new adaptive techniques for survival. It appears that humans wandered out from the central African Savannah, reaching north and east into Asia and from there travelled to Europe and the rest of the world. Tracing their flints and axes is a way of showing how they communicated with each other through trade. [2] There are different theories why people might have stopped being hunter gatherers and started early forms of agriculture. The climate is one reason, since hunter gathering was the only option available in the colder parts of the world during the ice age, and agriculture just was not possible then. As the world’s climate warmed up, however, growing plants became more of an option. Another reason for agricultural lifestyles may be that the food sources became scarce when people began to increase in number. Once a herd of animals is hunted to extinction it is very difficult for that area to recover and become able to host human inhabitants again. The most convincing reason, however, is that certain locations such as river deltas, provided such a rich soil that plants grew readily in the wild, and people naturally settled there for longer and longer periods to take advantage of the crops. Eventually people would have learned to maximise the return from crops, use irrigation and plowing and sowing techniques, so that they could produce a very large excess of food. This in turn enabled them to live in larger groups, which was good for safety, and learn new arts and skills, which made them better able to