Theme+1

• Demography and disease • Migration • Patterns of settlement • Technology The interaction between humans and the environment is a fundamental theme for world history. The environment shaped human societies, but, increasingly, human societies also affected the environment. During prehistory, humans interacted with the environment as hunters, fishers and foragers, and human migrations led to the peopling of the earth. As the Neolithic revolution began, humans exploited their environments more intensively, either as farmers or pastoralists. Environmental factors such as rainfall patterns, climate, and available flora and fauna shaped the methods of exploitation used in different regions. Human exploitation of the environment intensified as populations grew and as people migrated into new regions. As people flocked into cities or established trade networks, new diseases emerged and spread, sometimes devastating an entire region. During the Industrial Revolution, environmental exploitation increased exponentially. In recent centuries, human effects on the environment —and the ability to master and exploit it — increased with the development of more sophisticated technologies, the exploitation of new energy sources and a rapid increase in human populations. By the twentieth century, large numbers of humans had begun to recognize their effect on the environment and took steps toward a “green” movement to protect and work with the natural world instead of exploiting it.
 * Theme 1: Interaction between Humans and the Environment **