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2.5: Key Terms

  • Page ID
    211895
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    Acheulean tools
    stone tools made by carefully chipping away flakes of the stone core to make them into teardrop-shaped implements that replaced the cruder Oldowan hand-axes
    animism
    the belief that a degree of spirituality exists not only in people but also in plants, inanimate objects, and natural phenomena
    Australopithecus
    a very distant ancestor of modern humans who lived in eastern and southern Africa between 2.5 and 4 million years ago
    Fertile Crescent
    a crescent-shaped geographical area in the Middle East where agriculture first flourished
    genus
    a taxonomic rank that includes several similar and related species
    Homo erectus
    a member of the genus Homo who emerged in East Africa around two million years ago, living entirely on the ground and walking exclusively in an upright position
    Homo habilis
    the earliest member of the genus Homo, appearing in the archaeological record about two to three million years ago
    Homo sapiens
    modern humans, members of the genus Homo who emerged in Africa first and later migrated to other areas
    hunter-gatherers
    people who survive by employing the strategies of hunting animals and gathering wild plants rather than by planting crops and raising livestock
    Mousterian tools
    stone tools and hand-axes made beginning around 250,000 years ago and consisting of flakes rather than cores
    Neanderthals
    members of the genus Homo who evolved from Homo erectus and lived in Europe and western Asia between 30,000 and 200,000 years ago
    Neolithic Age
    the final phase of the Paleolithic Age, beginning around twelve thousand years ago when human populations began growing crops and domesticating animals
    Neolithic Revolution
    the shift from hunting and gathering to a life based primarily on agriculture
    Oldowan tools
    sharpened stones used until about 1.7 million years ago for a variety of cutting, scraping, and chopping purposes
    Paleolithic Age
    the period of time beginning as early as 3.3 million years ago until nearly twelve thousand years ago, when our distant pre-human ancestors began using stone tools for a variety of purposes

    This page titled 2.5: Key Terms is shared under a CC BY 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by OpenStax.

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