The Stone Age is a cultural and historical period in the development of mankind, when the main tools of labor were made mainly from stone, wood and bone; at the late stage of the Stone Age, the processing of clay, from which dishes were made, spread. The Stone Age basically coincides with the era of primitive society, starting from the time of the separation of man from the animal state (about 2 million years ago) and ending with the era of the spread of metals (about 8 thousand years ago in the Near and Middle East and about 6-7 thousand years ago in Europe). Through the transitional era - the Eneolithic - the Stone Age was replaced by the Bronze Age, but among the Aborigines of Australia it remained until the 20th century. Stone Age people were engaged in gathering, hunting, fishing; in the later period, hoe farming and cattle breeding appeared.
Abashev culture stone ax
The Stone Age is divided into the Old Stone Age (Paleolithic), the Middle Stone Age (Mesolithic), and the New Stone Age (Neolithic). During the Paleolithic period, the Earth's climate, flora and fauna were very different from the modern era. Paleolithic people used only chipped stone tools, they did not know polished stone tools and pottery (ceramics). Paleolithic people were engaged in hunting and gathering food (plants, mollusks). Fishing was just beginning to emerge, agriculture and cattle breeding were not known. Between the Paleolithic and the Neolithic, a transitional era is distinguished - the Mesolithic. In the Neolithic era, people lived in modern climatic conditions, surrounded by modern flora and fauna. In the Neolithic, polished and drilled stone tools and pottery spread. Neolithic people, along with hunting, gathering, fishing, began to engage in primitive hoe farming and breed domestic animals.The conjecture that the era of the use of metals was preceded by a time when only stones served as tools of labor was expressed by Titus Lucretius Car in the 1st century BC. In 1836, the Danish scientist K.Yu. Thomsen singled out three cultural and historical epochs on the basis of archaeological material: the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age). In the 1860s, the British scientist J. Lebbock subdivided the Stone Age into Paleolithic and Neolithic, and the French archaeologist G. de Mortillet created generalizing works on the Stone Age and developed a more fractional periodization: the Shellic, Mousterian, Solutrean, Aurignacian, Magdalenian, and Robengausen cultures. In the second half of the 19th century, studies were carried out on Mesolithic kitchen heaps in Denmark, Neolithic pile settlements in Switzerland, Paleolithic and Neolithic caves and sites in Europe and Asia. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Paleolithic painted images were discovered in caves in southern France and northern Spain. In Russia, a number of Paleolithic and Neolithic sites were studied in the 1870s-1890s by A.S. Uvarov, I.S. Polyakov, K.S. Merezhkovsky, V.B. Antonovich, V.V. Needle. At the beginning of the 20th century, V.A. Gorodtsov, A.A. Spitsyn, F.K. Volkov, P.P. Efimenko.
In the 20th century, the excavation technique improved, the scale of publication of archaeological sites increased, a comprehensive study of ancient settlements by archaeologists, geologists, paleozoologists, paleobotanists spread, the radiocarbon dating method, the statistical method of studying stone tools began to be used, generalizing works devoted to the art of the Stone Age were created. In the USSR, studies of the Stone Age acquired a wide scope. If in 1917, 12 Paleolithic sites were known in the country, in the early 1970s their number exceeded a thousand. Numerous Paleolithic sites were discovered and explored in the Crimea, on the East European Plain, in Siberia. Domestic archaeologists developed a methodology for excavating Paleolithic settlements, which made it possible to establish the existence of a settled way of life and permanent dwellings in the Paleolithic; methodology for restoring the functions of primitive tools based on the traces of their use, trasology (S.A. Semenov); Numerous monuments of Paleolithic art have been discovered; monuments of Neolithic monumental art - rock carvings in the north-west of Russia, in the Sea of \u200b\u200bAzov and Siberia (V.I. Ravdonikas, M.Ya. Rudinsky) were studied.
Paleolithic
The 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: pre-Chelian culture, Shellic culture, Acheulian culture, Mousterian culture. Sometimes the Mousterian era (100-35 thousand years ago) is distinguished as a special period - the Middle Paleolithic. Pre-Schelle stone tools were pebbles chipped at one end and flakes chipped from such pebbles. The tools of the Shell and Acheulean eras were hand axes - pieces of stone chipped from both surfaces, thickened at one end and pointed at the other, coarse chopping tools (choppers and choppings), which have less regular outlines than axes, as well as rectangular ax-shaped tools (jibs) and massive flakes. These tools were made by people who belonged to the type of archanthropes (Pithecanthropus, Sinanthropus, Heidelberg man), and, possibly, to the more primitive type Homo habilis (prezinjanthropus). Archanthropes lived in a warm climate, mainly in Africa, in southern Europe and Asia. The oldest reliable monuments of the Stone Age in Eastern Europe date back to the Acheulian time, dating back to the era preceding the Ris (Dnieper) glaciation. They are found in the Sea of Azov and Transnistria; flakes, hand axes, choppers (rough chopping tools) were found in them. In the Caucasus, the remains of the hunting camps of the Acheulian era were found in the Kudaro cave, Tson cave, Azykh cave.
In the Mousterian period, stone flakes became thinner, chipped off from specially prepared disk-shaped or tortoise-shaped cores - cores (the so-called Levallois technique). The flakes were turned into scrapers, points, knives, drills. At the same time, bones began to be used as tools of labor, and the use of fire began. Because of the cold snap, people began to settle in caves. Burials testify to the origin of religious beliefs. The people of the Mousterian era belonged to the paleoanthropes (Neanderthals). Burials of Neanderthals have been discovered in the Kiik-Koba grotto in the Crimea and in the Teshik-Tash grotto in Central Asia. In Europe, the Neanderthals lived in the climatic conditions of the beginning of the Wurm glaciation, they were contemporaries of mammoths, woolly rhinos, and cave bears. For the Early Paleolithic, local differences in cultures were established, determined by the nature of the tools produced. In the Molodov site on the Dniester, the remains of a long-term Mousterian dwelling were discovered.
In the era of the late Paleolithic, a person of the modern physical type developed (neoanthrope, Homo sapiens - Cro-Magnons). In the grotto of Staroselye in the Crimea, a burial of a neoanthrope was discovered. Late Paleolithic people settled in Siberia, America, Australia. The Late Paleolithic technique is characterized by prismatic cores, from which elongated plates were broken off, turning into scrapers, points, tips, incisors, piercings. Awls, needles with an eye, shoulder blades, picks were made from bone, horns of mammoth tusks. People began to move to a settled way of life, along with the use of caves, they began to build long-term dwellings - dugouts and ground structures, both large communal ones with several hearths, and small ones (Gagarino, Kostenki, Pushkari, Buret, Malta, Dolni-Vestonice, Pensevan). In the construction of dwellings, skulls, large bones and mammoth tusks, deer antlers, wood, and skins were used. Dwellings formed settlements. The hunting economy developed, fine arts, characteristic of naive realism, appeared: sculptural images of animals and naked women made of mammoth tusk, stone, clay (Kostenki, Avdeevskaya site, Gagarino, Dolni-Vestonice, Willendorf, Brassanpuy), images of animals and animals engraved on bone and stone. fish, engraved and painted conditional geometric ornament - zigzag, rhombuses, meander, wavy lines (Mezinskaya site, Prshedmosti), engraved and painted monochrome and polychrome images of animals, sometimes people and conventional signs on the walls and ceilings of caves (Altamira, Lasko). Paleolithic art was partly associated with female cults of the maternal era, with hunting magic and totemism. Archaeologists have identified various types of burials: crouched, sitting, painted, with grave goods. In the Late Paleolithic, several cultural areas are distinguished, as well as a significant number of more fractional cultures: in Western Europe - Perigord, Aurignac, Solutrean, Madeleine cultures; in Central Europe - the Selet culture, the culture of leaf-shaped tips; in Eastern Europe - the Middle Dniester, Gorodtsovskaya, Kostenkovo-Avdeevskaya, Mezinskaya cultures; in the Middle East - Antel, Emiri, Natufian cultures; in Africa - Sango culture, Sebil culture. The most important Late Paleolithic settlement in Central Asia is the Samarkand site.
On the territory of the East European Plain, successive stages in the development of Late Paleolithic cultures can be traced: Kostenkovsko-Sungirskaya, Kostenkovsko-Avdeevskaya, Mezinskaya. Multilayer Late Paleolithic settlements have been excavated on the Dniester (Babin, Voronovitsa, Molodova). Another area of Late Paleolithic settlements with remains of dwellings of various types and examples of art is the basin of the Desna and Sudost (Mezin, Pushkari, Eliseevichi, Yudinovo); the third area is the villages of Kostenki and Borshevo on the Don, where more than twenty Late Paleolithic sites have been found, including a number of multi-layer sites, with the remains of dwellings, many works of art and single burials. A special place is occupied by the Sungir site on the Klyazma, where several burials were found. The northernmost Paleolithic sites in the world include the Medvezhya Cave and the Byzovaya site on the Pechora River in Komi. Kapova Cave in the Southern Urals contains painted images of mammoths on the walls. In Siberia, during the Late Paleolithic period, the Maltese and Afontovskaya cultures were successively replaced, Late Paleolithic sites were discovered on the Yenisei (Afontova Gora, Kokorevo), in the Angara and Belaya basins (Malta, Buret), in Transbaikalia, in Altai. Late Paleolithic sites are known in the Lena, Aldan, and Kamchatka basins.
Mesolithic and Neolithic
The transition from the Late Paleolithic to the Mesolithic coincides with the end of the Ice Age and the formation of the modern climate. According to radiocarbon data, the Mesolithic period for the Middle East is 12-9 thousand years ago, for Europe - 10-7 thousand years ago. In the northern regions of Europe, the Mesolithic lasted until 6-5 thousand years ago. The Mesolithic includes the Azil culture, the Tardenois culture, the Maglemose culture, the Ertbelle culture, and the Hoabin culture. The Mesolithic technique is characterized by the use of microliths - miniature stone fragments of geometric outlines in the form of a trapezoid, segment, triangle. Microliths were used as inserts in wooden and bone settings. In addition, chipped chopping tools were used: axes, adzes, picks. In the Mesolithic period, bows and arrows spread, and the dog became a constant companion of man.
The transition from the appropriation of finished products of nature (hunting, fishing, gathering) to agriculture and cattle breeding occurred in the Neolithic period. This revolution in the primitive economy is called the Neolithic revolution, although the appropriation in the economic activity of people continued to occupy a large place. The main elements of the Neolithic culture were: earthenware (ceramics), molded without a potter's wheel; stone axes, hammers, adzes, chisels, hoes, in the manufacture of which sawing, grinding, drilling were used; flint daggers, knives, arrowheads and spears, sickles, made by pressing retouching; microlites; products made of bone and horn (fish hooks, harpoons, hoe tips, chisels) and wood (hollowed canoes, oars, skis, sledges, handles). Flint workshops appeared, and at the end of the Neolithic - mines for the extraction of flint and, in connection with this, intertribal exchange. Spinning and weaving arose in the Neolithic. Neolithic art is characterized by a variety of indented and painted ornaments on ceramics, clay, bone, stone figures of people and animals, monumental painted, incised and hollowed out rock paintings - petroglyphs. The funeral rite became more complicated. The uneven development of culture and local originality intensified.
Agriculture and pastoralism first appeared in the Middle East. By the 7th-6th millennium BC. include the settled agricultural settlements of Jericho in Jordan, Jarmo in Northern Mesopotamia, and Chatal-Khuyuk in Asia Minor. In the 6th-5th millennium BC. e. in Mesopotamia, developed neolithic agricultural cultures with adobe houses, painted ceramics, and female figurines became widespread. In the 5th-4th millennium BC. agriculture became widespread in Egypt. In Transcaucasia, the agricultural settlements of Shulaveri, Odishi, and Kistrik are known. Settlements of the Jeytun type in southern Turkmenistan are similar to the settlements of the Neolithic farmers of the Iranian Highlands. In general, in the Neolithic era, tribes of hunters and gatherers (the Kelteminar culture) dominated in Central Asia.
Under the influence of the cultures of the Middle East, the Neolithic developed in Europe, most of which spread agriculture and cattle breeding. On the territory of Great Britain and France in the Neolithic and the early Bronze Age, there lived tribes of farmers and pastoralists who built megalithic structures of stone. Piled buildings are typical for farmers and pastoralists of the Alpine region. In Central Europe, in the Neolithic, Danubian agricultural cultures took shape with ceramics decorated with ribbon ornaments. In Scandinavia up to the second millennium BC. e. tribes of Neolithic hunters and fishermen lived.
The agricultural Neolithic of Eastern Europe includes the monuments of the Bug culture in the Right-Bank Ukraine (5th-3rd millennium BC). Cultures of Neolithic hunters and fishermen of the 5th-3rd millennium BC. identified Azov, in the North Caucasus. In the forest belt from the Baltic Sea to the Pacific Ocean, they spread in the 4th-2nd millennium BC. Pottery decorated with pit-comb and comb-pricked patterns is typical for the Upper Volga region, the Volga-Oka interfluve, the coast of Lake Ladoga, Lake Onega, the White Sea, where rock paintings and petroglyphs associated with the Neolithic are found. In the forest-steppe zone of Eastern Europe, in the Kama region, in Siberia, ceramics with comb-pricked and comb patterns were common among Neolithic tribes. Their own types of Neolithic pottery were common in Primorye and Sakhalin.
The Stone Age is the largest and first period in the history of mankind, numbering 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, a person hunted small animals that could be killed with the simplest, most primitive weapons - clubs, sticks, lances. In the same period, however, without exact dates, the first fire was mined, which made it easier for a person to relate to climate change, they are not afraid of the cold and wild animals.
In the Mesolithic, a bow and arrows appeared, which made it possible 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 settled way of life. The end of the Stone Age falls at the moment when man mastered metal.
People
In the Stone Age, there were already Homo erectus who 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, from which Neanderthals developed a little later, mastering silicon tools.
In addition, these people have already buried their ancestors, which indicates fairly close ties, 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 Earth.
During the Stone Age there were no cities or large communities, people settled in small groups, most often related. The whole 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.
Clothing was made from animal skins, and later vegetable fibers were also used. In addition, in the Stone Age, the first jewelry was already known, which was made from the fangs of dead animals, shells, colored stones. Primitive man was also not indifferent to art. This is evidenced by the many found figurines 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 possibilities of the local habitat and the number of people. After all, one person is unlikely to go against big prey, but several can easily afford to take risks in order to provide the family with meat in the near future.
Most often, deer, bison, wild boars, mammoths, horses, and birds predominated 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 was improved. Ordinary pikes were made with stone, serrated tips, 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 made it possible not to die of hunger even in the driest period, when it was difficult to find anything meat. The diet also included wild bee meth and fragrant herbs. In Neolithic times, man learned to grow crops. This allowed him to start a sedentary lifestyle.
The first such settled 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 them.
Housing
Features of the search for food determine the nomadic lifestyle of people of the Stone Age. When food ran out in some lands and it was not possible to find either game or edible plants, it was necessary to look for other housing where one could survive. Therefore, not a single family lingered in one place for a long time.
Housing was simple but secure to protect against wind, rain or snow, sun and predators. Often they used ready-made caves, sometimes they made a semblance of a house from mammoth bones. They were placed like walls, and the cracks were filled with moss or mud. Mammoth skin or leaves were laid 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, camps, instead of permanent dwellings, were made of stone and organic plants and wood, which had decomposed 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.
Stone Age
The Stone Age is the oldest period in the history of mankind, when the main tools and weapons were made mainly of stone, but wood and bone were also used. At the end of the Stone Age, the use of clay (dishes, brick buildings, sculpture) spread.
Periodization of the Stone Age:
*Paleolithic:
The Lower Paleolithic is the period of the appearance of the oldest human species and the widespread distribution of Homo erectus.
The Middle Paleolithic is a period of displacement of erectus by evolutionarily more advanced human species, including modern humans. Neanderthals dominated Europe during the entire Middle Paleolithic.
The Upper Paleolithic is the period of domination of the modern type of people throughout the globe in the era of the last glaciation.
*Mesolithic and Epipaleolithic; the terminology depends on how much the region has been affected by the loss of 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 the general culture of man. Ceramic is missing.
* Neolithic - the era of the emergence of agriculture. Tools and weapons are still made of stone, but their production is brought to perfection, and ceramics are widely distributed.
Paleolithic
The period of the most ancient history of mankind, capturing the time epoch from the moment of the separation of man from the animal state and the appearance of the primitive communal system until the final retreat of the glaciers. The term was coined by archaeologist John Libbock in 1865. In the Paleolithic, man began to use stone tools in his daily life. The Stone Age covers most of the history of mankind (about 99% of the time) on earth and begins 2.5 or 2.6 million years ago. The Stone Age is characterized by the appearance of stone tools, agriculture, and the completion of the Pliocene around 10,000 BC. e. The Paleolithic era ends with the onset of the Mesolithic, which in turn ended with the Neolithic revolution.
During the Paleolithic, people lived together in small communities such as tribes and were engaged in collecting plants and hunting wild animals. The Paleolithic is characterized by the use of predominantly stone tools, although wood and bone tools were also used. Natural materials were adapted by man to use them as tools, so leather and vegetable fibers were in use, but, given their fragility, they could not survive to this day. Humanity gradually evolved during the Paleolithic from early members of the genus Homo, such as Homo habilis, who used simple stone tools, to anatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens sapiens). At the end of the Paleolithic, during the Middle and Upper Paleolithic, people began to create the first works of art and began to engage in religious and spiritual rites, such as burial of the dead and religious rituals. The climate during the Paleolithic included glacial and interglacial periods in which the climate changed periodically from warm to cold temperatures.
Lower Paleolithic
The period beginning with the end of the Pliocene epoch in which the first use of stone tools by the ancestors of modern man Homo habilis began. These were relatively simple tools known as cleavers. Homo habilis developed stone tools during the Olduvai era, which were used as axes and stone cores. This culture got its name in honor of the place where the first stone tools were found - Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania. People living in this era lived mainly at the expense of the meat of dead animals and the gathering of wild plants, since hunting at that time was not yet widespread. About 1.5 million years ago, a more developed human species, Homo erectus, appeared. Representatives of this species learned to use fire and created more complex chopping tools from stone, and also expanded their habitat through the development of Asia, which is confirmed by finds on the Zhoykudan plateau in China. About 1 million years ago, man mastered Europe and began to use stone axes.
Middle Paleolithic
The period began about 200 thousand years ago and is the most studied era during which Neanderthals lived (120-35 thousand years ago). The most famous finds of Neanderthals belong to the Mosterian culture. Eventually the Neanderthals died out and were replaced by modern humans, who first appeared in Ethiopia about 100,000 years ago. Despite the fact that the culture of the Neanderthals is considered primitive, there is evidence that they honored their elders and practiced burial rituals that were organized by the entire tribe. At this time, there was an expansion of the habitat of people and their settlement of undeveloped territories, such as Australia and Oceania. The peoples of the Middle Paleolithic demonstrate irrefutable evidence that abstract thinking began to predominate in them, expressed, for example, in the organized burial of the dead. Recently, in 1997, based on the DNA analysis of the first Neanderthal, scientists at the University of Munich concluded that the differences in genes are too great to consider Neanderthals the ancestors of the Cro-Magnols (i.e., modern people). These conclusions were confirmed by leading experts from Zurich, and later from all over Europe and America. For a long time (15-35 thousand years), Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons coexisted and were at enmity. In particular, at the sites of both Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons, gnawed bones of another species were found.
Upper Paleolithic
About 35-10 thousand years ago, the last ice age ended and modern people settled throughout the Earth during this period. After the appearance of the first modern people in Europe (Cro-Magnons), there was a relatively rapid growth of their cultures, the most famous of which are: Châtelperon, Aurignac, Solutrean, Gravettes and Madeleine archaeological cultures.
North and South America were colonized by people through the Bering Isthmus that existed in antiquity, which was later flooded by rising sea levels and turned into the Bering Strait. The ancient people of America, the Paleo-Indians, most likely formed into an independent culture about 13.5 thousand years ago. In general, hunter-gatherer communities began to dominate the planet, using different types of stone tools depending on the region.
Mesolithic
The period between the Paleolithic and the Neolithic, X--VI thousand years BC. The period began with the end of the last ice age and continued to rise in the level of the world ocean, which caused the need for people to adapt to the environment and find new sources of their food. In this period, microliths appeared - miniature stone tools that greatly expanded the possibilities of using stone in the daily life of ancient people. However, the term "Mesolithic" is also used as a designation for stone tools that were brought to Europe from the Ancient Near East. Microlithic tools greatly increased the effectiveness of hunting, and in more developed settlements (for example, Lepenski Vir) they were also used for fishing. Probably, in this time period, the domestication of the dog as a hunting assistant took place.
Neolithic
The New Stone Age was characterized by the emergence of agriculture and pastoralism during the so-called Neolithic Revolution, the development of pottery, and the emergence of the first major human settlements such as Chatal Guyuk and Jericho. The first Neolithic cultures appeared around 7000 BC. e. in the zone of the so-called "fertile crescent". Agriculture and culture spread to the Mediterranean, the Indus Valley, China and the countries of Southeast Asia.
The increase in population led to an increase in the need for plant foods, which contributed to the rapid development of agriculture. When conducting agricultural work, stone tools for tillage began to be used, and when harvesting, devices for reaping, chopping and cutting plants began to be used. For the first time, large-scale stone structures, such as the towers and walls of Jericho or Stonehenge, began to be built, demonstrating the emergence in the Neolithic of significant human and material resources, as well as forms of cooperation between large groups of people that made it possible to work on large projects. In the Neolithic era, regular trade between different settlements appeared, people began to transport goods over considerable distances (many hundreds of kilometers). The settlement of Skara Brae, located in the Orkney Islands near Scotland, is one of the best examples of a Neolithic village. The settlement used stone beds, shelves and even toilet facilities.
Stone age of humanity
Man differs from all living beings on Earth in that, from the very beginning of his history, he actively created an artificial habitat around himself and used various technical means, which are called tools. With their help, he got his own food - hunting, fishing and gathering, he built his own dwellings, made clothes and household utensils, created places of worship and works of art.
The Stone Age is the oldest and longest period in the history of mankind, characterized by the use of stone as the main solid material for the manufacture of tools designed to solve the problems of human life support.
For the manufacture of various tools and other necessary products, a person used not only stone, but other solid materials:
- volcanic glass,
- bone,
- tree,
- as well as plastic materials of animal and vegetable origin (skins and skin of animals, vegetable fibers, later - fabrics).
In the final period of the Stone Age, in the Neolithic, the first artificial material created by man, ceramics, became widespread. The exceptional strength of the stone allows products made from it to be preserved for hundreds of millennia. Bone, wood and other organic materials, as a rule, are not preserved for such a long time, and therefore, due to their mass character and good preservation, stone products become the most important source for studying especially remote epochs in time.
Timeline of the Stone Age
The chronological framework of the Stone Age is very wide - it begins about 3 million years ago (the time of the separation of man from the animal world) and lasts until the appearance of metal (about 8-9 thousand years ago in the Ancient East and about 6-5 thousand years ago back in Europe). The duration of this period of human existence, which is called prehistory and protohistory, correlates with the duration of "written history" in the same way as a day and a few minutes or the size of Everest and a tennis ball. Such important achievements of mankind as the emergence of the first social institutions and certain economic structures, and, in fact, the formation of man himself as a very special biosocial being belongs to the Stone Age.
In archaeological science stone Age It is customary to divide into several main stages:
- the ancient Stone Age - Paleolithic (3 million years BC - 10 thousand years BC);
- middle - (10-9 thousand - 7 thousand years BC);
- new - Neolithic (6-5 thousand - 3 thousand years BC).
The archaeological periodization of the Stone Age is associated with changes in the stone industry: each period is characterized by peculiar methods of primary splitting and subsequent secondary processing of stone, resulting in the wide distribution of completely defined sets of products and their striking specific types.
The Stone Age correlates with the geological periods of the Pleistocene (which also bears the names: Quaternary, Anthropogenic, Glacial and dates from 2.5-2 million years to 10 thousand years BC) and Holocene (starting from 10 thousand years to AD up to our time inclusive). The natural conditions of these periods played a significant role in the formation and development of the most ancient human societies.
Study of the Stone Age
Interest in collecting and studying prehistoric antiquities, especially stone products, existed for a long time. However, even in the Middle Ages, and even in the Renaissance, their origin was most often attributed to natural phenomena (so-called thunder arrows, hammers, axes were widely known). Only by the middle of the 19th century, thanks to the accumulation of new information obtained during ever-expanding construction work, and the development of geology associated with them, the further development of natural science disciplines, the idea of material evidence of the existence of an “antediluvian man” acquired the status of a scientific doctrine. An important contribution to the formation of scientific ideas about the Stone Age as the "childhood of mankind" was a variety of ethnographic data, and the results of studying the cultures of North American Indians, which began in the 18th century, were especially often used. along with the widespread colonization of North America and developed in the 19th century.
The “three-age system” by K.Yu. Thomsen - I.Ya. Vorso. However, only the creation of evolutionist periodizations in history and anthropology (the cultural-historical periodization of L.G. Morgan, the sociological periodization of I. Bachofen, the religious periodization of G. Spencer and E. Taylor, the anthropological periodization of Ch. Darwin), numerous joint geological and archaeological studies of various Paleolithic sites of the Western Europe (J. Boucher de Perta, E. Larte, J. Lebbock, I. Keller) led to the creation of the first periodizations of the Stone Age - the allocation of the Paleolithic and Neolithic eras. In the last quarter of the 19th century, thanks to the discovery of Paleolithic cave art, numerous anthropological finds of the Pleistocene age, especially thanks to E. Dubois' discovery on the island of Java of the remains of an ape-man - evolutionary theories prevailed in understanding the patterns of human development in the Stone Age. However, developing archeology required the use of proper archaeological terms and criteria when creating the periodization of the Stone Age. The first such classification, evolutionistic in its essence and operating with special archaeological terms, was proposed by the French archaeologist G. de Mortillet, who singled out the early (lower) and late (upper) Paleolithic, divided into four stages. This periodization was very widespread, and after its expansion and addition by the Mesolithic and Neolithic epochs, also divided into successive stages, it acquired a dominant position in the archeology of the Stone Age for quite a long time.
Mortillet's periodization was based on the idea of the sequence of stages and periods in the development of material culture and the uniformity of this process for all mankind. The revision of this periodization dates back to the middle of the 20th century.
The further development of Stone Age archeology is also associated with such important scientific trends as geographical determinism (explaining many aspects of the development of society by the influence of natural and geographical conditions) diffusionism (which, along with the concept of evolution, put the concept of cultural diffusion, i.e. spatial movement of cultural phenomena). A galaxy of prominent scientists of their time worked within these areas (L.G. Morgan, G. Ratzel, E. Reclus, R. Virkhov, F. Kossina, A. Gröbner, etc.), who made a significant contribution to the formulation of the basic postulates of the science of stone age. In the XX century. new schools appear, reflecting, in addition to those listed above, ethnological, sociological, structuralist tendencies in the study of this ancient era.
Currently, an integral part of archaeological research has become the study of the natural environment, which has a great influence on the life of human groups. This is quite natural, especially if we remember that from the very moment of its appearance, primitive (prehistoric) archeology, originating among representatives of the natural sciences - geologists, paleontologists, anthropologists - was closely connected with the natural sciences.
The main achievement of the archeology of the Stone Age in the XX century. was the creation of clear ideas that different archaeological complexes (tools, weapons, jewelry, etc.) characterize different groups of people who, being at different stages of development, can coexist simultaneously. This denies the rough scheme of evolutionism, which assumes that all of humanity ascends the same steps-stages at the same time. The work of Russian archaeologists played an important role in formulating new postulates about the existence of cultural diversity in the development of mankind.
In the last quarter of the XX century. in the archeology of the Stone Age, a number of new directions have been formed on an international scientific basis, combining traditional archaeological and complex paleoecological and computer research methods, which involve the creation of complex spatial models of environmental management systems and the social structure of ancient societies.
Paleolithic
Division into eras
Paleolithic is the longest stage of the Stone Age, it covers the time from the Upper Pliocene to the Holocene, i.e. the entire Pleistocene (anthropogenic, glacial or Quaternary) geological period. Traditionally, the Paleolithic is divided into -
- early, or lower, including the following epochs:
- (about 3 million - 800 thousand years ago),
- ancient, middle and late (800 thousand - 120-100 thousand years ago)
- (120-100 thousand - 40 thousand years ago),
- upper, or (40 thousand - 12 thousand years ago).
However, it should be emphasized that the above chronological framework is rather arbitrary, since many issues have not been studied fully enough. This is especially true of the boundaries between the Mousterian and the Upper Paleolithic, the Upper Paleolithic and the Mesolithic. In the first case, the difficulties in identifying a chronological boundary are associated with the duration of the process of settlement of modern people, who brought new methods of processing stone raw materials, and their long coexistence with Neanderthals. The precise identification of the boundary between the Paleolithic and the Mesolithic is even more difficult, since the sharp changes in natural conditions, which led to significant changes in material culture, occurred extremely unevenly and had a different character in different geographical zones. However, in modern science, a conditional milestone has been adopted - 10 thousand years BC. e. or 12 thousand years ago, which is accepted by most scientists.
All Paleolithic eras differ significantly from each other both in anthropological characteristics, and in the methods of manufacturing the main tools, and their forms. Throughout the Paleolithic, the physical type of man was formed. In the early Paleolithic, there were various groups of representatives of the genus Homo ( H. habilis, H. ergaster, H. erectus, H. antesesst, H. Heidelbergensis, H. neardentalensis- according to the traditional scheme: archanthropes, paleoanthropes and Neanderthals), the Neoanthrope - Homo sapiens, corresponded to the Upper Paleolithic, all modern mankind belongs to this species.
Tools
Mousterian tools of labor - cutters and scrapers. Found near Amiens, France.
Due to the vast remoteness in time, many materials that were used by people, especially organic ones, are not preserved. Therefore, as mentioned above, one of the most important sources for studying the way of life of ancient people are stone tools. From the whole variety of rocks, a person chose those that give a sharp cutting edge when splitting. Due to its wide distribution in nature and its inherent physical qualities, flint and other siliceous rocks have become such a material.
No matter how primitive the ancient stone tools are, it is quite obvious that abstract thinking and the ability for a complex chain of sequential actions were necessary for their manufacture. Various types of activity are fixed in the forms of working blades of tools, in the form of traces on them, and allow us to judge those labor operations that ancient people performed.
Auxiliary tools were required to make the necessary things from stone:
- fenders,
- intermediaries,
- pushers,
- retouchers,
- anvils, which were also made of bone, stone, wood.
Another equally important source that allows obtaining various information and reconstructing the life of ancient human groups is the cultural layer of monuments, which is formed as a result of the life of people in a certain place. It includes the remains of hearths and residential buildings, traces of labor activity in the form of clusters of split stone and bone. The remains of animal bones allow us to judge the hunting activity of man.
The Paleolithic is the time of the formation of man and society, during this period the first social formation is formed - the primitive communal system. The appropriating economy is characteristic of the entire era: people obtained their means of subsistence by hunting and gathering.
Geological epochs and glaciations
The Paleolithic corresponds to the end of the geological period of the Pliocene and completely to the geological period of the Pleistocene, which began about two million years ago and ended approximately at the turn of the 10th millennium BC. e. Its early stage is called the Eiopleistocene, it ends about 800 thousand years ago. Already the Eiopleistocene, and especially the Middle and Late Pleistocene, is characterized by a series of sharp coolings and the development of glaciations covering a significant part of the land. For this reason, the Pleistocene is called the Ice Age, its other names, often used in the specialized literature, are Quaternary or Anthropogenic.
Table. Correlations of the Paleolithic and Pleistocene epochs.
| Subdivisions of the Quaternary period | Absolute age, thousand years. | Subdivisions of the Paleolithic | |||
| Holocene | |||||
| Pleistocene | wurm | 10 | 10 | Late Paleolithic | |
| 40 | Ancient Paleolithic | Mustier | |||
| Riss-Würm | 100 | 100 | |||
| 120 | 300 | ||||
| riss | 200 | Late and middle Acheulean | |||
| Mindel-Riess | 350 | ||||
| Mindel | 500 | Ancient Acheulean | |||
| Günz-Mindel | 700 | 700 | |||
| Eopleistocene | Gunz | 1000 | Olduvai | ||
| Danube | 2000 | ||||
| Neogene | 2600 | ||||
The table shows the ratio of the main stages of archaeological periodization with the stages of the ice age, in which 5 main glaciations are distinguished (according to the Alpine scheme, adopted as an international standard) and the intervals between them, usually called interglacials. The terms often used in the literature glacial(glaciation) and interglacial(interglacial). Within each glaciation (glacial) there are colder periods called stadials and warmer periods called interstadials. The name of the interglacial (interglacial) is made up of the names of two glaciations, and its duration is determined by their time boundaries, for example, the Riss-Wurm interglacial lasts from 120 to 80 thousand years ago.
The epochs of glaciation were characterized by significant cooling and the development of an ice cover on large areas of land, which led to a sharp drying of the climate, a change in the flora and, accordingly, the animal world. On the contrary, in the era of interglacials, a significant warming and humidification of the climate occurred, which also caused corresponding changes in the environment. Ancient man was largely dependent on the natural conditions surrounding him, so their significant changes required fairly rapid adaptation, i.e. flexible change of ways and means of life support.
At the beginning of the Pleistocene, despite the onset of global cooling, a rather warm climate persisted - not only in Africa and the equatorial zone, but even in the southern and central regions of Europe, Siberia and the Far East, broad-leaved forests grew. Such heat-loving animals as the hippopotamus, the southern elephant, the rhinoceros and the saber-toothed tiger (machairod) lived in these forests.
Gunz was separated from the Mindel, the first serious glaciation for Europe, by a large interglacial, which was comparatively warm. The ice of the Mindel glaciation reached the mountain ranges in southern Germany, and in Russia - to the upper reaches of the Oka and the middle reaches of the Volga. On the territory of Russia, this glaciation is called the Oka. Some changes were outlined in the composition of the animal world: heat-loving species began to die out, and in areas located closer to the glacier, cold-loving animals appeared - the musk ox and the reindeer.
This was followed by a warm interglacial epoch - the Mindelris interglacial - preceding the Ris (Dnieper for Russia) glaciation, which was the maximum. On the territory of European Russia, the ice of the Dnieper glaciation, having divided into two languages, reached the region of the Dnieper rapids and approximately the region of the modern Volga-Don Canal. The climate has become much colder, cold-loving animals have spread:
- mammoths,
- woolly rhinoceros,
- wild horses,
- bison,
- tours.
Cave Predators:
- cave bear,
- cave lion,
- cave hyena.
In the glacial regions lived
- reindeer,
- musk ox,
- arctic fox
The Riss-Würm interglacial - a time of very favorable climatic conditions - was replaced by the last great glaciation in Europe - the Würm or Valdai.
The last - the Wurm (Valdai) glaciation (80-12 thousand years ago) was shorter than the previous ones, but much more severe. Although the ice covered a much smaller area, capturing the Valdai Upland in Eastern Europe, the climate was much drier and colder. A feature of the animal world of the Wurm period was the mixing in the same territories of animals that are characteristic in our time for different landscape zones. Mammoth, woolly rhinoceros, musk ox existed next to the bison, red deer, horse, saiga. Of the predators, cave and brown bears, lions, wolves, arctic foxes, wolverines were common. This phenomenon can be explained by the fact that the boundaries of landscape zones, in comparison with modern ones, were strongly shifted to the south.
By the end of the Ice Age, the development of the culture of ancient people reached a level that allowed them to adapt to new, much more severe conditions of existence. Recent geological and archaeological studies have shown that the first stages of human development of the flat territories, the polar fox lemming, the cave bear of the European part of Russia, belong precisely to the cold epochs of the late Pleistocene. The nature of the settlement of primitive man in the territory of Northern Eurasia was determined not so much by climatic conditions as by the nature of the landscape. Most often, Paleolithic hunters settled in the open spaces of the tundra-steppes in the permafrost zone, and in the southern steppes-forest-steppes - outside it. Even at the maximum cooling (28-20 thousand years ago), people did not leave their traditional habitats. The struggle with the harsh nature of the ice age had a great influence on the cultural development of Paleolithic man.
The final cessation of glacial phenomena dates back to the 10th-9th millennium BC. With the retreat of the glacier, the Pleistocene era ends, followed by the Holocene - the modern geological period. Along with the retreat of the glacier to the extreme northern borders of Eurasia, the natural conditions characteristic of the modern era began to form.
Modern science has come to the conclusion that the entire variety of current space objects was formed about 20 billion years ago. The Sun - one of the many stars in our Galaxy - arose 10 billion years ago. Our Earth - an ordinary planet in the solar system - has an age of 4.6 billion years. Now it is 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 are known. Most often used archaeological scheme. 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 th millennium BC - 1st millennium BC, Iron Age - from the 1st millennium BC).
Among different peoples in different regions of the Earth, the appearance of certain tools and forms of social life did not occur simultaneously. There was a process of formation of a person (anthropogenesis, from the Greek "anthropos" - a person, "genesis" - origin) and human society (sociogenesis, from the Latin "societas" - society and the Greek "genesis" - origin).
The earliest ancestors of modern man looked like apes, which, unlike animals, were able to produce tools. In the scientific literature, this type of ape-man was called homo habilis - a skilled man. The further evolution of the habilis led to the appearance of the so-called pithecanthropes 1.5-1.6 million years ago (from the Greek "pithekos" - monkey, "anthropos" - man), or archanthropes (from the Greek "ahayos" - ancient). The archanthropes were already human. 200-300 thousand years ago, archanthropes were replaced by a more developed type of man - paleoanthropes, or Neanderthals (at the place of their first discovery in the Neandertal area in Germany).
During the period of the early Stone Age - the Paleolithic (about 700 thousand years ago), a person entered the territory of Eastern Europe. Settlement came from the south. Archaeologists find traces of the stay of the most ancient people in the Crimea (Kiik-Koba caves), in Abkhazia (not far from Sukhumi - Yashtukh), in Armenia (Satani-Dar hill near Yerevan), and also in Central Asia (south of Kazakhstan, Tashkent region). In the Zhytomyr region and on the Dniester, traces of people living here 300-500 thousand years ago were found.
Great Glacier. Approximately 100 thousand years ago, a significant part of the territory 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 a person to use natural fire, and then to get it. This helped a person to survive in conditions of a sharp cold snap. People have learned to make piercing 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 dates back 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, the fear of the forces of nature and the inability to explain them were the reasons for the emergence of pagan religion. Paganism was a 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 thousand years 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 streamline relations between the sexes significantly changed the physical type of a person. It was to this time that the transformation of a skilled man (homo habilis) into a reasonable man (homo sapiens) belongs. According to the place of the first find, it 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 current races (Caucasoid, Negroid and Mongoloid) were formed.
Further development was the processing of stone, and especially bone and horn. Scholars sometimes refer to the Late Paleolithic as the "Bone Age". The finds of this time include daggers, spearheads, harpoons, needles with an eye, awls, etc. Traces of the first long-term settlements were found. Not only caves, but also huts and dugouts built by man served as dwellings. Remains of jewelry have been found that allow you to reproduce the clothes of that time.
During the late Paleolithic period, the primitive herd was replaced by a higher form of social organization - the tribal community. A tribal community is an association of people of the same kind who have collective property and conduct a household based on the age and gender division of labor in the absence of exploitation.
Before the advent of pair marriage, kinship was established through the maternal line. At that time, a woman 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.
Many works of art created in the late Paleolithic era have come down to us. Picturesque colorful petroglyphs 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 sites in France, Italy, and the Southern Urals ( the famous Kapova Cave).
In the Mesolithic, or Middle Stone Age (8-10 thousand years ago), new advances were made in stone processing. The tips and blades of knives, spears, harpoons were then made 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 that made it possible to more successfully hunt animals and birds. People have learned to make snares and hunting traps.
Fishing has been added to hunting and gathering. Attempts of people to float on logs are noted. The domestication of animals began: the dog was tamed, followed by the pig. Eurasia was finally settled: man reached the shores of the Baltic and the Pacific Ocean. At the same time, as many researchers believe, people from Siberia through the Chukotka Peninsula came to 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. Since that time, pottery has been known. People began to build boats, learned to weave nets for catching fish, weave.
Significant changes in technology and forms of production during this time are sometimes referred to as the "Neolithic Revolution". Its most important result was the transition from gathering, from an appropriating economy to a producing one. Man was no longer afraid to break away from the habitable places, he could settle more freely in search of better living conditions, developing new lands.
Depending on the natural and climatic conditions on the territory of Eastern Europe and Siberia, various types of economic activity 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 characteristic of 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, Neolithic settlements can be distinguished 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 most ancient agricultural culture was Trypilska, named after the village of Tripoli near Kyiv. Trypillian settlements were discovered by archaeologists on the territory from the Dnieper to the Carpathians. They were large settlements 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. Wooden sickles with flint inserts, stone grain grinders and other items were found. The Trypillia culture belongs to the Copper-Stone Age - the Eneolithic (3rd-1st millennium BC).
