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TEACHER MATERIALS
UNIT 6 GUIDE
Table of Contents
Learning Outcomes
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Key Concepts
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Misconceptions and Teaching Challenges
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Lesson and Content Overview
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BIG HISTORY PROJECT / SY 2016-17 / UNIT 6 GUIDE
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TEACHER MATERIALS
Unit 6—Early Humans
Unit 6 Driving Question: What makes humans different from other species?
Learning Outcomes
1. Describe human evolution, using evidence and connection to other species of mammals.
2. Explain whether or not symbolic language makes humans different.
3. Describe how early humans lived.
4. Explain collective learning.
5. Understand what scholars from multiple disciplines know about a topic and the questions they can ask to
gain an understanding of the topic from an integrated perspective.
6. Show early human migration on a map.
Key Concepts
How did our early ancestors evolve? Students tackle this topic in the first lesson and learn about human evolution.
The concentration here will be on how the genus Homo evolved from the order of primates into modern humans,
or Homo sapiens. The next lesson reveals how the story of human evolution has many contributors, including
archaeologists, anthropologists, and primatologists. Scientists and scholars from across a multitude of disciplines
have worked on the topic of human evolution for many years to piece together a history of our species using
verifiable evidence, such as fossil remains. One of this unit’s main focal points is the importance of collective
learning and symbolic language. It is the combination of these two human feats that separates us from other
species in the animal kingdom; it is what makes us different.
World History
Big History includes selected World History topics in support of local standards in New York, California,
and other regions around the world. While not a replacement for a world history course, they explore
the intersection of Big History and world history. Either a globe icon or the notation (WH) denotes these
activities, videos, and articles.
Human Evolution
All modern humans belong to a single species known as Homo sapiens. We’re also classified in the order of
primates, the class of mammals, and the kingdom of animals. Biologists and paleontologists have worked together
for years to correctly classify thousands of species. They’ve also been able to partly reconstruct our human
ancestry by comparing fossils and identifying genetic relationships between living species by comparing their DNA.
Genetic comparisons between chimpanzees and Homo sapiens suggest that we shared a common ancestor about
7 million years ago. However, unlike chimps, humans are hominines—apes that walk upright on two legs. Humans
are the only surviving hominines in the world today, but in the past, there were others in this family including
members of the genus Australopithecus, as well as other members of the genus Homo, including the species Homo
BIG HISTORY PROJECT / SY 2016-17 / UNIT 6 GUIDE
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TEACHER MATERIALS
habilis and Homo erectus.
Collective Learning and Symbolic Language
While early primates and hominines were like us in many ways, we have no evidence to suggest that their
behaviors or the technologies they used changed significantly during their time on Earth. Like most animal species,
they seem to have been limited in the number of ways they used their environment to produce the energy and
resources needed to survive. Our species is different because our ancestors kept developing new ways of using
the resources available in their environment. We are the only species that is able to do this without changing
genetically, which means that we can adapt to changing conditions much faster than other species. The key to
this is our use of symbolic language to share information and pass it on to future generations. It is our ability to
collectively learn that allows Homo sapiens to migrate and flourish in all corners of the Earth. Many species of
mammals and birds share information through mating calls and warning signals, but their language is not efficient
enough to allow collective memories to accumulate information over long periods of time. Human language enables
us to exchange information so precisely and rapidly that it accumulates in the memory of entire groups, gradually
increasing the store of knowledge available to each community.
How Did Early Humans Live?
In order to reconstruct how early humans lived an interdisciplinary approach is required. Archaeologists use the
remains of individuals (including their skulls and parts of their skeletons) as well as the remains of things they ate,
used, and made (such as stone tools). Anthropologists study modern human societies that are likely to be similar
to societies of the Paleolithic era in order to learn about their technologies, social organization, and ideas about the
world. Primatologists also gather helpful evidence: they study our close relatives, such as chimpanzees, to see what
can be inferred about the earliest human societies. No single source of evidence is perfect, but together, the work
of these scholars gives us an idea about the basic patterns of life in the Paleolithic era.
Misconceptions and Teaching Challenges
The Human-Chimp Connection
A common student misconception is that humans descended directly from chimps. They didn’t. While humans
and chimps would most certainly be classified as genetic cousins as we share 98% of the same DNA structures
and a common ancestor, we did not evolve from them. Humans and chimps separated on the evolutionary tree
approximately 7 million years ago. The evolution of both chimps and humans took place in Africa, however, it was
only members of the genus Homo who began migrating out of Africa.
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TEACHER MATERIALS
Lesson and Content Overview
Lesson name
Lesson description
Content
Activity
6.0—How Our Ancestors
Evolved
We might share a lot with
our primate cousins, but
our bigger brains, our ability
to walk upright, and other
physical “improvements” are all
adaptations that make humans
unique.
• Watch: Threshold 6 –
Humans and Collective
Learning
• Opening: Early Ancestors
• Watch: Human Evolution –
Crash Course
• Read: “Lucy and the
Leakeys”
• Vocab Activity: Part 1
• Activity: Evolution Comic
• Activity: Investigation Writing
– Content Knowledge
• Read: “Jane Goodall”
6.1—Ways of Knowing: Early
Humans
6.2—Collective Learning
We’re obsessed with
understanding the roots of
who we are as a species.
Anthropologists, archaeologists,
and primatologists are the most
obsessed, as they work to paint
a picture of early human life.
• Watch: Intro to Anthropology
• Opening: DQ Notebook
• Watch: Intro to Archaeology
• Activity: What Do You Know?
What Do You Ask?
• Activity: Historos Cave
• Closing: Little Big History
Kickoff
Our talent for preserving and
• Read: “Collective Learning”
sharing information, passing it
(Part 1)
from one generation to the next, • Watch: Common Man – H2
has made us the most powerful
• Watch: Early Collective
species on the planet.
Learning
• Opening: Collective Learning
Snap Judgment
• Activity: Claim Testing –
Collective Learning
• Vocab Activity: Part 2
• Activity: Culture and
Collective Learning Debate
(WH)
• Closing: DQ Notebook
6.3—How Did the First
Humans Live?
Investigation Writing: Claims,
Purpose, Reasoning, and
Cohesion
Our Paleolithic ancestors
were foraging nomads who
eventually migrated across six
continents. These early humans
made tools, used fire, and
sustained themselves in diverse
environmental conditions.
At this point in the course,
your students have completed
five investigation essays that
you have evaluated with the
Writing and Investigation Rubric.
One effective way to improve
that is by having students
become more familiar with the
rubrics used to evaluate their
writing. In this activity, they will
evaluate some sample writing
as a means of becoming more
familiar with what is expected
of them when they write
Investigation Essays.
BIG HISTORY PROJECT / SY 2016-17 / UNIT 6 GUIDE
• Watch: How Did the First
Humans Live?
• Activity: Hunter Gatherer
Menu
• Read: “Foraging”
• Activity: Human Migration
Patterns
• Watch: From Foraging to
Food Shopping
• Watch: Genealogy and
Human Ancestry
• BHP Writing Rubric
• Activity: Little Big History –
Choosing Your Focus
• Closing: Investigation 6
• Score sample essays
• Sample essays
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TEACHER MATERIALS
Lesson name
Lesson description
Content
Activity
Additional content
Additional content items,
including image galleries,
can be used to augment
lessons or customize
your own unit.
• Human Ancestors (gallery)
• Activity: Claim Testing –
Collective Learning
• What Makes Humans
Different? (gallery)
• Collective Learning at Scale
(video)
• Activity: Change Over Time
Essay
• How Did the First Humans
Live? (gallery)
• The Brain: A Brief Big
History - H2 (video)
• Writing: A Brief Big History H2 (video)
• Below Zero - H2 (video)
• How Did Our Ancestors
Evolve? (video)
• What Makes Humans
Different? (video)
• “Pierre Teilhard de Chardin”
(reading)
• Migrations and Technological
Creativity (video)
• Making Stone Tools (video)
• Learning tips
• Random facts
• Related galleries, images,
websites, and videos
• Web links
Assessments
Actions
Unit 6 includes a required
Investigation Writing
assessment, the second of
three such assessments
in the course.
• Investigation Writing
• Glossary Challenge
• Unit Quiz (optional)
• Investigation writing
The Unit Log is required for
every unit.
• Unit Log
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TEACHER MATERIALS
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