Human Relationship With the Environment Ever since the first human beings, there has been a relationship between themselves and there environment surrounding them. Much of what is done by humans directly affects and shapes there relationship with there surroundings. We see many similarities as well as many differences from the early humans to more modern humans. Humans today still share a connection with there environment, although in some ways different we are still able to look at early civilizations more in depth knowing what we know today.
In the pre-modern era people relied much more heavily on there environment. They used everything that they could find to survive; this meant finding a healthy water supply, good plant and animal life, and later good soil. Like our agriculture system today, many peoples of the pre-modern era discovered an efficient way to develop there own source of food as well as early domestication of certain animals. Though not to our level of perfection, this is just one similarity that we share with our early human counterparts.
Before the great discovery of agriculture, there was an era known as the Paleolithic Era or “ old stone age” (Bentley 7). This era included hunter/gathering style of people who were always on the move finding more food and different water sources. The only thing that mattered to these people was keeping the tribe alive. Each person played there own role. For example, women usually gathered food and water for the tribe, and the men usually did all the hunting. Nothing was ever gained by these people, meaning they never gained any wealth or property (Bentley 7).
As the hunting and gathering lifestyle begins to evolve we see an emergence of what is known as agriculture. People began to settle in one place and grow crops as well as domesticate animals. We see the first examples of this movement in northern Africa around 5, 000 B. C. Rising temperatures started to drive people toward large water supplies. One major example of such water supplies is the Nile River Valley. Every spring the Nile River’s water would recede leaving the people with a thick fertile layer of mud which was perfect for growing very healthy, prosperous crops.
This era became known as the Neolithic Era or “ new stone age” (Bentley 29). People finally had a place that they can call there own; there was something to live for and new things to strive for. On top of human impacts, there were many natural occurrences that helped shape and develop life as we know it today. One of the major impacts happened with the end of the last Ice Age. The major melting of this ice created many land bridges leading people to new undeveloped land masses with much opportunity.
In example, there was a land bridge formed which connects Siberia to Alaska. This allowed humans to travel into the Americas from Asia. Another important natural occurrence, was the development of the human brain. As human beings became more intelligent, the way life was began to change drastically. There ways of thinking began to evolve making life as they know it much better. Humans today evolved about 2, 000 years ago and are known as homo sapiens, this means “ consciously thinking human”(Bentley 7).
This more advanced beings led to many more problems to be solved making life for them easier in many ways. There are many things that we can find that are similar to our pre-modern ancestors. We can also find drastic changes in there actions. During the present times, we still use agriculture to provide much of our food. Although this is a similarity, the way we do things, from the growing process all the way to the harvest has been remodeled by technology and other growth supplements. Today we have many luxuries that make help us provide for ourselves much better.
Nearly all of the work done in the pre-modern period was done manually; in todays times, we do everything we can to cut down manual labor. Humans have been impacting the environment since the beginning of time. Many things have changed but also many things have remained the same. Also many other factors played a part in shaping this world that we live in today; from the extremely drastic event of the ice age to the simple development of the human brain, every little event factored in to shaping our lives as we know them.
