1	Big Era Two Human Beings almost Everywhere 200,000 – 10,000 BCE
2	When did WE appear?
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4	Homo erectus was a traveler!
5	Homo sapiens (that’s us!) evolved from Homo erectus By 200,000 years ago, people whose skeletons were like those of Homo sapiens were already living in Africa. Between that time and about 100,000 years ago, people who were both anatomically and genetically “like us” emerged in eastern and southern Africa.
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7	Migrations of Homo sapiens
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9	Language! Homo sapiens had language so they could exchange complex ideas with each other. and they could store and add to the ideas of previous generations. Because they swapped ideas, they kept finding new ways of doing things. new ways of living.
10	Language made collective learning possible. The stores of knowledge and skills humans built up are called “culture.” No other animal can store and accumulate knowledge and skills in this way. We call this ability “collective learning.”
11	"Storing up and building on..." Storing up and building on new skills and new knowledge is what set our species on the path of continuing cultural changes that led to the world we now live in.
12	"At first," At first, changes in technology were very slow. After about 100,000 years ago, the pace of change began to increase. Evidence appears from about that time of humans living in east, central, and southern Africa. They were:
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15	"From about 40,000 years ago" From about 40,000 years ago, archaeological evidence shows faster and faster cultural change and increasing complexity.
16	"By the time humans appeared" By the time humans appeared, our closest living relatives were probably the hominids known as “Neandertals” (or, “Neanderthals”). When Homo sapiens groups arrived in western Asia and Europe, Neandertals were already there. By 100,000 years ago Neandertals were living from Spain to Inner Eurasia. They had a long record of living successfully in both warm and cold environments. But they disappeared from the record about 28,000 years ago.
17	Did Homo sapiens meet Neandertals?
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20	Homo sapiens and other species We’re not sure what might have happened if Homo sapiens met Neandertals or Homo erectus, but we do know that these two hominid species died out. And so did many other large animals, called megafauna, which once roamed the earth/ What might these extinctions tell us about our own species?
21	"What happened in Big Era..." What happened in Big Era Two? Humans appeared, and they started TALKING! Therefore, they could share new ideas and build up a store of ideas--what we call “culture.” They learned to live in many different environments. And they migrated to all the world’s major landmasses and many of its islands, big and small.
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