As part of the timeline activities that you completed in previous lessons, you learned about the idea of periodizing history. In this activity, you’ll think about how you would periodize the past, and you’ll think about how periodizing something—in this case, the Big History timeline—reframes that thing. Looking at periodization from multiple angles helps you become a more critical consumer of the historical accounts you encounter.

Look at the Big History timeline. Remember, this timeline was periodized by thresholds of increasing complexity. By periodizing this way, David Christian emphasizes a particular concept: the world changed dramatically with every new threshold and there was no turning back. Do you think the history of the Universe could be periodized in other ways to highlight a different theme or send a different kind of message?

In this activity, you’re going to get into small groups and brainstorm a different way to periodize the history of the world. Quickly answer the following three questions, and then be prepared to share your ideas with the class:

1. In addition to thresholds of increasing complexity, how might you periodize the history of the Universe?
2. How many periods are there when you do it this other way?
3. What message or theme was your group trying to convey by periodizing in the way you chose?

After everyone has shared how they periodized the history of the Universe, think about the following question: Multiple people might give historical accounts of the same events, and for you to get a very different story based on how each person periodized that account. How does periodization help you when looking at the past? How might it cause problems when thinking about the past?

The world has experienced dramatic changes in the past 250 years. Humanity’s use of fossil fuels to power machines and our increasing global connections have caused an acceleration of collective learning. But, these rapid changes have also created many problems, especially for our environment. Our last threshold of increasing complexity—the Modern Revolution—has led scientists to propose that we’re living in a new geological epic, one in which humanity is impacting the Earth for millions of years to come—the Anthropocene.

Unit 9 brings us to our last threshold of increasing complexity—the Modern Revolution. In this video, you’ll learn about how new energy sources coupled with increasing human connections and population have led to an era of new complexity. Evaluating the ways in which humanity has accelerated will help you to answer the driving question for this unit: To what extent has the Modern Revolution been a positive or negative force?

Preview

As a reminder, open and skim the transcript, and read the questions before you watch the video.

Key Ideas – Factual

Think about the following questions as you watch this video:

1. What is the Anthropocene?
2. How did travelers and merchants in the Islamic world and Indian Ocean like Ibn Mājid help later European explorers?
3. How did collective learning increase after the Columbian Exchange?
4. What are the ingredients and Goldilocks Conditions for our last threshold of increasingly complexity—the Modern Revolution?
5. How did industrialization and the use of fossil fuels lead to social and economic changes?
6. Homo sapiens (humans) have been around for about 250,000 to 300,000 years, but what two revolutions led our species to experience the most change in the past 11,000 years?

Thinking Conceptually

1. Do you agree with geologists who propose that we’ve entered a new geologic epoch called the Anthropocene? Use evidence to back up your answer and explain your reasoning.
2. Rachel poses a question at the end of the video about what the next 250 years will bring. What do you think will be the big changes to occur in the next 250 years?

In this activity, you’ll think about what people’s lives were like at different periods in human history. Looking at a day in the life of people over the course of history is another way of periodizing the past. In addition, thinking about the past from the point of view of others helps us understand the causes and consequences of many events in history.

Scale
This activity gives a great opportunity to compare and contrast what someone’s life was like at the same spatial scale over long periods of time. In using local scales over time, you can begin to see some of the enduring continuities and frequent changes that are inherent to studying the past.

You’re going to think about what a day was like for a person in 13,000 BCE, 1400 CE, 1750 CE, 1900 CE, and today. Thinking about how people lived at different times is another way we can periodize human history. This can also show us how people in a particular location evolved over time.

Complete the A Day in the Life Worksheet by filling out a day in the life for a person in each of the time periods. You can use the Big History timeline to get a sense of what was happening in each of those time periods and on each of the continents. If time permits, you might want to go online to do some research to help fill in some details. You may not be able to find exactly what you’re looking for, but you can infer some of the information. For example, in the Paleolithic era (13,000 BCE), you know that people were hunter-gatherers, so ask yourself, “What could those people have reasonably been doing at that time? Maybe something to do with hunting and gathering?”

Before you get started, pick a location for each “day in the life.” For example, you might pick an adult female in China, a teenage male in Africa, or a baby somewhere in Europe. Or, you could do a day in the life of yourself.

Once you’ve had a chance to fill out your worksheet, be prepared to discuss the following questions as a class: Does this seem like a good way to periodize history? What is gained by using a method like this? What is lost?

The Modern Revolution has created a world very different from the one you studied in the age of the foragers and the agrarian era. The connection of the four world zones, expanding networks of exchange, and new sources of energy have allowed humans to become a global species and the dominant life form in the biosphere.

In this video, David Christian provides an introduction to the eighth threshold of increasing complexity, the Modern Revolution. Knowing how and why the Modern Revolution developed is critical to understanding this threshold’s emergent properties—globalization, increased control over Earth’s resources, and rapid population growth—which will be the focus of much of this lesson.

Preview

The connection of the four world zones created access to important new sources of energy and a great acceleration of innovation and collective learning. These changes resulted in the Modern Revolution.

Key Ideas—Factual

Think about the following questions as you watch the video:

1. What does Christian mean by the terms Modern Revolution and the Anthropocene?
2. How did humans become a global species and how did this contribute to the Modern Revolution?
3. What new sources of energy became available and how did they contribute to the Modern Revolution?
4. What are the consequences of this revolution?

Thinking Conceptually

After watching this video, answer the following question: Do you think that our capacity for collective learning will continue to bring about the innovations necessary to support the food and energy needs of a growing population?

In this activity, you’ll use a similar process to the one in the opening activity of this lesson, but this time you’ll try to periodize human history. Not only will this get you thinking about the richness of human history, but also the different ways in which you might tell stories about human history. This reinforces the idea that periodization is really an analytical tool in history, one that can help people both understand and explain events of the past.

In the opening activity of this lesson, you re-periodized Big History. In this lesson, you’re going to take on a similar task, but this time you’re going to periodize human history. Human history has been periodized in many different ways, but you are going to come up with a fresh perspective. For example, some people might look at human history as a history of wars. Others might look at it in terms of human migrations and demography, while others might think about the structure of governments over time. The list is endless.

Your job is to periodize human history based on a particular theme. After you’ve done that, you’re going to tell a story and draw some conclusions based on that theme. Your teacher will put you into groups and ask you to think about history and what you really want to know about it. Are you interested in the history of food? The history of religion? Or the history of farming? Once you’ve settled on a theme, look at the Big History timeline and break up major events in history according to your theme.

Then, add these major events to a new timeline and answer the following questions:

1. What are the major turning points in your timeline?
2. What story are you trying to tell by using this framing to explain human history?
3. What was the hardest part of periodizing according to a specific theme?
4. Do you think your timeline is missing any important events in human history? Can your theme reasonably convey what happened over time?

Once you’re done with your timeline, be prepared to give the class a short explanation of how you went about periodizing. Does looking at the timelines all together change your perception of human history? Is each timeline, although themed differently, telling basically the same story? Do the stories complement one another, making the past a richer story? Do any of the timelines appear to contradict one another?