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History of Technology 1: Early Humans and Energy 162 Views


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Description:

This lesson is surprisingly not going to be about early human's addiction to Starbucks and Red Bull. Hit play to find out more about early humans and energy. 

Language:
English Language

Transcript

00:01

No Ever help the buddy move into a new apartment

00:05

on the fourth floor Well it's hard sway work But

00:07

is it possible Of course the human body could do

00:10

amazing things even if it isn't worth a cold Pizza

00:13

are friends Give us in Thanks Now imagine a world

00:15

where all work was the hard sweaty type and thankyou

00:19

Pizzas were nowhere to be found Food stuff of nightmares

00:22

right Well not really Back in the hunter gatherer and

00:25

early agricultural areas fire and muscles where are on ly

00:29

sources of energy Back then they didn't even have elevators

00:32

but on the bright side there weren't really any floors

00:35

either to worry about Well from about two point six

00:37

million bc until about ten thousand b c e almost

00:41

every task required human effort But keep in mind there

00:44

was no internet back then which meant no cat videos

00:47

to be distracted by So we still accomplished plenty of

00:50

things In that time period we migrated out of africa

00:53

and around the world developed languages transitioned toe agriculture built

00:57

the first urban spaces and stop getting eaten by hyenas

01:01

all the time Last one was kind of a big

01:03

deal But it was all based on the energy we

01:05

got from food Early humans a lot of fruits nuts

01:08

and pieces of dead animals They found laying around the

01:12

breakfast of champions there Right Well we got a little

01:15

energy from fire to get way back then Chemical and

01:19

thermal energy where the on ly stops in town Right

01:22

from the beginning though human beings were trying to escape

01:25

the limitations of their paltry energy sources After plenty of

01:29

experimentation and more than a few smashed fingers people figured

01:32

out how to make tools out of stone and tools

01:35

like people who use their energy way more efficiently Why

01:38

shred an animal with our fingernails when we can use

01:40

a sharp rock right Well both options are gross but

01:43

fingernails would take forever and ever to clean well before

01:47

we go feeling too bad for those poor paleolithic people

01:50

in their lumps of rock let's talk more about fire

01:53

cave people couldn't use fire to power stolen refrigerators or

01:56

tvs or anything but it doesn't mean it was useless

02:00

At some point between eight hundred thousand and two hundred

02:03

thousand Years ago human beings mastered the art of building

02:06

A fire which is impressive right Ever tried building a

02:09

fire without any tools Yeah thanks Don't try those survival

02:13

shows If it came down to it we freeze to

02:15

death huddled over a pile of damp tweaks Anyway trees

02:19

spend their whole lives transforming sunshine into wood when we

02:23

burn That would were basically releasing a few dozen years

02:26

or maybe even centuries of stored sunlight As thermal energy

02:31

may think of fire today is something nice and cozy

02:33

that lets us roast marshmallows to the first level of

02:36

roundness But for early humans fire meant a lot more

02:40

They also roasted little wieners Aside from that one of

02:43

the major uses of fire was light A light source

02:46

at night prolonged work hours and kept predators away Remember

02:50

the giant hyenas They were real Oh fire was also

02:53

great is a heat source early humans wouldn't have made

02:56

it through one harsh winter without fire And even with

02:59

fired christmas in the alps couldn't have been fun though

03:02

it does sound like a festive lifetime original movie Well

03:05

early agriculture also benefited from fire Needs some farmland No

03:10

worries Just burn down the forest Well fire could clear

03:13

Unwanted undergrowth let food plants grow and replenish the soils

03:17

with ash While these techniques are currently being used to

03:20

destroy vast swaths of the amazon rainforest but way back

03:25

in the day it seemed like there was plenty of

03:26

force to go around Remember that old oprah thing about

03:29

giving away the cars You know you get some rain

03:31

forest and you get some rain forest hindsight's twenty five

03:35

Anyway fire was also helpful in creating tools Our early

03:39

ancestors eventually unlock new skill levels and learned how to

03:43

use fire to harden the points of their wooden tools

03:47

And last but not least fire was used for cooking

03:51

It expanded the possible range of foods that human beings

03:54

could eat well Tough plans and raw meat became a

03:57

lot more edible after they were cooked And best of

04:00

all it became less likely that eating old raw namath

04:03

would lead Teo you know somebody keeling over mammoth food 00:04:07.508 --> [endTime] poisoning Really

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