Chapters Two: The Development of Human Culture

Outline
2.1. Types of Society
2.2. Evolution of Humankind
2.3. Human dispersal
2.4. Agricultural Origins and Dispersal
2.5. Industrial origins and dispersal
2.6. Evolution of Settlement Patterns
2.6.1. Origin and spread of Settlement
2.6.2. Settlement Types & Morphology
2.6.3. Neighbourhood, Community and residential units
2.6.4.Indices of settlement morphology

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The Development of Human Culture

Introduction
The date to the appearance of Homo is much in doubt.
 A better documented date for East African Homo habilis is 2 million
years ago.
Homo habilis, known as 'handy man' is a species of the genus Homo
which lived from approximately 2.33 to 1.4 million years ago, during
the Gelasian Pleistocene period.
In its appearance and morphology, Homo habilis is the least similar to
modern humans of all species in the genus.
Homo habilis was short and had disproportionately long arms
compared with modern humans, but with a less protruding face than
the australopithecines from which it is thought to have descended.

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The Development of Human Culture

Physically similar to the related Australpiticus, the first

humans showed clear evidence of the beginnings of culture
through tool and fire making.

It is assumed that they had use of language and perhaps were
organized into linguistically based bands.

For the purpose of a general differentiation of the stages of

cultural development, cultural and social geographers
recognize the series of cultural-technological periods that we
employ below.

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Human evolution is characterized by a number of important
changes
 Morphological, cultural, physiological, and
 Behavioral those have taken place since the split
between the last common ancestor of humans and
chimpanzees.
For instance, the first major morphological change was the
evolution of a bipedal locomotors adaptation from an
arboreal or semi-arboreal one.

• Similarly, through time humans has also

• Developed the capacity to create tools and

• Institutions based on that complex symbolic understanding

intertwined with the development of other basic forms of culture.

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Developments, cultural and social geographers recognize the
series of cultural-technological periods.

These are
A. The Stone Age

a. Paleolithic period (Old Stone Age),

b. Mesolithic period (Middle Stone Ago), &
c. Neolithic period (New Stone Age)),
B The iron Age and
C. The Bronze Age.

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Each successive period was marked by a wider distribution of
humans over a greater range of habitat.

Each period displayed improving capabilities of humans to

utilize their environment for their needs and to produce from it
higher levels of support for increasing population numbers.

A. Stone Age
The Paleolithic Period (Old Stone Age)

Homo erectus had migrated from Africa to Asia and southern Europe.

had stone tools, more carefully shaped and differentiated and worked
to standardized designs than those made by its predecessors.
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These tools also indicate that societies had an established division
of labor between men and women and between adults of the same
sex.

A hunter of large game animals and a gatherer of plant food,

Homo erectus maintained home bases with fireplaces and had
begun the construction of shelters.

Division of labor between hunting male and foraging female

created and preserved individual biological families, and the
sharing of meat from the collective hunt forged social bonds
holding together permanent bands.

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Cro-Magnon and before Neanderthal people inhabited
Western Europe and the lands around the Mediterranean
Sea from about 100,000 to approximately 10,000 years
ago.
They made several kinds of tools, used animal skins
and furs for clothing, and were able hunt big game. Art
and religion were important parts of the culture
Figure: Paleolithic stone tools and art

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The Mesolithic period (middle stone age)
The retreats of the last glaciers about 11,000 years ago
marked the beginning of the Mesolithic period (the
Middle stone ago) in cultural development in the Old
world.
Glacial recession and the resulting warm weather
produced various climatic, vegetation, and faunal
changes that imposed on humans new ecological
conditions to which adaptation was required.
Forests began to appear on the open plains and the
tundra of Europe and northern china.
In the Middle East, where plant and animal
domestication would later occur, dry steppes were
replaced by savanna vegetation.
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The large grazing animals, such as reindeer, mammoth, and
buffalo, retreated to the north or disappeared.
As the food and ecological base altered, so did human
technologies.
Such changes reflect the stresses felt by a continually growing
population since the carrying capacity of the earth for hunter-
gatherers is low.
The domestication of both plants and animals, which began
during this period,
led subsequently to fully developed agricultural societies
and to the creation of cities and city-based empires.
The Mesolithic period from about 11,000 to 5000 B.C.
In Europe-was crucial for the transition from the collection of
food to its production.
The regional contrasts between hunter-gatherer and sedentary
agricultural societies increased.
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The Neolithic period (New stone age)
Neolithic (or New Stone Age) designates a stage of
cultural development, not a specific span of time.
The term implies the creation of an advanced set of
tools and technologies to deal with the conditions and
needs encountered by an expanding, sedentary
population whose economy was based on the agricultural
management of the environment.
During this period, culture began to alter at an
accelerating pace, and change itself became a way of life.

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Humans learned the arts of spinning and weaving plant and
animals fibers.
They learned to use the potter’s wheel and to fire clay and make
utensils;
They developed techniques of brick making, mortaring, and

Building construction; and they discovered the skills of

mining, smelting and casting metals.
Permanent villages appeared along with such technical
advancements.

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 Table 2.1. Key dates and chief developments in the Evolution of Culture
Approximate
Cultural no of years Chief Developments
period before present

4-2 million Emergence of Australopithecus (Pliocene) and Homo

1.5 million (Pleistocene) Evolution of Homo erectus; migration to
Asia and Europe; use of fire and crude tools.
Paleolithic
100,000- Homo sapiens develop and disperse across world.
11,000 Hunting and gathering economy; variety of tools;
artwork; burial rituals; retreat of last glaciers.

11.000-9000 Domestication of plants and animals, some production of

food; semi- permanent settlements; further refinements of
Mesolithic tools.
9000-5500 Systems of agriculture; use of animals for work;
Specialization in occupation.
Neolithic 5500 to Growth of culture hearths, cities, city-states and empires;
present continuous development in all systems of culture.
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B. The Bronze Age


In this period, humans began to utilize metal such as bronze to

make tools.

Besides the towns were formed and extended to become cities.

In the society, there was work division between the agriculture

and artwork.

Human began to set the time and use calendar; the trading

activities appeared following by the transportation services

especially the transport by using animals as vehicles and by boats.

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C. Iron Age
In that period, instead of using bronze, human began using iron
to make transport instruments and weapon because in that
time, iron was easier available than bronze.

Important was that human were capable to melt down the iron and
make materials in the expected form.

This was a great success of the human being in term of

technique of the material production.

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Types of Society
There are several varied definitions of society depending on the
theoretical perspective employed by researchers.

While culture refers to the way of life of the members of a society,

society refers to the system of interrelationships that connect
individuals together as members of culture, referring to attitudes
and behaviors.
A society or a human society is thus a group of people related to
each other through persistent relations such as a social status, roles
and social networks.

Experts tend to classify different societies into four major types.

according to their political organization and social complexity.
From least to most socially complex, they are bands, tribes,
chiefdoms and states. 16
• The smallest functioning human group is the natural or nuclear
family consisting of two parents and immediate offspring.

• Nearly every human child begins life within a family, the first
social group the child comes to know.

• The factors that prompted language, tool making, and group

formation are unclear,
• but probably include information sharing matting, childcare, basic
subsistence requirements, cooperative hunting, and minimizing
conflict.

• Early human groups are typically labeled bands.

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A. Band is a small often as low as twenty and never
more than a few hundred,
autonomous group of people,
Made up of nuclear families that live together, and
are associated with a territory on which they hunt.

A band as a political structure is typically found amongst

societies with a hunter-gather economy.

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B. Tribe is a large collection or group of bands tied
together by familiar bonds/kinship ties such as lineages,
clan, and moieties, but the ties that bind a tribe are more
complicated than those of bands.

Tribes tend to have a common territory.

Leadership is personal or charismatic with no political

offices containing real power and a "chief" is merely a
man of influence, a sort of adviser.

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C. Chiefdoms are societies headed by individuals with
unusual ritual, political, or entrepreneurial skills.

The society is kin-based but more along hierarchical

lines than a tribe.

Chiefdom is associated with greater population density.

It has centers which coordinate economic, social and

religious activities, hence more complex and more
organized than tribes.

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D. State is defined as "an autonomous political unit, encompassing

many communities within its territory and

having a centralized government with the power to

collect taxes, draft men for work or war, and declare and
implement laws."
Still, other scholars defined the society based on its level of
technology into the following six basic types,
Although humans have established many types of societies
throughout history.
1. Hunting and gathering societies 5. Feudal societies
2. Pastoral societies 6. Industrial societies
3. Horticultural societies 7. Postindustrial societies
4. Agricultural societies

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Types of Society
Hunting and gathering societies
The hunting and gathering societies primarily survive by
hunting animals, fishing, and gathering plants.
They are today on the verge of extinction.
These early small human societies completely depended
upon their immediate environment.
They were quite mobile because the society had to
relocate to an area where resources were plentiful when
the animals left the area, the plants died, or the rivers
dried up. 22
23
Although most of these societies were nomadic, small
villages might form in areas where resources were
abundant.
In this connection, males probably traveled long
distances to hunt and capture larger animals while
females hunted smaller animals, gathered plants, made
clothing, protected and raised children, and helped the
males to protect the community from rival groups

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Pastoral societies
Pastoral societies pasture animals for food and transportation.
They still exist today, primarily in the desert lands of North Africa.
Domesticating animals allows for a more manageable food supply
than do hunting and gathering.
Hence, pastoral societies are able to produce a surplus of goods,
which makes storing food for future use.

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Horticultural societies
As opposed to pastoral societies, horticultural societies rely on
cultivating fruits, vegetables, and plants.
Like hunting and gathering societies, they were mobile and forced
the people to leave due to the depletion of the land resources or
declining water supplies.
Horticultural societies occasionally produced a surplus, which
permitted storage as well as the emergence of other professions not
related to the survival of the society.

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Agricultural societies
Agricultural societies use technological advances to cultivate
crops, especially grains such as wheat, rice, corn, and barley over a
large area.
The invention of animal drawn plough marked the beginning of
agrarian societies.
Experts use the phrase Agricultural Revolution to refer to the
technological changes that led to cultivating crops and raising farm
animals.
Increases in food supplies then led to larger populations than in
earlier communities.

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Feudal societies
From the 9th to 15th centuries, feudalism was a form of society
based on ownership of land.
Unlike today's farmers, vassals under feudalism were bound to
cultivating their lord's land.
In exchange for military protection, the peasants are expected to
provide food, crops, crafts, homage, and other services to the
owner of the land such as cultivating their lord's land for
generations.

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Feudalism was replaced by a new economic system called as
capitalism between the 14th and 16th centuries, which is marked
by open competition in a free market in which the means of
production are privately owned.

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Industrial societies

Industrial societies are based on using machines (particularly fuel-

driven ones) to produce goods.

The Industrial Revolution begun during the 18th century when

goods are produced in mechanized factories began.

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Postindustrial societies
Cultural and social geographers note that with the advent of the
computer microchip, the world is witnessing a technological
revolution.
This revolution is creating a postindustrial society based on
information, knowledge, and the selling of services.
Society is being shaped by the human mind, aided by computer
technology, rather than being driven by the factory production of
goods,.
Although factories will exist, the key to wealth and power seems
to lie in the ability to generate, store, manipulate, and sell
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The evolution of humankind
• The nature of the evolutionary process has recently been the
subject of considerable controversy.

• Although our knowledge continues to increase, there is still much

that we do not know about human origins and early history.

• Current evidence suggests that the large apes evolved as one

primate line in Africa about 25 million years ago and then split into
a number of relatively distinct evolutionary lines.

• One of these gave rise to gorillas, which in turn split into two
further lines, chimpanzees and humans.
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Using a combination of fossil, geological and genetic evidence that as this
split occurred, human ancestors diverged from the ape line about 6 million
years ago.

• The most compelling evidence is that humans and chimpanzees differ in

only about 1 per cent of their genes.

• Our ancestors become increasingly differentiated from other animals,

learned how to adapt to a variety of environments, and

• Gradually spread over the surface of the earth in a prolonged developmental

process.

• From an early date, humans and their immediate ancestors demonstrated

their ability to be the active elements in the complex of human environment
interactions leading to the peopling and the exploitation of the earth's
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surface.
Evolution of Human species

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Australopithecus

Not accepted by all scientists as a hominid, ramapithecus appears

to have moved from the trees to a more open savanna environment.

By about 2 million years ago, the branch leading to modern

humans was represented by possibly two types.

One was tough, with a massive face and strong facial muscles,
essentially a vegetarian and a grubber of roots.

Scientists now think that this strong vegetarian died out about
two hundred fifty thousand years ago.

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• The other type, slender in build and about four feet tall, was most
likely a hunter.

• The samples of teeth he had indicate carnivorousness, suggesting

that meat was the predominant component of the diet.

• This type became extinct at an early period, or possibly was

replaced by a larger, stronger creature.

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Australopithecus
 One of these was Australopithecus, "near man," walking erect and with
limb and tooth structures.

These creatures were clearly the first hominid, or " Humanlike" creatures,
diverged from their apelike ancestors.

Australopithecus may have given rise to the genus Homo, or "true man".

Not surprisingly, there is fossil evidence of their presence throughout

eastern and southern Africa.

Fossil evidence found in Afar, Ethiopia farther to the north, shows that
bipedalism, two footed movement, was fully developed.

This is a critical adaptation that permitted efficient movement ver great

distances while carrying objects at the same time.

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Australopithecus

The now-famous "Lucy", discovered in 1974 and assigned a

disputed age of 3.6 million years, and

The perhaps 4-millionyears old male fossil unearthed in 1982 to

the south of the "Lucy" site in Ethiopia have been assigned the
species name Australopithecus afarensis,

The Afar ape-man, in part reflecting the size and shape of the
chimpanzee like skull.

This species had a small brain of about 440 ml (modern human

brains average 1,450 ml).
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Australopithecus

The creatures evolved in eastern and southern Africa were of

short creatures, no taller than a preteenage boy, of the genus or
family known as Australopithecus.

These creatures walked in a stooped but some-what upright

manner, and they lived on the ground.

Australopithecus was contemporary with early humans, but

arrived at an evolutionary dead end, and became extinct perhaps 1
million years ago.

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Homo Habilis

The next evolutionary event in the human ancestors occurred

about 3 million years ago

when this hominid line split into two types, one of which became
extinct and one of which evolved into modern humans.

The first representative of the line leading to modern humans

appears to be the species Homo habilis.

Both Australopithecus and Homo habilis were probably

restricted to Africa, notably the east and South African savanna
areas, eating small animals and plants.
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Homo Habilis cont’…….d

• But Homo hibilis used their increased brain size (about 680 ml) to
begin a new and important cultural behavior in that they made
stone tools.

• Tool making is a major technological advance.

• Brain size distinguished Homo habilis from other previous

hominids and from other hominid lines living at the same time.

• Some evidence suggests that Homo habilis, unlike

Australopithecus, possessed the capacity for speech.

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Homo Habilis cont’…….d
Although we are uncertain of the answers to the questions such as
why Australopithecus afarnensis split into two types about 3
million years ago and
why one of these become extinct, there is evidence to suggest that
global climatic changes are causal factor.

Evolutionary changes can be seen as varying adaptations to these

changing physical environments.

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Homo Erectus

The fossilized bones discovered in Java in 1991 and in China at

Choukoutien (Zhoukoudian) near Beijing in the 1920s,

Together with similar fossilized remains subsequently unearthed in

other parts of the old world,

Now regarded as belonging definitely to humanlike creature, but

of a much later period than the australopithecines mentioned
above.

This creature was known as Homo erectus because they walked

erect.
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Homo Erectus cont’…….d

After the appearance of Homo erectus, human biological evolution

stabilized for sometimes, although cultural adaptation, including
The use of clothing and
Shelters and fashioned crude stone tools (Lower Paleolithic or Old Stone
Age culture) and
Possibly knew how to create fire were considerable.
Different cultural adaptations were devised for different
environments.

By about 400,000 years ago, hunting strategies had progressed to

include the use
of fire and possibly planned hunting of larger game. 44
Homo Erectus cont’…….d
Seems to have used fire in caves as far back as 400,000years ago for
Heating, cooking, and
Protection against the attack of animals.
An innovation at this time was the introduction of relatively
permanent pair bonding-monogamy.
Human language also increased substantially to encourage the
gradual development of human culture.
This new species was distinguished from Homo habilis primarily
because of the increased brain size of about 1,000 ml, a brain size
at about the lower limit of modern humans.

Homo erectus first appeared in Africa and subsequently spread

over much of Africa and into the warm temperate areas of Europe
and Asia.
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Homo Erectus cont’…….d

Currently this hominid species is thought to be the first to move

out of Africa.

Some recent evidence suggests that Homo erectus may have

reached Asia shortly after the first appearance in Africa.

Reasons for this movement are not known, but the explanation
probably related to climatic change, population increases, and the
associated search for food. Again, the basis of subsistence was
hunting and gathering.

Homo erectus remained restricted to more temperate areas of the

old world. 46
Homo Sapiens
a) Homo Sapiens Neanderthalensis:
Some 400,000 years ago, an immediate precursor of modern
humans but a new hominid evolved from Homo erectus.
This species is similar to modern humans, but because there are
physical differences between them and modern humans, they are
often called archaic Homo sapiens.
Their mean brain size of 1,220 ml was about 85 percent of that of
modern humans.
The best known subset of these archaic was named Homo sapiens
Neanderthalensis (Neanderthal man),
who first appeared about 130,000 years ago and lasted until about
30,000 years ago.
The name is derived from a skull unearthed in 1856 in the
Neander Valley near Düsseldorf, in what is now the Federal
Republic of Germany.
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a) Homo Sapiens Neanderthalensis cont’……d

Over the past century, many other fossils, animals’ bones, and
hand worked tools have been uncovered in Africa, Asia, and
Europe, suggesting that Neanderthals were also widely dispersed.

The cave at Le Moustier in southern France-where

a great diversity of flaked stone tools, bone points and
spear like, sharpened animal rib have been found-has given its
name to local Neanderthal culture (i.e. Mousterian).

A number of Neanderthal burial sites suggest some degree of

social organization and possibly a religious consciousness.
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b) Homo sapiens Sapiens

Before the last advance of the ice had come to a halt, the
Neanderthals had presumably become extinct.

The sole hominid survivor of the period was Cro-Magnon man,

who is recognized as a member of the genus Homo sapiens
sapiens.

The Cro-Magnons, who were nomadic hunters, migrated into

Europe from the Middle East.

They occupied the coastal areas of the Mediterranean and

scattered inland to what was then the tundra, the treeless barrens on
the southern margin of the retreating glaciers in Europe. 49
b) Homo sapiens Sapiens cont’……d
The cave paintings in France and Spain suggest that these new
people had developed a way of life that was different from the
habits of the Neanderthals.
They had become considerably more skilled in the making of
stone and bone tools, they could draw and paint with considerable
skills and imagination, and
they had developed speech, which certainly has tended the
formation of social groups and the development of culture.
The warming trend in the earth’s climate that occurred about 8 to
10,000 years ago
Meant the extraction of many mammals that had long roamed
the earth-the woolly mammoth,
Giant wolves, and cave bears, as well as reindeer and horsing
in north America.
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b) Homo sapiens Sapiens cont’……d

These climatic changes were accompanied by movements of

people that resulted in a fundamental redistribution over the
surface of the earth.

New invaders from the near east and south-central Asia bought to
Europe advances in the art of tool making and a more highly
developed social structure.

Among these human beings were groups that were by

now essentially agriculturalist.

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b) Homo sapiens Sapiens cont’……d

• At the same time, other members of the human species had reached
the peripheral regions of the earth, the pacific island and Australia.

• We have now reached a critical point-the emergence of modern

humans, often called Homo spines sapiens.
• These humans spread though out the world replacing existing
archaic groups because of some adaptive advantage.

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b) Homo sapiens Sapiens cont’……d

• From this time onwards, human evolution is cultural, not

biological.
 Starting 12,000 years ago, human populations in several different
places developed agriculture, and the human species began to
increase in number.
Cities and state-level societies began about 8,000 years ago.
Subsequent cultural developments took place at an ever-increasing
pace.
The Industrial Revolution began only 250 years ago.

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Human Dispersals
The human migration path and year is a matter of debate and study.
But, on the basis of the current evidences: Early human migrations
began when Homo erectus first migrated out of Africa to Eurasia
about 1.8 million years ago.
Reasons for this movement may be related to climatic change,
population increase, and the associated search of food.
It also sparked by the development of language.
The expansion of Homo erectus out of Africa was followed by that
of Homo antecessor into Europe around 800,000 years ago.
Modern humans, Homo sapiens, evolved in Africa up to 200,000
years ago and reached the Near East around 125,000 years ago.
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From the Near East, these populations spread east to South Asia by
50,000 years ago and on to Australia by 40,000 years ago,
when for the first time Homo sapiens reached territory never
reached by Homo erectus.
Homo sapiens reached Europe around 40,000 years ago, eventually
replacing the Neanderthal population. East Asia was reached by
30,000 years ago.
The date of migration to North America is disputed; it may have
taken place around 30,000 ago, or considerably later, around 14,000
ago.

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Based on some not entirely consensual evidence, some authors argue that modern
humans left Africa using two different routes:
The Nile Valley heading to the Middle East, at least into modern Israel (120,000–
100,000 years BP); and
A second one through the present-day Babel Mandeb Strait
on the Red Sea (at that time, with a much lower sea level and narrower
extension), crossing it into the Arabian Peninsula, and then possibly going into the
Indian Subcontinent (75,000 years BP).
Figure 2.8: The route of the early human
migration

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Agricultural Origins and Dispersals
Geographers commonly divide human culture into four distinct
technical stages. These are
(1) food-gathering and hunting cultures,
(2) herding cultures,
(3) agricultural cultures, and
(4) urban cultures.
Each stage is matched by an increasing complexity of material
goods and social organization,
Agriculture, the tilling of crops and rearing of domesticated animals
to produce food, feed, drink, and fiber, has been the principal
enterprise of humankind through most of history.

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Agricultural Origins and Dispersals
Agriculture may be less than 12,000 years old and emerged
sequentially in several world regions.
Even today, agriculture remains by far the most important economic
activity in the world,
Occupying the greater part of land area and employing 45 percent
of the working population.
In some parts of Africa and Asia, over 80 percent of the labor
force is devoted to agriculture.
In North America, less than 2 percent of the population works as
agriculturalists.
Europe’s population is as thoroughly non-agricultural as North
58
Agricultural Origins and Dispersals
As the population of hunter-gatherers rose slowly at the end of the
glacial period, domestication of plants and animals began to occur
independently in more than one world area.
There is controversy on whether the domestication of animals
preceded or followed that of plants.
The sequence may well have been different in different areas.
Anyway, let us briefly discuss the origin and diffusion of plant and
animal domestication separately as follows.

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1. The Origin and Diffusion of Plant Domestication
The domestication of plants means the deliberate planting, raising,
and storing of the seeds, roots, or shoots of selected stock by humans.
As a result it represented a process, not an event.
The domestication of plants appears a time span of between 10,000
and perhaps as long as 20,000 years ago.
Regarding the question of how plant domestication came about,
there are different hypothesizes.
For instance, plant domestication was considered as a widely
adopted strategy for coping with the critical population pressures
encountered nearly simultaneously throughout the world.
In this case, domestication focused on plant species selected
apparently for their capability of providing large quantities of storable
60
calories or protein.
On the other hand, Carl O Sauer (1899-1975), an American cultural
geographer, believed domestication probably did not develop in
response to hunger.
He maintained that necessity was not the mother of agricultural
invention,
Because starving people must spent every working hour searching
for food and have no time to devote to centuries of leisurely
experimentation required to domesticate plants.
Instead, peoples accomplished it that had enough food to remain
settled in one place and devote considerable time to plant care.
The first farmers were probably settled folk, rather than migratory
hunters and gatherers.
He reasoned that domestication did not occur in grasslands or large
river floodplains.

61
In such areas, primitive cultures would have had difficulty coping
with the thick sod and periodic floodwaters.
Sauer also believed the hearth areas of domestication must have
been in regions where many different kinds of wild plants grew,
providing abundant vegetative raw material for experimentation and
crossbreeding.
Such areas typically appear in hilly districts, where climates change
with differing sun exposure and elevation and elevation above sea
level.
Most of geographers now believe that agriculture arose in at least
three such regions of biodiversity.
Perhaps the oldest among these primary centers is the Fertile
Crescent in the Middle East, which gave the world the great bread
grains-wheat, barley, rye, and oats-as well as grapes, apples,
olives, and many others.

62
When diffusion from the Fertile Crescent brought agriculture to
Ethiopia, a secondary center of domestication developed through
stimulus diffusion, adding crops such as sorghum, peanuts yams,
coffee, and okra.
 The second great agricultural innovation developed in Southeast
Asia. From it came rice, citrus, taro, bananas, and sugarcane,
among other corps.
 There too, stimulus diffusion apparently yielded a secondary
center, in northeastern China, where millet was domesticated.
 Later, American Indians in Mesoamerica achieved the third
great independent invention of agriculture, from which came crops
such as maize (corn), tomatoes, chili peppers, beans, pineapples,
sunflower, seeds, vanilla, pumpkins, tobacco, papayas and squash.

63
2. The Origin and Diffusion of Animal Domestication
Animal domestication, the successful breeding of species that are
dependent on human beings, began during the Mesolithic epoch.
The original motive for domestication of animal may not have been
economic reason.
Rather it was the outgrowths of the keeping of small or young wild
animals as pets for entertainment purpose and the attraction of
scavenger animals to the refuse (garbage) of human settlements.
The assignment of religious significance to certain animals and the
docility of others to herding by hunters all strengthened the human
animal connections that ultimately led to full domestication.
However, the critical question regarding to animal domestication is,
were the hunters the first societies to domesticate animals?
It was formerly thought that animals were domesticated by hunters
who captured young animals, brought them into hunting camps, and
gradually found uses for them.
64
According to Sauer suggests that, Probably, the domestication of
both household and herd animals came about when agriculturalists,
encountering the young of wild animals, brought them into the
home site either for the purpose of entertainment or for some
religious ceremony.
Gradually, however, as the production of milk became important, there was
further domestication and further selection and development of animals in order to
find the ones that would furnish the most milk as well as the ones that could be
used for meat animals, riding animals, or draft animals.
The early farmers of the Middle East in the Fertile Crescent deserve
credit for the first great animal domestications, most notably herd
animals.
The wild ancestors of major herd animals, such as cattle, pigs, sheep, and goats,
lived primarily in a belt running from Syria and southeastern Turkey eastward
across Iraq and Iran to central Asia.
The widespread natural occurrence of species able to be
domesticated made that certain. Cattle of different varieties, for
example, were domesticated in India, north-central Eurasia, Southeast
Asia, and Africa. Pigs and various domestic fowl are other examples. 65
Evolution of settlement patterns
The term settlement has two distinct meanings in geographic
literature.
It may refer to the colonization of new territories by migrating
peoples;
or it may refer to the grouping of peoples and houses into hamlets,
villages, towns and cities. It is with the second of these meanings that
we are concerned here.
1. Origin of settlement
Humans often settle in groups, mainly in bands and create artificial
shelter.
The human occupancy of the earth was begun by the groups of
individuals consisting of perhaps about one hundred, rather than
nuclear families because bands are required to collect food, defend
enemies and reproduce
66
There is abundant evidence that Neanderthals regularly occupied
the mouths of caves and rock shelters in Europe and Southwest Asia.
These provided a degree of weather protection, especially during
the colder times of the last ice age.
Concentrated smoke residues high on the walls of that cave suggest
that Neanderthals were using torches for light.
While some of the evidence of structures there is now in question, it
is clear that people were living seasonally at that site, creating fires,
cooking meat, and making tools.

67
By the early Neolithic period, both the circular and rectangular
floor plans were in use and construction involved small branches inter
woven and dubbed with mud plasters, sun dried bricks, and stone.
In this period, the houses were built for the purpose of storing
goods, penning, sheltering animals and as a place of work.
In the Paleolithic, people did normally live in shelters that were
built of perishable materials subject to collapse and rapid decay.
Therefore, it is difficult to know what the earliest human shelters
were.
The shelter of the early people changed dramatically from the
Paleolithic to the Neolithic era.
In the Neolithic, mud brick houses started appearing that were
coated with plaster.
The growth of agriculture made permanent houses possible.
68
Settlement Types & Morphology
It is easier to categorize settlements in terms of size than in terms of
complexity or rural/urban environments.
In terms of size, the settlement hierarchy is a useful means of
categorizing a given settlement (see schematic).
As much as the size of a settlement can vary (from an isolated rural
homestead to a massive urban sprawl of more than 10 million
people), so too can the shape of the settlement vary: In broad
terms, these shapes can be classified as nucleated, linear,
dispersed, and planned.
Nucleated settlements are characterized by a clustering of
buildings or structures around some central point, such as a market
square or a church.
Small rural villages often develop into this type of shape purely
because the population number and function of the village.
Many of the villages of rural Europe are typical nucleated
settlements, in which the market square or church forms the focal
point of the village. 69
Linear settlements are generally determined by physical parameters
such as a river or a road or a narrow coastline.
Essentially, the settlement grows linearly along the obstacle or
transport route to form a long, narrow settlement.
A typical origin for linear settlements is a pre-existing transport
route, along which houses and other buildings were constructed
over time, and only later on in the evolution of the town did lateral
roads and small concentrations of dwellings away from the focal
point or route develop.
Some villages and towns in the United States interior are typical
linear settlements, having been established along railway lines as the
rail network slowly developed over the country from east to west.70
Dispersed settlements offer a direct contrast with nucleated
settlements, in that it appears that the village evolved without a
focal point.
These settlements are found mostly in historical farming
communities and, hence, the resulting landscape is one in which
dwellings are scattered and irregularly shaped farmlands occupy the
areas between the dwellings.
England's farming villages are typical examples of dispersed
settlements, and even though development has taken place over
the centuries, the original layout of the village is still
identifiable.
In the England, these settlements are often referred to as 71
Planned settlements are a relatively recent phenomenon, and a
product of the field of town planning.
A planned settlement is often one that was established for a
particular economic function and therefore has defined activity areas
and transport routes.
Despite being considered a ‘modern’ way of establishing
settlements.
Villages are designed and laid out so that settlers could buy a
small tract of land in a gridded street plan for the purpose of
cultivating crops, provided they kept to their promise of constructing
permanent houses/buildings within time.

72
Rural and Urban settlements
Settlements are most commonly classified on the basis of size
and functions.
Accordingly, settlements are divided into rural and urban or villages
and towns.
There are no universally acceptable criteria to distinguish rural
from urban.
Different countries have evolved their own criteria to suit their own
requirements.
In fact, one finds a continuum of settlement ranging from hamlets
to megalopolises.
Rural settlements, are chiefly concerned with primary activities,
be they agriculture, fishing, mining, forestry etc. 73
Rural and Urban settlements
Urban settlements are nodal in character having secondary and
tertiary activities.
In Canada, settlements less than 1,000 persons are classified as
rural,
while in the United States, the upper limit is 2,500 persons.
In India, a settlement with a population up to 5,000 persons is rural,
while in Japan, settlement having a population up to 30,000 is rural.

74
In some countries, size is not the basis for differentiating rural from
urban rather it is the economic status or function.
The basic difference is that while in villages most of the people
are engaged in agricultural work,
In towns the chief occupation of the people is nonagricultural
i.e. industry, trade and services.

75
The criteria for settlement called as Urban
Occupational Structure: In addition to the size of population,
some countries such as India take into account the major economic
activities as a criterion for designating a settlement as urban.
In Italy, a settlement is called an urban, if more than 50 per cent of
the economically productive populations are engaged in non-
agricultural pursuits.
In India, more than 75 per cent of the work force of the settlement
should be engaged in non- agricultural activities, to be called urban.
Administrative Decision: In some countries, the administrative
set-up is a criterion for classifying a settlement as urban.
For example, in India even a settlement with less than 5,000
populations can become urban if it has a municipality, cantonment
board or a notified area.
In many Latin American countries, such as Brazil and Bolivia, any
administrative centre is called an urban irrespective of its size.
76
Location and Form Criteria: Depending upon its location, an
urban settlement may be linear, square, and star or crescent shaped.
The architecture and style of buildings depict historical and cultural
influences.
The towns and cities of developed and developing countries reflect
marked difference in planning and development.
While most of the towns and cities in developed countries are
well-planned and have regular shapes,
The urban settlements of developing countries, except for a few,
have grown haphazardly giving them irregular shapes.
For example, Chandigarh is a well–planned city, while Patna has
grown haphazardly.
77
Function: Towns perform a number of functions. In some towns, one particular
activity is predominant and the town is known for that function.
For example, Oxford is known as an educational town, Varanasi as a
religious centre, and Washington D.C. as an administrative town.
Thus on the basis of functions, towns and cities are classified as follow
Administrative Towns: Headquarters of the administrative departments of
Central Governments, such as New Delhi Canberra, Moscow, Beijing; Addis
Ababa, Washington, D.C., Paris and London are National Capitals
Defense Towns: Centers of military activities are known as defense towns.
Cultural Towns: Cultural towns are religious, educational, or recreational
towns. Jerusalem, Mecca, Aksum have religious importance, religious towns.
There are also recreational towns such as Las Vegas in the USA, Paris,
and Rome etc.
Industrial Towns: Mining and manufacturing towns have developed in
mining and manufacturing regions.
Towns, which have developed due to setting up of industries, are called industrial
towns. 78
Neighbourhood, Community and residential units
Neighborhoods are little communities within a larger community.
They have their own social, economic, architectural and/or ethnic
characteristics.
Neighborhoods join together to form the identity of the larger
community.
However, neighborhoods come in all shapes and sizes, and
exist in urban and rural locations.
A neighborhood is to the group of houses in the immediate vicinity
of one's house or the vicinity in which you live.
Neighborhoods exist in cities, villages, townships, hamlets, and
rural areas. 79
A neighborhood is made up of residential units, businesses,
industries, places of worship, and/or services (hospitals,
schools, fire departments, parks).
People often choose to live in a neighborhood based on the
components that exist in the neighborhood.
Neighborhood Structure: Neighborhoods can be formed naturally
over time or carefully designed by a city planner.
These two neighborhood types are called evolved and planned.
Evolved - The neighborhood forms over time and is based on
a particular language, occupation, and/or economic status. It may
contain a business, industry, school, church, and/or service.
Planned- The concept for the neighborhood is created by an
individual or corporation for a purpose.
The houses, streets, utilities, and other services may be included in
the design of the neighborhood. 80
Indices of Settlement Morphology
Nearest Neighbor Analysis
Settlements often appear on maps as dots.
Dot distributions are commonly used in geography yet their
patterns are often difficult to describe.
Sometimes patterns are obvious, such as when settlements are
extremely nucleated (grouped together) or dispersed (far apart).
In reality, the pattern is likely to between these two extremes and
any description will be subjective.
One way that a pattern can be measured objectively is
through the use of nearest neighbour analysis.
81
Nearest Neighbour Analysis is an approach designed to provide a
more objective, statistically based method of describing settlement
distributions.
I.e. it produces a figure which measures the extent to which a
particular pattern is clustered (nucleated), random or regular
(uniform).
The technique involves calculation of a nearest neighbor
index (Rn) based on a comparison between the settlement
pattern actually observed in an area and an assumed random
settlement pattern.

82
Indices of Settlement Morphology
Nearest Neighbor Analysis
In theory the index can range from 0 (when all
point are clustered closely together) to 2.15 (when all
points are distributed uniformly throughout the area under
consideration and so are as far away from one another
as possible).
An index value of 1.0 indicates a random distribution,
Close to 0 are regarded as indicating a ‘clustered’ pattern
Those near to 2.15 a ‘regular’ pattern.
Figure 2.2: Nearest Neighbor Analysis index

83
The following formula with example provides an illustration of how this
approach can be used.
The formula for calculating the index is as follows: Rn = D (obs) where
D (ran)
Rn is the nearest neighbour statistic;
D (obs) is the mean of the distances between the settlements in a area
D (ran) is the assumed means distance between settlements and their
nearest neighbors if all the settlements were randomly distributed
Apply the formula is a particular situation using the following procedure:
A. Delimit the area of study and define the type of settlements to be studied
(not always an easy task-a group discussion on this way be helpful)
B. Locate the settlements in the pattern to be analyzed on an appropriate map.
C. Measure the distance between each settlement (the settlement closest to it)
and record these distances.
D. Calculate the mean of the distance recorded in stage 3 about (D (obs) in the
formula).

84
E. Calculate the expected mean distance between settlements and their nearest neighbors in a random
distribution D (ran). This can be shown to be D (ran) =
a = the area of study in km2; and
n = the number of settlements within it
F. Finally, calculate the nearest neighbor index using the formula:

Thus, if the mean distance between settlements in an area of 800km2 was 3.5km and there were 25
settlements in the area:
a). The value of D (obs) would be 3.5;
b). The value of D(ran) would be

c). The nearest neighbor index (Rn) could then be calculated

This value shows that there is a tendency towards a regular pattern of settlement.

85
3. The Geography of Language, Religion and Ethnicity
3.1 The Geography of Language
Geographers have been interested in understanding different
aspects of cultural system such as language.
Language is an important focus for study because it is a central
aspect of cultural identity.
 Without language, cultural accomplishments could not be
transmitted from one generation to the next.
Language is the essential linking device in human cultures,
enabling members of a group to communicate freely with each
other.
It is also a barrier in that members of one language group
cannot communicate with members of other language group.
86
3. The Geography of Language, Religion and Ethnicity
3.1.1 Language: Definition and Character
 The term language can be defined in various ways.
 It can be defined as a systematic means of communicating ideas or feelings
by the use of conventionalized signs, gestures, marks, or especially
articulate vocal sounds.
 Language is also a system of symbols that allows members of a society to
communicate with each other.
 These symbols take the form of spoken and written words, which are
culturally variable and composed of the various alphabets used around the
world.
 In short it is a means communication based on commonly understood
meanings of sign or sounds.
 The word language comes from the Latin word lingua, meaning tongue, and
a language is often called a tongue.
 In our world today, there are about 5000-6000 languages.
 From this more than 200 languages have a million or more speakers.
 Of these, at least 24 have over 50 million speakers each.

87
3. The Geography of Language, Religion and Ethnicity
1.Characteristics of Language
 The major characteristics of language are the following:
 Language is the foundation of every culture. I.e. language is a vital
element of culture and no culture exists without it. It is a central aspect of
cultural identity, without language cultural accomplishments could not be
transmitted from one generation to the next.
 Language is a conveyor of ideas or cultural phenomena. It is the most
important medium by which culture is transmitted.  
 The language of a society structures perceptions of its speakers. This
means language shapes the way we think or perceive our environment. On
the other hand, Rules in language largely shape how we view and organize
the world around us.
 Language is a hall mark (typical feature) of cultural diversity. As a
result of this our planet earth is characterized by heterogeneous cultural
collections.
 Like all elements of culture, languages also pass through a process of evolution
and diffusion. That means language can be spread or expand from one area to the
other are with migration of people, conquest or colonialism and trade activities.
  Language can be considered as a clue to important cultural elements. For instance, camel
is very important source of food, transport and labor, reflecting this Arabic language has 80
words relates to camel. Similarly, Japanese contains over 20 words for various types of rice 88
3. The Geography of Language, Religion and Ethnicity
3.1.4 Origin of Language
The origin of language in the human species is a widely
discussed topic.
Today, there are numerous hypotheses about how, why, when
and where language might first have emerged.
But concerning the origin of the first language, there are two
main hypotheses.
Belief in divine creation. Many societies throughout history
believed that language is the gift of the gods to humans.
The most familiar is found in Genesis 2:20, which tells us that
Adam gave names to all living creatures.
This belief predicates that humans were created from the start
with an innate capacity to use language.
Natural evolution hypothesis. At some point in their evolutionary
development humans acquired a more sophisticated brain which
made language invention and learning possible.
89
The second critical question regarding the origin of language is
how might humans have devised the first language
First, there are four imitation hypotheses that hold that language
began through some sort of human impressions of naturally
occurring sounds or movements:
1. Language began when humans started naming objects, actions
and phenomena after a recognizable sound associated with it in
real life.
This hypothesis holds that the first human words were a type of
verbal icon, a sign whose form is an exact image of its meaning:
crash became the word for thunder, boom for explosion.
Some words in language obviously did derive from imitation of
natural sounds associated with some object: Chinook Indian
word for heart--tun-tun, Basque word for knife: ai-ai (literally
ouch-ouch).
Each of these iconic words would derive from an index, a sign
whose form is naturally associated with its meaning in real 90

space and time.

2. The first words came from involuntary exclamations of dislike,
hunger, pain, or pleasure, eventually leading to the expression of
more developed ideas and emotions.
 In this case the first word would have been an involuntary ha-
ha-ha, wa-wa-wa.
 These began to be used to name the actions which caused these
sounds
3. Vocabulary developed from imitations of animal noises, such as:
Moo, bark, hiss, meow, quack-quack.
4. Speech may have developed as a sort of mouth pantomime: the
organs of speech were used to imitate the gestures of the hand.
 In other words, language developed from gestures that began to
be imitated by the organs of speech the first words were lip
icons of hand gestures.

91
World Language Families
Generally two language families are recognized. These are i) Indo-European and
ii) Afro-Asiatic Families.
The Indo-European Language Family
The largest and most widespread language family is the Indo-European, which
is spoken on all the continents and is dominant in Europe, Russia, North and
South America, Australia, and parts of southwestern Asia and India.
The Afro-Asiatic Family.
It consists of two major subdivisions, Semitic and Hamitic.
The Semitic languages cover the area from the Arabian Peninsula and the
Tigris-Euphrates river valleys in the Fertile Crescent from Iraq (Persia)
westward through Syria and North Africa to the Atlantic Ocean.
Arabic is by far the most widespread Semitic language and has
the greatest number of speakers, about 200 million
Smaller numbers of linguistically related people who speak
Hamitic languages share North and East Africa with the Semites.
These tongues originated in Asia but today are spoken almost
exclusively in Africa, by the Berbers of Morocco and Algeria, the
Tuaregs of the Sahara, and the Cushitic of East Africa. 92
iii) Other Major Language Families.
The Niger-Congo language family, also called Niger-
Kordofanian, spoken by about 190 million people, dominates most
of Africa south of the Sahara Desert.
In Southeast Asia, the Vietnamese, Cambodians, and lesser tribal
peoples of Malaya, and parts of India, totaling 75 million people,
constitute the Austro-Asiatic family.
 
iv) Minor Language Families
Occupying refuge areas after retreat before rival language groups
are remnant language families such as Khoisan, found in the
Kalahari Desert of southwestern Africa and
Characterized by distinctive clicking sounds; Dravidian, spoken
by numerous dark-skinned peoples of southern India and adjacent
northern Sri Lanka; Australian Aborigine; Papuan; Caucasoid;
Nilo-Saharan; Paleo-siberian; Inuktitut; and a variety of
Amerindian families. 93
Geography of Religion
Religion is a belief system and a set of practices that recognizes the existence
of a power higher than humans do.
Religion is a matter of faith, belief anchored in conviction rather than scientific
evidence.

World religion
Judaism is the older of the other two monolithic religions of Christianity and
Islam.
It is distributed throughout parts of the Middle East and North Africa, Russia,
Ukraine, and Europe, and parts of North and South America.
Judaism is one of the world’s great religions, but apart from the state of Israel,
it is now scattered and dispersed across much of the world.

94
Christianity has the most adherents, with 33.32 percent of the
world’s population practicing some form of this faith.
This is followed by Islam (21.01 percent),
Hinduism (13.26 percent), and
Buddhism (5.84 percent).
Within Christianity there are many different branches and beliefs.
All the religious branches follow the teachings of Jesus Christ and his
disciples, but the interpretation of these teachings varies from church to church.
Buddhism appeared in India during the 6thcentury B.C as protest against
miseries associated with Hindu beliefs about reincarnation. The
religion was founded by Gautama Siddhartha, a prince from what
is now Nepal, who was called the Buddha, or the enlightened one.
The Buddha attracted large numbers of followers by preaching
the salvation could be achieved by anyone.
Salvation and enlightened would come to those who practiced
honesty, selfknowledge, selflessness, and kindness to all beings.

95
Islam, the faith of the Muslims, is the youngest of the major religions.
It is based on the teachings of Muhammad, a prophet born in A.D. 570 in what
is now Saudi Arabia.
According to Muslim belief, Muhammad received the truth directly from God
(called Allah in Arabic) in a series of revelations.
The Muslim holy book, the Qur’an, is the result of these
communications.
Like Jews and Christians, Muslims believe in one all-seeing and
powerful God who demands justice and goodness.
Hinduism is the world's oldest major religion. Though it has no
single founder of beliefs or initial prophet, some evidence traces its
origin back 5000 or more years.
Hinduism is an ethnic religion, an intricate web of religious,
philosophical, social, economic, and artistic elements comprising a
distinctive Indian civilization.
Its estimated 1 billion adherents are primarily Asian and largely
confined to India, where it claims 80% of the population.
96
Shintoism, the Japanese ethnic religion closely related to Buddhism, has
numerous followers in Japan. It is generally agreed, however, that Japan’s
modernization is reducing the importance of Shintoism in Japanese culture.
The Chinese religions also have elements of Buddhism mixed with Chinese
local belief systems. The traditional Chinese religions never involved concepts
of supernatural omnipotence.
Confucianism was mainly a philosophy of Earth life, and Taoism held that
human happiness lies in one’s proper relationship with nature.
Shamanism occurs in many parts of the world. It is a community faith in which
people follow their shaman, a religious leader, teachers, healer, and visionary-
but in the ancient Chinese tradition, a man of this world, nor of another. Such a
shaman appeared to various peoples in many different parts of the world.
Traditional African religions involve beliefs in a god as creator and indivisible
provider, in divinities both superhuman and human, in sprits, and in life
hereafter.

97
Origin and Spread of World Religions
The earliest evidence of religious ideas dates back several hundred thousand
years to the Middle and Lower Paleolithic periods.
Archeologists refer to apparent intentional burials of early Homo sapiens from
as early as 300,000 years ago as evidence of religious ideas.
Other evidence of religious ideas includes symbolic artifacts from Middle
Stone Age sites in Africa.
Archeological evidence from more recent periods is less controversial.
A number of artifacts from the Upper Paleolithic (50,000-13,000) are
generally interpreted by scientists as representing religious ideas.

98
Race and Ethnic:
A race is a category composed of people who share biologically
transmitted traits that members of a society deem socially
significant.
People may classify each other into races based on physical
characteristics such as skin color, facial features, hair texture and
body shape.
 Racial diversity appeared among out human ancestors as a result
of living in different geographical regions of the world.
In regions of intense heat, for example, people developed darker
skin (from the natural pigment melanin) that offers protection from
the sun; in regions with moderate climates, humans have lighter
skin.
Nevertheless, such differences are superficial; individuals of all
races are members of a single biological species.

99
Major Racial Families
Grouping or classifications of races are often controversial for
scientific as well as social and political reasons.
The modern human composed of many races but according to
physiological characteristics
(skin color, facial type, cranial profile and size, texture and
color of hair), scientists classified human into three races such
as: Negroid, Mongoloid and Caucasoid.
a. Negroid (black) Race
The main groups of Negroid race live in the tropical zone of
Asia and Africa.
This race has the chocolate and black skin that can protect
against the solar radiation.
Some characteristics of the Negroid are: a lot of hair hole on
the body, flat nose, large nostril, thick lips and frizzled hair like
spiral nail.
That is the characteristics of the Negro people which become 100

the name Negroid.

Major Racial Families
b. Mongoloid (yellow) Race
Most of Mongoloid inhabited in the hill prairie and the east of
Asia;
Mongoloid have brownish-yellow to light yellow skin, coarse
and black hair, with scant body hair ; broad, short jaw; short, small,
strong foot with moderate arch.
c. Caucasoid (white) Race
Originally Caucasoid people were dwelled in the European prairie
region.
There is quite cool and low sunshine.
Some characteristics are brown to white skin, blue eyes, blond hair
with neither spiral nor frizzled and straight.
People living in the Caucasus mountain regions possess clearly
these characteristics and the anthropologic name of this race is
Caucasoid.
101