Stone Age
The Stone Age is the most ancient 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 (dishes, brick buildings, sculpture) became widespread.
Stone Age periodization:
- Paleolithic:
- Lower Paleolithic - the period of the appearance of the most ancient species of people and wide distribution Homo erectus.
- The Middle Paleolithic is the period when erectus was displaced by evolutionarily more advanced species of people, including modern humans. In Europe, during the entire Middle Paleolithic, Neanderthals dominate.
- The Upper Paleolithic is the period of the dominance of the modern species of people throughout the entire territory of the globe during the era of the last glaciation.
- Mesolithic and Epipaleolithic; the terminology depends on the extent to which the region has been affected by the extinction of the megafauna as a result of the melting of the glacier. The period is characterized by the development of technology for the production of stone tools and general human culture. No ceramics.
Neolithic - the era of the emergence of agriculture. Tools and weapons are still made of stone, but their production is being brought to perfection, and ceramics are widely distributed.
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 supplanted stone and ended the Stone Age.
General characteristics of the Stone Age
The first period of the Stone Age is the Paleolithic, within which the early, middle and late periods are distinguished.
Early Paleolithic (to the turn of 100 thousand years BC. BC) - this is the era of the Archantropians. Material culture developed very slowly. It took more than a million years to move from roughly chipped pebbles to choppers, whose edges are evenly processed on both sides. Approximately 700 thousand years ago, the process of mastering fire began: people support fire obtained naturally (as a result of lightning strikes, fires). The main types of activity are hunting and gathering, the main type of weapon is a club, a spear. Archanthropus explore natural shelters (caves), build huts from twigs, which are covered with 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 era of the Neanderthal paleoanthropus. A harsh time. The icing of a large part of Europe, North America and Asia. Many thermophilic animals died out. Difficulties stimulated cultural progress. The means and methods of hunting are being improved (round-up hunting, corrals). A wide variety of axes are created, and also used are chipped from the core and processed thin plates - scrapers. With the help of scrapers, people began to make warm clothes from animal skins. Learned how to make fire by drilling. Intentional burials belong to this era. Often the deceased was buried in the form of a sleeping person: arms bent at the elbow, near the face, legs bent. Household items appear in the graves. 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 era of the Cro-Magnon. Cro-Magnons lived in large groups. The technique of stone processing has grown: stone plates are sawn and drilled. Bone arrowheads are widely used. A spear thrower appeared - a board with a hook on which a dart was placed. Found many bone needles for sewing clothes. Houses are semi-dugouts with a frame made of branches and even animal bones. The burial of the dead became the norm, to whom they put a supply of food, clothing and tools, which spoke of clear ideas about the afterlife. During the late Paleolithic period, art and religion - two important forms of social life, closely related to each other.
Mesolithic, Middle Stone Age (10th - 6th millennium BC). In the Mesolithic, bows and arrows, microlithic tools appeared, a dog was tamed. The periodization of the Mesolithic is conditional, for in different regions of the world the processes of development proceed at different rates. So, in the Middle East, already from 8 thousand people read the transition to agriculture and cattle breeding, which is the essence of the new stage - the Neolithic.
Neolithic,new Stone Age (6–2 thousand BC). There is a transition from an appropriating economy (gathering, hunting) to a producing one (agriculture, cattle breeding). In the Neolithic era, stone tools were polished, drilled, earthenware, spinning, and weaving appeared. In 4–3 millennia, the first civilizations emerged in a number of regions of the world.
7.the culture of the neolithic period
Neolithic - the era of the emergence of agriculture and cattle breeding. Neolithic monuments are widespread in the Russian Far East. They date back to the period 8000-4000 years ago. Tools and weapons are still made of stone, however, their production is brought to perfection. The Neolithic period is characterized by a large set of stone tools. Ceramics (baked clay dishes) was widespread. The Neolithic inhabitants of Primorye learned how to make polished stone tools, jewelry and pottery.
Archaeological cultures of the Neolithic period in Primorye are Boisman and Rudna. Representatives of these cultures lived in year-round frame-type dwellings and exploited most of the available environmental resources: they were engaged in hunting, fishing, and gathering. The population of the Boyzman culture, lived on the coast in small villages (1-3 dwellings), engaged in fishing in the sea in summer and caught up to 18 species of fish, including such large ones as the great white shark and stingray. In the same period, they also practiced gathering of mollusks (90% were oysters). In autumn they were engaged in gathering plants, in winter and in spring they hunted deer, roe deer, wild boars, sea lions, seals, dolphins, and sometimes gray whales.
Individual hunting prevailed on land, and collective hunting at sea. Men and women were engaged in fishing, but women and children caught fish with a hook, and men with a spear and a harpoon. Warrior hunters had a high social status and were buried with special honors. Shell heaps have been preserved in many settlements.
As a result of a sharp cooling of the climate 5–4.5 thousand years ago and a sharp drop in sea level, the Middle Neolithic cultural traditions disappear and are transformed into the Zaisan cultural tradition (5–3 thousand years ago), the population of which had a widely specialized life support system, which on continental monuments already included agriculture. This allowed people to live both on the coast and in the interior of the continent.
People belonging to the Zaisanian cultural tradition settled in a wider area than their predecessors. In the continental part, they settled along the middle reaches of rivers flowing into the sea, favorable for agriculture, and on the coast - in all potentially productive and convenient places, using all available ecological niches. Representatives of the Zaisan culture have certainly achieved greater adaptive success than their predecessors. The number of their settlements is increasing significantly, they have a much larger area and the number of dwellings, the size of which has also become larger.
The rudiments of agriculture in the Neolithic are recorded both in Primorye and in the Amur region, but the process of development of the economy of Neolithic cultures has been studied most fully in the basin of the Middle Amur.
The oldest local culture, called Novopetrovsk, belongs to the early Neolithic and dates back to the 5th-4th millennia BC. e. Similar changes have taken place in the economy of the population of Primorye.
The emergence of agriculture in the Far East led to the emergence of economic specialization between the farmers of Primorye and the Middle Amur region and their neighbors in the Lower Amur (and other northern territories), which remained at the level of the traditional appropriating economy.
The last period of the Stone Age - the Neolithic - is characterized by a complex of features, none of which is mandatory. In general, the trends in the Mesolithic continue to develop.
The Neolithic is characterized by an improvement in the technique of making stone tools, especially their final finishing - grinding, polishing. The technique of drilling and sawing stone has been mastered. Neolithic jewelry made of colored stone (especially widespread bracelets), sawn out of a stone disc, and then polished and polished, have an impeccably regular shape.
For forest areas, polished wood processing tools are characteristic - axes, chisels, adzes. Along with flint, jade, jadeite, carnelian, jasper, shale and other minerals are beginning to be used. At the same time, flint continues to prevail, its mining is expanding, the first underground workings (mines, adits) appear. Tools on plates, liner microlithic equipment are preserved, especially numerous finds of such tools in agricultural areas. Inserted reaping knives and sickles are common there, and from macroliths - axes, stone hoes and grain processing implements: grain grinders, mortars, pestles. In areas dominated by hunting and fishing, there is a wide variety of fishing gear: harpoons used to catch fish and land animals, arrowheads of various shapes, hooks for moving, simple and composite (in Siberia, they were also used for catching birds), various kinds of traps for medium and small animals. Often the traps were based on bows. In Siberia, the bow was improved with bone pads - this made it more elastic and long-range. In fishing, nets, ropes, stone spoons of various shapes and sizes were widely used. In the Neolithic, the processing of stone, bone, wood, and then ceramic objects reached such perfection that it became possible to aesthetically emphasize this skill of the master, decorating the thing with an ornament or giving it a special shape. The aesthetic value of a thing, as it were, enhances its utilitarian value (for example, Australian aborigines believe that an unadorned boomerang kills worse than a decorated boomerang). These two trends - improvements in the function of a thing and its decoration - lead to the flourishing of applied art in the Neolithic.
In the Neolithic, pottery was widespread (although they were not known in a number of tribes). They are represented by zoomorphic and anthropomorphic figurines and dishes. Early ceramic vessels were made on a basis woven from rods. After firing, a weaving imprint remained. Later, they began to use the rope and molded technique: the imposition of a rope of clay with a diameter 3-4 cm on a spiral shape. So that the clay does not crack when it dries, weakening agents were added to it - chopped straw, crushed shells, sand. Older vessels had a rounded or sharp bottom, which indicates that they were placed on an open fire. Tableware of sedentary tribes has a flat bottom adapted to the table and the hearth of the stove. Ceramic dishes were decorated with painting or relief ornaments, which became more and more rich with the development of the craft, but retained the main traditional elements and techniques of decoration. Thanks to this, it was ceramics that began to be used to distinguish territorial cultures and to periodize the Neolithic. The most common decoration techniques are a cut (on wet clay) ornament, adhesion ornaments, finger or nail pins, a dimple pattern, comb (using a comb-shaped stamp), a drawing made with a "receding blade" stamp - and others.
The ingenuity of the Neolithic man is striking.
melted on a fire in a clay bowl. It is the only material that melts at such a low temperature and is still suitable for glaze production. Ceramic dishes were often made so skillfully that the thickness of the wall in relation to the size of the vessel was the same ratio as the thickness of the shell of an egg to its volume. K. Levi-Strauss believes that the invention of primitive man is fundamentally different from that of modern man. He calls it the term "bricolage" - literal translation - "bounce game". If a modern engineer sets and solves a problem, discarding everything extraneous, then the bricoler collects and assimilates all information, he must be ready for any situation, and his solution is, as a rule, associated with a random goal.
In the late Neolithic, spinning and weaving were invented. We used the fiber of wild nettle, flax, bark of trees. The fact that people have mastered spinning is evidenced by the spindle - stone or ceramic attachments that make the spindle heavier and contribute to its smoother rotation. The fabric was obtained by weaving, without a machine.
The organization of the population in the Neolithic is clan and, as long as hoe farming is preserved, the head of the clan is a woman - matriarchy. With the beginning of arable farming, and it is associated with the emergence of draft animals and improved tools for tillage, a patriarchy will be established. Within the clan, people live in families, either in communal ancestral homes, or in separate houses, but then the clan owns a whole village.
In the economy of the Neolithic, both producing technologies and appropriating forms are represented. The territories of the producing economy are expanding in comparison with the Mesolithic, but in most of the ecumene either the appropriating economy is preserved, or it has a complex character - appropriating, with elements of the producing. Such complexes usually included animal husbandry. Nomadic agriculture, using primitive furrow arable tools and not knowing irrigation, could develop only in areas with soft soil and natural moisture - in the floodplains of rivers and on the foothill and intermountain plains. Such conditions developed in 8-7 millennia BC. e. in three territories that became the earliest centers of agricultural cultures: Jordanian-Palestinian, Asia Minor and Mesopotamian. From these territories, agriculture spread to southern Europe, to the Transcaucasus and Turkmenistan (the settlement of Dzheitun near Ashgabat is considered the border of the agricultural ecumene). The first autochthonous centers of agriculture in North and East Asia were formed only by the third millennium BC. e. in the basin of the middle and lower Amur. In Western Europe, in the 6-5 millennia, three main Neolithic cultures developed: Danube, Nordic and Western European. The main agricultural crops cultivated in the Central Asian and Central Asian centers are wheat, barley, lentils, peas, and millet in the Far East. In Western Europe, oats, rye, millet were added to barley and wheat. By the third millennium BC. e. in Switzerland, carrots, caraway seeds, poppy seeds, flax, apples were already known, in Greece and Macedonia - apples, figs, pears, grapes. Due to the variety of specializations of the economy and the great need for stone for tools in the Neolithic, an intensive inter-tribal exchange begins.
The number of population in the Neolithic increased sharply, for Europe over the previous 8 thousand years - almost 100 times; the population density has grown from 0.04 to 1 person per square kilometer. But mortality remained high, especially in children. It is believed that no more than 40-45% of people survived the age of thirteen. In the Neolithic period, a stable settlement began to be established, primarily on the basis of agriculture. In the forested areas of the east and north of Eurasia - along the coasts of large rivers, lakes, the sea, in places favorable for fishing and hunting for animals, settled life is formed on the basis of fishing and hunting.
Neolithic buildings are diverse, depending on the climate and local conditions, stone, wood, clay were used as building materials. In agricultural zones, houses were built of wattle fence, coated with clay or mud bricks, sometimes on a stone foundation. Their shape is round, oval, sub-rectangular, one or several rooms, there is a courtyard fenced with an adobe fence. Often the walls were decorated with paintings. In the late Neolithic, extensive, apparently religious houses appeared. Areas from 2 to 12 and more than 20 hectares were built up, such settlements were sometimes united into a city, for example, Chatal-Huyuk (7-6 millennium BC, Turkey) consisted of twenty villages, the central of which occupied 13 hectares. The buildings were spontaneous, the streets were about 2 m wide. The fragile buildings were easily destroyed, forming tales - wide hills. The city continued to be built on this hill for millennia, which indicates the high level of agriculture that provided such a long settlement.
In Europe, from Holland to the Danube, communal houses with many hearths and houses of a one-room structure with an area of \u200b\u200b9.5 x 5 m were built. In Switzerland and southern Germany, buildings on stilts were common and houses made of stones are found. Houses of the semi-earthen type, widespread in earlier eras, are also found, especially in the north and in the forest zone, but, as a rule, they are complemented by a log frame.
Burials in the Neolithic, both single and group, often in a crumpled position on the side, under the floor of a house, between houses or in a cemetery outside the village. Decorations and weapons are common in the grave goods. Siberia is characterized by the presence of weapons not only in male, but also in female burials.
G.V. Childe proposed the term "Neolithic revolution", referring to deep social shifts (crisis of appropriating economy and transition to production, increase in population and accumulation of rational experience) and the formation of fundamentally important branches of the economy - agriculture, pottery, weaving. In fact, these changes did not occur suddenly, but throughout the entire time from the beginning of the Mesolithic to the epoch of the paleometal and at different periods in different territories. Therefore, the periodization of the Neolithic is significantly different in different
natural areas.
Let us cite as an example the periodization of the Neolithic for the most well-studied territories of Greece and Cyprus (after A.L. Mongaite, 1973). The Early Neolithic of Greece is represented by stone tools (of which large plates and scrapers are specific), bone, often polished (hooks, shovels), ceramics - female figurines and dishes. The early female images are realistic, the later ones are stylized. The vessels are monochrome (dark gray, brown or red); round vessels have ring moldings around the bottom. The dwellings are semi-earthen, quadrangular, on wooden posts or with walls made of wattle fences coated with clay. The burials are individual, in simple pits, in a bent position on the side.
The Middle Neolithic of Greece (according to excavations in the Peloponnese, Attica, Evia, Thessaly and other places) is characterized by dwellings made of adobe bricks on a stone foundation of one to three rooms. Buildings of the megaron type are characteristic: a square inner room with a hearth in the middle, the protruding ends of two walls form an entrance portico, separated from the courtyard space by pillars. In Thessaly (Sesklo site) there were unfortified agricultural settlements that formed tales. Fine, fired ceramics with glaze, many spherical vessels. There are also ceramic dishes: polished gray, black, tricolor and matte painted. There are many exquisite clay figurines.
The late Neolithic of Greece (4-3 millennia BC) is characterized by the appearance of fortified settlements (the village of Demini in Thessaly) with a "leader's dwelling" in the center of the acropolis measuring 6.5 x 5.5 m (the largest in the village).
In the Neolithic period of Cyprus, features of the influence of the cultures of the Middle East are visible. The early period dates back to 5800-4500. BC e. It is characterized by a rounded-ovoid shape of adobe houses with a diameter of up to 10 m., Forming settlements (a typical settlement is Khirokitia). The inhabitants were engaged in agriculture and kept pigs, sheep, goats. They were buried under the floor in houses, a stone was placed on the head of the deceased. Tools typical of the Neolithic: sickles, grain grinders, axes, hoes, arrows, along with them knives and bowls made of obsidian and stylized figures of people and animals made of andesite. Ceramics of the most primitive forms (by the end of the 4th millennium, ceramics with comb patterns appear). Early Neolithic people in Cyprus artificially reshaped the skull.
In the second period from 3500 to 3150 BC. e. along with rounded buildings, quadrangular buildings with rounded corners appear. Comb pottery is becoming common. Cemeteries are moved outside the village. Period from 3000 to 2300 BC e. in the south of Cyprus it belongs to the Eneolithic, the Copper-Stone Age, the period transitional to the Bronze Age: along with the predominant stone tools, the first copper products appear - jewelry, needles, pins, drills, small knives, chisels. Copper was found in Asia Minor in the 8-7 millennium BC. e. The finds of copper products in Cyprus appear to be the result of an exchange. With the advent of metal tools, they are increasingly replacing less efficient stone tools, the zones of the production economy are expanding, and social differentiation of the population begins. The most typical ceramics for this period are white and red with geometric and stylized floral designs.
Subsequent historical and cultural periods are characterized by the disintegration of the tribal system, the formation of an early class society and the most ancient states, which is the subject of the study of written history.
8. The art of the ancient population of the Far East
9 Language, Science, Education in the State of BOHAI
Education, science and literature... In the capital of the Bohai State Sangyone (modern Dongjingcheng, PRC) educational institutions were created in which mathematics, the basics of Confucianism and Chinese classical literature were taught. Many offspring of aristocratic families continued their education in China; this testifies to the wide spread of the Confucian system and Chinese literature. The training of Bohai students in the Tang Empire contributed to the consolidation of Buddhism and Confucianism in the Bohai environment. The Bohai educated in China made a brilliant career in their homeland: Ko Wongo * and Oh Kwangkhan *, who spent many years in Tang China, became famous in the civil service.
In the PRC, the tombs of two Bohai princesses, Chon Hyo * and Chon Hye (737 - 777), were found, on whose gravestones verses in ancient Chinese were carved; they are not only a literary monument, but also a brilliant example of calligraphic art. The names of several Bohai writers who wrote in the Chinese language are known, these are Yanthesa *, Wanhyorom (? - 815), Inchon *, Chonso *, some of them visited Japan. The works of Yanthesa " The milky way is so clear», « Lingerie beat sound at night"And" The moon shines in the frost-covered skyAre distinguished by their impeccable literary style and are highly regarded in modern Japan.
The fairly high level of development of Bohai science, primarily astronomy and mechanics, is evidenced by the fact that in 859 a scientist from Bohai O Hyoshin * visited Japan and presented one of the rulers with an astronomical calendar “ Sonmyonok"/" The Code of Heavenly Luminaries ", having taught local colleagues how to use it. This calendar was used in Japan until the end of the 17th century.
Cultural and ethnic kinship ensured strong ties between the Bohai and the United Silla, but the Bohai had active contacts with Japan as well. From the beginning of the VIII to the X century. 35 Bohai embassies visited Japan: the first was sent to the islands in 727, and the last dates back to 919. The Bohai ambassadors carried furs, medicines, fabrics with them, and took away handicrafts and fabrics of Japanese masters to the mainland. It is reliably known about 14 Japanese embassies in Bohai. As Japanese-Sillan ties deteriorated, the island state began sending its embassies to China through Bohai territory. Japanese historians have come to the conclusion about the existence of close ties between Bohai and the so-called. "Okhotsk culture" on the east coast of Hokkaido Island.
From the beginning of the VIII century. In Bohai, Buddhism is widely spread, there is a lively construction of temples and monasteries, the foundations of some structures have survived to our time in Northeast China and Primorsky Krai. The state brought the Buddhist clergy closer to itself, the social status of the clergy steadily increased not only in the spiritual sphere, but also among the ruling class. Some of them became important government officials, for example, the Buddhist monks Inchon and Chonso, who became famous as talented poets, were sent to Japan at one time on important diplomatic missions.
In the Russian Primorye, fortified settlements and the remains of Buddhist temples dating back to the Bohai period are being actively studied. They contained bronze and iron arrowheads and spearheads, ornamented bone objects, Buddhist figurines and many other material evidence of the highly developed Bohai culture.
To compile official documents, the Bohai people, as was customary in many East Asian countries of that time, used Chinese hieroglyphic writing. They also used the ancient Türkic runic, that is, alphabetic, writing.
10 Religious representation of the Bohai people
The most widespread type of religious outlook among the Bohai people was shamanism. Buddhism spreads among the Bohai nobility and officials. In Primorye, the remains of five Buddhist idols of the Bohai time have already been identified - at the Kraskino settlement in the Khasansky district, as well as Kopytinskaya, Abrikosovskaya, Borisovskaya and Korsakovskaya in the Ussuriysky district. During the excavation of these idols, many intact or fragmented statuettes of Buddha and bodhisattvas made of gilded bronze, stone and baked clay were discovered. Other items of Buddhist worship were also found there.
11. Material culture of the Jurchens
The Jurcheni-Udige, who formed the basis of the Jin Empire, led a sedentary lifestyle, which was reflected in the nature of their dwellings, which were ground-based wooden structures of the frame-and-pillar type with kanans for heating. Kans were built in the form of longitudinal chimneys along the walls (one or three channels), which were covered from above with pebble, flagstone and carefully coated with clay.
Inside the dwelling there is almost always a stone mortar with a wooden pestle. Rarely, but there is a wooden stupa and a wooden pestle. Smelting forges and stone heels of a potter's table are known in some dwellings.
The dwelling house, together with a number of outbuildings, constituted the estate of one family. Summer pile barns were built here, in which the family often lived in the summer.
In the XII - early XIII centuries. the Jurchens had a diversified economy: agriculture, cattle breeding, hunting * fishing.
Agriculture was provided with fertile land and a variety of tools. Written sources mention watermelon, onion, rice, hemp, barley, millet, wheat, beans, leek, pumpkin, garlic. This means that field cultivation and horticulture were widely known. Flax and hemp were grown everywhere. Linen was used to make cloth for clothes, from nettle - sacking for various technological industries (tiles in particular). The scale of weaving production was large, which means that land areas for industrial crops were allocated on a large scale (History of the Far East of the USSR, pp. 270-275).
But the basis of agriculture was the production of grain crops: soft wheat, barley, chumiza, gaolyan, buckwheat, peas, soybeans, beans, cowpea, rice. Plowed land cultivation. Arable implements - rails and plows - draft. But the plowing of the land required more thorough cultivation, which was done with hoes, shovels, pawns, and pitchforks. A variety of iron sickles were used to harvest grain. The finds of straw chopper knives are interesting, which indicates a high level of feed preparation, that is, not only grass (hay), but also straw was used. The grain farming of the ChZhurchens is rich in tools for crushing, crushing and grinding cereals: wooden and stone mortars, foot crushers; water grinders are mentioned in written documents; and along with them - leg. There are numerous hand mills, and at the Shaiginsky ancient settlement, a mill was found, driven by draft animals.
Livestock was also an important branch of the Jurchen economy. Bred cattle, horses, pigs and dogs. Jurchen cattle are well known for many advantages: strength, productivity (both meat and dairy).
Horse breeding was perhaps the most important branch of animal husbandry. The Jurchens bred three breeds of horses: small, medium and very small in height, but all very adapted to travel in the mountain taiga. The level of horse breeding is evidenced by the developed production of horse harness. In general, we can conclude that in the era of the Jin empire in Primorye, an economic and cultural type of arable farmers with developed agriculture and animal husbandry was formed, for that time highly productive, corresponding to the classical types of feudal agrarian societies.
The Jurchen economy was substantially supplemented by a highly developed handicraft industry, in which the leading place was occupied by iron (mining ore and iron smelting), blacksmithing, carpentry and pottery, where the main production of tiles was. Handicraft was complemented by jewelry, weapons, leather and many other activities. Weaponry has reached a particularly high level of development: the production of bows and arrows, spears, daggers, swords, as well as a number of protective weapons
12. Spiritual culture of the Jurchens
Spiritual life, the Jurchen-Udige worldview represented an organic, unified system of religious ideas of an archaic society and a number of new Buddhist components. Such a combination of the archaic and the new in the worldview is characteristic of the societies of the emerging class structure and statehood. The new religion, Buddhism, was predominantly professed by the new aristocracy: state and military
top.
The traditional beliefs of the Jurchen-Udige included many elements in their complex: animism, magic, totemism; anthropomorphized ancestor cults are gradually increasing. Many of these elements have been fused in shamanism. Anthropomorphic figurines expressing the ideas of the cult of ancestors are genetically related to stone statues of the Eurasian steppes, as well as the cult of patron spirits and the cult of fire. The cult of fire had a wide
spread. He was sometimes accompanied by human sacrifices. Of course, other types of sacrifices (animals, wheat and other products) were widely known. One of the most important elements of the cult of fire was the sun, which has found expression in a number of archaeological sites.
Researchers have repeatedly emphasized the significant impact on the culture of the Jurchens of the Amur and Primorye regions of the culture of the Turks. And sometimes it is not only about the introduction of some elements of the spiritual life of the Türks into the Jurchen environment, but about the deep ethnogenetic roots of such connections. This allows us to see in the culture of the Jurchens the eastern region of a single and very powerful world of nomads of the steppes, which took shape in a peculiar way in the conditions of the coastal and Amur forests.
13. Writing and education of the Jurchens
Writing --- Jurchen script (Jurchen: Jurchen script in Jurchen script.JPG dʒu ʃə bitxə) - a script used to write the Jurchen language in the XII-XIII centuries. It was created by Wanyan Xiin on the basis of the Khitan script, which, in turn, is derived from the Chinese, partially deciphered. Part of the Chinese writing family
In Jurchen writing, there were about 720 characters, among which there are logograms (denote only meaning, not having to do with sound) and phonograms. Jurchen writing also has a key system similar to Chinese; signs were sorted by keys and number of lines.
At first, the Jurchens used the Khitan script, but in 1119 Wanyan Xiin created the Jurchen script, which later became known as the "big letter", since it included about three thousand characters. In 1138, a "small letter" was created, costing several hundred characters. By the end of the XII century. the small letter supplanted the big one. The Jurchen script is undeciphered, although scientists know about 700 characters from both letters.
The creation of the Jurchen writing system is an important event in life and culture. It demonstrated the maturity of the Jurchen culture, made it possible to transform the Jurchen language into the state language of the empire, and create an original literature and a system of images. Jurchen writing is poorly preserved, mainly various stone steles, printed and handwritten works. Very few handwritten books have survived, but there are many references to them in printed books. The Jurchens also actively used the Chinese language, in which quite a few works have survived.
The available material allows us to speak about the originality of this language. In the XII-XIII centuries, the language reached a fairly high development. After the defeat of the Golden Empire, the language fell into decay, but did not disappear. Some words were borrowed by other peoples, including the Mongols, through whom they entered the Russian language. These are words like "shaman", "bridle", "bit", "hurray". Jurchen battle cry "Hurray!" means ass. As soon as the enemy turned around and began to flee from the battlefield, the front warriors shouted "Hurray!"
Education --- At the beginning of the existence of the Golden Empire, education had not yet acquired national significance. During the war with the Khitan, the Jurchen used any means to get the Khitan and Chinese teachers. The famous Chinese enlightener Hong Hao, having spent 19 years in captivity, was an educator and teacher in a noble Jurchen family in the Pentapolis. The need for competent officials forced the government to engage in education issues. Poetry was passed on bureaucratic exams. All men (even the sons of slaves) were allowed to take the exams, except for slaves, imperial artisans, actors and musicians. To increase the number of Jurchens in administrations, the Jurchens took a less difficult exam than the Chinese.
In 1151 the State University was opened. Two professors, two teachers and four assistants worked here, later the university was enlarged. Higher educational institutions began to be created separately for the Chinese and Jurchens. In 1164, they began to create the State Institute for the Jurchen, designed for three thousand students. Already in 1169, the first hundred students graduated. By 1173 the institute began to work at full capacity. In 1166, an institute for the Chinese was opened, with 400 students. Education at the university and institutes bore a humanitarian bias. The main focus was on the study of history, philosophy and literature.
During the reign of Ulu, schools began to open in regional cities, since 1173 - Jurchen schools, 16 in total, and since 1176 - Chinese. The school was admitted after passing exams on the basis of recommendations. The students lived on full support. Each school trained, on average, 120 people. There was such a school in Xuiping. Small schools were opened in the centers of the districts, 20-30 people studied in them.
In addition to higher (university, institute) and secondary (college), there was primary education, about which little is known. During the reign of Ulu and Madage, urban and rural schools developed.
A large number of textbooks were printed by the university. There is even a textbook that served as cheat sheets.
The system of recruiting students was graduated and class-based. For a certain number of places, first noble children were recruited, then less noble ones, etc., if there were places left, they could recruit the children of commoners.
Since the 60s of the XII century. education is becoming the most important concern of the state. When in 1216, during the war with the Mongols, officials proposed to remove students from allowance, the emperor harshly rejected this idea. After the wars, schools were rebuilt in the first place.
It can be unambiguously argued that the Jurchen nobility was literate. The inscriptions on the pottery suggest that literacy was widespread among the common people.
22. Religious views of the Far East
The basis of the beliefs of the Nanai, Udege, Oroch, and partly the Taz was the universal idea that all the surrounding nature, the whole living world, is filled with souls and spirits. Religious representations of the Taz differed from the rest in that they had a large percentage of the influence of Buddhism, the Chinese cult of ancestors and other elements of Chinese culture.
The Udege, Nanai and Orochi initially represented the land in the form of a mythical animal: an elk, a fish, a dragon. Then gradually these ideas were replaced by an anthropomorphic image. And finally, numerous and powerful spirits-masters of the area began to symbolize the land, taiga, sea, rocks. Despite the common basis of beliefs in the spiritual culture of the Nanai, Udege and Oroch people, some special points can be noted. So, the Udege believed that the terrible spirit Onku was the master of the mountains and forests, whose assistant was the less powerful spirits-masters of certain areas of the terrain, as well as some animals - a tiger, a bear, an elk, an otter, a killer whale. Among the Orocs and Nanai, the spirit of Enduri, borrowed from the spiritual culture of the Manchus, was the supreme ruler of all three worlds - the underground, earthly and heavenly. The master spirits of the sea, fire, fish, etc. obeyed him. The spirit master of the taiga and all animals, except bears, was the mythical tiger Dusya. The greatest veneration in our time for all indigenous peoples of the Primorsky Territory is the master spirit of the Pudzia fire, which is undoubtedly associated with the antiquity and widespread dissemination of this cult. Fire, as a giver of warmth, food, life, was a sacred concept for the indigenous peoples and a lot of prohibitions, rituals and beliefs are still associated with it. However, for different peoples of the region, and even for different territorial groups of one ethnic group, the visual image of this spirit was completely different in terms of gender, age, anthropological and zoomorphic characteristics. Spirits played a huge role in the life of the traditional society of the region's indigenous peoples. Almost the entire life of an aborigine was previously filled with rituals either appeasing good spirits or protecting from evil spirits. Chief among the latter was the powerful and omnipresent evil spirit Amba.
Basically, the rituals of the life cycle of the indigenous peoples of the Primorsky Territory were common. Parents protected the life of an unborn child from evil spirits and subsequently until the moment when a person can take care of himself or with the help of a shaman. Usually the shaman was approached only when the person himself had already used all rational and magical methods unsuccessfully. The life of an adult was also surrounded by numerous taboos, rituals and ceremonies. Funeral rites were aimed at ensuring as much as possible the comfortable existence of the soul of the deceased in the afterlife. To do this, it was necessary to observe all the elements of the funeral ritual and provide the deceased with the necessary tools, means of transportation, a certain supply of food, which the soul should have had enough to travel to the afterlife. All things left with the deceased were deliberately spoiled in order to free their souls and so that in the other world the deceased would get everything new. According to the ideas of the Nanai, Udege and Orocs, the human soul is immortal and after a while, after being reincarnated into the opposite sex, it returns to its native camp and takes over the newborn. The representations of the basins are somewhat different, and according to them, a person does not have two or three souls, but ninety-nine, which die in turn. The type of burial among the indigenous peoples of the Primorsky Territory in traditional society depended on the type of death of a person, his age, gender, social status. So, the funeral rite, and the design of the grave of twins and shamans differed from the burial of ordinary people.
In general, shamans played a huge role in the life of the traditional aboriginal society of the region. Depending on their skill, shamans were divided into weak and strong. In accordance with this, they had various shamanistic costumes and numerous attributes: a tambourine, a mallet, mirrors, staves, swords, ritual sculpture, ritual structures. Shamans were people deeply believing in spirits who set the goal of their lives to serve and help their relatives free of charge. A charlatan, or a person who in advance wanted to receive any benefits from shamanic art, could not become a shaman. Shamanic rituals included rituals for treating a sick person, searching for a lost thing, obtaining commercial prey, sending the soul of the deceased to the afterlife. In honor of their helper spirits and patron spirits, as well as to reproduce their strength and authority before their relatives, powerful shamans arranged a gratitude ceremony every two or three years, which was basically similar among the Udege, Oroch and Nanai. The shaman, with his retinue and with everyone who wished, traveled around his "possessions", where he entered every dwelling, thanked the good spirits for their help and expelled the evil ones. The rite often acquired the significance of a national public holiday and ended with a plentiful feast at which the shaman could eat only small pieces from the ear, nose, tail and liver of the sacrificial pig and rooster.
Another important holiday of the Nanai, Udege and Oroch people was the bear holiday, as the most striking element of the bear cult. According to the ideas of these peoples, the bear was their sacred relative, the first ancestor. Due to its outward resemblance to man, as well as natural intelligence and cunning, the bear has been equated with a deity since ancient times. In order to once again strengthen kinship with such a powerful creature, as well as increase the number of bears in the fishing grounds of the clan, people arranged a celebration. The holiday was held in two versions - a feast after the killing of a bear in the taiga and a holiday organized after a three-year-old bear rearing in a special log house in the camp. The latter variant was common among the peoples of Primorye only among the Oroch and Nanai. Numerous guests from neighboring and distant camps were invited. At the holiday, a number of age and sex prohibitions were observed when eating sacred meat. Certain parts of the bear carcass were kept in a special barn. Like the subsequent burial of the bear's skull and bones after the feast, this was necessary for the future revival of the beast and, therefore, the continuation of good relations with the supernatural relative. The tiger and the killer whale were also considered similar relatives. These animals were treated in a special way, worshiped and never hunted. After accidentally killing a tiger, he was given a funeral ceremony similar to a human, and then the hunters came to the burial place and asked for good luck.
An important role was played by gratitude rituals in honor of good spirits before going on a hunt and directly at the place of hunting or fishing. Hunters and fishermen treated kind spirits to bits of food, tobacco, matches, a few drops of blood or alcohol, and asked for help so that the right animal would meet, so that a spear would not break or a trap would work well, so as not to break a leg in a windbreak, so as not to overturn the boat, so as not to meet a tiger. The Nanai, Udege and Oroch hunters erected small structures for such ritual purposes, and also brought treats for the spirits under a specially selected tree or to a mountain pass. The Tazy used Chinese-style idols for this purpose. However, the influence of the neighboring Chinese culture was also experienced by the Nanai and Udege.
23. Mythology of the indigenous peoples of the Far East
The general outlook of primitive peoples, their idea of \u200b\u200bthe world is expressed in various rituals, superstitions, forms of worship, etc., but mainly in myths. Mythology is the main source of knowledge of the inner world, the psychology of primitive man, his religious views.
Primitive people in the knowledge of the world set themselves certain limits. Everything that primitive man knows, he considers based on real facts. All "primitive" people are animists by nature, in their view, everything in nature has a soul: both a man and a stone. That is why spirits are the rulers of human destinies and the laws of nature.
The most ancient scientists consider myths about animals, about celestial phenomena and luminaries (sun, moon, stars), about the flood, myths about the origin of the universe (cosmogonic) and man (anthropogonic).
Animals are the protagonists of almost all primitive myths in which they speak, think, communicate with each other and with people, and perform actions. They act as the ancestors of man, then the creators of the earth, mountains, rivers.
According to the ideas of the ancient inhabitants of the Far East, the Earth in ancient times did not have the same appearance as it is now: it was completely covered with water. Myths have survived to this day, in which a tit, duck or loon take out a piece of land from the bottom of the ocean. The land is put on water, it grows, and people settle on it.
The myths of the peoples of the Amur region tell about the participation of a swan and an eagle in the creation of the world.
In Far Eastern mythology, the mammoth is a powerful creature that transforms the face of the Earth. He was presented as a very large (like five or six moose) animal, causing fear, surprise and respect. Sometimes in myths the mammoth acts in conjunction with a giant snake. Mammoth gets so much from the bottom of the ocean
land to be enough for all people. The serpent helps him level the ground. Rivers flowed along the wriggling tracks of its long body, and where the earth remained untouched, mountains were formed, where the mammoth's body had stepped or lay, deep depressions remained. So the ancient people tried to explain the features of the earth's relief. It was believed that the mammoth is afraid of the sun's rays, so it lives underground, and sometimes at the bottom of rivers and lakes. It was associated with coastal collapses during floods, ice crackling during ice drift, even earthquakes. One of the most common images in Far Eastern mythology is the image of an elk (deer). This is understandable. Elk is the largest and strongest animal in the taiga. Hunting for him served as one of the main sources of existence for the ancient hunting tribes. This beast is formidable and powerful, the second (after the bear) master of the taiga. According to the ideas of the ancients, the Universe itself was a living being and was identified with the images of animals.
The Evenks, for example, have a myth about the cosmic elk living in the sky. Running out of the heavenly taiga, the elk sees the sun, clings it to the horns and carries it into the thicket. On earth, people have an eternal night. They are scared, they don't know what to do. But one brave hero, putting on winged skis, sets off on the trail of the beast, overtakes him and strikes him with an arrow. The hero returns the sun to people, but he himself remains the keeper of the luminary in the sky. Since then, there seems to be a change of day and night on earth. Every evening, the moose carries away the sun, and the hunter overtakes him and returns the day to people. The constellation Ursa Major is associated with the image of the elk, and the Milky Way is considered the trail of the hunter's winged skis. The connection between the image of a moose and the sun is one of the most ancient ideas of the inhabitants of the Far East about space. The evidence of this is the rock carvings of Sikochi-Alyan.
The inhabitants of the Far Eastern taiga raised the horned mother moose (deer) to the rank of creator of all living things. Being underground, at the roots of the world tree, she gives birth to animals and people. Residents of coastal areas saw the universal progenitor as a walrus mother, both a beast and a woman at the same time.
Ancient man did not separate himself from the world around him. Plants, animals, birds were for him the same creatures as himself. It is no coincidence, therefore, primitive people considered them to be their ancestors and relatives.
Folk decorative arts played an important role in the life and everyday life of the aborigines. It reflected not only the original aesthetic worldview of peoples, but also social life, the level of economic development and interethnic, intertribal ties. The traditional decorative arts of nationalities have deep roots in the land of their ancestors.
A vivid evidence of this is a monument of the most ancient culture - petroglyphs (scribble drawings) on the rocks of Sikachi-Alyan. The art of the Tungus-Manchus and Nivkhs reflected the environment, aspirations, creative imagination of hunters, fishermen, gatherers of herbs and roots. The original art of the peoples of the Amur and Sakhalin has always fascinated those who first came into contact with it. The Russian scientist L.I.Shrenk was very impressed by the ability of the Nivkhs (Gilyaks) to make handicrafts from various metals, to decorate their weapons with figures of red copper, brass, and silver.
An important place in the art of the Tungus-Manchus, Nivkhs was occupied by cult sculpture, the material for which was wood, iron, silver, grass, straw in combination with beads, beads, ribbons, and fur. Researchers note that only the Amur and Sakhalin peoples were able to make amazingly beautiful applications on fish skin, paint birch bark, wood. The art of the Chukchi, Eskimos, Koryaks, Itelmens, Aleuts reflects the life of a hunter, sea hunter, tundra reindeer breeder. Over the course of many centuries, they have achieved perfection in walrus bone carving, carving on bone plates depicting dwellings, boats, animals, and scenes of hunting sea animals. The famous Russian explorer of Kamchatka, academician S. P. Krasheninnikov, admiring the skill of the ancient peoples, wrote: “Of all the work of these other peoples, which they do very cleanly with stone knives and axes, nothing was more surprising to me than a chain of walrus bones ... consisted of rings, the smoothness of chiseled ones, and was made of one tooth; her upper rings were larger, the lower ones were smaller, and her length was slightly less than half-arshin. I can safely say that in terms of the purity of work and art, no one would have considered another for the works of the wild Chukchi and for the one made with a stone instrument. "
The Stone Age is the largest and first period in human history, dating back about two million years.
The name comes from the material used at the time. Weapons and household utensils were most often made of stone.
Periodization The duration of the Stone Age made it necessary to divide it into smaller periods:
- Paleolithic - more than 2 million years ago.
- Mesolithic - 10 thousand years BC e. Neolithic - 8 thousand years BC e.
Each of the periods is characterized by certain changes in people's lives. So, for example, in the Paleolithic, people hunted small animals that could be killed with the simplest, primitive weapons - clubs, sticks, pikes. In the same period, however, without exact dates, the first fire was produced, which made it easier for humans to take climate change, they are not afraid of the cold and wild animals.
A bow and arrow appear in the Mesolithic, which allows you to hunt faster animals - deer, wild boars. And in the Neolithic, a person begins to master agriculture, which eventually leads to the emergence of a sedentary way of life. The end of the Stone Age falls on the moment when man mastered metal.
People
In the Stone Age, there were already Homo erectus that appeared 2 million years ago and mastered fire. They also built simple huts and knew how to hunt. About 400 thousand years ago, Homo sapiens appeared, of which the Neanderthals developed a little later, who mastered silicon tools.
In addition, these people have already buried their ancestors, which indicates a fairly close relationship, the development of affection and the emergence of moral principles and traditions. And only 10 thousand years ago, Homo sapiens sapiens appeared, spreading throughout the entire territory of the Earth.
During the Stone Age, there were no cities or large communities; people settled in small groups, most often related. The entire planet during this period was inhabited by people. This happened under the influence of ice ages or droughts that affected the daily life of people.
Clothes were made from animal skins, and later they began to use plant fibers. In addition, in the Stone Age, the first decorations were already known, which were made from the fangs of killed animals, shells, and colored stones. Primitive man was also not indifferent to art. This is evidenced by the many found figures carved from stone, as well as numerical drawings on the caves.
Food
Food was obtained by gathering or hunting. They hunted different game depending on the capabilities of the local area and the number of people. After all, one person is unlikely to go against large prey, but several can quite afford to take the risk in order to provide their family with meat for the near future.
Most often, deer, bison, wild boars, mammoths, horses, birds prevailed as prey. Fishing also flourished, in places where there were rivers, seas, oceans and lakes. Initially, hunting was primitive, but later, closer to the Mesolithic and Neolithic, it improved. Common picks were made with stone, serrated points, nets were used to catch fish, and the first traps and snares were invented.
In addition to hunting, food was also collected. All kinds of plants, cereals, fruits, fruits, vegetables, eggs that could be found, allowed not to die of hunger even in the driest period, when it was difficult to find something meat. The diet also included meth from wild bees and fragrant herbs. During the Neolithic era, people learned to grow crops. This allowed him to start a sedentary lifestyle.
The first such sedentary tribes were recorded in the Middle East. At the same time, domesticated animals appeared, as well as cattle breeding. In order not to migrate after the animals, they began to grow.
Lodging
The peculiarities of the search for food determine the nomadic way of life of the people of the Stone Age. When food ran out in some lands and there was no game or edible plants to be found, it was necessary to look for other housing where one could survive. Therefore, not a single family stayed in one place for a long time.
The shelter was simple but reliable to protect from wind, rain or snow, sun and predators. Often they used ready-made caves, sometimes they made a semblance of a house out of mammoth bones. They were set up like walls, and the cracks were filled with moss or mud. A mammoth skin or leaves were placed on top.
The study of the Stone Age is one of the most difficult sciences, because the only thing that can be used is archaeological finds and some modern tribes separated from civilization. This era did not leave any written sources. Primitive weapons, sites, instead of permanent dwellings, were made of stone and organic plants and wood, which had time to decompose over such a long period of time. Only stones, skeletons and fossils of those times go to help scientists, on the basis of which assumptions and discoveries are made.
Major periods of the Stone Age
STONE AGE: on Earth - more than 2 million years ago - up to the 3rd millennium BC; on the territory of Kaz-na - about 1 million years ago to the 3rd millennium BC. PERIODS: Paleolithic (Ancient Stone Age) - more than 2.5 million years ago - up to the 12th millennium BC e., is subdivided into 3 eras: the Early or Lower Paleolithic - 1 million years ago - 140 thousand years BC (Olduvai, Acheulean period), the Middle Paleolithic - 140-40 thousand years BC. (Late Acheulean and Mousterian period), Late or Upper Paleolithic - 40-12 (10) thousand years BC (Aurignac, Solutre, Madeleine); Mesolithic (Middle Stone Age) - 12-5 thousand years BC e.; Neolithic (New Stone Age) - 5-3 thousand years BC e.; Eneolithic (copperstone age) - XXIV-XXII centuries BC
The main periods of primitive society
STONE AGE: on Earth - more than 2 million years ago - up to the 3rd millennium BC; periods:: Paleolithic (Ancient Stone Age) - more than 2.5 million years ago - up to the 12th millennium BC e., is subdivided into 3 eras: the Early or Lower Paleolithic - 1 million years ago - 140 thousand years BC (Olduvai, Acheulean period), the Middle Paleolithic - 140-40 thousand years BC. (Late Acheulean and Mousterian period), Late or Upper Paleolithic - 40-12 (10) thousand years BC (Aurignac, Solutre, Madeleine); Mesolithic (Middle Stone Age) - 12-5 thousand years BC e.; Neolithic (New Stone Age) - 5-3 thousand years BC e.; Eneolithic (Copper Age) - XXIV-XXII centuries BC BRONZE AGE - end of III-beginning of I-millennium BC IRON AGE - beginning of I-millennium BC
Modern science has come to the conclusion that the whole variety of current space objects was formed about 20 billion years ago. The Sun - one of the many stars in our Galaxy - emerged 10 billion years ago. Our Earth - an ordinary planet in the solar system - is 4.6 billion years old. It is now generally accepted that man began to stand out from the animal world about 3 million years ago.
The periodization of the history of mankind at the stage of the primitive communal system is rather complicated. Several variants of it are known. The archaeological scheme is used most often. In accordance with it, the history of mankind is divided into three large stages, depending on the material from which the tools used by man were made (Stone Age: 3 million years ago - the end of the 3rd millennium BC; Bronze Age: the end of the 3rd millennium BC). 1st millennium BC - 1st millennium BC; Iron Age - from 1st millennium BC).
Among different peoples in different regions of the Earth, the appearance of certain instruments of labor and forms of social life did not occur simultaneously. There was a process of formation of man (anthropogenesis, from the Greek "anthropos" - man, "genesis" - origin) and human society (sociogenesis, from the Latin "societas" - society and Greek "genesis" - origin).
The most ancient ancestors of modern man resembled great apes, who, unlike animals, were able to produce tools. In the scientific literature, this type of ape-man is called homo habilis - a man of skill. Further evolution of the habilis led to the appearance of 1.5-1.6 million years ago, the so-called Pithecanthropus (from the Greek “Pithekos” - a monkey, “Anthropos” - a man), or Arhanthropus (from the Greek “Ahaios” - ancient). The Archanthropes were already human. 200-300 thousand years ago, Archanthropus was replaced by a more developed type of man - paleoanthropus, or Neanderthals (according to the place of their first discovery in the Neandertal area in Germany).
During the Early Stone Age - Paleolithic (about 700 thousand years ago), people penetrated the territory of Eastern Europe. The settlement came from the south. Archaeologists find traces of the stay of the most ancient people in Crimea (Kiik-Koba caves), in Abkhazia (not far from Sukhumi - Yashtukh), in Armenia (Satani-Dar hill near Yerevan), as well as in Central Asia (south of Kazakhstan, Tashkent region). In the region of Zhitomir and on the Dniester, traces of people staying here 300-500 thousand years ago were found.
Great glacier. About 100 thousand years ago, a significant part of Europe was occupied by a huge glacier up to two kilometers thick (since then, the snowy peaks of the Alps and Scandinavian mountains have formed). The emergence of the glacier affected the development of mankind. The harsh climate forced man to use natural fire, and then to extract it. This helped the person to survive in conditions of a sharp cold snap. People have learned to make stabbing and cutting objects out of stone and bone (stone knives, spearheads, scrapers, needles, etc.). Obviously, the birth of articulate speech and the generic organization of society belongs to this time. The first, still extremely vague religious ideas began to emerge, as evidenced by the appearance of artificial burials.
The difficulties of the struggle for existence, fear of the forces of nature and the inability to explain them were the reasons for the emergence of a pagan religion. Paganism was the deification of the forces of nature, animals, plants, good and evil spirits. This huge complex of primitive beliefs, customs, rituals preceded the spread of world religions (Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, etc.).
During the late Paleolithic period (10-35 millennia ago), the melting of the glacier ended, and a climate similar to the modern one was established. The use of fire for cooking, the further development of tools, as well as the first attempts to regulate the relationship between the sexes, significantly changed the physical type of a person. It was at this time that the transformation of a skilled person (homo habilis) into a reasonable person (homo sapiens) belongs. According to the place of the first find, he is called Cro-Magnon (Cro-Magnon area in France). At the same time, obviously, as a result of adaptation to the environment in the conditions of the existence of sharp differences in climate between different regions of the globe, the races that exist today (Caucasian, Negroid and Mongoloid) were formed.
The processing of stone, especially bone and horn, was further developed. Scientists sometimes refer to the Late Paleolithic as the "Bone Age". The finds of this time include daggers, spearheads, harpoons, needles with an eyelet, awls, etc. Traces of the first long-term settlements were found. Dwellings were no longer only caves, but also huts and dugouts, built by man. The remains of jewelry have been found that allow you to reproduce the clothes of that time.
In the late Paleolithic period, the primitive herd was replaced by a higher form of organization of society - the clan community. A clan community is an association of people of the same clan who have collective property and who manage the economy based on the age and gender division of labor in the absence of exploitation.
Before the advent of couples, kinship was established through the maternal line. The woman at this time played a leading role in the economy, which determined the first stage of the tribal system - matriarchy, which lasted until the time of the spread of metal.
We have survived many works of art created in the late Paleolithic era. Picturesque colorful rock carvings of animals (mammoths, bison, bears, deer, horses, etc.), which were hunted by people of that time, as well as figurines depicting a female deity, were found in caves and at parking lots in France, Italy, in the South Urals ( the famous Kapova cave).
In the Mesolithic, or the Middle Stone Age (8-10 thousand years ago), new advances were made in stone processing. The tips and blades of knives, spears, and harpoons were made then as a kind of inserts from thin flint plates. A stone ax was used to process wood. One of the most important achievements was the invention of the bow - a long-range weapon, which made it possible to more successfully hunt animals and birds. People have learned to make snares and hunting traps.
Fishing was added to hunting and gathering. Attempts of people to swim on logs have been noted. Domestication of animals began: a dog was tamed, followed by a pig. Finally, Eurasia was settled: a person reached the shores of the Baltic and the Pacific Ocean. At the same time, as many researchers believe, from Siberia through the Chukotka Peninsula, people entered the territory of America.
Neolithic revolution. Neolithic - the last period of the Stone Age (5-7 thousand years ago) is characterized by the appearance of grinding and drilling of stone tools (axes, adzes, hoes). Handles were attached to objects. Earthenware has been known since that time. People began to build boats, learned to weave nets for fishing, weave.
Significant changes in technology and forms of production during this time are sometimes called the "Neolithic revolution". Its most important result was the transition from collecting, from appropriating to producing economy. A person was no longer afraid to break away from the habitable places, he could more freely settle in search of better living conditions, mastering new lands.
Depending on the climatic conditions in the territory of Eastern Europe and Siberia, various types of economic activities have developed. Cattle-breeding tribes lived in the steppe zone from the middle Dnieper to Altai. Farmers settled in the territories of modern Ukraine, Transcaucasia, Central Asia, and southern Siberia.
The hunting and fishing economy was typical for the northern forest regions of the European part and Siberia. The historical development of individual regions was uneven. Cattle-breeding and agricultural tribes developed more rapidly. Agriculture gradually penetrated the steppe regions.
Among the settlements of farmers in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, one can distinguish Neolithic settlements in Turkmenistan (near Ashgabat), in Armenia (near Yerevan), etc. In Central Asia in the 4th millennium BC. e. the first artificial irrigation systems were created. On the East European Plain, the oldest agricultural culture was Tripolye, named after the village of Tripolye near Kiev. Settlements of Trypillians were discovered by archaeologists on the territory from the Dnieper to the Carpathians. They were large villages of farmers and pastoralists, whose dwellings were located in a circle. During the excavations of these settlements, grains of wheat, barley, and millet were found. Found wooden sickles with flint inserts, stone grain grinders and other items. The Trypillian culture belongs to the Copper-Stone Age - the Eneolithic (3rd - 1st millennium BC).
Stone Age
Chron. framework: 3 million years ago 6-5 thousand years ago in Europe).
Periodization:
1. Paleolithic
2. Mesolithic
3. Neolithic
primary cleavage and subsequent secondary stone processing.
Paleolithic eras:
Cenozoic era:
1) Paleogene
Paleolithic:
Major glaciations:
1) Danube (2-1 million years ago)
Stone Age correlates with geological periods:
o PLEISTOCENE
o Holosen
Mousterian tools (120 thousand years ago - 40 thousand years BC) - Middle Paleolithic
The most common technique is Levallois (characterized by the cleavage of flakes and blades from a specially prepared disc-shaped core). Upholstering and retouching are used as secondary processing.
The era was characterized by the improvement of the stone splitting technique, as evidenced by the various forms of Mousterian cores:
1) disc-shaped
2) tortoiseshell (Levallois)
3) amorphous
4) protoprismatic (prismatic will appear in the Upper Paleolithic)
Types of blanks during splitting / splitting of cores: flakes and blades
There is an expansion of the set of stone products, and just then the use of bone as a raw material for the manufacture of tools begins
The main types of weapons:
1) scrapers
2) spikes
3) scrapers
5) piercing
7) 
awls
9) retouchers
A pointed point is a massive stone product of an almond / triangular shape with straight or slightly convex, retouched edges. Used for composite tools (in the Upper Paleolithic) and for other economic purposes.
A scraper is a large product with one or more working edges. Intended for processing leather / hides / wood.
Tools of the Upper Paleolithic Age (40 thousand years BC - 12-10 thousand years BC)
Stone tools
Basic techniques:
1) prismatic splitting technique (blanks from a prismatic core), giving blanks of a more regular shape - plates (economical use of material) - primary blank
2) grinding
3) polishing
4) sawing
5) microlysis technique (mainly for liners) (Secondary processing)
Moreover, the processing of ivory bone is being improved, and the set of tools is expanding (about 200 types in total).
Basic stone tools:
1) dentate-notched
2) piercing
3) incisors (a massive cutting edge formed by the planes of chips converging at an acute angle; with such a cutter it was easier to cut wood, bone and horn, sawing deep grooves in them and making cuts, sequentially removing one chip after another)
4) scrapers (convex blade processed with scraping retouch)
5) points (a group defined by the presence of a sharply retouched end)
6) compound tools (made by combining inserts and the main part of the tool)
7) daggers; concave blades
Bone tools
Basic processing techniques: chopping / cutting with a chisel or knife / drilling
Bone tools:
2) harpoons
3) punctures with a highlighted pity
4) needles / pins
5) bow and arrow
Genus Australopithecus
AUSTRALOPITECI -these are highly developed bipedal creatures that lived in East and South Africa from 5-6 to 1 million. years ago.
Characteristics of Australopithecus:
1. Gracile (small) and massive forms are distinguished A. The volume of the brain is 435 - 600 cc. and 848 cc. acc. Weight - 30-40 kg. Height - 120 -130cm.
2. Note. trait A. - bipedia, i.e. walking on two legs (in contrast to modern and fossil primates).
In Vost. In Africa, not far from the Olduvai Gorge, foot prints of 3 Australopithecus were found, which passed along the slope more than 3 million years ago.
3. Were nomads... Plants and their fruits were collected. They hunted insects and small animals (competitors - baboons and wild pigs).
4. They didn't fire, they didn't make guns, BUT they used a sharpener. sticks, stones, etc. for getting and crushing food.
5. 
Small size, small fangs and claws, low movement speed. made them easy prey for large predators.
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Types of Australopithecines:
1. Australopithecus african(A. Africanus).
Ø Finds: South Africa (Makapasgat, Sterfontein, Tong), East Africa (Omo River, Koobi Fora site, Olduvai Gorge).
Ø Lived about 3-2.5 million years ago.
Ø Naib. similarity to the genus Homo: the structure of the teeth and skull.
2. Australopithecus amansky(A. Anamensis) and Australopithecus afar(A. Afarensis).
Ø Finds: East Africa.
Ø Lived about 4 million years ago
Ø Naib. similarity to the genus Homo: the structure of the limbs
Danube 2-1 million years ago
Settlements and cities
The whole era is characterized by GREAT SETTLEMENT population than in the Mesolithic era. A number of dwellings were discovered, built from materials that were in the immediate vicinity:
1) Southern regions - mud brick buildings
2) Mountains - stone dwellings
3) Forest zone - dugouts / semi-dugouts
4) Steppe / forest-steppe - prototypes of huts and huts
In this era appear FIRST FORTIFIED SETTLEMENTS in order to accumulate food supplies and the need to protect them. If the settlement occupied an advantageous position in relation to others, then it could become an important administrative and economic center, and later become a proto-city (Jericho, Chatal-Guyuk).
1) Jericho (7 thousand years BC) - surrounded by seven-meter walls and defensive towers; within the walls - arrows the city was besieged and destroyed. Then it was rebuilt and still exists.
2) Chatal-Guyuk (Anatolia, Turkey) - a village consisting of large adobe buildings decorated with murals of ornamental and zoomorphic motifs. There are public buildings.
In Europe, settlements are rare; they are mainly known in the southern regions and in the Balkans.
Ceramics
Ceramics is the most important invention of the Neolithic. The origin cannot be associated with any one center, it probably happened independently in a number of places.
Local clays + weakening impurities (talc / asbestos / sand / crushed shell) \u003d ceramic dough.
2 ways to make a vessel:
1) Knockout
2) Technique of molding - sequential attachment in rings or in a spiral, increasing the height of the product.
Burial
This era is characterized by the "standardization" of the funeral rite, ie. stable forms of corpses, burial structures, sets of burial implements appear stable worldview system... Naturally, they differed in societies that led different economic lives.
| Features of the | Burial inventory | Corpse placement | Examples of | |
| Dnipro-Donetsk culture | Burial grounds of the Mariupol type - long trenches in which people are buried | Jewelry in the form of beads from plates in the form of mother-of-pearl, bone jewelry, polished hatchets and adzes | The corpses lie stretched out on their backs | Mariupol burial ground (refers to the Eneolithic!) |
| Burials of farmers | They are confined to residential objects, known among all ancient farmers, burials do not allow us to speak of social stratification (only in the late Neolithic, burials with "rich" implements rarely appear. | Ceramic vessels and decorations | Corpses lie under the floors of dwellings, poses resemble a man sleeping on his side. Burials are never massive | Burial regions: Mesopotamia, Anatolia, Balkans, Central Asia, Central and Southeast Europe |
| Burials of hunter-fisher-gatherers | 2 types of burials: 1) individual burials at sites 2) burial grounds outside the sites | Not numerous: 1) stone / bone tools 2) hunting weapons 3) decorations made of shells or drilled fangs of animals 4) small zoomorphic figures | Corpse placement in ground pits; the postures of the buried vary from erect to crouched. | Sakhtysh, Tamula, Zviyenki - in the forest zone |
Neolithic art
The cult of fertility - appears in the southern regions, where the tribes have already switched to a producing economy. Genetically they are associated with maternal and clan veneration, but the image of a woman becomes more conventional.
Solar cult - associated with solar signs, images of a solar boat, stories about the struggle of the sun with monsters. It is important for farmers, because the calendar cycle of work was timed to coincide with the annual cycle of the sun's movement.
Directions of neolithic art 
Paleolithic art
Small-scale art Monumental art Applied
Figurines Figurines 
Answers to the colloquium (part 1)
Stone Age
Question 1. Periodization and chronology of the Stone Age.
Chron. framework: 3 million years ago (time of separation of man from the animal world) - before the appearance of metal (8-9 thousand years ago in the Ancient East and about 6-5 thousand years ago in Europe).
Periodization:
1. Paleolithic- the ancient stone age - (3 million years don - 10 thousand years don).
2. Mesolithic- medium - (10-9 thousand - 7 thousand years don).
3. Neolithic- new - (6-5 thousand - 3 thousand years don).
Such a periodization is associated with changes in the stone industry: each period is characterized by peculiar techniques primary cleavage and subsequent secondary stone processing.
Paleolithic eras:
1) Lower Paleolithic - Olduvai (3 million - 800 thousand years ago) and Achel (800 - 120 thousand years ago)
2) Middle Paleolithic - Mousterian (120-40 thousand years ago)
3) Upper (new, late) Paleolithic (40 thousand years ago - 10 thousand years BC).
Olduvai is a gorge in Africa, Acheule and Moustiers are monuments in France.
Cenozoic era:
1) Paleogene
3) Anthropogen or Quaternary period (Pleistocene and Holocene)
Paleolithic:
1) Final Pliocene (up to 2 million years ago)
2) Eopleistocene (2 million - 800 thousand years ago)
3) Pleistocene (800-700 - 10 thousand years BC)
4) Holocene (10 thousand years BC - today)
Major glaciations:
1) Danube (2-1 million years ago)
2) Gunz (1 million - 700 thousand years ago)
3) Mindel (Okskoe) (500 - 350 thousand years ago)
4) Riss (Dnieper) - (200 - 120 thousand years ago)
5) Wurm (Valdai) (80 - 11 thousand years ago)
Stone Age correlates with geological periods:
o PLEISTOCENE - 2.5 million years to 10 thousand years don.
o Holosen- 10 thousand years dona - to this day