Chapter 1 "Up to the Starting Line" Summary and Analysis

The history of human beings before 11,000 B.C. is important to consider in order to understand how people later developed. The history of humans began about 7 million years ago when the population of African apes broke into several different evolutionary tracks, including modern gorillas, modern chimps, and humans. For the first 5 or 6 million years after this split, humans were confined to Africa. Between 1.8 and 1 million years ago, Homo Erectus, the first human ancestor to spread beyond Africa, moved into Southeast Asia and possibly into Europe. About half a million years ago, Homo Erectus developed into Homo Sapiens, our modern species. The populations in Africa and Eurasia diverged from each other in skeletal details. The Great Leap Forward began about 50,000 years ago when humans in East Africa began using stone...