Early Humans and Beginning of Civilisation

How early humans evolved and spread, how stone tools and farming developed, and the early river civilisations of the Harappans, Mesopotamia, Egypt and China.

Key ideas

Homo erectus was the first to leave Africa, about 2 million years ago; Homo sapiens, the only human species today, spread across the world later.
Tools grew from choppers and handaxes to blades and tiny microliths, and later the bow and arrow.
The Neolithic Revolution brought farming, herding, pottery and the first villages; Mehrgarh, on the Bolan River, is the earliest farming village of the subcontinent.
Bhimbetka in Madhya Pradesh is known for its rock-shelter paintings.
Harappan towns were planned and used standard weights; their script, on seals and pottery, has not been deciphered.
Mesopotamia wrote in wedge-shaped cuneiform on clay and counted in sixties, which gives us the 60-minute hour and the 360-degree circle.
Egypt wrote in hieroglyphs and used a 365-day calendar; early China grew on the Huang He and cast bronze.

Remember

Stages	Palaeolithic → Mesolithic → Neolithic → Chalcolithic → Bronze Age → Iron Age
River civilisations	Harappan: Sindhu and Sarasvati; Mesopotamian: Tigris and Euphrates; Egyptian: Nile; Chinese: Huang He
Harappan sites	Lothal: dockyard; Kalibangan: ploughed field; Dholavira: reservoirs
Harappan weights	small ones double (1, 2, 4, 8, 16); large ones go up in tens
Egyptian calendar	12 months of 30 days + 5 days = 365 days
Bronze	copper + tin

Watch out

Saying the Harappan script has been read: it has not been deciphered.
Mixing up cuneiform (Mesopotamia, clay tablets) and hieroglyphs (Egypt).
Reading BCE dates the wrong way: 7000 BCE is earlier than 3000 BCE.

Worked example

Mesopotamians counted in sixties. How many minutes are in 3 hours, and how many degrees are in 10 full circles?

Working: 60 × 3; 360 × 10

Answer: 180 minutes; 3,600 degrees