Chapter 1 - Knowing and Understanding the Past

Unit Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs)

• Explain the importance of knowing and understanding the past.
• Identify sources of historical evidence and information (e.g. archaeology, artifacts).
• Explain how the various sources of historical evidence and information facilitate our understanding of the past.
• Define with examples the concept of world - view, society and
• Describe influences that create differences in world-view (e.g. culture, time, place, cross-cultural interactions, media, and governance).
• Give reasons why societies may stay the same or change over time.
• Describe ways in which societies organize, maintain and perpetuate themselves.
• Relate various theories of the origin of human life.
• Identify the characteristics of the way of life of hunter-gatherers.
• List the advantages and disadvantages of a hunter-gatherer way of
• Identify the factors which contributed in modifying a hunter-gatherer society into early agrarian society.
• Describe the development of agrarian society.
• Explain how agrarian society differed from hunter-gatherer society.
• Identify by giving examples the influence of the natural environment on the development of societies (e.g. rivers).
• Compare the concepts of society and civilization.
• Define with examples the term culture.