The Stone Age is an ancient period of the development of mankind. This cultural and historical period is characterized by the fact that during its course people made tools of labor and hunting mainly from stone. In addition to stone, wood and bone were also used. The Stone Age lasted from 2.6-2.5 million years ago to 3.5-2.5 thousand years BC. e. It is also worth noting that there is no strict framework for the beginning and end of the Stone Age for the reason that mankind has developed unevenly in different parts of the Earth and in some regions the Stone Age lasted much longer than in others. The beginning of the use of stones as instruments of labor also causes controversy, since the limitation of finds and new discoveries can deepen or approximate the beginning of the Stone Age.
In general, the beginning of the Stone Age is attributed to the period of 2.6-2.5 million years ago. It was during this period, as archaeological excavations in Africa show, that the ancestors of man learned to split stones to get a sharp edge (Olduvai culture).
The Stone Age is divided into several periods, which we note here briefly, but in subsequent articles we will study in more detail:
1. . It covers most of the Stone Age, ranging from 2.6-2.5 million years ago and ending with 10 thousand years BC. e., that is, almost the entire period of the Pleistocene. The difference is that the Pleistocene is a term that defines the period in the geochronology of the Earth, and the Paleolithic is a term that defines the culture and development history of an ancient person who learned to process stone. In turn, the Paleolithic is divided into several periods: Early Paleolithic, Middle Paleolithic and Upper Paleolithic. During this time, the Stone Age human culture and stone processing culture have succeeded significantly.
2.. Immediately after the Paleolithic, a new period begins - the Mesolithic, which lasted for X-VI thousand years BC.
3.. Neolithic is a new Stone Age, which began during the so-called Neolithic revolution, when human communities began to move from hunting and gathering to agriculture, agriculture and livestock, which, in turn, led to a revolution in the processing of stone tools.
4. - Copper-Stone Age, Copper Age or Chalcolithic. The transition period from the Stone Age to the Bronze Age. Covers the period IV-III millennium BC. e.
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The cultural history of man is usually divided into two great eras: the culture of primitive society and the culture of the era of civilization. The era of primitive society covers most of the history of mankind. The most ancient civilizations arose only 5 thousand years ago. The primitive era is mainly accounted for stone Age- the period when the main tools were made of stone . Therefore, the history of the culture of primitive society is most easily divided into periods based on an analysis of changes in the technique of manufacturing stone tools. The Stone Age is divided into:
● Paleolithic (ancient stone) - from 2 million years to 10 thousand years BC. e.
● Mesolithic (middle stone) - from 10 thousand to 6 thousand years BC. e.
● Neolithic (new-stone) - from 6 thousand to 2 thousand years BC. e.
In the second millennium BC, metals replaced the stone and put an end to the Stone Age.
General characteristics of the Stone Age
The first period of the Stone Age is the Paleolithic, in the framework of which the early, middle and late periods are distinguished.
Early Paleolithic (to the turn of 100 thousand years BC e.) - This is the era of archanthropes. Material culture developed very slowly. It took more than a million years to move from roughly beaten pebbles to choppers, in which the edges are evenly worked on both sides. Approximately 700 thousand years ago, the process of mastering fire began: people support the fire obtained by natural means (as a result of lightning strikes, fires). The main activities are hunting and gathering, the main type of weapon is a club, a spear. Archanthropes master natural shelters (caves), build huts from rods that block stone boulders (south of France, 400 thousand years).
Middle Paleolithic- covers the period from 100 thousand to 40 thousand years BC. e. This is the Paleoanthropic – Neanderthal era. Harsh time. Icing of a large part of Europe, North America and Asia. Many thermophilic animals died out. Difficulties spurred cultural progress. Means and methods of hunting are improved (round-robin hunting, corrals). A wide variety of choppers are created, and chopped from the core and processed thin plates - scrapers are also used. With the help of scrapers, a man began to make warm clothes from the skins of animals. Learned how to make fire by drilling. Intentional burials belong to this era. Often the deceased was buried in the form of a sleeping one: arms are bent at the elbow, near the face, legs are bent. In the graves appear household items. And this means that there are some ideas about life after death.
Late (Upper) Paleolithic- covers the period from 40 thousand to 10 thousand years BC. e. This is the age of Cro-Magnon. Cro-Magnons lived in large groups. The technique of stone processing has grown: stone plates are sawn and drilled. Bone tips are widely used. There was a spear thrower - a board with a hook on which the dart laid. Found a lot of bone needles for sewing clothes. Houses are half dugouts with a frame of branches and even of animal bones. The norm was the burial of the dead, who put a supply of food, clothing and tools, which spoke of clear ideas about the afterlife. During the Late Paleolithic occur art and religion - two important forms of social life, closely related to each other.
Mesolithic, Middle Stone Age (10th - 6th millennium BC. E.). A bow and arrows, microlithic tools appeared in the Mesolithic, a dog was tamed. The periodization of the Mesolithic is arbitrary, because in different parts of the world the development processes are proceeding at different speeds. So, in the Middle East, already from 8 thousand, the transition to agriculture and cattle breeding has begun, which is the essence of the new Neolithic stage.
Neolithic,new Stone Age (6–2 thousand BC). There is a transition from the appropriating economy (gathering, hunting) to the producing one (agriculture, cattle breeding). In the Neolithic era, tools made of stone were ground, drilled, pottery, spinning, weaving appeared. In 4–3 millennia, the first civilizations appear in a number of regions of the world.
Primitive art: functions and forms
Art in the original meaning of the word means a high degree of mastery in any activity. In the XIX century. the term “art” began to be used to mean only creative activity aimed at creating artistic images, i.e., images that can produce a strong aesthetic impression on people. The term "aesthetics" comes from the Greek aisthetikos - "sensual" and is associated with a sense of beauty, beauty.
Ancient philosophers associated the beautiful with usefulness and expediency, good. So the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates called the shield a shield well adapted for defense, a spear adapted for an accurate throw, etc. However, beauty cannot be explained only by fitness and usefulness. Aristotle understood this, who explained the beautiful and how harmony in device and forms. Aristotle was sure that “nature strives for the beautiful”, for expedient harmony.
Every person has a sense of beauty from observing nature and its creations: a beautiful landscape, sunrise or sunset, beautiful flower, etc. These impressions formed the concept of beauty as such a harmonious combination of sounds, colors, shapes, proportions, which evoked bright positive emotions in a person. Thus, at first man saw beauty in nature, and then sought to create it himself.
About art of primitive society we can judge by the fine arts (sculpture and painting), since there were almost no traces of music and dance, although they existed and played an important role.
For primitive man, the creation of the beautiful was not the main task. He created vivid images for the development of the world. And in the future, the tasks of art were never reduced only to the creation of beauty. Its functions are much wider: art is a way of knowing the world through artistic images.
Among the works of primitive fine art, two images dominate. The first and main one is the image of an animal, mainly large, associated with the theme of food production. The second is the image of a mother woman, connected with the theme of procreation.
The primacy of the image of a large animal is understandable. Hunting large animals and protecting against large predators were the most emotionally powerful acts of human activity. And the man strove to master these emotions, to adapt to them. Therefore, art developed primarily as an element of hunting of magic. Hunters created images for rituals aimed at subjugating objects of hunting. The image (layout) of the animal was made of clay or stones, and its outline was drawn on the wall. At first, the outline was very generalized. For example, animals in profile were most often depicted with only two legs. Then the drawing became more and more accurate. Clay models and paint in the open air for a long time could not exist. We only got what was in the caves.
The most perfect drawings were found in caves in the foothills of the Pyrenees, dividing France and Spain. In 40 caves, paintings were painted or scratched with stone 20–10 thousand years ago. The most famous cave of Lyasco (France) is called the prehistoric Sistine Chapel. It has a hall of giant bulls painted with red, black and yellow ocher. In the axial passage there is a picturesque group of cows and horses painted in red paint. Mysterious composition: a bison wounded by a man with a bird's beak, and a rhino leaving the scene of the tragedy.
A number of caves with drawings from the Upper Paleolithic era were found in Italy, Georgia, Mongolia, and the Urals (Kapova cave). The presence of fundamentally the same types of art in Europe and Asia shows that the development process of the artistic creation of mankind was basically the same.
In addition to large rock paintings, a person during this period created a small sculpture (figures of animals carved from bone, wood, stone), and small drawings scratched on stone and bone. The widespread practice of making animal figurines indicated that people wanted to have their images outside of practical activity. A small figurine of a deer is not an object for hunting magic. She is a memory and a symbol of the big real world. The man wanted to have this image on hand. So, he gave him emotional satisfaction and, therefore, had an aesthetic value.
Animal images prevail in small forms. But in small sculpture there are many anthropomorphic images These are mainly female figures in which the forms associated with the birth and feeding of children are emphasized. They also played an obvious applied function: they were associated with demographic magic aimed at the preservation and reproduction of the genus. The most famous is considered a figurine made of soft limestone 6 cm high, found in Austria in the town of Willendorf. It received the name Venus of Willendorf. The absence of attempts to convey the face of a woman is characteristic, since the artist created a generalized image, and not an individual one.
Decorative art. Cro-Magnons widely used pendants, beads, bracelets. Some of them had a magical meaning. For example, a hunter’s necklace made of the teeth of dead animals. But the thread of white shells in a woman was also an adornment, for it emphasized the oval of the face, the dark skin, etc. The first adornments can be considered the first purely aesthetic works of art.
Evidence from the late Paleolithic that man possessed and song and dance art. They are also associated with production magic, with the rituals of preparing and completing the hunt. For example, after the hunt, the main function of the song and dance was to throw out the excess emotions that arose during the dangerous hunt. It is easy to imagine the following picture: a large beast is killed, danger has passed, people are rejoicing, jumping around the beast, screaming. Gradually, screams and jumps begin to harmonize, go in a certain rhythm. The rhythm is fixed by shock and noise effects. Cries take on a general tone: low tones in men and high tones in women. People understand that these actions give emotional relaxation and cultivate them. The development of intonation - the alternation of sounds of different tonality - was facilitated by the imitation of sounds of nature, especially birds and animals. Mastering the rhythm and intonation leads to the appearance of music, singing, dancing. Hollow bones were found on the Paleolithic sites - the first pipes, flutes. Gradually, people realized that some melodies and movements give the greatest emotional satisfaction. So there was a natural selection of the best samples and the idea of \u200b\u200bthe canon of beauty developed.
To summarize the above, we will draw some conclusions about the nature and functions of primitive art. Art was an element of production and demographic magic, and in this regard played an important role as a way of regulating and expressing people's emotions. It also had a decorative function, manifested in the adornment by a person of himself, household items and tools. Gradually, in the process of selecting the best samples, there is an increase in the aesthetic function of art as a way to create beauty.
Paleolithic
Early Paleolithic
About 2.588 million years ago, the Pleistocene began - the longest section of the Quaternary period of the geological history of the Earth, or rather the earliest part of it - the Gelaz stage. At this time, significant changes occurred both in the Earth’s climate and in its biosphere. Another decrease in temperature led to a decrease in the evaporation of water from the surface of the ocean, as a result of which the forests of East Africa began to be replaced by savannas. Faced with a lack of traditional plant foods (fruits), the ancestors of modern man began to look for more affordable food sources in the dry savannah.
It is believed that around this time (2.5-2.6 million
years ago) are the earliest, coarsest and most primitive of the now found stone tools made by the ancestors of modern man. Although recently, in May 2015, the journal Nature published the results of research and excavations in Lomekvi, where they found tools made by an as yet unidentified hominid, whose age is estimated at 3.3 million.
years old. So in Africa began lower or early paleolithic - the most ancient part of the Paleolithic ( ancient stone age) In other regions of the planet, the manufacture of stone tools (and, accordingly, the Paleolithic offensive) began later. In West Asia, this happened to about 1.9 million.
years ago, in the Middle East - about 1.6 million years ago, in Southern Europe - about 1.2 million years ago, in Central Europe - less than a million years ago.
Probably one of the first to make stone tools was one of the types of Australopithecus australopithecus burn (lat. Australopithecus garhi). His remains are around 2.6 million.
years were discovered only relatively recently, in 1996. The oldest stone tools, as well as animal bones with traces of processing with these tools were found with them.
Approximately 2.33 million years ago, a skilled person (Latin Homo habilis) appeared, possibly descended from Australopithecus burning.
mHC test (grade 10)
Adapting to the savannah climate, he included in his diet, in addition to traditional fruits, roots, tubers and animal meat. At the same time, the first people were content with the role of scavengers, scraping the remains of meat from the skeletons of animals killed by predators with stone scrapers, and extracting bone marrow from bone-crushed bones. It was habilis that created, developed and spread the African culture in Africa, which flourished in the period 2.4-1.7 million.
years ago. Simultaneously with the skilled man, there was another species - the Rudolph man (lat. Homo rudolfensis), however, due to the extremely small number of finds, very little is known about him.
Around 1.806 million
years ago, the next - Calabrian - stage of the Pleistocene began, and at about the same time two new types of people appeared: a working man (lat. Homo ergaster) and a straight-standing man (lat. Homo erectus). The most important change in the morphology of these species was a significant increase in the size of the brain.
Homo erectus soon migrated from Africa and spread widely throughout Europe and Asia, moving from the role of scavenger to the lifestyle of a hunter-gatherer, which dominated throughout the remainder of the Paleolithic.
Along with the erectus, the Olduvai culture also spread (in Europe, before the discoveries of Lika, it was known as the Shell and Abbeville).
A working man living in Africa soon created a more advanced Acheulian culture of stone processing, but in Europe and the Middle East it spread only after hundreds of thousands of years, and did not reach Southeast Asia at all. At the same time, in Europe, another culture emerged in parallel with the Acheulean culture - Cleckton.
According to various estimates, it existed from 300 to 600 thousand years ago and was named after the city of Cleckton-on-Sea in Essex (Great Britain), next to which the corresponding stone tools were found in 1911. Later, similar tools were found in the counties of Kent and Suffolk.
The creator of these tools was Homo erectus.
About 781 thousand years ago, the Ionian Pleistocene stage began. At the beginning of this period, another new species appeared in Europe - the Heidelberg man (lat.Homo heidelbergensis). He continued to lead a hunter-gatherer lifestyle and used stone tools, belonging to the Acheulean culture, but somewhat more advanced.
Some time later, according to various estimates, from 600 to 350 thousand.
years ago - the first people appeared, with the features of a Neanderthal or protoneanderthal.
Early Paleolithic include the first human attempts to use fire. However, fairly reliable evidence of fire control dates back to the very end of this period - a time about 400 thousand years ago.
Middle Paleolithic
The Middle Paleolithic replaced the early Paleolithic about 300 thousand years ago and lasted up to about 30 thousand.
years ago (in different regions the time limits of the period can vary significantly). During this time, significant changes occurred in all spheres of life of primitive mankind, coinciding with the emergence of new types of people.
Of the protoneanderthals that arose at the end of the Early Paleolithic, to the second half of the Middle Paleolithic (approximately 100-130 thousand
years ago) formed a classic Neanderthal man (lat.Homo neanderthalensis).
Neanderthals who lived in small related groups were able to adapt perfectly to the cold climate during the last ice age and settled in large areas of Europe and Asia that were not covered with ice. Survival in harsh climatic conditions was made possible thanks to a number of changes in the lives of these ancient people. They created and developed the Mousterian culture, which used Levallois technique for stone processing and was the most progressive throughout most of the Middle Paleolithic.
Improvement of hunting weapons (spears with stone tips) and a high level of interaction with fellow tribesmen allowed Neanderthals to successfully hunt the largest land mammals (mammoths, bison, etc.), whose meat was the basis of their diet.
The invention of the harpoon made it possible to successfully fish, which became an important source of food in coastal areas. To protect themselves from the cold and predators, Neanderthals used shelters in caves and fire, in addition, food was cooked on fire.
To preserve the meat for the future, it began to be smoked and dried. An exchange was developed with other groups of valuable raw materials (ocher, rare high-quality stone for making tools, etc.), inaccessible in the area in which this or that group lived.
Archaeological evidence and studies of comparative ethnography show that people of the Middle Paleolithic lived in egalitarian (egalitarian) communities.
Equal distribution of food resources avoided hunger and increased the chances of the community to survive. The members of the group took care of the injured, sick and old tribesmen, as evidenced by the remains with traces of cured injuries and at a considerable age (of course, by the standards of the Paleolithic - about 50 years).
Neanderthals were often buried of the deceased, which leads some scientists to conclusions about the development of their religious beliefs and concepts, for example, belief in life after death. This can be indicated, including the orientation of the graves, the characteristic poses of the deceased in them, the burial of utensils with them. However, other scientists believe that the burial was carried out for rational reasons. The development of thinking was manifested in the appearance of the first examples of art: cave paintings, decorative products from stone, bone, etc.
About 195 thousand
years ago an anatomically modern intelligent man appeared in Africa. According to the currently dominant hypothesis of African descent, after several tens of millennia, anatomically modern people began to gradually spread beyond Africa.
There is some evidence that, about 125 thousand years ago, breaking the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, they appeared on the Arabian Peninsula (the territory of modern UAE), a little later - about 106 thousand.
years ago - on the territory of modern Oman, and about 75 thousand years ago - perhaps on the territory of modern India. Despite the fact that the remains of people in those places dating to this time were not found, the obvious similarity of stone tools found there and in Africa suggests that they were created by modern man.
Another group of people, having passed the Nile Valley, about 100-120 thousand years ago reached the territory of modern Israel. Migrants moving south and east gradually settled in Southeast Asia, and then, using the sea level lowered due to glaciation, they reached Australia and New Guinea about 50 thousand years ago, and somewhat later, about 30 thousand.
years ago - and numerous islands east of Australia.
The first anatomical modern people (Cro-Magnons) entered Europe through the Arabian Peninsula about 60 thousand years ago. About 43 thousand years ago, a large-scale colonization of Europe began, during which the Cro-Magnons actively competed with the Neanderthals. With regard to physical strength and climate adaptability in Europe during the period of glaciation, the Cro-Magnons were inferior to the Neanderthals, however, they were ahead of them in technological development.
And after 13-15 thousand years, by the end of the Middle Paleolithic, Neanderthals were completely driven out of their habitat and became extinct.
Along with the Mousterian culture itself in the Middle Paleolithic era, in some regions its local variants existed. The Atherian culture in Africa, which was discovered at the beginning of the 20th century near the city of Bir al-Ater in the east of Algeria, in whose honor it was named, is very interesting.
Initially it was believed that it first appeared about 40 thousand years ago, then this border was pushed back to 90-110 thousand years. In 2010, the Ministry of Culture of Morocco issued a press release informing that atherian caves of Atheri culture dating back to 175 thousand were discovered in the prehistoric caves of Ifri n’Amman.
years old. In addition to stone tools, drilled shells of mollusks, presumably serving as ornaments, were found at the atherian sites, which indicates the development of aesthetic feelings in humans.
In Europe, there were such early and transitional varieties of Moustier as the Teiak and Mikok industries. In the Middle East, an Emirian culture developed from Moustier.
In the same period, there were also independent cultures in Africa, formed from the earlier Acheulean, such as Sangoy and Stilbey. Howisons-port culture, which arose (possibly from the Stilbey) in South Africa, about 64.8 thousand, is very interesting.
years ago. In terms of the level of manufacture of stone tools, it corresponds more likely to the cultures of the beginning of the Late Paleolithic, which appeared after 25 thousand years. We can say that in terms of her level she was far ahead of her time.
However, having existed a little more than 5 thousand years, it disappears about 59.5 thousand years ago, and in the region of its distribution, instruments of more primitive cultures reappear.
Late Paleolithic
The Late Paleolithic - the third and final stage of the Paleolithic - began about 40-50 thousand.
years ago and ended about 10-12 thousand years ago. It was during this period that modern man first became dominant, and then completely the only representative of his own kind. The changes in human life during this period are so significant that they are called the Late Paleolithic revolution.
During the Late Paleolithic, significant climate changes occurred in territories inhabited by humans.
Since the vast majority of the period fell on the last ice age, in general, the climate of Eurasia ranged from cold to moderate. Along with climate change, the area of \u200b\u200bthe ice sheet changed, and, accordingly, the distribution area of \u200b\u200bhumans. Moreover, if the habitable territory decreased in the northern regions, then in the southern regions it increased due to a significant decrease in the level of the World Ocean, the waters of which were concentrated in glaciers.
So at the time of the maximum ice age that occurred at the time of 19-26.5 thousand years ago, the sea level fell by about 100-125 m. Therefore, many archaeological evidence of the life of a person who lived on the coast at that time is now hidden by the waters of the seas and is at a considerable distance from the modern coastline.
On the other hand, glaciation and low sea level allowed people to move through the Bering Isthmus that existed in those days to North America.
Since the beginning of the Late Paleolithic period, the diversity of artifacts left by people has increased significantly. Manufactured tools become more specialized, their manufacturing technology is becoming more complicated.
Important achievements are the invention of various types of tools and weapons. In particular, about 30 thousand years ago a spear thrower and a boomerang were invented, 25-30 thousand years ago - a bow with arrows, 22-29 thousand years ago - a fishing net. Also at this time, a sewing needle with an eye, a fishing hook, a rope, an oil lamp, etc. were invented. One of the most important achievements of the Late Paleolithic period is the domestication and domestication of a dog, which occurred according to various estimates of 15-35 thousand.
years ago (and possibly earlier). The dog is much better than the person has developed hearing and sense of smell, which makes it an indispensable assistant in protection from predators and in hunting.
More advanced tools and weapons, methods of hunting, housing and clothing made it possible for a person to significantly increase the number and populate previously undeveloped territories. The Late Paleolithic includes the earliest evidence of organized human settlements.
Some of them were used year-round, although more often people moved from one settlement to another, depending on the season, following food sources.
Instead of the only prevailing culture in various places, diverse regional cultures arise with numerous local varieties, existing partly at the same time, partly replacing each other. In Europe, it is Chatelperonian, Celetic, Aurignacian, Gravittian, Solutreian, Badegul and Madeleine cultures.
In Asia and the Middle East - Baradost, Zarzian and Kebar.
In addition, the flowering of fine and decorative art began during this period: the Late Paleolithic man left many cave paintings and petroglyphs, as well as artworks from ceramics, bone and horns.
One of the ubiquitous varieties is female figures, the so-called Paleolithic Venus.
MIDDLE PALEOLITH: material culture Main parking.
The Middle Paleolithic, or Middle Ancient Stone Age, is an era that lasted from 150,000 to 30,000 years ago.
Upper Paleolithic cultures
More accurate dating of existing methods is difficult. The Middle Paleolithic of Europe is called the Mustier era by the famous archaeological site in France. The Middle Paleolithic is well studied.
It is characterized by widespread human settlement, as a result of which the paleoanthropic (Middle Paleolithic man) settled almost throughout the entire glacier-free territory of Europe. Significantly increased the number of archaeological sites. The territory in Europe is populated before the Volga.
Mousterian sites appear in the Desna basin, the upper reaches of the Oka, and the Middle Volga. In Central and Eastern Europe, there are 70 times more Middle Paleolithic monuments than the Early Paleolithic. At the same time, local groups and cultures appear, which becomes the basis for the birth of new races and peoples.
Tools The production of stone tools was improved. The stone industry of that time is called "Levallois." It is characterized by cleavage of flakes and plates from a specially prepared discoid “nucleus”. They are distinguished by their form stability.
Bilaterally processed tools in certain regions are also used in the Middle Paleolithic, but they change significantly. Manual choppers are reduced in size, often made of flakes.
Leaf-like tips and tips of various types appear, which were used in complex implements and weapons, for example, throwing spears. A typical tool moustier - scraper - has multi-blade forms. The Mousterian implements are multifunctional: they served for processing wood and skins, for planing, cutting and even drilling. It is believed that the European moustier developed in two main areas - in Western Europe and the Caucasus - and from there spread throughout Europe.
A direct relationship between the Middle and Early Paleolithic has been established in rare cases. Archaeological cultures are divided into the Early Mesurian (existed in the Riesz-Wurm period) and the Late Mesopherian (Wurm I and Wurm II; absolute period - 75 / 70-40 / 35 thousand
years ago). Archaeological sites The Mousterian monuments are quite clearly divided into base camps (the remains of which are often found in large and well-closed caves, where powerful cultural layers with fairly diverse fauna formed), and into temporary hunting camps (poor industry).
There are workshops for the extraction and primary processing of stone. Base camps and temporary hunting camps were located both in caves and under the open sky. In the canton of Bern (Switzerland), Mousterian places of flint mining were found in the form of vertical pits 60 cm deep dug up by horn tools. Here, primary processing of flint took place. In Balatenlovas (Hungary) there were dye mines. In southwestern France, Mousterian sites were found under rocky canopies and in small caves, which rarely exceed 20-25 m in width and depth.
The caves in Comb Grenada and Le Peyrard (Southern France) were deepened. Mammoth bones with remains of bonfires in the middle in the open air were found at Molodov I camp on the Dniester. Larger houses with several bonfires found in France (Le Peyrar, Vaux De L'Obesye, Eskisho Grano
The remains of ten small dwellings found in the lower reaches of the Duranet (France) Archaeological cultures The studies of F. Bord revealed different cultures that were not tied to the territory. At the same time, different cultures could coexist in the same area. Ways of development are determined by the limited raw materials used, the level of technological development, a certain set of tools.
There are Levallois, dentate, typical Mousterian, Charente, Pontic and other developmental pathways. Bord’s conclusions about the existence of “Mousterian cultural communities” were criticized by L. Binford. Residency increased, which was supposed to contribute to the consolidation of human groups that lived settled.
A high level of tribal social relations. For example, a person who lost his arm lived for a long time after disability, a team could give him such an opportunity ..
Archaeological periodization of history.The oldest period of human history (prehistory) - from the appearance of the first people to the emergence of the first states - was called the primitive communal system, or primitive society.
At this time, there was not only a change in the physical type of a person, but also tools, housing, forms of organization of collectives, family, worldview, etc.
Given these components, scientists have put forward a number of periodization systems of primitive history. The most developed is the archaeological periodization, which is based on a comparison of man-made tools, their materials, forms of dwellings, burials, etc.
According to this principle, the history of human civilization is divided into centuries - stone, bronze and iron. In the Stone Age, which is usually identified with the primitive communal system, three eras are distinguished: Paleolithic (Greek - ancient stone) - up to 12 thousand.
years ago, Mesolithic (middle stone) - up to 9 thousand years ago, Neolithic (new stone) - up to 6 thousand years ago. Epochs are divided into periods - early (lower), middle and late (upper), as well as cultures characterized by a uniform complex of artifacts. The culture gets its name at the place of its modern location (“Shell” - near the city of Shell in Northern France, “Kostenki” - from the name of the village in Ukraine) or by other signs, for example: “culture of battle axes”, “culture of log houses”, etc. The creator of the Lower Paleolithic cultures was a man of the type Pithecanthropus or Sinanthropus, the Middle Paleolithic - Neanderthal, the Upper Paleolithic - Cro-Magnon.
This definition is based on archaeological research in Western Europe and cannot be fully extended to other regions. In the territory of the former USSR, about 70 sites of the Lower and Middle Paleolithic and about 300 sites of the Upper Paleolithic were studied - from the Prut River in the west to Chukotka in the east. During the Paleolithic period, people made originally rough hand choppers from flint, which were standardized tools.
Then begins the production of specialized tools - these are knives, punctures, scrapers, composite tools, such as a stone ax.
Microlites predominate in the Mesolithic - tools made of thin stone plates, which were inserted into a bone or wooden frame. Then bow and arrows were invented. Neolithic is characterized by the manufacture of polished tools from soft rock - jade, slate, slate. The technique of sawing and drilling holes in stone is being mastered. A short Eneolithic period, i.e. the existence of cultures with copper-stone implements. The Bronze Age (Latin - Eneolithic; Greek - chalcolithic) began in Europe from the 3rd millennium.
bC. At this time, the first states appeared in many regions of the planet, civilizations developed - Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Mediterranean (Early Minoan, Early Hellan), Mexican and Peruvian in America. In the Lower Don, settlements of this time were studied in Kobyakovo, Gnilovskaya, Safyanovo, on the shores of Manych lakes. The first iron products appeared on the territory of Russia in the 10th – 7th centuries.
bC - among the tribes that lived in the North Caucasus (Scythians, Cimmerians), in the Volga region (Dyakovo culture), Siberia and other regions. Note that the frequent and massive migrations of various peoples from the east, passing through the territory of Central Russia and the Don steppes, destroyed settlements of the settled population, destroyed entire cultures that could, under favorable conditions, develop into civilizations and states. Another system of periodization based on a comprehensive description material and spiritual cultures, proposed in the 70s of the XIX century.
L. Morgan. In this case, the scientist was based on a comparison of ancient cultures with modern cultures of the American Indians. In accordance with this system, primitive society is divided into three periods: savagery, barbarism and civilization. The period of savagery is the time of the early tribal system (Paleolithic and Mesolithic), it ends with the invention of the bow and arrow. During the period of barbarism, ceramic products appear, agriculture and livestock breeding arise.
Civilization is characterized by the appearance of bronze metallurgy, writing, and states. In the 40s of the XX century. Soviet scientists P.P. Efimenko, M.O. Cosven, A.I. Pershits et al. Proposed systems of periodization of primitive society, the criteria of which were the evolution of forms of ownership, the degree of division of labor, family relations, etc.
In a generalized form, such a periodization can be represented as follows: the era of the primitive herd; the era of the tribal system; the era of the decomposition of the communal tribal system (the emergence of cattle breeding, plow farming and metal processing, the emergence of elements of exploitation and private property).
There are many examples when stone tools of the Paleolithic or Mesolithic form were used among the peoples of the Far East in the XVI-XVII centuries, while they had a clan society and developed forms of religion and family.
Therefore, the optimal periodization system should take into account the largest number of indicators of the development of society.
LATE PALEOLITH: art and religious beliefs.In the Late Paleolithic, major shifts are taking place in the development of productive forces and human society as a whole. The most striking expression of the maturity of human societies in the Late Paleolithic is the emergence of art and the addition of all the basic elements of the primitive religion.
Appears cave painting, sculptural images of people and animals, engraving on bones, various decorations; deliberate burial of people with tools, weapons and jewelry. Most of the Upper Paleolithic monuments are unconditionally religious in nature. Describing and systematizing them takes time, which we do not have, but we must not forget that, according to the true remark of the modern American philosopher Houston Smith, “Religion is not primarily a collection of facts, but a collection of meanings.
You can endlessly list the gods, customs and beliefs, but if this lesson gives us the opportunity to see how people overcome loneliness, grief and death with their help, no matter how impeccably accurate this listing was made, it has nothing to do with religion ".
Let us try to find the significance of the Upper Paleolithic finds in the spiritual searches of the Cro-Magnon, and the first ordered forms of social organization arise - the clan and clan community. The basic features of a primitive society are formed, consistent collectivism in production and consumption, common ownership and equal distribution in collectives. 35 - 12 thousand
years ago - the most severe phase of the last Wurm glaciation, when modern people settled throughout the Earth. After the appearance of the first modern people in Europe (Cro-Magnon), there was a relatively rapid growth of their cultures, the most famous of which are Chatelperona, Aurignac, Solutrei, Gravetta and Madeleine archaeological cultures. North and South America were colonized by people through the Bering Isthmus that existed in antiquity, which was later flooded by rising sea levels and turned into the Bering Strait.
The ancient people of America, the Paleo-Indians, most likely formed into an independent culture about 13.5 thousand years ago. In general, hunter-gatherer communities began to dominate the planet, using various types of stone tools depending on the region. Numerous changes in the human lifestyle are associated with climatic changes of this era, which is characterized by the beginning of a new ice age.
The first examples of Paleolithic art Caves of France were found in the 40s of the XIX century, when many, under the influence of biblical views on the past of man, did not believe in the very existence of Stone Age people - contemporaries of the mammoth.
In 1864, in the cave of La Madeleine (France), an image of a mammoth on a bone plate was discovered, showing that people of this distant time not only lived with a mammoth, but also reproduced this animal in their drawings.
After 11 years, in 1875, the cave paintings of Altamira (Spain), which astounded researchers, were unexpectedly discovered, followed by many others. In the Upper Paleolithic, as we see, the technique of hunting is becoming more complicated. Housebuilding is emerging, a new way of life is emerging. During the maturation of the tribal system, the primitive community grows stronger and more complex in structure. Thinking and speech are developing. The mental horizons of man are immeasurably expanded and his spiritual world is enriched.
Along with these general achievements in the development of culture, the specifically important circumstance that the Upper Paleolithic man now began to widely use the bright colors of natural mineral paints was of great importance for the emergence and further growth of art. He also mastered new methods of processing soft stone and bone, which opened before him previously unknown possibilities for conveying environmental phenomena in plastic form - in sculpture and carving.
Without these preconditions, without these technical achievements, born of direct labor practice in the manufacture of tools, neither painting nor artistic processing of bone could have arisen, which basically represents the Paleolithic art known to us. The most remarkable and most important thing in the history of primitive art is the fact that from its first steps it went mainly along the path of truthful transfer of reality. The art of the Upper Paleolithic, taken in its best samples, is remarkable for its amazing fidelity to nature and accuracy in the transmission of vital, most significant features.
Already at the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic, in the Aurignac monuments of Europe, samples of truthful drawings and sculptures, as well as cave paintings of the same spirit, are found. Their appearance, of course, was preceded by a certain preparatory period .. The art of the Paleolithic was of great positive importance in the history of ancient mankind. By reinforcing his working life experience in living images of art, the primitive man deepened and expanded his ideas about reality and deeper, comprehensively cognized it, and at the same time enriched his spiritual world.
The emergence of art, which meant a huge step forward in the cognitive activity of man, at the same time, in many ways contributed to the strengthening of social ties.
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ART OF THE STONE AGE
e. Larte found his first small forms during the excavation of the cave in the 60s of the 19th century, shortly after the recognition of the discoveries of Boucher de Perth (see prehistoric art). At the turn of the Mesolithic animalism (the image of animals) is drying up, giving way mostly to schematic and ornamental works.
Only in small regions - the Spanish Levant, Kobystan in Azerbaijan, Zarautsay in Central Asia and the Neolithic cave paintings (petroglyphs of Karelia, cave paintings of the Urals) did the monumental-plot tradition of the Paleolithic continue.
For a long time, caves with paleolithic drawings were found only in Spain, in France and in Italy.
In 1959, zoologist A.V.
Paleolithic culture
Ryumin discovered Paleolithic drawings in the Kapova cave in the Urals. The drawings were located mainly in the depths of the cave on the second, inaccessible tier.
Initially, 11 drawings were discovered: 7 mammoths, 2 horses, 2 rhinos.
All of them were made with ocher - mineral paint, ingrained into the rock so that when a piece of stone in the drawing broke off, it turned out that it was soaked through with paint.
In some places the drawings differed poorly, so it is difficult to make out who they depict. Here some squares, cubes, triangles were visible. Some images resembled a hut, others - a vessel, etc.
Archaeologists had to work hard to “read” these drawings.
There was much debate about what time they belong to. A convincing argument in favor of their antiquity is their very content. After all, the animals depicted on the walls of the cave have died out long ago. Carbon analysis showed that the earliest examples of cave painting, known today, number more than 30 thousand.
years, the latest - approx. 12 thousand years.
In the Late Paleolithic, a sculptural image of naked (less often in clothes) women becomes widespread.
The sizes of the figurines are small: only 5 - 10 cm and, as a rule, no more than 12 - 15 cm in height. They are carved from soft stone, limestone or marl, less often from steatite or ivory. Such figures - they are called Paleolithic Venus - were found in France, Belgium, Italy, Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Ukraine, but a lot of them were found in Russia.
It is generally accepted that the figures of naked women portray the goddess-ancestress, as they emphasize the idea of \u200b\u200bmotherhood, fertility. Numerous figurines represent mature, full-breasted women, with a large belly (probably pregnant).
Among the female figurines there are also figures in clothes: only the face is naked, everything else is pulled into a kind of fur “jumpsuit”. Stitched with wool to the outside, it fits the body tightly from head to toe. The costume of a man of the ancient Stone Age is especially clearly visible on the figurine found in 1963.
in Bureti.
The fur of the clothes is indicated by semicircular pits and notches located in a certain rhythmic order. These pits are not only on the face.
From the convex face, the fur is sharply separated by deep narrow grooves that form a roller - a thick fluffy rim of the hood. The wide and flat hood is pointed up.
Very similar clothes are still worn by Arctic hunters of sea animals and reindeer herders of the tundra. This is not surprising: 25 thousand years ago, there was also a tundra on the shores of Lake Baikal.
Cold, piercing winter winds forced Paleolithic people, like modern inhabitants of the Arctic, to wrap themselves in fur clothes.
Very warm, such clothes at the same time do not constrain movements, allows you to move very quickly.
The works of Paleolithic art found at the Mezin Paleolithic site in Ukraine are interesting. The geometric pattern here is covered with bracelets, all kinds of figurines and figures carved from a mammoth tusk. Together with stone, bone tools, needles with an eye, jewelry, the remains of dwellings and other finds in Mezin, bone products with a metric pattern were found.
This ornament consists mainly of many zigzag lines. In recent years, such a strange zigzag pattern was found in other Paleolithic sites of B.
Middle Europe. What does this “abstract” pattern mean and how did it come about? The geometric style does not fit very well with the cave art drawings brilliant in realism. Where did “abstractionism” come from? And how abstract is this ornament?
Having studied the structure of slices of mammoth tusks with the help of magnifying devices, the researchers noticed that they also consist of zigzag patterns, very similar to zigzag ornamental motifs of Mezin products. Thus, the basis of the Mezin geometric ornament was a pattern drawn by nature itself.
But ancient artists not only copied nature. They introduced new combinations and elements into the primordial ornament, overcoming the dead monotony of the pattern.
In the Mesolithic and Neolithic era, art continued to develop. Monuments of the most ancient art of Central Asia and the Black Sea are interesting, the sources of which lie in the Near and Middle East. The favorable combination of the natural conditions of the Near and Middle East allowed the person to switch to agriculture from the Mesolithic from hunting and gathering.
Both architecture and art developed rapidly here (see prehistoric art).
Stone Age
The Stone Age is the oldest period in the history of mankind, when the main tools and weapons were made mainly of stone, but wood and bone were also used. At the end of the Stone Age, the use of clay (utensils, brick buildings, sculpture) spread.
Periodization of the Stone Age:
* Paleolithic:
The Lower Paleolithic is the period of the appearance of the oldest species of people and the wide distribution of Homo erectus.
The Middle Paleolithic is a period of displacement of erectus by evolutionarily more advanced species of people, including modern man. In Europe, the Neanderthals dominate throughout the Middle Paleolithic.
Upper Paleolithic - the period of dominance of the modern type of people throughout the globe in the era of the last glaciation.
* Mesolithic and epipaleolite; the terminology depends on how much the region was affected by the extinction of the megafauna as a result of the melting of the glacier. The period is characterized by the development of the production of stone tools and the general culture of man. Pottery is missing.
* Neolithic - the era of the emergence of agriculture. Tools and weapons are still stone, but their production is perfected, ceramics are widely distributed.
Paleolithic
The period of the most ancient history of mankind, capturing a temporary era from the moment a person was separated from the animal state and the primitive communal system appeared until the final retreat of the glaciers. The term was coined by archaeologist John Libbock in 1865. In the Paleolithic man began to use stone tools in his daily life. The Stone Age covers most of human history (about 99% of the time) on earth and begins 2.5 or 2.6 million years ago. The Stone Age is characterized by the appearance of stone tools, agriculture and the completion of the Pliocene about 10 thousand years BC. e. The Paleolithic era ends with the onset of the Mesolithic, which in turn ended with the Neolithic revolution.
During the Paleolithic, people lived together in small communities, such as tribes, and collected plants and hunted wild animals. The Paleolithic is characterized by the use of mainly stone tools, although wood and bone tools were also used. Natural materials were adapted by man to use them as tools, so leather and plant fibers were used, but, given their fragility, they could not survive to this day. During the Paleolithic period, mankind gradually evolved from early representatives of the Homo genus, such as Homo habilis, who used simple stone tools to anatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens sapiens). At the end of the Paleolithic, during the Middle and Upper Paleolithic, people began to create the first works of art and began to engage in religious and spiritual rites, such as the burial of the dead and religious rituals. The climate during the Paleolithic included glacial and interglacial periods, in which the climate periodically changed from warm to cold temperatures.
Lower Paleolithic
The period that began at the end of the Pliocene era, in which the first use of stone tools by the ancestors of modern man Homo habilis began. These were relatively simple tools known as cleavers. Homo habilis mastered stone tools in the age of the Olduvai culture, which were used as chopped and stone cores. This culture got its name in honor of the place where the first stone tools were found - the Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania. People living in this era existed mainly due to the meat of dead animals and the gathering of wild plants, since hunting at that time was not yet widespread. About 1.5 million years ago, a more developed human species appeared - Homo erectus. Representatives of this species learned to use fire and created more complex chopping tools made of stone, and also expanded their habitat due to the development of Asia, as evidenced by finds on the Zhoykudan plateau in China. About 1 million years ago, man mastered Europe and began to use stone axes.
Middle Paleolithic
The period began about 200 thousand years ago and is the most studied era during which Neanderthals lived (120-35 thousand years ago). The most famous finds of Neanderthals belong to the Mosterian culture. In the end, the Neanderthals died out and were replaced by modern people who first appeared in Ethiopia about 100 thousand years ago. Despite the fact that the culture of Neanderthals is considered primitive, there is evidence that they honored their old people and practiced burial rituals, which were organized by the whole tribe. At this time, there was an expansion of the range of human habitation and their settlement of undeveloped territories such as Australia and Oceania. The peoples of the Middle Paleolithic demonstrate irrefutable evidence that abstract thinking began to prevail in them, expressed, for example, in the organized burial of the dead. Recently, in 1997, based on DNA analysis of the first Neanderthal, scientists at the University of Munich concluded that the differences in genes are too great to consider Neanderthals to be the ancestors of Cro-Magnols (i.e., modern people). These findings were confirmed by leading experts from Zurich, and later throughout Europe and America. For a long time (15-35 thousand years) Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons coexisted and quarreled. In particular, in the sites of both Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons, gnawed bones of a different species were found.
Upper Paleolithic
About 35-10 thousand years ago, the last ice age ended and modern people during this period settled throughout the Earth. After the appearance of the first modern people in Europe (Cro-Magnon), there was a relatively rapid growth of their cultures, the most famous of which are Chatelperona, Aurignac, Solutrei, Gravetta and Madeleine archaeological cultures.
North and South America were colonized by people through the Bering Isthmus that existed in antiquity, which was later flooded by rising sea levels and turned into the Bering Strait. The ancient people of America, the Paleo-Indians, most likely formed into an independent culture about 13.5 thousand years ago. In general, hunter-gatherer communities began to dominate the planet, using various types of stone tools depending on the region.
Mesolithic
The period between the Paleolithic and the Neolithic, X - VI thousand years BC. The period began with the end of the last ice age and continued to increase the level of the world's oceans, which caused people to adapt to their surroundings and find new sources of food. In this period, microliths appeared - miniature stone tools, which greatly expanded the possibilities of using stone in the daily life of ancient people. However, the term “Mesolithic” is also used to refer to stone tools that were brought to Europe from the Ancient Near East. Microlytic tools significantly increased the efficiency of hunting, and in more developed settlements (for example, Lepensky Vir) were also used for fishing. Probably, in this temporary era, the dog was tamed as an assistant in the hunt.
Neolithic
The new Stone Age was characterized by the emergence of agriculture and cattle breeding during the so-called Neolithic revolution, the development of pottery and the appearance of the first large settlements of people, such as Chatal-Guyuk and Jericho. The first Neolithic cultures appeared around 7000 BC. e. in the zone of the so-called “fertile crescent”. Agriculture and culture spread throughout the Mediterranean, the Indus Valley, China, and Southeast Asia.
The increase in population led to an increase in the need for plant foods, which contributed to the rapid development of agriculture. When conducting agricultural work, stone tools for cultivating the soil began to be used, and when harvesting, devices for harvesting, grinding of cutting plants began to be used. Large-scale stone structures, such as the towers and walls of Jericho or Stonehenge, began to be built for the first time, which demonstrates the emergence in the Neolithic of significant human and material resources, as well as forms of cooperation between large groups of people that allowed us to carry out work on large projects. In the Neolithic era, regular trade appeared between different settlements, people began to transport goods over considerable distances (many hundreds of kilometers). Skara Bray, located on the Orkney Islands near Scotland, is one of the best examples of a Neolithic village. The settlement used stone beds, shelves, and even rooms for toilets.
Today, very little is known about our ancestors who lived in the Stone Age. For a long time there was an opinion that these people were cave dwellers who walked with a club. But modern scholars are sure that in the Stone Age there is a huge period of history that began about 3.3 million years ago and lasted until 3300 A.D. - This was not entirely true.
1. Homo Erectus Tool Factory
In the northeast of Tel Aviv in Israel, hundreds of ancient stone tools were found during excavations. Opened in 2017 at a depth of 5 meters, artifacts were made by the ancestors of people. Created about half a million years ago, the tools told several facts about their creators - the ancestor of a man known as Homo erectus ("Homo erectus"). It is believed that this area was a kind of Stone Age paradise - there were rivers, plants and plentiful food - everything necessary for existence.
The most interesting find of this primitive camp was the quarries. Masons chipped the flint edges, making pear-shaped ax blades out of them, which were probably used to dig up food and cut animals. The discovery was unexpected, due to the huge number of perfectly preserved tools. This makes it possible to learn more about the lifestyle of Homo erectus.
2. The first wine
At the end of the Stone Age on the territory of modern Georgia began to make the first wine. In 2016 and 2017, archaeologists excavated ceramic fragments dating from 5400-5000 BC. The fragments of clay jugs found in two ancient Neolithic settlements (Gadakhrili-gora and Shulaveri-gora) were analyzed, as a result of which tartaric acid was found in six vessels.
This chemical is always an indisputable sign that there was wine in the vessels. Scientists also found that grape juice naturally wandered in the warm climate of Georgia. To find out if red or white wine was preferred at that time, the researchers analyzed the color of the residues. They were yellowish, which suggests that the ancient Georgians produced white wine.
3. Dental procedures
In the mountains of northern Tuscany, dentists served patients 13,000 - 12,740 years ago. Evidence of six such primitive patients was found in an area called Riparo Fredian. On two teeth, traces of the procedure that any modern dentist would recognize - a cavity filled in a tooth would be found. It is difficult to say whether any painkillers were used, but the enamel marks were left by some sharp instrument.
Most likely, it was made of stone, with which the cavity was expanded, scraping the decayed tooth tissue. The next tooth also found a familiar technology - the remains of a seal. It was made from bitumen mixed with plant fibers and hair. If the use of bitumen (natural resin) is understandable, then why was hair and fiber added - a mystery.
4. Long-term home maintenance
Most children teach in schools that Stone Age families lived only in caves. However, they also built clay houses. Recently, 150 Stone Age camps have been studied in Norway. Stone rings showed that the earliest housing was tents, probably made from animal skins held together by rings. In Norway, during the Mesolithic era, which began around 9500 BC, people began to build dugout houses.
This change occurred when the last ice of the Ice Age was gone. Some of the half-dugouts were quite large (about 40 square meters), which implies the residence of several families in them. The most incredible thing is consistent attempts to preserve structures. Some of them were abandoned for 50 years before the new owners stopped supporting the house.
5. The Massacre of Nataruk
Stone Age cultures created spectacular art and social relationships, but they also waged wars. In one case, it was just a meaningless massacre. In 2012, in Nataruk, northern Kenya, a team of scientists discovered bones sticking out of the ground. It turned out that the skeleton had broken knees. Having cleared the bones from the sand, scientists discovered that they belonged to a pregnant woman of the Stone Age. Despite her condition, she was killed. About 10,000 years ago, someone tied her up and threw her into the lagoon.
Nearby were the remains of 27 other people, soon there were 6 children and several more women. Most of the remains had signs of violence, including injuries, fractures, and even bits of weapons stuck in the bones. It is impossible to say why a group of hunter-gatherers was exterminated, but this could be the result of a resource dispute. During this time, Nataruk was a lush and fertile land with fresh water - an invaluable place for any tribe. No matter what happens that day, the massacre at Nataruk remains the oldest evidence of human warfare.
6. Inbreeding
It is possible that people were saved as a species by an early awareness of inbreeding. In 2017, scientists discovered the first signs of this understanding in the bones of Stone Age people. Four skeletons of people who died 34,000 years ago were found in Sungir, east of Moscow. Genetic analysis showed that they behaved like modern hunter-gatherer communities when it came to choosing life companions. They realized that having offspring with close relatives such as brothers and sisters was fraught with consequences. In Sungir, there were obviously almost no marriages within the same family.
If people mated at random, the genetic consequences of inbreeding would be more obvious. Like later hunter-gatherers, they must have sought partners through social ties with other tribes. Sungir burials were accompanied by sufficiently complex rituals to suggest that important milestones in life (such as death and marriage) were accompanied by ceremonies. If so, then Stone Age weddings would be the earliest human marriages. A lack of understanding of relationships with relatives may have condemned Neanderthals, whose DNA shows more inbreeding.
7. Women of other cultures
In 2017, researchers examined ancient homes in Lehtal, Germany. Their age totaled about 4000 years, when in this area there were no large settlements. When the remains of the inhabitants were investigated, an amazing tradition was discovered. Most of the families were founded by women who left their villages to settle in Lehtal. This happened from the late Stone Age to the Early Bronze Age.
For eight centuries, women, probably from Bohemia or Central Germany, preferred Lechtal men. Such women's moves were the key to the dissemination of cultural ideas and objects, which, in turn, helped shape new technologies. The discovery also showed that previous beliefs about mass migration need to be adjusted. Despite the fact that women repeatedly moved to Lehtal, this happened purely on an individual basis.
8. Written language
Researchers may have discovered the oldest written language in the world. In fact, it may be code representing certain concepts. Historians have long known about the symbols of the Stone Age, but for many years they ignored them, despite the fact that countless caves are visited by countless visitors. In caves in Spain and France, examples of some of the most incredible rock inscriptions in the world were found. Between the ancient images of bison, horses and lions, tiny symbols were hidden, representing something abstract.
Twenty-six characters are repeated on the walls of about 200 caves. If they serve to transmit some kind of information, this “pushes” the invention of writing back 30,000 years ago. However, the roots of ancient writing may be even older. Many symbols painted by Cro-Magnons in French caves have been found in ancient African art. In particular, it is an open-angle sign engraved in Blombos Cave in South Africa, which dates back 75,000 years.
9. Plague
By the time the Yersinia pestis bacteria reached Europe in the fourteenth century, 30-60 percent of the population was already dead. Ancient skeletons examined in 2017 showed that the plague appeared in Europe during the Stone Age. Six skeletons of the late Neolithic and Bronze Age showed a positive result for the plague. The disease spread over a wide geographical area, from Lithuania, Estonia and Russia to Germany and Croatia. Given the different locations and two eras, the researchers were surprised when the genomes of Yersinia pestis (plague bacillus) were compared.
Further research showed that the bacterium probably came from the east when people settled from the Caspian-Pontic steppe (Russia and Ukraine). Arriving about 4,800 years ago, they brought with them a unique genetic marker. This marker appeared in European remains at the same time as the earliest traces of the plague, indicating that the steppes brought the disease. It is not known how deadly the plague wand was in those days, but it is possible that the steppe migrants left their homes because of the epidemic.
10. Musical evolution of the brain
It used to be that early Stone Age tools evolved along with language. But a revolutionary change - from simple to complex tools - happened about 1.75 million years ago. Scientists are not sure if language existed then. In 2017, an experiment was conducted. Volunteers were shown to volunteers how to make the simplest tools (from bark and pebbles), as well as the more “advanced” hand axes of Acheulean culture. One group watched a video with sound, and the second without.
While the participants in the experiment were sleeping, their brain activity was analyzed in real time. Scientists have discovered that the “leap” in knowledge was not related to language. The language center of the brain was activated only in people who heard instructions for the video, but both groups successfully made Acheulean instruments. This could solve the mystery of when and how the human species moved from ape-like thinking to cognition. Many believe that 1.75 million years ago, music first appeared, simultaneously with human intelligence.
The undoubted interest of all those involved in history,
will call and.