Physically modern humans evolved over a long time and alongside other, related species. Our ability to use and make tools gave our ancestors the ability to spread to new environments. Our ability to share information and produce symbols helped us to master those environments. Gradually, people populated almost the whole world. But populations remained small until the development of farming. Farming allowed us to produce more calories, feed more people, and eventually build villages and towns. Yet there is some evidence that early farmers had more difficult lives than foragers.

This video introduces you to several important transformations in humans and human societies that began during Era 2. The first is the cognitive revolution, a dramatic change in the way we think and express ourselves. Our ancestors also populated much of the world, and began to farm. This was one of the most dramatic innovations in human history, but why did it happen and was it a good idea? In this video, the Era 2 problem is introduced: What caused some humans to shift from foraging to farming and what were the consequences of this change?

Preview – Skimming for Gist

Before you watch the video, open and skim the transcript. Additionally, you should always read the questions below before you watch the video (a good habit to use in reading, too!). These pre-viewing strategies will help you know what to look and listen for as you watch the video. If there is time, your teacher may have you watch the video one time without stopping, and then give you time to watch again to pause and find the answers.

Key Ideas – Understanding Content

Think about the following questions as you watch this video

1. This video begins by stating that for almost all of human history, our ancestors were foragers. What is a forager?
2. An archaeologist named James Mellaart found a painting on the wall of a house in Çatalhöyük. How did he interpret that painting, and why was it significant?
3. Çatalhöyük was a Neolithic society. What does Neolithic mean and how did Neolithic societies live, according to the video?
4. We generally think that life must have been easier for farmers than for foragers. What evidence is produced in this video that suggests this may not have been the case?
5. What was the cognitive revolution?
6. What do many scholars now believe about the painting found by James Mellaart?

Evaluating and Corroborating

1. You have not yet seen all of the articles and videos in this era, but based on what you learned in this video, and your previous knowledge, do you think it was likely that early farmers lived better lives than foragers, or not? Why?
2. You have just learned about archeologist James Mellaart’s interpretation of the map at Çatalhöyük. How did other scholars interpret the map later? What do these different interpretations suggest to you about how you should approach historical evidence?

Most of human history is a story of tiny bands of people foraging and hunting. We call this era the Paleolithic, and it was a period of innovation and discovery for our ancestors. Researchers can see at least three big changes in this period: the cognitive revolution that allowed us to plan and communicate, the spread of humans to new environments around the world, and the development of farming and animal domestication. These innovations led to big changes in how our ancestors lived in many places by the end of this Era.

This overview will introduce you to three big transformations of humans and global history in Era 2. The first is the cognitive revolution. This happened alongside, and made possible, the spread of humans from our African homeland to the other continents and regions of the world. Finally, in many places, human societies learned to farm and domesticate animals.

Preview – Skimming for Gist

Fill out the Skimming section of the Three Close Reads worksheet as you complete your first close read. As a reminder, this should be a quick process!

Key Ideas – Understanding Content

For this reading, you should be looking for unfamiliar vocabulary words, the major claim and key supporting details, and analysis and evidence. By the end of the second close read, you should be able to answer the following questions:

1. What does the author of this article argue about “most” of human history? How would you respond to this argument?
2. What types of evidence do scientists use to understand how and when humans migrated to new regions of the world?
3. What was the cultivation revolution, and why was it important?
4. The author does not give an opinion on whether or not the shift to farming in some places was a good idea. What is some evidence used to show both the positives and the negatives of the shift to farming?

Evaluating and Corroborating

At the end of the third close read, respond to the following questions:

1. At the end of this introduction, what do you think will be the most exciting or important thing you learn about in this Era?

The cognitive revolution allowed us to develop language. Language made it possible to develop large, stable bands and communicate with neighboring bands and communities. The result was a global patchwork of little communities and networks. But late in this era, farming developed independently in several places and then spread to surrounding communities through our networks. Farming began to really change the way we produced and distributed goods and, eventually, lived.

The purpose of this video is to view the big transformations in Era 2—such as the cognitive revolution, the migration of people to cover much of the earth, and the development of farming—through the three frames of the course. Through these frames, you can begin to understand how these developments were part of a history of change that we are still experiencing today.

Preview – Skimming for Gist

Before you watch the video, open and skim the transcript. Additionally, you should always read the questions below before you watch the video (a good habit to use in reading, too!). These pre-viewing strategies will help you know what to look and listen for as you watch the video. If there is time, your teacher may have you watch the video one time without stopping, and then give you time to watch again to pause and find the answers.

Key Ideas – Understanding Content

Think about the following questions as you watch this video

1. According to this video, how did the cognitive revolution and the development of language help our ancestors to survive and thrive?
2. Watch the animation of humans populating the world. Where were humans first? Where did we go next? What regions were populated last, according to the animation?
3. What does the video argue was the biggest change of the era, through the frame of production and distribution?
4. According to the video, did everyone become a farmer in this period?
5. According to the video, why was the shift to farming a big deal?

Evaluating and Corroborating

1. Based on what you know so far, if you lived in this period, would you rather have been a farmer, or a forager? Why?

This era follows the story of early humans as they spread across all regions of the world and developed farming. Agriculture developed independently at different times and in several different regions of the world. The purpose of this activity is to introduce you to the agricultural regions where farming first developed. The focus of this activity is on the task of identifying and predicting with maps. As the opening map activity for this era, this is intended to help orient you in time and space while raising some important questions about the geography you’ll encounter in his era.

You’ll begin this activity by identifying several agricultural regions that developed farming independently. Next, you’ll make some predictions (or guesses) about which of these regions developed farming the earliest and why.

Step 1

This activity is intended to introduce you to the major geographic regions that experienced agricultural revolutions. You’re not expected to have all the answers for this activity. Instead, you’ll make informed guesses, which you can confirm or correct as you move through Era 2 readings and videos. Your teacher will divide you into small groups, and your group should review the list of agricultural regions and attempt to label them on the blank map.

Step 2

With your group, choose the three agricultural regions you think might have developed farming at the earliest dates. In the worksheet, you should record the region, along with guesses for when you think farming developed and which crops people might have farmed there. Finally, write brief explanations for why your group thinks this region was likely to have developed farming so early. You should save these maps to reference in the Part 2 map activity later in this era.

Each unit of the WHP course is guided by an Era Problem. You’re learning a ton of stuff in this and every other era, and it can be hard to keep track of what’s most important. It would be pretty easy to become obsessed with a detail that, although interesting and a great way to impress people at a party, is relatively unimportant. This activity will help you stay focused! You’ll think about the Era Problems, and then you’ll respond to questions about them in writing. By keeping track of how your thinking changes throughout each era, you’ll see how much you’re learning as you move through each section of the course.

Use the Era 2 Problem Notebook Worksheet to respond to the prompts as best as you can. Be prepared to talk about your ideas with your class.

This repeated activity should help you become familiar with a process for understanding unfamiliar words anytime you encounter them in the course.

Take out your vocab tracker and be sure to record new and unfamiliar words on it according to your teacher’s instructions.

Understanding vocabulary is integral to you being able to access course content. This word wall activity will expose you to some of the most important words in Era 2.

In this activity, you’ll work with your class to create a word wall using the Era 2 vocabulary.

Your teacher will assign a vocab card to each of you. Once you get yours, take a few minutes to look it up in the Era 2 Vocab Guide and then examine the era itself (click around and quickly skim the content) to see where in the era your word might be most applicable. Once you’ve done your research, create a sentence using your word. And, just like you did in Era 1, get ready to argue for why your word is the “best” one to start with. After everyone has given a pitch on their word, you’ll all decide which two words should make it onto the wall first.

Your teacher may add some fun twists to this assignment, so be sure to listen closely for directions!

From ice cream consumption, to climate change, to Nicolas Cage and deadly pools, charts convey some critical information. But they’re not always easy to read. In this guide, Marissa Major introduces you to some common types of charts and provides strategies on how to read them. But remember, people can use charts—and data—to lie. So, it’s always important to evaluate the stories told by the charts you encounter. The future of mint chocolate chip just might depend on it.

This guide is the first part of Project X. Project X is a series of articles and activities built into the course that are designed to teach you how to read, evaluate, and use data and charts. This guide introduces some of the basic concepts of different kinds of charts and warns you about some common ways that people use charts to manipulate the truth. Don’t throw away this guide when you’re done reading it—it will be useful later, when you encounter your first Data Exploration. In the next Project X activity, you will learn another Three Close Reads process, specific to Data Explorations, but for this article, you can use the Three Close Reads process you already know so well!

Preview – Skimming for Gist

Fill out the Skimming for Gist section of the Three Close Reads worksheet as you complete your first close read. As a reminder, this should be a quick process!

Key Ideas – Understanding Content

For this reading, you should be looking for unfamiliar vocabulary words, the major claim and key supporting details, and analysis and evidence. By the end of the second close read, you should be able to answer the following questions:

1. Why is the chart linking violent crime and ice cream sales misleading?
2. Where are the x-axis and y-axis located on the chart about student knowledge in WHP?
3. What are variables?
4. What is scale in charts?
5. How is the “Average Annual Global Temperature in Fahrenheit” chart misleading?
6. Are Nicolas Cage films drowning people in pools?

Evaluating and Corroborating

At the end of the third close read, respond to the following question:

1. Can you think of any examples you’ve seen of someone using data or charts to present misleading information?

Access to the “World Population Since 10,000 BCE” chart

In this activity, you are introduced to the WHP Three Close Reads for Data tool, which will provide you with a method for unpacking the charts you will encounter in this course and identifying the various elements of data visualizations. Instead of simply accepting data visualizations as truth, you will learn to evaluate the quality of data and the ways that data can be manipulated in charts. This will help you throughout this course, as well as encourage you to be thoughtful and inquisitive when coming across visual representations of data in your everyday life.

The Three Close Reads strategy for articles may already be familiar to you. In order to help you develop your ability to “read” data, the Three Close Reads for Data process is solely focused on the charts and graphs in the data articles.

Project X includes several articles that will introduce you to a series of charts from the Our World in Data website. While the articles provide historical context and an overview of the information contained in the charts, the Three Close Reads for Data tool will guide you through the process of reading, understanding, and evaluating each chart you encounter. Before you begin the Data Explorations, be sure to read the article, “A Guide to Reading Charts.”

Even though charts and maps are graphics—they’re essentially pictures—they still need to be “read” in much the same way you read text. Three Close Reads for Data is a helpful tool for getting all the information you need from the charts. Don’t worry— you’ll get faster and faster with each reading!

Take a look at the Three Close Reads for Data worksheet and quickly review the process for opening and reading the charts linked in the article.

Overall question or idea to think about as you read:

Before you read the article or open the chart, your teacher will give you a question or idea to think about as you read. Write this question or idea in the box provided at the top of the Three Close Reads for Data worksheet. Keep this framing question or idea in mind as you explore the charts.

Reading 1 – What do we have?

The first close read is really meant to be a quick scan of the chart to identify its labels, variables, and scale. It should be very quick and allow you to identify what the chart is measuring. You should be looking at the title, labels, and captions. You should determine whether this is an interactive chart, but don’t start playing with any interactive functions just yet. On the Three Close Reads worksheet, look at the “Questions” section for the first close read and see which questions you can answer quickly.

Reading 2 – What do we know?

Now, look at second section of the worksheet. Here, you’re trying to understand the “story” the chart is telling by identifying its arguments and evaluating its presentation of data. Review the “Pay Attention to…” and “Questions” sections of the worksheet so you know what to keep in mind as you start to examine the chart and play with any interactive elements. If the chart is interactive, what elements can you change? Does that change your understanding of the chart’s story?

By the end of the second close read, you should be able to answer the following questions:

1. How has the global human population changed in the last 12,000 years?
2. In what 50-year period did the human population increase most dramatically?
3. Has the global human population ever shrunk? When? What events might have caused this?
4. What argument is this chart is making? How did the creator of this chart want you to feel after seeing it?
5. What dates do we seem to have the best data for? Do you think you can trust the population data used in this chart?

Reading 3 – What does this tell us?

Now, it’s time for the third and final read. For this read, focus on why this chart matters, how it can inform us about the past and prepare us for the future. At the end of every Reading 3, you should make a prediction about how the topic covered by the chart will change during your lifetime. How might the global population change in the next 25 years? 50 years? 100 years?

At the end of the third read, discuss the following questions with your class:

• Why does this chart matter? What do global changes in population tell us about human communities, networks, and production and distribution?
• Using this chart, make one prediction about how the global human population will change in your lifetime. What evidence from the chart supports your prediction? Is there any evidence that challenges it?

Open “World Population since 10,000 BCE” chart in your internet browser: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/world-population-since-10000-bce-ourworldindata-series

Demography is the study of populations. This article and the chart it contains introduce you to what is probably the most important demographic story in history: the dramatic increase in the human population in the last two centuries. The chart measures human populations from 12,000 years ago (10,000 BCE) to today. For most of our history, the human population has grown quite gradually. Then, after about 1800, our numbers began to rise very quickly and reach very high numbers. Today, there are over 7 billion of us on this planet. In 1800, we numbered about 1 billion.

This article introduces you to what we call a data exploration. In each data exploration, you’ll be asked to read one or more charts. The ability to read, analyze, and evaluate charts is really important—in this course and beyond. Reading, analyzing, and evaluating charts helps you understand how people are representing history, but it can also help you be a better consumer of media and the news. We constantly see data used to make claims in the world, so it’s important for you to be able to fully understand and analyze data visualizations like this chart so you can come to your own conclusions about that data.

Your teacher will let you know if there is an overall question to hold in your mind as complete your three reads of the article.

Preview – What Do We Have?

Fill out the Read 1: Preview section of the Three Close Reads for Data worksheet as you complete your first close read. Remember—this should be a quick process!

Key Ideas – What Do We Know?

For this read, your goal is to understand the “story” the chart is telling by identifying its arguments and evaluating its presentation of data. You will decide what claim or claims this chart is making and what evidence is being used to support those claims. Do you think the data is reliable? Is the chart misleading in any way? By the end of this read, you should be able to answer the following questions:

1. How has the global human population changed in the last 12,000 years?
2. In what 50-year period did the human population increase most dramatically?
3. Has the global human population ever shrunk? When? What events might have caused this?
4. What argument is this chart is making? How did the creator of this chart want you to feel after seeing it?
5. What dates do we seem to have the best data for? Do you think you can trust the population data used in this chart? Why or why not?

Making Connections – What Does This Tell Us?

The third read is really about why the chart is important, what it can tell us about the past, and how it can help us think about the future. At the end of this read, respond to the following questions:

1. Why does this chart matter? What do global changes in population tell us about changes in human societies? How has population growth affected the way we organize ourselves, communicate with each other, and make and use goods?
2. Using this chart, make one prediction about how the global human population will change in your lifetime. What evidence from the chart supports your prediction? Is there any evidence that challenges it?