ShmoopTube
Where Monty Python meets your 10th grade teacher.
Search Thousands of Shmoop Videos
History of Technology Videos 160 videos
What's the deal with wind? And why does it have to be so...windy?
How did people move stuff around before the wheel was invented? More importantly, why didn't they take a break for a few minutes from moving stuff...
History of Technology 1: Early Humans and Energy 162 Views
Share It!
Description:
This lesson is surprisingly not going to be about early human's addiction to Starbucks and Red Bull. Hit play to find out more about early humans and energy.
Transcript
- 00:01
No Ever help the buddy move into a new apartment
- 00:05
on the fourth floor Well it's hard sway work But
- 00:07
is it possible Of course the human body could do
- 00:10
amazing things even if it isn't worth a cold Pizza
- 00:13
are friends Give us in Thanks Now imagine a world
Full Transcript
- 00:15
where all work was the hard sweaty type and thankyou
- 00:19
Pizzas were nowhere to be found Food stuff of nightmares
- 00:22
right Well not really Back in the hunter gatherer and
- 00:25
early agricultural areas fire and muscles where are on ly
- 00:29
sources of energy Back then they didn't even have elevators
- 00:32
but on the bright side there weren't really any floors
- 00:35
either to worry about Well from about two point six
- 00:37
million bc until about ten thousand b c e almost
- 00:41
every task required human effort But keep in mind there
- 00:44
was no internet back then which meant no cat videos
- 00:47
to be distracted by So we still accomplished plenty of
- 00:50
things In that time period we migrated out of africa
- 00:53
and around the world developed languages transitioned toe agriculture built
- 00:57
the first urban spaces and stop getting eaten by hyenas
- 01:01
all the time Last one was kind of a big
- 01:03
deal But it was all based on the energy we
- 01:05
got from food Early humans a lot of fruits nuts
- 01:08
and pieces of dead animals They found laying around the
- 01:12
breakfast of champions there Right Well we got a little
- 01:15
energy from fire to get way back then Chemical and
- 01:19
thermal energy where the on ly stops in town Right
- 01:22
from the beginning though human beings were trying to escape
- 01:25
the limitations of their paltry energy sources After plenty of
- 01:29
experimentation and more than a few smashed fingers people figured
- 01:32
out how to make tools out of stone and tools
- 01:35
like people who use their energy way more efficiently Why
- 01:38
shred an animal with our fingernails when we can use
- 01:40
a sharp rock right Well both options are gross but
- 01:43
fingernails would take forever and ever to clean well before
- 01:47
we go feeling too bad for those poor paleolithic people
- 01:50
in their lumps of rock let's talk more about fire
- 01:53
cave people couldn't use fire to power stolen refrigerators or
- 01:56
tvs or anything but it doesn't mean it was useless
- 02:00
At some point between eight hundred thousand and two hundred
- 02:03
thousand Years ago human beings mastered the art of building
- 02:06
A fire which is impressive right Ever tried building a
- 02:09
fire without any tools Yeah thanks Don't try those survival
- 02:13
shows If it came down to it we freeze to
- 02:15
death huddled over a pile of damp tweaks Anyway trees
- 02:19
spend their whole lives transforming sunshine into wood when we
- 02:23
burn That would were basically releasing a few dozen years
- 02:26
or maybe even centuries of stored sunlight As thermal energy
- 02:31
may think of fire today is something nice and cozy
- 02:33
that lets us roast marshmallows to the first level of
- 02:36
roundness But for early humans fire meant a lot more
- 02:40
They also roasted little wieners Aside from that one of
- 02:43
the major uses of fire was light A light source
- 02:46
at night prolonged work hours and kept predators away Remember
- 02:50
the giant hyenas They were real Oh fire was also
- 02:53
great is a heat source early humans wouldn't have made
- 02:56
it through one harsh winter without fire And even with
- 02:59
fired christmas in the alps couldn't have been fun though
- 03:02
it does sound like a festive lifetime original movie Well
- 03:05
early agriculture also benefited from fire Needs some farmland No
- 03:10
worries Just burn down the forest Well fire could clear
- 03:13
Unwanted undergrowth let food plants grow and replenish the soils
- 03:17
with ash While these techniques are currently being used to
- 03:20
destroy vast swaths of the amazon rainforest but way back
- 03:25
in the day it seemed like there was plenty of
- 03:26
force to go around Remember that old oprah thing about
- 03:29
giving away the cars You know you get some rain
- 03:31
forest and you get some rain forest hindsight's twenty five
- 03:35
Anyway fire was also helpful in creating tools Our early
- 03:39
ancestors eventually unlock new skill levels and learned how to
- 03:43
use fire to harden the points of their wooden tools
- 03:47
And last but not least fire was used for cooking
- 03:51
It expanded the possible range of foods that human beings
- 03:54
could eat well Tough plans and raw meat became a
- 03:57
lot more edible after they were cooked And best of
- 04:00
all it became less likely that eating old raw namath
- 04:03
would lead Teo you know somebody keeling over mammoth food 00:04:07.508 --> [endTime] poisoning Really
Related Videos
GED Social Studies 1.1 Civics and Government
When you're about to marry the love of your life, not many things could stop you. However, finding out that your future hubby is keeping his crazy...
Here at Shmoop, we work for kids, not just the bottom line. Founded by David Siminoff and his wife Ellen Siminoff, Shmoop was originally conceived...
ACT Math: Elementary Algebra Drill 4, Problem 5. What is the solution to the problem shown?