Lesson Purpose

Historians 'periodize.' That is, they categorise historical time by looking for turning points. Periodizing is an important analytical tool that real historians use. This lesson helps you to frame major changes to understand periodization in human history while introducing you to major changes and trends in the modern era. In this lesson, you will think about periodizing the history of the Universe in a way other than using thresholds of increasing complexity. You'll think about periodizing from the perspective of individuals, and you'll think about how they would periodize human history to tell a particular story.

The outcomes of this lesson are: 1.) To be able to reframe historical trends and events by periodizing them in different ways; 2.) To understand that methods of periodization can convey particular themes while obscuring others.

Activity 1 - Periodizing Big History

Activity Objectives
As part of the timeline activities that you have completed in previous lessons, you learned about the idea of periodizing history. In this activity, you’ll think about how you would periodize the past and how periodizing something—in this case, the Big History timeline—reframes it. Looking at periodization from multiple angles helps you to become more critical consumers of the historical accounts you will encounter.

Activity Tasks
  1. Have a look at this Big History timeline that David Christian created. He divided time by using thresholds of increasing complexity as turning points to show when the Universe dramatically changed. ​
  2. Split into Groups. Brainstorm the following questions on this worksheet:
    1. How else might you periodize the history of the Universe?
    2. How many periods are there when you do it this other way?
    3. What message or theme was your group trying to convey by periodizing in the way that they chose?
  3. Discuss - It’s possible for multiple people to give historical accounts of the same events and for you to get a very different story based on how each person periodized that account. How does periodization help us when looking at the past? How might it cause problems when thinking about the past?

Activity 2 - A Day in the Life
Activity Objectives
In this activity, you will think about what people’s lives were like at different periods in human history. Looking at a day in the life of people over the course of history is another way of periodizing the past. In addition, thinking about the past from the point of view of others helps to understand the causes and consequences of many events in history.

Activity Tasks
  1. Think about what a typical day was like for a person in 13,000 BCE, 1400 CE, 1750 CE, 1900 CE, and today. Use the Big History Timeline from Activity 1 to help you think about what was happening at each of the time periods.​
  2. Fill in this worksheet for one person in each of the time periods on the worksheet.
  3. Try to infer what would a human be doing during that time period. For example, in the Paleolithic era (13,000 BCE), you know that people were hunter-gatherers, so you can ask yourself, “What could those people have reasonably been doing at that time? Maybe something to do with hunting and gathering?
  4. Discuss - Does this seem like a good way to periodize history? What’s gained by using a method like this? What’s lost?

Activity 3 - Threshold 8: The Modern Revolution

Activity Objectives
In this video, David Christian provides an introduction to the eighth threshold of increasing complexity, the Modern Revolution. Knowing how and why the Modern Revolution developed is critical for your understanding of this threshold’s emergent properties—globalization, increased control over Earth’s resources, and rapid population growth—which will be the focus of much of this lesson.

Activity Tasks
  1. ​Watch the video and try to answer these questions:
    1. 00:35 What does David Christian mean by the terms Modern Revolution and the Anthropocene?
    2. 1:02 How did humans become a global species and how did this contribute to the Modern Revolution?
    3. 1:31 What new sources of energy became available and how did they contribute to the Modern Revolution?
    4. 2:28 What are the consequences of this revolution?
    5. Discuss - Do you think that our capacity for collective learning will continue to bring about the innovations necessary to support the food and energy needs of a growing population?
The Modern Revolution has created a world very different from the one students saw in the age of the foragers and the agrarian era. The connection of the four world zones, expanding networks of exchange, and new sources of energy have allowed humans to become a global species and the dominant life form in the biosphere.

Activity 4 - How Would You Periodize Human History?

Activity Objectives
In this activity, you will use a similar process to the one you used in the opening activity of this lesson, but this time you’ll try to periodize human history. Not only will this get you thinking about the richness of human history, but also the different ways in which you might tell stories about human history. This reinforces the idea that periodization is really an analytical tool in history, one that can help people understand and explain events of the past.

Activity Tasks
  1. Using this timeline, periodize human history on a theme of your choice. Are you interested in the history of food? The history of religion? Or the history of farming?
  2. Once you’ve settled on a theme, look at the Big History timeline from Activity 1 and break up the major events according to your theme. Then, add these major events to your timeline and answer the following questions: ​
    1. What are the major turning points in your timeline?
    2. What story are you trying to tell by using this framing to explain human history?
    3. What was the hardest part of periodizing according to a specific theme?
    4. Do you think your timeline is missing any important events in human history? Can your theme reasonably convey what happened over time?

Challenge Yourself! - Optional Activities
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