An Essay Realization

I realized while I was writing my essay a few odd things about the first primary source,  I discovered a few things that were good about it and a few things that were not the best while I was writing my paper. Naturally I couldn't go into great detail about what was wrong with the source in my paper but I thought would highlight the pros and cons here. Ill start off by saying I like most of the information that Strayer puts forth, however there are a few problems with this primary source that should be noted. Most notably, it is written in the first person using 21st century sentence structure. It is a piece about this girl's feeling about her life and it is curious how Shostak tried to tell it in first person rather than 3rd person. I think the source would have more footing in the scientific community if it was written as a research report or a 3rd person view on the situation with a recap at the end reciting where she got this information. The problem is I do not know whether this is all theory or she has hard evidence to prove some of her claims. I do agree with several of her points but its very hard to get people to follow what you are saying without some sort of hard evidence cited in your paper. However, I shouldn't be so hard on her because she most likely included all of this information but it was not included in the book. So if she did, I may choose to go find her whole paper sometime and see where she got her information. The reason i'm choosing to highlight this source is because it doesn't make broad claims, it makes very specific and defined claims that need some sort of backing in order for us to accept them. Again, I do agree with several of her points I just want some research reports.

Government during the Paleolithic Transition

Another very curious thing about Paleolithic societies is they seemed, according to Strayer, to lack a real defined form of government. They truly did not need one. Their societies were maybe 25 people large so they had no need for a well defined tribal society with different heads of state. However there was a slow transition from Paleolithic ways when agriculture was first introduced. No longer were tribes constantly roaming the wilds for food. Communities of people decided to grow food at a specific location and harvest those crops every year. This provided a unique change of perspective and thought. Strayer pointed out that different leaders were needed to protect the village and keep everything in a organized fashion. This sudden change in dynamic required that people needed to be in charge of other people for different jobs. I think it is fascinating that once people needed to settle down in one place, a primitive forms of government started to appear in societies that relied on farming for their yearly food supply as opposed to roaming the wilds following migrant animals. I would assume as societies and technology developed, the population would rise thus requiring additional infrastructure to be laid for a more advanced society. Nevertheless, we will most likely be getting to that in the next chapter so ill talk more about that later.

Paleolithic Studies Could Have A Remarkable Impact On Socio-Economic Issues Today.

Early "Pre-History" discussions are always interesting because the paleolithic era is one that always demands a lot of further research and also has the nature of being tricky to study. I have read many different arguments referring to the paleolithic era and the beginnings of humankind or "Homo Sapiens." The most interesting thing about it all is that our beginnings still have a amazing effect on our culture today. For instance, in society today there is a lot of discussion about racial studies. The fascinating thing about human history is that human history suggests that there are no "Races" or racial divisions in Homo Sapiens. To many scientists there is only one race, the human race. I think the thing I enjoy most about this book so far is the fact the entire first chapter backs up the theory that there is no human race. Strayer seems to pinpoint human history to start approximately 150-250000 years ago. He also has a lot of evidence that we all started in Africa. Those two points are huge boots in helping prove that humans are all genetically the same. I had watched a old NBC Dateline special with Eric Lander, a professor at MIT, and he stated that there is only one tenth of one percent difference between any two human beings and that the genes that control how we look may be limited to only 3-4 different genes. The remarkable thing about all of this is if we are able to prove that humans are all the same, it may have a enormously positive social impact on society today. The beauty of all of this is that it all ties back in to the study of the Paleolithic era and human beginnings.

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