Stone Age - the cultural and historical period in the development of mankind, when the basic tools of labor was made mainly of stone, wood and bones; At the late stage of the Stone Age, the processing of clay was spread from which the dishes were made. The Stone Age mainly coincides with the era of primitive society, starting with the allocation of a person from an animal state (about 2 million years ago) and ending with the era of the distribution of metals (about 8 thousand years ago in the Middle East and about 6-7 thousand years ago in Europe). Through the transition era - the Eneolithic - the Stone Age was replaced by the Bronze Age, but Australia's aborigines remained until the 20th century. The people of the stone century were collecting, hunting, fishing; In the late period, a hute farming and cattle breeding appeared.
Stone ax Abashev culture
The stone age is divided into an ancient stone age (Paleolithic), the midst of the Stone Age (Mesolith), the new Stone Age (Neolith). During the Paleolithic period, the climate of the Earth, herbal and animal world was very different from the modern era. Paleolithic people enjoyed only fruitful stone weapons, did not know polished stone guns and clay dishes (ceramics). Paleolithic people were engaged in hunting and picking food (plants, clams). Fisheries only began to occur, agriculture and cattle breeding were not known. Between Paleolithic and Neolithic, the transitional era is distinguished - mesolithic. In the era of Neolith, people lived in modern climatic conditions, surrounded by a modern animal and vegetation world. In neolith, polished and drilled stone guns, clay dishes. Neolithic people along with hunting, gathering, fisheries began to engage in primitive hoe agriculture and breed domestic animals.It is a guessed that the era of the use of metals preceded the time when only stones served to the instruments of labor, expressed Tit Lucretia Car in the 1st century BC. In 1836, the Danish scientist K.Yu. Tomsen allocated three cultural and historical epochs on archaeological material: Stone Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age). In the 1860s, the British scientist J. Lebbok picked up the stone age on Paleolithic and neutoli, and the French archaeologist D. De Mortille created generalizing work on the stone and developed more fractional periodization: Shelleskaya, Mustier, Soltreyskaya, Orinyak, Madelene, Rubengauzen culture. In the second half of the 19th century, studies of mesolitic kitchen soup were conducted in Denmark, Neolithic pile settlements in Switzerland, Paleolithic and Neolithic caves and parking of Europe and Asia. At the end of the 19th - early 20th centuries, Paleolithic painted images were opened in the caves of southern France and Northern Spain. In Russia, a number of Paleolithic and neolithic parking was studied in the 1870-1890s A.S. Uvarov, I.S. Polyakov, k.s. Merezhkovsky, VB Antonovich, V.V. Soft. At the beginning of the 20th century, the archaeological excavations of Paleolithic and neolithic settlements were engaged in V.A. Gorodenov, A.A. Spitsyn, F.K. Volkov, p.p. Efimenko.
In the 20th century, the technique of excavations was improved, the scale of the publication of archaeological monuments increased, a comprehensive study of the ancient settlements by archaeologists, geologists, paleozologists, paleyobotanis, began to apply a radiocarbon dating method, the statistical method of studying stone weapons was applied, generalizing works were created on the art of the Stone Age. In the USSR, the student studies have acquired a wide range. If in 1917 12 Paleolithic locations were known in the country, then in the early 1970s their number exceeded a thousand. Numerous Paleolithic monuments were discovered and investigated in the Crimea, on the Eastern European Plain, in Siberia. Domestic archaeologists developed a technique of excavation of Paleolithic settlements, which allowed to establish existence in Paleolithic settling and permanent dwellings; Methods for restoring the functions of primitive tools in the footsteps of their use, Tsusology (S.A. Semenov); Numerous monuments of Paleolithic art were found; The monuments of neolithic monumental art are investigated - rocky images in the North-West of Russia, in Azovia and Siberia (V.I. Rodonikas, M.Ya. Rudinsky).
Paleolith
Paleolithic is divided into early (lower; up to 35 thousand years ago) and late (upper; up to 10 thousand years ago). In the early Paleolithic, archaeological cultures are distinguished: Doslehl culture, Shelleskaya culture, Ashhelian culture, Mustier culture. Sometimes the Mustier era is distinguished (100-35 thousand years ago) in a special period - medium Paleolithic. Doshelel stone weapons were pebbles, frown at one end, and a deductible, embarrassed from such a galley. The guns of Shelleskaya and Ashhelskaya epochs were hand-made chunks, frown on both surfaces of a piece of stone, thickened at one end and pointed on the other, coarse rubbing tools (choppers and chopping), having less correct outlines than chopped, as well as rectangular axes (cluters) and massive depregs. These tools made people, belonged to the type of Archantropov (Peteitront, Sinantrophop, Heidelbergian man), and, possibly, to a more primitive type of Homo Habilis (Creiganthrope). Archangets lived in warm climate conditions, mainly in Africa, in the south of Europe and Asia. The ancient reliable monuments of the Stone Age on the territory of Eastern Europe belong to Ashielsky time, date back to the Epoch preceding the Risky (Dniprovsky) glaciation. They were found in the Azovia and Transnistria; They found a deduction, manual rubble, choppers (coarse rubbing guns). In the Caucasus, the remains of hunting cubs of the Ashelian era were found in the cave of Kurta, the Tsonian cave, the Azyh cave.
In the Mustierian period, stone depths became thinner, filled out of specially prepared discs or turtle-shaped nucleus - nucleus (the so-called Levalloisan technique). The dedups turned into a scrambled, pointers, knives, drills. At the same time, the bone began to use the use of fire as instruments of labor. Because of the cooling began, people began to settle in the caves. The birth of religious beliefs is evidenced by the burial. People of the Mustier epoch belonged to Paleoanthrops (Neanderthals). The burials of Neanderthal residents are open in the grotto Kiik-Koba to the Crimea and in the Torshik-Tash grotto in Central Asia. In Europe, the NEndarls lived in the climatic conditions of the beginning of the Vurm glaciation, there were contemporaries of mammoths, woolly rhinos, cave bears. For early Paleolithic, local differences in cultures, determined by the nature of the workers of the labor instruments. In the parking lot of young people, the remains of long-term Mustierse dwelling are opened.
In the era of the late Paleolitis there was a man of modern physical type (Neoanertop, Homo Sapiens - Cryanonians). In the grotto, the staircase in the Crimea found the burial of the Neoantroph. Late Pallolithic people settled Siberia, America, Australia. For late-maleolitical technology, prismatic nucleuses are characterized, from which elongated plates turned out, turning into scrapers, tips, tips, cutters, clamps. From the bone, the horns of the mammoth tag did a shill, needles with an eye, blades, kirk. People began to move to settling, along with the use of the caves began to build long-term dwellings - dugouts and ground structures, both large communities with several foci and small sizes (Gagarino, Kostenka, Pushkari, West, Malta, Dolny Westonice, Pensevan). During the construction of housing, skulls, large bones and tails of mammoths, deer horns, wood, skins were used. Residents formed settlements. The hunting economy developed, visual art appeared, characteristic of naive realism: sculptural images of animal and nude women from the tissue of Mammoth, Stone, clay (bonenits, Avdeevskaya Parking, Gagarino, Westonice, Villendorf, Brasnsanpui), engraved on the bones and stone images of animals and Fish, engraved and painted conventional geometric ornament - zigzag, rhombus, meander, wavy lines (Mezinskaya parking, rashes), engraved and painted monochrome and polychrome images of animals, sometimes people and conventional signs on the walls and ceilings of the caves (Altamira, Lasco). Paleolithic art was partly connected with the female cults of the era of the mother of the mother, with hunting magic and totemism. Archaeologists revealed a variety of burial types: rates, seats, painted, with a funeral inventory. In Late Paleolitis, there are several cultural areas, as well as a significant number of more fractional cultures: in Western Europe - Perigoreskaya, Orinyak, Soltenian, Madelene culture; In Central Europe - Seletskaya culture, culture of leaf lugs; in Eastern Europe - Middle Eastern, Golden, Kostenkovsko-Avdeevskaya, Mezinskaya culture; In the Middle East - Antelian, Eminian, Natumian culture; In Africa - Sango culture, Sebil culture. The most important Late Paleolithic settlement of Central Asia is the Samarkand Parking.
In the territory of the East European Plain, consistent stages of the development of late Paleolithic crops are traced: Kostenkovsko-Sungirskaya, Kostenkovsko-Avdeevskaya, Mezinskaya. Multilayer Late Pallolithic settlements excavated on Dniester (Babin, Voronovitsa, Young). Another area of \u200b\u200bLate Paleolithic settlements with the residues of the dwellings of various types and samples of art is the Basin of the gums and suds (Mesin, Pushkari, Eliseevichi, Yudinovo); The third district was the village of Kostenka and Bishevo on the Don, where over twenty late-ololytic parking was found, including a number of multi-layered, with residues of housing, a variety of works of art and single burials. A special place is occupied by Parking Sungar on Klyazma, where several burials were found. The most northern in the world of Paleolithic monuments includes a bearish of the cave and parking being visible on the Pechora River in Komi. Cave Cave on the Southern Urals contains painted images of mammoths on the walls. In Siberia, in the period of late Paleolitis, Maltese, Afonytovskaya culture was consistently replaced, late-ololytic parking were opened on Yenisei (Afontov Mountain, Kokorevo), in the Angara and Belaya pool (Malta, Building), in Transbaikalia, in Altai. Monuments of the late Paleolithic are known in the Lena Basin, Aldan, in Kamchatka.
Mesolith and inholith
The transition from late Paleolithic to Mesolith coincides with the end of the glacial era and with the formation of a modern climate. According to radiocarbon data, the period of mesolite for the Middle East - 12-9 thousand years ago, for Europe - 10-7 thousand years ago. In the northern regions of Europe, Mesolithic lasted up to 6-5 thousand years ago. The Mesolith includes Azil culture, Tardenauraz culture, culture of magmellomose, culture Ertbell, Hoabin culture. For mesolithic techniques, the use of microlithm - miniature stone fragments of geometric outlines in the form of a trapezoid, segment, triangle is characterized. Microliths were used as inserts into wooden and bone rims. In addition, crissed ripping tools were used: axes, Tesla, Kirk. The dog and arrows spread in the mesolitic period, a dog's permanent satellite was.
The transition from the assignment of finished products of nature (hunting, fishing, gathering) to farming and cattle breeding occurred in the neolithic period. This coup in primitive economy is called the Neolithic Revolution, although the assignment of people in the economic activity continued to take a great place. The main elements of the neolithic culture were: clay dishes (ceramics), pulled off without a pottery circle; Stone axes, hammers, tesla, chisels, hoes, in the manufacture of which sawing, grinding, drilling; flint daggers, knives, arrows and copies, sickles, made by spinning retouching; microliths; Products from the bone and horns (fishing hooks, harpuna, tips of the hoe, bit) and from wood (darling chelny, oars, skiing, sleigh, handles). Fline workshops appeared, and at the end of Neolithic - mines for the mining of silf and, in connection with this, cross-bred exchange. In neolith, spinning and weaving arose. For neolithic art, a varied chopped and painted ornament on ceramics, clay, bone, stone figures of people and animals, monumental painted, embedded and extended rock painted images are writers, petroglyphs. The funeral rite complicated. The unevenness of the development of culture and the local peculiarity intensified.
Previously, agriculture and cattle breeding arose in the Middle East. By the 7-6th millennium BC Distoluted agricultural settlements Jericho in Jordan, Jarmo in Northern Mesopotamia, Chatal-Hyuk in Malaya Asia. In the 6-5th millenniums BC e. In Mesopotamia, developed nonolithic agricultural crops with global houses, painted ceramics, female statuettes were distributed. In the 5-4th millennium BC. Agriculture was widely distributed in Egypt. In the Transcaucasia, agricultural settlements of Schlaveri, Vyshe, Kistik are known. Settlements such as Jeitun in southern Turkmenistan are similar to the settlements of neolithic farmers of Iranian Highlands. In general, the neolithic era in Central Asia prevailed the tribes of hunters and collectors (Keltemernarian culture).
Under the influence of the cultures of the Middle East, he developed in Europe in Europe, for the most part of which agriculture and cattle breeding spread. On the territory of Great Britain and France, the tribes of farmers and cattle breeders lived in the Neolithic and early bronze age, which built megalithic buildings from stone. For farmers and cattle breeders of the Alpine region, pile buildings are typical. In Central Europe, the Agricultural Danube cultures with ceramics decorated with a belt ornament took shape in the neolitis. In Scandinavia, until the second millennium BC. e. The tribes of neolithic hunters and fishermen lived.
The agricultural neolitis of Eastern Europe includes monuments of Bug culture at the Right-Bank Ukraine (5-3rd millennium BC). Cultures of Neolithic Hunters and Fishermen 5-3rd Millennium BC. Revealed awards, in the North Caucasus. In the forest strip from the Baltic Sea to the Pacific Ocean, they spread the 4-2th millennium BC. Ceramics, decorated with a waste-comb and comb-stitched patterns, is characteristic of the upper sense, the Volga-Okrug interfluve, the coast of Lake Lake, Onega Lake, the White Sea, where the rock paintings are found with the Neolithic, petroglyphs. In the forest-steppe zone of Eastern Europe, in the Kama region, in Siberia in the neolithic tribes, ceramics with a comb-stitched and comb patterns were widespread. Its types of neolithic ceramics were distributed in Primorye and on Sakhalin.
In its ancient period of development, which lasted for several thousand centuries, a person survived the three stages. The first stage was the Stone Age. After him, humanity stepped into the bronze, and then in the first stage was the longest stage. At its length, a person made various implements, the material for which served the fragments of the bones of animals and sticks, having a sharp end. But the durable was the stone. It is this material that dominated the adaptations of our ancestors. For this reason, this period is called the "Stone Age".
The longest era in the development of humanity is divided by archaeologists into three stages. The first of them is the ancient Stone Age (Paleolithic). The second is mesolith. It is also called the middle stone age. The third stage is neat. Scientists refer her to the new stone century.
The period of the Stone Age of the Paleolithic era lasted from the beginning of the origin of the human community until the Tenth Millennium on the assumption of scientists appeared in the tropics of Africa and from there their distribution to other areas of the planet went to other districts. At this time, a person was an integral part of the world around. He lived in the caves, creating a tribe, was engaged in collecting edible plants and hunted a small game. The tools for fishing made from solid rock (obsudin, quartzite and silicon) were not grinding and drilling. In the late period of Paleolithic fisheries developed. The man learned to drill the bone on which he began to produce first engraving.
At the same time, there is a complication of the equipment of the hunt, a house building is born and a new household structure begins to develop. The aging of the generic system is the prerequisite of the fortress of the primitive community. Its structure is complicated. A person begins to develop a speech and thinking, which contributes to the expansion of his mental horizon and enrichment of the spiritual world. It was in the late Paleolithic that the art of the Stone Age arose and began to develop. Man learned to use natural mineral paints with bright colors. He mastered the new ways to process soft stone and bone. It was these methods that discovered the possibility of transferring the surrounding world in a thread and sculpture. The art of Paleolithic is distinguished by the truthful transmission of reality and loyalty.
The middle stone, or mesololite, began with the tenth and ended in the sixth millennium BC. This is characterized by the end of the glacial period. The world around the world looked like modern. Man and his lifestyle has undergone strong changes. Tribes broke. They came to replace those who were led by the elders and most experienced members. The man began to build his home using wood and stone material, leaving the cave. The emerging sense of excellent found its reflection in peculiar jewelry, which served gold nuggets.
Large changes affected the methods of manufacturing a tool from stone. There were sharp knives, as well as sharpened arrows and spears. In the period of mesolitis, the primitives of handicrafts, cattle breeding and agriculture arose. Art and art. Images applied to open areas of the cliffs began to present various scenes of hunting or ritual rituals. A man who occupies a central place in the drawings of the Mesolithic era, has been simplified, sometimes even as a sign. Images were painted with black and red.
The last one third of the stone century - neat lasted from the sixth to the third millennium to our era. The man learned to polish and polish guns made from stone materials, engaged in cattle breeding and agriculture. There was a pottery. Of the clay, various utensils and dishes were manufactured. The growth and combination of several births was a prerequisite for the appearance of tribes.
Today, our ancestors who lived in the Stone Age are known very little. For a long time, it existed that these people were cave inhabitants who walked with a club. But modern scientists are confident that in the Stone Age - a huge range of history, which began approximately 3.3 million years ago and lasted until 3300 AD. - It was not quite so.
1. Homo Erectus Tool Factory
In the northeast of Tel Aviv in Israel, with excavations, hundreds of ancient stone guns found. Oven in 2017 at a depth of 5 meters, artifacts were made by the ancestors of people. Created by about half a million years ago, the tools told several facts about their creators - the ancestor of a person known as Homo Erectus ("Straight"). It is believed that this area was a kind of Rai of the Stone Age - here were rivers, plants and abundant food - everything is necessary for existence.
The most interesting find of this primitive cable was a quarry. The bricklayers slipped the edges of the silica, making the pear-shaped blades of ax, which were probably used to dig food and peer animals. The discovery was unexpected, due to the huge number of well-preserved tools. This makes it possible to learn more about the lifestyle of Homo Erectus.
2. First wine
At the end of the Stone Age, the first wine began to do on the territory of modern Georgia. In 2016 and 2017, archaeologists dug out ceramic fragments, dating 5400 - 5000 years BC. The wreckage of clay jugs found in two ancient settlements of the Times of Neolithov (Ghadachril Mountain and Schlavrie-Mountain) was taken to be analyzed, as a result of which wicnic acid was found in six vessels.
This chemical is always an indisputable sign that there were wine in the vessels. Scientists also found that grape juice naturally wandered in the warmth of Georgia. To find out, red or white wine preferred at the time, the researchers analyzed the color of the residues. They were yellowish, and this 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. The evidence of six such primitive patients was found in the area called Riparo Predian. On two teeth were found traces of the procedure, which would recognize any modern dentist - filled with a seal seal. It is difficult to say whether any painful devices were used, but the traces of enamel were left by some sharp tool.
Most likely, he was made of stone, which was expanding the cavity, scraping the rotten tooth fabrics. The following teeth also found familiar technology - the remains of the seal. It was made of bitumen mixed with vegetable fibers and hair. If the use of bitumen (natural resin) is understandable, then why the hair and fibers were added - a mystery.
4. Long-term home service
Most children teach in schools that the stone-century families lived only in the caves. However, they also built clay houses. Recently, in Norway, 150 stone-century centers were studied. Stone rings showed that the earliest housing were tents, probably made of animal skins bonded by rings. In Norway in the era of the Mesolithic, which began approximately 9500 BC, people began to build house-dugouts.
This change occurred when the last ice of the glacial period was gone. Some "twilights" were large enough (about 40 square meters), which involves several families in them. The most incredible - consistent attempts to maintain structures. Some of them were abandoned for 50 years before the new owners stopped supporting at home.
5. Massacre in Nataruk
The culture of the Stone Age created the exciting samples of art and social relationships, but they also conducted war. In one case, it was just a meaningless massacre. In 2012, in Nataruk in the northern part of Kenya, the team of scientists discovered bones sticking out of the ground. It turned out that the skeleton had broken knees. Clearing the bones from the sand, scientists found that they belonged to a pregnant woman of the Stone Age. Despite her condition, she was killed. About 10,000 years ago, someone connected her and threw in the lagoon.
The remains of 27 other people were revealed next to, which were 6 children and a few more women. Most of the remains had traces of violence, including injuries, fractures and even pieces of weapons stuck in the bones. It is impossible to say why a group of gathet hunters was exterminated, but it could be the result of a dispute about resources. During this time, Natarka was a lush and fertile edge with fresh water - an invaluable place for any tribe. Whatever happens on that day, the mass massacre in Nataruk remains the most ancient testimony of the human war.
6. Inbriding
It is possible that people saved as an early inbreeding awareness. In 2017, scientists discovered the first signs of this understanding in the bones of the people of the Stone Age. In Sungri, east of Moscow, four skeletons of people who died 34,000 years ago were found. Genetic analysis showed that they behaved as modern communities of gatherers, when it was a matter of choosing satellites of life. They realized that to have offspring with close relatives, such as brothers and sisters, was fraught with consequences. In Sunogir, it was clearly almost marriages within the same family.
If people were paired at random, the genetic consequences of the inbreeding would be more obvious. Like later hunters-collectors, they must have been looking for partners through social relations with other tribes. Sungir burials were accompanied by quite complex rituals to assume that important milestones of life (for example, death and marriage) were accompanied by ceremonies. If so, then the weddings in the Stone Age would be the most early human marriage. The lack of understanding of relations with relatives may have reached Neanderthals whose DNA shows more inbreeding.
7. Women of other cultures
In 2017, researchers studied ancient dwellings in Lehtal, Germany. Their age numbered about 4,000 years, when there were no large settlements in the area. When the remains of the inhabitants were investigated, an amazing tradition was discovered. Most families were founded by women who left their villages to settle in Lehtal. This happened from the time of the late stone century to the early bronze century.
For eight centuries, women are likely from Bohemia or Central Germany, Lehtal men preferred. Such movies of women were the key to the spread of cultural ideas and items, which, in turn, helped to form new technologies. The opening also showed that previous mass migration beliefs need adjustment. Despite the fact that women have repeatedly moved to Lehotal, it happened purely on an individual basis.
8. Written language
The researchers may have discovered the oldest writing language in the world. In fact, it can be a code representing certain concepts. Historians have long been known about the symbols of the Stone Age, but for many years they ignored them, despite the fact that the caves with a sharp painting attend countless visitors. In the caves in Spain and France, examples of some of the most incredible fishing inscriptions in the world were found. Between the ancient images of bison, horses and lions were hiding tiny characters, representing something abstract.
Twenty-six characters are repeated on the walls of about 200 caves. If they serve to transfer some information, it "moves" the invention of letters back to 30,000 years ago. However, the roots of ancient writing may be even older. Many symbols drawn by Cryanonians in the French caves were found in ancient African art. In particular, this is a sign of an open angle, engraved in the Plombos cave in South Africa, which is dated 75,000 years.
9. Chuma
By the time Bacteria Yersinia Pestis reached Europe in the XIV century, 30-60 percent of the population were already dead. The ancient skeletons examined in 2017 showed that the plague appeared in Europe during the Stone Age. Six skeletons of the times of late Neolithic and Bronze showed a positive result on the plague. The disease covered the wide geographical area, from Lithuania, Estonia and Russia to Germany and Croatia. Considering the various locations and two epochs, the researchers were surprised when the genomas of Yersinia Pestis (a plague chopstick) are compared.
Further study showed that bacteria probably arrived from the East, when people were detained 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 tracks of the plague, which indicates that the disease brought Stepniki with them. It is not known how deadly there was a plague wand in those days, but it is possible that steppe migrants left their homes due to the epidemic.
10. Music evolution of the brain
It used to be believed that the instruments of the early Stone Age developed together with the language. But the revolutionary change - from simple to complex tools - about 1.75 million years ago occurred. Scientists are not sure if there was a language then. In 2017, an experiment was conducted. Volunteers showed volunteers how to make the simplest tools (from cortex and pebbles), as well as more "advanced" manual axle culture axes. One group watched video with sound, and the second without.
While the participants of the experiment slept, their brain activity was analyzed in real time. Scientists have found that the "jump" in knowledge was not associated with the language. The brain language center has been activated only in people who heard the instructions for the video, but both groups have successfully made Ashhelian tools. It could solve the mystery when and how the human species moved from monkey-like thinking to knowledge. Many believe that 1.75 million years ago, music appeared, simultaneously with human intelligence.
Undoubted interest among all who are engaged in history
Cover and.
The Stone Age lasted more than two million years and this is the largest part of our history. The title of the historic period is due to the use of the ancient people of the tools of labor from stone and silica. People lived in small groups of relatives. They collected plants and hunted, getting food to themselves.
Cryanonians are the first modern people who lived 40 thousand years ago in Europe.A person from the Stone Age has no permanent dwelling, only temporary parking. The need for food forced the band to look for new hunting grounds. A person will still be very soon learned to handle land and keep cattle so that you can settle in one place.
Stone Age is the first period in the history of mankind. This is the conditional designation of the time frame when a person used a stone, flint, wood, vegetable fibers for fixing, bone. Some of these materials did not fall into our hands because it was simply rotted and decomposed, but the stone finds archaeologists worldwide continue to fix today.
Researchers use two basic methods of studying the complementary history of mankind: with the help of archaeological finds and studying modern primitive tribes.
The woolly mammoth appeared on the continents of Europe and Asia 150 thousand years ago. Adult special reached 4 m and weighed 8 tons. Given the duration of the Stone Age, historians share it for several periods dividing depending on the materials of the labor instruments used by primitive man.
- Ancient Stone Age () - more than 2 million years ago.
- Middle Stone Age () - 10 thousand years BC Appearance of onion, arrows. Hunting for deer, wild boars.
- New Stone Age (Neolith) - 8 thousand years BC Start agriculture.
This is a conditional division for periods, because in each individual region progress has not always appeared simultaneously. The end of the Stone Age is the period when people have mastered the metal.
First people
The man was not always like that we see him today. Throughout a long time, the structure of the human body has changed. The scientific name of a person and his closest ancestors is a hominid. The first hominids were divided into 2 main groups:
- Australopithecus;
- Homo.
First yields
The cultivation of food for the first time appeared 8 thousand years BC. On the territory of the Middle East. Part of wild cereals remained about the reserve for the next year. The person watched and saw that if the seeds fall into the ground, they germinate again. He began to deliberate seeds. Locking small areas, it was possible to feed more people.
To control and plant crop, it was necessary to stay on the spot, it prompted the person less migrate. Now it was possible not to collect and get what kind of nature here and now, but also to reproduce it. So the agriculture was born, about what read more.
Wheat and barley became the first inhydrated plants. Rice was obulted in China and India 5 thousand years BC.
Gradually, the grain was learned to break into the flour to make porridge or pellets from it. The grain was placed on a large flat stone and with a grinding stone, it was triturated into powder. Rough flour contained sand and other impurities, but gradually the process became elegant, and the flour cleaner.
The cattle breeding appeared at one time with agriculture. A person earlier drove cattle into small pods, but it was done for convenience during hunting. Studying began 8.5 thousand years BC. The first was the goat and sheep. They quickly accustomed to the proximity of the person. Notes that large individuals give more rats than wild, the man learned to take only the best. So domestic cattle has become larger and wilderness of wild.
Stone treatment
Stone Age - this period in the history of mankind, when the stone was used and treated to improve life. Knives, tips, arrows, cutters, scrapers ... - seeking the necessary sharpness and shapes, the stone turned into an instrument of labor and weapons.
The appearance of crafts
clothing
The first clothing was needed to protect from the cold and the skin of animals were served. Skins pulled out, screamed and bonded. The holes in the skin could be made using a pointed sewer from a silica.
Later, plant fibers served as the basis for weaving the threads and in the future, for the release of the tissue. Decorative fabric painted with plants, leaves, bark.
Decoration
The first decorations served sinks, teeth of animals, bones, nut shell. Random search for semi-precious stones allowed to make beads bonded by strips of threads or skin.
Primitive art
Primitive man revealed his work using the same stone and walls of the caves. At least, it is these drawings that lived in preservation to this day (). Worldwide, animals and human figures are still found around the world.
End of the Stone Age
The Stone Age ended at the moment when the first cities appeared. Climate change, a settling lifestyle, the development of agriculture and cattle breeding has led to the fact that the generic groups began to unite in the tribes, and the tribes began to grow into large settlements.
The scale of settlements and the mastering of the metal led a person to a new era.
Time to collect stones
Life of the people of the Stone Age
Show me a man or a woman - and I will show you the saint. Two them together - and love will arise. Give me three people, and they will invent a very pretty thing called "Society". Four will build a pyramid. Five will force one. Six invent prejudice. Seven will begin the war.
Stephen King "Confrontation"
What is "Stone Age", know everything. These are skins, dirt, toilet in the far corner of the cave, rock painting instead of comic and no certainty: Today you will have a mammoth, and tomorrow you appetite to the saber-toothed tiger. However, our life consists of nuances, and the little things of the daily use of our ancestors are known only to individual professionals. Primitive life does not mean a sad life: what, but not to miss ancient people. To protect against the cold, they had to join the skins. Today we decided to turn the story upside down and visit the skins of our ancestors.
Last year, the "World of Fiction" published several articles about the medieval life. At the request of our readers, we decided to dug deep in Terra Incognita of human history - a period when (according to some specialists) aliens put genetic experiments on monkeys, Atlantis citizens flew into space, and our rapids looked at all this disgrace and wondering the bluff.
Adam's creation (Michelangelo).
Unfortunately, no global religion contains the myth on how April 1, a thousand any years BC The Gods hid in the ground the skeletons of dinosaurs and silicon archae's tips so that then from the soul to laugh at archaeologists. The Stone Age has come independently and even contrary to beliefs of billions of people.
It began approximately 100,000 years ago and (in some regions of the planet) launched to the new time. The active development of civilization coincided with the end of the last glacial period about 10,000 years ago. The sea level rose, the climate has changed, and humanity began to quickly adapt to new conditions - to create complex tools of labor, to lay permanent settlements, actively hunt.
People of the late Stone Age did not differ from us with you. The volume of the brain, the structure of the skull, the proportion of the body, the degree of sore and other characteristics were the same with modern. If the child had come into modern times, he could grow, get an education and become, for example, by the author of the articles of the World of Fiction.
Until comparative recently, most people could be considered with full right ... with blacks. The Mutation of the "White" gene of SLC24F5 began with Europeans only 12 thousand years ago and ended 6 thousand years ago.
Neanderthal and Cryanonets.
The darkness of the skin was most likely varied from the region to the region. The most common hair color was black. Blondes and redhead began to appear later - with an increase in the number of humanity, the mutations created, ultimately, various types of appearance were diversified. It is assumed that the people of the stone century painted hair with the juices of herbs, pollen and multi-colored clay not only from ritual, but also aesthetic considerations.
Eskimo, TEV tribe boy, Hamats tribe man. The 100th centuries ago, people looked about the same.
With genetics will not argue
Scientists argue that our DNA set dates back to two common ancestors, conventionally called "Adam" and "Eve." Investigating the gene drift, they found that Eva lived approximately 1,47000 years ago, and Adam - 60000 years ago. This does not mean that we have come from two people. Common ancestors of many people are traced in about 1000 BC. From Eve, we received only mitochondrial DNA (transmitted by the maternal line), and from Adam - Y-chromosome. Both of our progenitor lived in Africa. The presence of common ancestors is beaten by Arthur Clark and Stephen Baxter in the novel "Light of other days", Anime K.R.I.E.G., Parasite Eve's book and works on her (film, game).
Adam and Eve (Albrecht Dürer) were black. They used to jump behind the apple, and now their descendants play basketball well.
Paradise in a halary
Almost all images, the people of the stone century are somewhere in nature (usually among the endless steppe) or sit by the fires. Such an idea is true for Paleolithic, but absolutely does not reflect the reality of neolithic (7000 years BC). The man began to build the first buildings - large stones that served as a roof support from branches - almost 2 million years ago, and 4.5 thousand years ago gigantic pyramids were already built. So by the end of the ice age of architectural knowledge it was enough to create long-term settlements.
The culture of the early Stone Age was surprisingly uniform. Throughout the planet, people, without claiming, used similar tools and did almost the same things with their help. 25 thousand years ago near the village of Dolny Westonice (Czech Republic) were built at home made of clay bricks, a tent was made from the skins and the wrist of Mammoths in Siberia, and when it came to the burial, our ancestors were not lazy to move huge stone slabs, folding from them impressive megalithic graves .
In addition, massive stone blocks walked on signs that limit any territory, "monuments" in honor of any events, and in some cases they turned into objects of worship.
Large cities began to build about 5 thousand years ago. For example, Mohenjo Daro ("Hill of the Dead") in modern Pakistan numbered several tens of thousands of residents, and in the same time the citadel could be gathered simultaneously 5,000 people. But the main part of humanity lived in small settlements, which could be left in case of soil depletion or natural resources.
Reconstruction of the village of the Stone Age (Alfa Archaeoklub).
A typical "village" of the stone century was something like a camp of tourists. For hunting societies, tents of the skins were characterized, in agricultural settlements houses were made of stone or cane. Near the green of the rice field (cultivated from 9000 BC) or flowed the river (the first bones of fish began to appear on the parking lots of people another 500,000 years ago, and to the stone century, our ancestors knew how to fish well).
The first houses were round, one-room. Soon people began to build something resembling modern multi-room cottages who served simultaneously and tips: the bones of dead relatives were buried under the floor covered with hides or straw. Judging by the excavations, the doors were made in the ceilings - people climbed at home and went out of them on the stairs. "Wallpapers" served clay, with the walls of the houses could be painted from the inside (for example, the settlement of Chatal-Guyuk in Turkey).
The architectural enthusiasm of the people of the Stone Age was directed mainly to the construction of mega-graves.
Under the sky blue
An Israeli Jerichon is considered ancient of the constantly populated cities of the planet. It was laid 11 thousand years ago. According to the standards of that time, the city was huge - 40,000 square meters, from 200 to 1000 inhabitants, stone tower and stone wall (in the Bible was destroyed by the sounds of pipes and shouts of warriors, but the archaeologists blame the earthquake in everything). The streets did not have any planning, the houses were built as hit. Room sizes - approximately 7 by 4 meters. Sandstone or clay floors. Decorations - skull ancestors with restored features of clay faces and eyes from seashells.
Jericho in reality and the game from Clive Barker.
About times! About moral!
The usual day of man of that time began shortly before the sunrise and ended shortly after sunset. The rhythm of life according to the current standards was very leisurely. The main plots of work were within walking distance. Only hunters were removed from the settlements to considerable distances, which was extremely adversely affected by their lives.
It should be borne in mind that 10,000 years ago, all of humanity numbered only about 5 million people, and the population of the "villages" was calculated by dozens of residents, most of which consisted of each other in kinship. Wild animals are not intimidated as today, and evil, hungry and consider meeting with a person something like "Happy Hour" in an expensive restaurant, - sat hardly under each bush. In Europe, there were tigers and lions. Someone else had woolly rhinos and even mammoths.
Mammoth vertebra with stuck arrow tip (Siberia, 13 thousand years BC).
The Stone Age would like to taste fans of classical rock, confessing the motto "Live quickly, die young." The fact is that the average life expectancy was 20-30 years. Zamari civilization can hardly be called "paradise". It was a very harsh and dangerous time when the main argument when meeting with an animal or unfamiliar man was a stone ax.
The bulk of the daytime went to the workpiece, the replacement of worn tools with new, repair of housing, religious rites and child care. The latter stood in direct dependence on the low life expectancy - the marriage age was small, and children paid significantly less concerns than now, which clearly influenced baby mortality. The shortage of men stimulated the polygamy, so that 2-3 wives were 15 years old on one "old man" 30 years were not rare.
Meeting with a saber-chapped tiger in the Stone Age BC was unlikely, but not impossible (film 10,000 BC).
According to the same reasons, the matriarchy dominated the neolithic societies. Women lived longer than men, they kept the family hearth and were actually responsible for the accumulation of cultural experience. Neolithic was the epoch of women. On the "streets" of the settlements there were much more than men.
In the south of Russia, the burial of the "Amazon" tribes, who lived about 3,000 years ago were discovered.
Mummy hunter who died in the Alps 5300 years ago. 168 cm, 50 kg, before death ate bread with meat. The body is covered with "healing" tattoos (presumably over the places suffering from arthritis).
Little nothings of life
Contrary to some stereotypes, the people of the Stone Age did not go in stinky skins on a naked body. The fashion of the era of Neolithic was quite diverse and in some cases could compete with medieval. Seven thousand years ago, our ancestors began to make clothes from felt, approximately the linen fabric, wool yarn, and in the 30th century BC, the Chinese have established a silk production.
Add here decorations from polished bone, feathers, colored stones - and a person born before the invention of writing will come down in most modern countries of the Third World. Moreover, if Neolithic France wore bracelets or seashell beads, it put it on one step with today's Patek Phillipe watch owner. The settlement deleted from each other practiced Barter, but 10,000 years ago, in some places there was already a developed market economy. Money - shells or stones - often worn as decorations. It was convenient for the repurchase of the bride, the section of inheritance or commerce with neighboring tribes.
Reconstruction of the fortune of the stone century (ASK "Masteritsa").
Gourmet in the Stone Age was nothing to do. The transition to a settled agriculture meant deterioration in the quality of food, because the hunters and collectors it was more diverse. A modern man is not easy to imagine a neolith diet. No tea or coffee. The main drink is non-filled water from the nearest reservoir. Grand decoctions were made only in medical and religious purposes. The milk was considered a drink of children, and alcohol (or rather, dropping juice) was consumed much less often than now.
The cooking was in the infancy, so vegetables were used raw. Meat and fish on the tables were quite a lot (pigs, goats and sheep were domesticated 9,000 years ago), however, the concepts of "salt" and "spices" in the lexicon of cooks were absent. Bean and grain crops were used for some time without heat treatment - they were triturated in pasta with water and fir like porridge. One day someone decided to heat this mixture for the sake of interest. So the bread appeared, one of the oldest and most important foods of a person.
Shells-money from the cave Bombos (Africa). Worn around the neck.
Scientists suggest that, with all the isolated settlement, the Europeans of the Stone Age If they could not freely understand each other, they could almost certainly guessed about the meaning of most phrases. It is believed that in those days there was a certain pyranceo-European language with a uniform structure and universal roots of words.
Apache: Hunting for snakes, agriculture, fishing (photo 1906-1907). The picture is as close as possible to the one that was 10,000 years ago.
Exactly this
Near the Czech village Dolni Westonice found a triple burial of 260-century ago, shed light on the sex life of our ancestors. The woman lay in the center, her hand touched a man on the right. A man on the left touched her for a crudged body, and his own dignity was drunk a wooden count. The heads of the dead sprinkled with a red okra. Some scientists argue that there was a marriage treason here, others talk about the threesome love. Anyway, the unions of the people of the stone century were either not durable or not pair.
The artist is from the word "bad"
In the conditions of the patient illiteracy of the population, painting, music and war were the most important arts. The most ancient artistic artifact is the so-called "Venus of Tan-Tana" - a stone figure, found near the city of Tan-Tang in Morocco. It was spawn 300,000 years ago, so by the beginning of the stone century, human culture was already beaten by the key.
The upper Paleolithic entered the textbooks of rock painting. It is often considered the main type of art of the Stone Age, although it can be considered as successful that the crown of Mendeleev's research was vodka. Promote material arts in the masses began, oddly enough, the ancient Japanese. It is believed that they are the first on the planet developed a pottery (earlier than agriculture). 11,000 years ago they had already clay figures and dishes, which were applied to firing various patterns with wicker ropes or chopsticks.
In the fishing settlement of Löpenski-Vir (7 Millennium BC, modern Serbia) from the stone was made by figurines of fish or, according to another version, magic fishing. In 5 millennia BC, the European Culture People of European Culture cut out something suspiciously resembling clinies on clay products. It is assumed that it was the protopagance - something average between the drawings and symbols.
Venus from Tan-Tana.
Unfortunately, the small works of the art of that epoch are preserved very badly. But before us, Megalites reached us, the most famous of which is Stonehenge. It should not be thought that the decoration of gravestone plates with spiral carvings was the favorite class of artists of the time. Stone tools gave little space for creativity - even skin embroidery bone needles represented the problem. Generously decorated decorations, weapons and armor appeared only in the bronze age.
With music, there were much better. It developed from hunting imitation of animal sounds. Initially, the only musical instrument was human throat. In the Stone Age, people took up the manufacture of musical instruments (22 years ago in China found a flute from the bone of the Heron age of 8,000 years), which assumed the acquaintance of ancient people at least with notes. String tools appeared only at the end of the Stone Age.
Ulptura from the settlement of Löpenski-Vir (50 century BC, modern Serbia).
Probably, learning a musical game in the Stone Age was mechanical, without any abstract system. The first note on clay signs is dated to the 14th century BC (Ugrit, modern Syria).
Near the Spanish city of Castellón is the Rocks de la Mol, which depict marching warriors. The one who played the "civilization" of Meyer Side, knows well that if the map is small, and many players, the first unit in the first city should be a warrior. The fact that stone walls were erected around the cities, he says much. It was in the stone age that organized armies and professional warriors began to appear.
Symbols of Vinch (40 century BC). Perhaps the first samples of the human letter.
"Army" is, of course, said loudly. Letters from El-Amarne (correspondence of Egyptian officials, 1350 BC) I say that the detachments of 20 people terrorized whole cities - and this is already in the Bronze Age! The Stone Age shakeped the grandiose battle of several dozen people. True, some researchers believe that large settlements like Chatal-Guyuk could put about a hundred soldiers. In this case, it is already possible to talk about tactics, maneuvers, supply and other elements of real wars.
Conflicts were incredibly bloody. The winners killed all men and children, took women and completely plundered settlements. However, in some regions, there could be tribes who lived with each other in the world and practically unfamiliar with the concept of "murder" (the modern example of Kalahari desert can be.
The most terrible weapon of the ancient hunters was fire. They set fire to the forests and grass, destroying the enemy habitat. The tactics of "scorched land" was much more efficient to hand-to-hand fights. In the near battle used both hunting tools - first of all the spears - and the batons.
According to rocky drawings, you can reconstruct the average battle of the Stone Age: the warring "Army" lined up opposite each other in the line, the leaders went ahead and gave the team to open the shooting of onions (Prash). Separate elements of the drawings suggest that the "infantry" at that time tried to get around the enemy from the flanks.
The ax from Korunda (China, 6000 years BC). It is assumed that it could be treated with only a diamond powder.
Professor Lawrence Kili calculated that conflicts between the tribes broke out almost every year, and some of them were fighting constantly. Excavations of some settlements in Africa showed that over half of their inhabitants died with a violent death. The wars of the Stone Age were many times in bloody than today. If you transfer the level of military losses on the realities of today, any local war would take two billion lives.
With the transition from hunting agriculture, the number of wars decreased dramatically. The population was still small to maintain non-working warriors. Conflicts were taking a speed, siege devices were not, so the walls almost always guaranteed invulnerability to the city.
The words "Stone Age" are usually used in a derogatory sense - to designate primitiveness, stupidity and wildness. Indeed, early neolithic was an era, when the scraping skulls were considered a much more interesting occupation than trade. However, with the transition to agriculture, the world has changed beyond recognition.
Labor made a man's monkey. He also turned bloodthirsty maniacs in architects, sculptors, painters and musicians. Stone Age turned out to be at all so bad times. Healthy lifestyle, good ecology, diet, constant exercise and tranquility of small villages, sincere faith in gods and magic monsters ... Is it not a foundation for any fantasy?
