World History up to 1500: Early Humans Q&A

Question: To which genus and species do modern humans belong? What were some of the other human species and what happened to them?
Answer: Modern humans are classified as Homo sapiens. Other human species include Homo habilis, Homo erectus, and Homo heidelbergensis; these species became extinct over time.

Question: What evidence supports the claim that Neanderthals and Homo sapiens may have mated?
Answer: The discovery of small amounts of Neanderthal DNA in many populations of modern humans supports the claim that Neanderthals and Homo sapiens may have shared their DNA.

Question: How would scholars describe the religious traditions of hunter-gatherer peoples, and what evidence might they use?
Answer: Paleolithic humans likely had religious traditions similar to animism—the idea that a degree of spirituality exists not only in people but also in plants, inanimate objects, and even natural phenomena like fires. Cave paintings might be used as evidence of their ideas about the supernatural.

Question: What do you imagine would have happened if a Paleolithic hunter-gatherer community grew too large for the surrounding resources to support? Why?
Answer: If a community grew too large, it would probably split into smaller bands. Some of these bands might also migrate to another region where resources were more plentiful.

Question: How did the relationship between men and women change with the advent of agriculture?
Answer: The more fluid divisions of labor among the sexes in hunter-gatherer societies gave way to new and more rigid divisions, with men spending the majority of their time working outside the home while women ran the domestic sphere.]