A Global History of Man - Part 2 - 02. Pre-hi.pdfVIP

part 2 A SURVEY OF WORLD HISTORY UNIT 2 Man Before Civilization ... in the far distant days when man was evolving into the races which are dis-^ tributed over the world today, the related factors of food, climate, and shelter were all important, and the other urges hardly existed. We may safely assume that the world was rela- tively empty of man in those distant days of the ice ages. . . . pressure of popu- lation, trade incentives, and laws of tres- pass may well have been unknown. On the other hand, it seems likely . . . that primitive communities might . . . stay in any environ- ment which they found satisfactory; and that they dreaded the unfamiliar and were loath to leave their homelands unless they were driven to do so. When migrations occurred, probably the weakest folk moved out first. Griffith Taylor A. Devaney, Inc. N.V. 52 Courte«y—Information Service of South Africa Philip D. Gendreau. N.Y. 53 Man, Race, and Society Man the Newcomer According to most estimates, man has been living on the earth for over one million years. To us, this may seem an unimagi- nably long period, and yet he is a very recent newcomer. The length of his existence is shown in the drawing on page 56 which com- presses all of the earths history into a single year. Since our planet is probably about 4.5 billion years old, each month represents 375 million years; each day, 125 million years. So it was not until the ninth month—not until the last quarter of the time since the earth was formed—that any life made an appearance. The first form of life consisted of single-celled creatures such as amebas. Gradually more complex forms of life evolved from these primitive early organisms. The calendar shows that the jellyfish had appeared by October and other types of primitive fish by November. It was not until the beginning of December that living things passed from the sea to the land, where they developed more rapidly. By Dece