Enheduana of Sumer

What did books look like during the time that Enheduana was writing?
The books were written on clay tablets, so the books looked like small clay pillows.

How were these books written?
the books were written by using writing utensils to write out the words in lines on the tablet.

Where did Enheduana and her family live? What did her father do?
Edheduana father was king, and her family lived in the Akkad Palace the was surrounded by the city (Akkad.)

What was Enheduana's job? List three of her duties. How did she lose her job?
Edheduana's job was high priestess. Her duties contained.... She lost her job due to her nephew because he wanted his daughter to be high preistest.

The author says that enheduana's poems were so popular that they were like bestsellers today. What evidence does she use to support this claim? That archaeologists found about 20-50 copies of tablets on one of of Enheduana's poems/stories.

Enheduana's writjing are hymns of praise, but they also tell us about the times she lived in. Describe one "current event" that enheduana wrote about.
The one where she tells 'an exciting account about her father.' "At one point, the city-states that Sargon had taken united in revolt against him. They besieged the city of Akkad and exiled the goddess Inanna from her temples. Sargon finally broke the siege, beat the rebels, and made them recognize the goddess Inanna as all-powerful."

From earliest times, people have changed their environments. How have people today changed their environment? Discuss both the good and the ba

Over a period of thousands of years we as humans have changed our environment drastically. There are several different ways that early humans effected their environment. First of all you don't really think about it but humans lives revolved on the game they hunted and the things that they gathered in order to stay alive. By doing so they were hunting and killing animals. Which was working for them then, but today we have many endangered and extinct animals. Could this have been what lead up to the endangered, and extinct animals? Is this how poaching started? Thinking of this also lead me to wonder if one of the causes of poaching was trade.

Hunters and gathers eventually turned into farmers which lead to specialization of labor. Due to farming early humans diet was beginning to be a lot more stable, therefore we were healthier. Which lead to the ability to have more children. Farming was also giving us a surplus of food. However, today about every second 5 people are born! The fact that every 3 seconds our population goes up by 9 people (2 die every second 5 are born) this has lead to a surplus population rather than a surplus of food, this is the opposite of how our early ancestors lived.

Today we are dealing with many environmental issues such as; deforestation, air pollution, water pollution, surplus population, not enough food to feed all of us, all of this is adding up into global warming. What had Earth become, a planet that is having its recourse's natural and man made used up in a heart beat by today's humans. This is all due to the development of our civilization, over the years people have proposed changes that we could make in our life styles however not many have acted upon them. This is why some people are saying that it would have been better if we had stayed as hunters and gatherers. I however disagree, I think that if everyone made an effort to recycle, expose the air and water from less toxins then we could help slow down global warming.

Why is Catal Hoyuk an important archaeological find?

Catel Huyuk was an ancient Neolithic town around 8000 years ago. The town was built with no streets, lanes, or alleys, the doors of the houses opened up to the rooftops of the town leaving people to get around by climbing up series of ladders. There are several reasons for why i think that Catel Huyuk was an important discovery.

I think this firstly because; Catel Huyuk in its day was probably the religious center for several towns. Archaeologists are saying this because in the village several of the rooms are shrine's (sacred places of worship.) All the shrine's are elaborately done with; paintings (which were probably done of real events,) there were also statue's in the shrine's. The shrine's were showing that humans were starting to develop burial practices and having a beleif system.

Catel Hoyuk was also one of the most important trading towns in its area and during its time. Because of farming giving them more 'free' time they were able to experiment with different crafts. By learning new skills they began making luxury goods (some luxury goods were made from Obsidian.) By having crafts and new ideas other villages began becomeing interested in what they had to offer therefore Catel Hoyuk began developing relationships between different communities. Of course money hadn't even been thought of yet in this timer therefore all items were traded through barter/bartering, usually people think that stuff must not have gotten far from the word of mouth and just bartering off goods, however a piece of obsidian (from Catel Hoyuk) was found 600 miles away from where it originally came from!

Some crafts and materials used for making crafts are:

Bone:

- Needles

- Beads

- Hairpins

- Fish hooks

Weaving:

- Woolen cloth, baskets

- Fashioned leather pouches

Wood:

- Bowls

- Boxes with lids

Eventually Catel Hoyuk started farming and then they began domesticating animals. The domestication of plants and animals was making Catel Hoyuk a self-sufficient city (it didn't need the assistance of surrounding towns.) Due this our diet also was stabilizing and become more consistent an reliable. Because of our more steady diet our bodies were become healthier which was; causing a surplus of food, and increase in population and being able to have more children.

All of these reasons; domesticating plants and animals giving more free time in order to experiment with different industries, which gave us the opportunity to trade and how our religious culture's developed are all tied to more clue's in how our civilization has developed into what it is today. This is why I think that the discovery of Catal Hoyuk was an important archaeological find.

Humanities Blog Wordle

Unit 2 Reflection: Prehistory and Early Humans

1. Describe how you prepared/studied for the unit test.
a) Do you think your studying strategies were effective - why/not?
Yes, I think that the study strategies were definitely effective. I tried two new studying strategies for this test (both of which I will keep doing because they are very helpful) the first is, I taught some of the big ideas to my dad and he would ask questions, by doing so I refreshed my memory on many things that hadn't occurred for me to study for the test. The second was Ms.Moore's strategy of brain storming the big idea's which also turned out to be effective while studying. Therefor I was definitely pleased with the way that I studied for this test.
b) How will you prepare next time?
I didn't read through any of the articles that we read and took notes on. By doing this I think that if we have any long answer questions on the next test (like we had in the unit 1 test)then if I have read some of the articles it will be easier to remember facts. Also I didn't study very many of the words that we had to define which, I will do next time.

2. What was the most surprising thing you learned about during this unit?
I wasn't aware before how many different types of hominids that there we over time (Neanderthal, homo habalis etc...) I had also never thought about the fact that we had to tame fire that we didn't always know how to control it.

3. If we had more time to spend on Prehistory and early humans - what would you want to learn more about?
I we could continue this unit I would like to learn more about some of the ancient hominids that we didn't really learn to much about. For example I don't remember learning much about Australopithecus, Palanthrobus, and some others.

Why did early humans begin to walk on two feet?

Why did early humans begin walking on 2 feet?
Some say they needed they need to walk on feet in order to bring food to their lovers. Being bipedal would definitely have helped/ made doing this more productive because, you can carry more food if you have two hands to carry food with (if walking on 4 legs could only carry small amount of food in your mouth.) Another theory that was explored by scientists is that early hominids needed bipedality in order to walk across the hot savannas. And how could bipedlity have helped that? Well, seeing has the forests had started shrinking and the hot savannas had started expanding, hominids needed a way to cross the savanna's in order to reach the cool forests. And being bipedal would help do this because walking is a faster mode of transportation and also the grasses we tall and you needed your full height to see over them. Walking upright through the burning savanna's brings me to the next theory; that being bipedal saved energy, and it was a more efficient mode of transportation. This is because scientists said that walking/running on 2 feet saved more energy and was faster because standing upright expands your lungs making breathing easier making it easier to go longer distance's. However after preforming several experiments this theory was eventually discharged. The last theory is that early hominids started walking upright in order to pick up and start using tools, bipedality definitely would have helped the use and development of tools. Because, while hunting having to hands made carrying tool much easier also, hominids became more skilled with their hands which helped creating more complex tools.
To conclude, the theory that I find most plausible is that hominids became bipedal in order to cross the heating savanna's however no theories have been proven correct and scientists have no idea the reason humans became bipedal. However every theory seems to be interlinked which is probably one reason discovering the root of humans bipedalism has proved to be so challenging.

Who were the hobbits?

The hobbits were a small group of people roughly the height of a 4 year old. The exact date of when they roamed Earth is undecided, research however shows that they were alive 38,000 - 18,000 or as young as 12,000 years ago.
The hobbits had a small brain no larger than a chimps, about the size of an orange. Scientists originally thought that the small body size was a result of microcephaly, however now scientists think that they were involved in island dwarfing. Further analysis of the few hobbit skelletons that have been found show that the hobbits may be decendants from homo erectus. By studying a hobbits skelliton researchers concluded that hobbits had no chin, writs similar to a chimps, and shrugged shoulder bones. Also though the hobbits are built similarly to Lucy they used stone tools which Lucy did not.
Some scientists however say that too few hobbit skellitions have been found to draw conclutions about the entire hobbit population.