Korea – Mysterious Beginnings

Episode 23: Korea – Mysterious Beginnings

Foundations of Eastern CIvilization

Dr Craig Benjamin (2013)

Film Review

In this lecture, Benjamin explores the effect of Korea’s geography and climate on its early development.

He credits Korea’s failure to be subsumed by its neighbor China to its rugged mountainous landscape. Seventy percent of Korea is covered in steep mountains, making navigation between the East and West coast extremely difficult. Moreover unlike the majority of modern nations, it remains heavily forested.

Located in the same temperate latitude as Denver, it’s the same size as Britain and Utah. Surrounded on three sides by water, it shares a border with both China and Russia. Although separated from Japan by the sea of Japan, the archipelago is visible from the east coast of Korea.

Blessed with rich mineral resources (mainly gold, copper, tin and iron), Korea was the world’s largest gold producer during the first half of the 20th century.

It has only one (extinct) volcano Baikdu, also it’s highest mountain, with a volcanic lake associated with early Korean deities.

Owing to the steep drop of its mountains along its coasts, it has no significant bays or harbors suitable to facilitate urban development. Its three main river systems (which gave rise to its major cities) are Taedong in the North (location of North Korea’s capitol Pyongyang) and the Han (location of South Korea’s capitol Seoul) and Kum in the South.

As in China, there is archeological evidence that pre-human hominids (Homo erectus) using hand axes, flake tools and fire also migrated from Africa to Korea 500,000 to 600,000 years ago. Owing to the wide land bridge connecting China, Korea and Japan before the last Ice Age ended (and sea levels rose), similar remains and tools are found in Japan.

Paleolithic* remains show early humans lived in extended families in small caves or small dwellings in simple villages. They foraged, fished and hunted deer, wild board and macaques.

The Neolithic period saw waves saw waves of migrants who crossed the Yellow Sea land bridge. They lived in small dwellings heated by a central hearth, used distinctive pots used to store food from domesticated plants and supplemented their diet by hunting (of dogs, cats, water buffalo, boor, deer, dolphins and whales).

Neolithic** Koreans were ritually buried with jewelry and masks suggesting they believed in an afterlife.

---

*The Paleolithic, aka the Old Stone Age, is a period in prehistory distinguished by the original development of stone tools. It extends from the earliest known use of stone tools by hominids 3.3 million years ago to around 10,000 BC.

**The Neolithic, aka the New Stone Age, refers to a period characterized by agriculture and fixed human settlement between 10,000 BC and around 3,300 BC when bronze tools were developed.

Film can be viewed free on Kanopy.

https://www.kanopy.com/en/pukeariki/video/5808608/5808655

The Paleolithic Era and the Origin of Homo Sapiens

Episode 1: Foraging in the Old Stone Age

The Big History of Civilizations

Craig G Benjamin (2016)

Film Review

This is the best presentation I have ever seen about the Paleolithic era (the early Stone age). According to fossil evidence, the species Homo sapiens first appeared in Africa in 200,000 BC. They began migrating out of Africa around 100,000 BC. They reached southwest Asia and Europe by 90,000 BC, Australia by 50,000 BC, and Siberia and the New World by 15,000 BC.*

The most significant advances Homo sapiens made during the Paleolithic era stemmed from their unique ability to employ collective learning. This allowed the species to adapt, though a variety of ingenious technologies to two long ice ages that occurred prior to 10,000 BC.

According to Benjamin, Paleolithic humans lived through two major ice ages, one dating from 190,000 – 123,000 BP and one dating from 110,000 to 11,000 BP.  During each of these periods, ice covered 30% of planet Earth. Areas not covered by ice were dry deserts in which food was extremely scarce.

Paleolithic humans relied on collective foraging for food, using tools they invented and collective earning (garnered over generations) for digging, hunting, carrying and cooking food and collective learning garnered over generations. Like modern foragers, they lived in family groups of 10-50 people and assumed collective responsibility for governance and addressing wrongdoing. Elaborate gift giving rituals evolved to help solidify communities, with different family groups meeting together to exchange gifts, find mates, dance, play games.

Their skeletal remains suggest they were well nourished and were free from major epidemics. Their artwork suggests they had plenty of leisure time and viewed themselves as part of the natural world around them.

Their main impact on the environment was to drive all native mega fauna to extinction wherever they migrated. In Eurasia, large animals hunted to extinction included the mammoth, the woolly rhinoceros and the giant elk. In the Americas animals hunted to extinction included the prehistoric horse, the elephant, the giant armadillo and the giant sloth. In Australia, the arrival of human beings killed off giant kangaroos and other giant marsupial species.

Benjamin believes human migrants were also responsible for the demise of Homo neanderthalis.

---

*Some Native American scholars believe human beings reached North and South America by 30,000 BC.

This film can be viewed free on Kanopy: https://pukeariki.kanopy.com/video/foraging-old-stone-age