FDN 1107 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIAL SCIENCES

Week Two

By the end of this session students should be able to:

1. Explain factors responsible for the evolution of humans since pre-historic era to day.

2. Tell major human inventions and how they influenced their social, economic and political
spheres

3. Tell the distinctions between stone, middle and new stone ages.

Evolution of Human Society

The Stone Age marks a period of prehistory in which humans used primitive stone tools. Lasting roughly
2.5 million years, the Stone Age ended around 5,000 years ago when humans in the Near East began
working with metal and making tools and weapons from bronze. During the Stone Age, humans shared
the planet with a number of now-extinct hominin relatives, including Neanderthals and Denisovans .
When Was the Stone Age?

The Stone Age began about 2.6 million years ago, when researchers found the earliest evidence of
humans using stone tools, and lasted until about 3,300 B.C. when the Bronze Age began. It is typically
broken into three distinct periods: the Paleolithic Period, Mesolithic Period and Neolithic Period.
Did you know? Humans weren‘t the first to make or use stone tools. Some 3.3 million years ago, an
ancient species that lived on the shores of Lake Turkana in Kenya earned that distinction – a full 700,000
years before the earliest members of the Homo genus emerged.

Some experts believe the use of stone tools may have developed even earlier in our primate ancestors,
since some modern apes, including bonobos, can also use stone tools to get food. Stone artifacts tell
anthropologists a lot about early humans, including how they made things, how they lived and how
human behavior evolved over time. Humans weren‘t the first to make or use stone tools. That honor
appears to belong to the ancient species that lived on the shores of Lake Turkana, in Kenya, some 3.3
million years ago. First discovered in 2011 , these more primitive tools were created some 700,000
years before the earliest members of the Homo genus emerged.

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The earliest known human made stone tools date back around 2.6 million years. Crafted and used by
Homo habilis (sometimes known as ―handy man‖), these implements marked the first in a series of major
tool making advances among early human hunter-gatherer societies , lasting from the early Stone
Age all the way up until the first modern humans, Homo sapiens, made the transition to permanent
agricultural settlements around 10,000 years ago. The early Stone Age (also known as the Lower
Paleolithic) saw the development of the first stone tools by Homo habilis, one of the earliest members of
the human family. These were basically stone cores with flakes removed from them to create a sharpened
edge that could be used for cutting, chopping or scraping.

Though they were first discovered at (and named for) Olduvai Gorge near Lake Victoria, Tanzania, the
oldest known Oldowan tools were found in Gona, Ethiopia, and date back to about 2.6 million years ago.
Oldowan tools represent the first ―mode‖ in the framework of tool technologies proposed by the British
archaeologist Grahame Clark in his book World Prehistory: A New Synthesis (1969), which is still
used by many archaeologists for classification today.
The next leap forward in tool technology occurred when early humans began striking flakes off longer
rock cores to shape them into thinner, less rounded implements, including a new kind of tool called a
hand-axe. With two curved, flaked surfaces forming the cutting edge (a technique known as bifacial
working), these more sophisticated Acheulean tools proved sharper and more effective.
Named after St. Acheul on the Somme River in France, where the first tools from this tradition were
found in the mid-19th century, Acheulean tools spread from Africa over much of the world with the
migration of Homo erectus, a closer relative to modern humans. They have been found at sites as far
afield as southern Africa, northern Europe and the Indian subcontinent. Though teardrop-shaped
Acheulean han daxes remained the dominant tool technology until around 100,000 years ago, at least one
significant innovation emerged long before that among early human species such as Homo
neanderthalensis, or Neanderthals.
Known as the Levallois, or prepared-core technique, it involved striking pieces off a stone core to produce
a tortoise-shell like shape, then carefully striking the core again in such a way that a single large, sharp
flake can be broken off. The method could produce numerous knife-like tools of predictable size and
shape, a considerable advance in tool making technology.
Named for the site outside Paris where archaeologists first recognized and described it in the 1860s, the
Levallois technique was widely used in the Mousterian tool culture associated with Neanderthals in
Europe, Asia and Africa as late as 40,000 years ago. While Neanderthals were long assumed to be far

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more primitive than modern humans, their prolific production of such relatively sophisticated tools
suggests a more complicated reality.
This Upper Paleolithic stone tool tradition emerged among both Neanderthals and the first modern
humans, or Homo sapiens, in Europe and parts of Africa. The central innovation of this type of tool
making involved detaching long rectangular flakes from a stone core to form blades, which proved more
effective at cutting. The blades‘ shape also made them easier to attach to a handle, which gave greater
leverage and increased efficiency.
Named for the French village of Aurignac, where prehistoric remains were discovered in a cave in 1860,
the Aurignacian culture is associated with the first anatomically modern humans in Europe. In addition to
their innovations with tools, the Aurignacians also made some of the earliest representational
artwork , leaving behind engraved limestone tablets and blocks featuring depictions of animals such as
aurochs, an ancestor of wild cattle The Magdalenian culture is a central example of the fifth and final
mode in Clark‘s framework of stone tool development, characterized by small tools known as geometric
microliths, or stone blades or flakes that have been shaped into triangles, crescents and other geometric
forms. When attached to handles made of bone or antler, these could easily be used as projectile weapons,
as well as for woodworking and food preparation purposes.
The first micro lithic technologies emerged among early humans in Africa and Eurasia about 50,000 years
ago, during a time of rapid change and development that some anthropologists have called the
―Great Leap Forward.‖
Starting around 10,000 B.C., during the Neolithic Period, otherwise known as the New Stone
Age, humans made the transition from small, nomadic groups of hunter-gatherers to larger
agricultural settlements. In terms of tools, this period saw the emergence of stone tools that were
produced not by flaking but by grinding and polishing stones. These tools, including axes, adzes,
celts, chisels and gouges, were not only more pleasing to look at; they were also more efficient to
use and easier to sharpen when they became dull. Polished Neolithic axes, like those found at
sites in Denmark and England, allowed humans to clear wide swathes of woodland to create
their agricultural settlements. Toward the end of the Neolithic Period, however, the emergence of
copper and later bronze led humans to transition into using metal, rather than stone, as the
primary material for their tools and weapons. The Stone Age had come to an end, and a new era
of human civilization had begun.

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Stone Age Facts
Early in the Stone Age, humans lived in small, nomadic groups. During much of this period, the Earth
was in an Ice Age a period of colder global temperatures and glacial expansion.
Mastodons, saber-toothed cats, giant ground sloths and other mega fauna roamed. Stone Age humans
hunted large mammals, including wooly mammoths, giant bison and deer. They used stone tools to cut,
pound, and crush making them better at extracting meat and other nutrients from animals and plants than
their earlier ancestors.
The Stone Age began more than two million years ago, and ended around 3300 BC, as humans began to
discover metalwork with the dawn of the Bronze Age. Compared to modern humans, Stone Age humans
and human ancestors may have been primitive but they were far more sophisticated than the grunting
cavemen often depicted on screen. In fact, early humans were ingenious problem-solvers who managed to
survive and thrive in hostile environments. More and more, researchers are finding we‘re not so different.
They cured meat to turn it into ‘bacon.’

A 5,300-year-old mummy found frozen in a European glacier in 1991 revealed that people had already
begun curing meat. The mummy, known as Ötzi, or the Iceman, was killed by an arrow when he was
between 40 and 50 years old and hiking across the Ötztal Alps between modern-day Italy and Austria.
When researchers explored the contents of Ötzi‘s stomach, they were stunned to discover a kind of
rudimentary prosciutto alongside a cooked grain. For his final supper, Ötzi had eaten goat—but it was
dry-cured, rather than cooked. Archaeologists believe that he was carrying cured meat with him on his
trip through the mountains. ―It seems probable that his last meal was very fatty, dried meat,‖ mummy
specialist Albert Zink told The Local, ―perhaps a type of Stone Age Speck or bacon.‖

They played music on instruments.

As far back as 43,000 years ago, shortly after they settled in Europe, early humans whiled away their time
playing music on flutes made from bird bone and mammoth ivory. The instruments were found in a
cave in southern Germany in 2012, and are believed to have been used in religious ritual or simply as a
way to relax.
They kept their homes clean and spent time hanging out on their rooftops.

Though people tend to think of early humans as living in caves, a settlement found in Turkey in the mid-
1960s reveal some of the earliest examples of urbanization. Nine thousand years ago, Neolithic people
lived in mud-brick houses, packed closely together. Each house was uniform and rectangular, reported
the New York Times, ―and entered by holes in the roof rather than front doors.‖ They were simple
structures, but they had every modern convenience–a hearth, an oven, and platforms for sleeping on.

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According to archaeologist Shahina Farid, ―A lot of activity would have taken place at the roof level.‖
People would cross between homes on the rooftops, and use the alleyways between them to throw out
their household waste. ―It‘s those areas that are the richest for us,‖ said Farid, ―because they actually kept
their houses very clean.‖
The women were strong.
Many millennia before women were even allowed to compete in the Olympics, Stone Age
women were as strong as modern athletes. According to a study published in Science Advances,
remains of women from around 7,000 years ago suggest they were almost as strong as ―living
semi-elite rowers.‖ The results tell us a little bit about what role women played in everyday life,
and that they were likely as involved with manual labor as their male peers.
They passed their homes on to their descendants.

When Stone Age people needed somewhere to live, they often didn‘t build a new dwelling or seek out an
empty cave. Instead, they‘d renovate empty homes in their local area, and live there instead. Sometimes,
archaeologist Silje Fretheim at NTNU‘s Department of Archaeology and Cultural History told Science
Nordic, homes would be inhabited near-continuously for as much as 1000 years. ―People became more
settled and linked to certain sites because they saw them as good places to live.‖
They went on camping getaways.
In Scotland, the Cairngorms are a popular weekend spot for hikers and holiday-makers. In the Stone Age,
it wasn‘t so different: Some 8,000 years ago, visitors would come for a few nights at a time and stay in a
tent with a central campfire. What they were doing there isn‘t clear—though a visit to make the most of
the area‘s excellent hunting is a popular theory, researcher Graeme Warren told The Press and Journal:
―They may have gone up there because it is a natural corridor taking you across from the east to the west
of Scotland, and while they were there they did some hunting because they were hungry.‖
They survived climate change.

When the climate changed dramatically 11,000 years ago, hunter-gatherers in what is today northeastern
England were forced to make substantial changes to fight off biting cold. Even as temperatures
plummeted, researchers found, pioneering early people changed their way of life rather than moving
elsewhere, including how they built their homes and the kind of tools that they used.

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They made bread.

A snack eaten 14,400 years ago might not look so different than a modern one, after all. In northern
Jordan, archaeologists found the remnants of ancient flatbread in what was once a fireplace. It was a
staggering discovery: Making bread would have been an unbelievably labor-intensive process, requiring
not just making the dough, but also harvesting the grain and milling it. For now, no one‘s really sure how
they did it, or how they managed to make such finely ground flour. ―Nobody had found any direct
evidence for production of bread, so the fact that bread predates agriculture is kind of stunning.‖
They had pets
Thousands of years ago, in what is today Germany, people were buried with their pet dogs when they
died. Archaeologists say, they even appear to have nursed sick puppies for as long as they could—even
when their recovery seemed uncertain. The remains of one dog suggest that the animal caught fatal
―canine distemper‖ at around five months old, and would have been seriously ill on a number of
occasions for up to six weeks at a time. Each time, it was brought back to health. ―Since distemper is a
life-threatening sickness with very high mortality rates, the dog must have been perniciously ill,‖
About 14,000 years ago, Earth entered a warming period. Many of the large Ice Age animals went extinct.
In the Fertile Crescent, a boomerang-shaped region bounded on the west by the Mediterranean Sea and
on the east by the Persian Gulf, wild wheat and barley became plentiful as it got warmer. Some humans
started to build permanent houses in the region. They gave up the nomadic lifestyle of their Ice Age
ancestors to begin farming. Human artifacts in the Americas begin showing up from around this time, too.
Experts aren‘t exactly sure who these first Americans were or where they came from, though there‘s some
evidence these Stone Age people may have followed a footbridge between Asia and North America,
which became submerged as glaciers melted at the end of the last Ice Age.

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Stone Age Tools (Sarah Pruitt,2018)

Much of what is known about life in the Stone Age and Stone Age people comes from the tools they left
behind. Hammer stones are some of the earliest and simplest stone tools. Prehistoric humans used
hammer stones to chip other stones into sharp-edged flakes. They also used hammer stones to break apart
nuts, seeds and bones and to grind clay into pigment.
Archaeologists refer to these earliest stone tools as the Oldowan toolkit. Oldowan stone tools dating back
nearly 2.6 million years were first discovered in Tanzania in the 1930s by archaeologist Louis Leakey.
Most of the makers of Oldowan tools were right-handed, leading experts to believe that handedness
evolved very early in human history.
Major Breakthroughs in Hunter-Gatherer Tools

Humans weren‘t the first to make or use stone tools. That honor appears to belong to the ancient species
that lived on the shores of Lake Turkana, in Kenya, some 3.3 million years ago. First discovered in
2011, these more primitive tools were created some 700,000 years before the earliest members of the
Homo genus emerged.
The earliest known human-made stone tools around 2.6 million years ago. Crafted and used by Homo
habilis (sometimes known as ―handy man‖), these implements marked the first in a series of major tool
making advances among early human hunter-gatherer societies, lasting from the early Stone Age all
the way up until the first modern humans, Homo sapiens, made the transition to permanent agricultural
settlements around 10,000 years ago.
a) Sharpened stones (Oldowan tools): 2.6 million years ago
The early Stone Age (also known as the Lower Paleolithic) saw the development of the first stone tools
by Homo habilis, one of the earliest members of the human family. These were basically stone cores with
flakes removed from them to create a sharpened edge that could be used for cutting, chopping or scraping.
Though they were first discovered at (and named for) Olduvai Gorge near Lake Victoria, Tanzania, the
oldest known Oldowan tools were found in Gona, Ethiopia, and date back to about 2.6 million years ago.
Oldowan tools represent the first ―mode‖ in the framework of tool technologies proposed by the British
archaeologist Grahame Clark in his book World Prehistory: A New Synthesis (1969), which is still
used by many archaeologists for classification today.
b) Stone hand axe (Acheulean tools): 1.6 million years ago
The next leap forward in tool technology occurred when early humans began striking flakes off longer
rock cores to shape them into thinner, less rounded implements, including a new kind of tool called a
handaxe. With two curved, flaked surfaces forming the cutting edge (a technique known as bifacial
working), these more sophisticated Acheulean tools proved sharper and more effective.

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 c) A new kind of knapping (Levallois technique): 400,000 to 200,000 years ago
Though teardrop-shaped Acheulean hand axes remained the dominant tool technology until around
100,000 years ago, at least one significant innovation emerged long before that among early human
species such as Homo neanderthalensis, or Neanderthals.
Known as the Levallois, or prepared-core technique, it involved striking pieces off a stone core to produce
a tortoise-shell like shape, then carefully striking the core again in such a way that a single large, sharp
flake can be broken off. The method could produce numerous knife-like tools of predictable size and
shape, a considerable advance in tool making technology.
Named for the site outside Paris where archaeologists first recognized and described it in the 1860s, the
Levallois technique was widely used in the Mousterian tool culture associated with Neanderthals in
Europe, Asia and Africa as late as 40,000 years ago. While Neanderthals were long assumed to be far
more primitive than modern humans, their prolific production of such relatively sophisticated tools
suggests a more complicated reality.
d) Cutting blades (Aurignacian industry): 80,000 to 40,000 years ago
This Upper Paleolithic stone tool tradition emerged among both Neanderthals and the first modern
humans, or Homo sapiens, in Europe and parts of Africa. The central innovation of this type of tool
making involved detaching long rectangular flakes from a stone core to form blades, which proved more
effective at cutting. The blades‘ shape also made them easier to attach to a handle, which gave greater
leverage and increased efficiency. Named for the French village of Aurignac, where prehistoric remains
were discovered in a cave in 1860, the Aurignacian culture is associated with the first anatomically
modern humans in Europe. In addition to their innovations with tools, the Aurignacians also made some
of the earliest representational artwork, leaving behind engraved limestone tablets and blocks featuring
depictions of animals such as aurochs, an ancestor of wild cattle.
e) Small, sharp micro blades (Magdalenian culture): 11,000 to 17,000 years ago
The Magdalenian culture is a central example of the fifth and final mode in Clark‘s framework of stone
tool development, characterized by small tools known as geometric micro liths, or stone blades or flakes
that have been shaped into triangles, crescents and other geometric forms. When attached to handles made
of bone or antler, these could easily be used as projectile weapons, as well as for woodworking and food
preparation purposes. The first micro lithic technologies emerged among early humans in Africa and
Eurasia about 50,000 years ago, during a time of rapid change and development that some
anthropologists have called the ―Great Leap Forward.‖ As the archaeologist John J. Shea wrote in an
article in American Scientist in 2011, it was also a time when the climate varied dramatically, and
humans may have needed more versatile and easily transportable tools as they migrated in search of
readily available food sources in an unpredictable environment.

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 f) Axes, celts, chisels (Neolithic tools): around 12,000 years ago
Starting around 10,000 B.C., during the Neolithic Period, otherwise known as the New Stone Age,
humans made the transition from small, nomadic groups of hunter-gatherers to larger agricultural
settlements. In terms of tools, this period saw the emergence of stone tools that were produced not by
flaking but by grinding and polishing stones. These tools, including axes, adzes, celts, chisels and gouges,
were not only more pleasing to look at; they were also more efficient to use and easier to sharpen when
they became dull. Polished Neolithic axes, like those found at sites in Denmark and England, allowed
humans to clear wide swathes of woodland to create their agricultural settlements. Toward the end of the
Neolithic Period, however, the emergence of copper and later bronze led humans to transition into using
metal, rather than stone, as the primary material for their tools and weapons. The Stone Age had come to
an end, and a new era of human civilization had begun.
As technology progressed, humans created increasingly more sophisticated stone tools. These included
hand axes, spear points for hunting large game, scrapers which could be used to prepare animal hides and
awls for shredding plant fibers and making clothing. Not all Stone Age tools were made of stone. Groups
of humans experimented with other raw materials including bone, ivory and antler, especially later on in
the Stone Age. Later Stone Age tools are more diverse. These diverse ―toolkits‖ suggest a faster pace of
innovation and the emergence of distinct cultural identities. Different groups sought different ways of
making tools. Some examples of late Stone Age tools include harpoon points, bone and ivory needles,
bone flutes for playing music and chisel-like stone flakes used for carving wood, antler or bone.

Stone Age Food

People during the Stone Age first started using clay pots to cook food and store things.
The oldest pottery known was found at an archaeological site in Japan. Fragments of clay
containers used in food preparation at the site may be up to 16,500 years old.
Stone Age food varied over time and from region to region, but included the foods typical
of hunter gatherers: meats, fish, eggs, grasses, tubers, fruits, vegetables, seeds and nuts.
Hunter gatherers
Hunter-gatherers were prehistoric nomadic groups that harnessed the use of fire, developed
intricate knowledge of plant life and refined technology for hunting and domestic purposes as
they spread from Africa to Asia, Europe and beyond. From African hominins of 2 million years
ago to modern-day Homo sapiens, the evolution of humans can be traced through what the
hunter-gatherers left behind tools and settlements that teach us about the hunter-gatherer diet and
way of life of early humans.

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Although hunting and gathering societies largely died out with the onset of the Neolithic
Revolution, hunter-gatherer communities still endure in a few parts of the world.
Who Were the Hunter-Gatherers?
Hunter-gatherer culture developed among the early hominins of Africa, with evidence of their
activities dating as far back as 2 million years ago. Among their distinguishing characteristics,
the hunter-gatherers actively killed animals for food instead of scavenging meat left behind by
other predators and devised ways of setting aside vegetation for consumption at a later date.
The culture accelerated with the appearance of Homo erectus (1.9 million years ago), whose
larger brain and shorter digestive system reflected the increased consumption of meat.
Additionally, these were the first hominins built for long-distance walking, pushing nomadic
tribes into Asia and Europe. Hunting and gathering remained a way of life for Homo
heidelbergensis (700,000 to 200,000 years ago), the first humans to adapt to colder climates and
routinely hunt large animals, through the Neanderthals (400,000 to 40,000 years ago), and who
developed more sophisticated technology. It also spanned most of the existence of Homo
sapiens, dating from the first anatomically modern humans 200,000 years ago, to the transition
to permanent agricultural communities around 10,000 B.C.
Hunter-Gatherer Tools and Technology
The early hunter-gatherers used simple tools. During the Stone Age, sharpened stones were used
for cutting before hand-axes were developed, marking the onset of Acheulean technology about
1.6 million years ago. Controlled use of fire for cooking and warding off predators marked a
crucial turning point in the early history of these groups, though debate remains as to when this
was accomplished. Use of hearths dates back almost 800,000 years ago, and other findings point
to controlled heating as far back as 1 million years ago. Evidence of fire exists at early Homo
erectus sites, including 1.5 million-year-old Koobi Fora in Kenya, though these may be the
remains of wildfires. Fire enabled hunter-gatherers to stay warm in colder temperatures, cook
their food (preventing some diseases caused by consumption of raw foods like meat), and scare
wild animals that might otherwise take their food or attack their camps.
After Homo heidelbergensis, who developed wooden and then stone-tipped spears for hunting,
Neanderthals introduced refined stone technology and the first bone tools. Early Homo
sapiens continued to develop more specialized hunting techniques by inventing fishhooks, the
bow and arrow, harpoons and more domestic tools like bone and ivory needles. These more

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specialized tools enabled them to widen their diet and create more effective clothing and shelter
as they moved about in search of food.
Hunter-Gatherer Diet
From their earliest days, the hunter-gatherer diet included various grasses, tubers, fruits, seeds
and nuts. Lacking the means to kill larger animals, they procured meat from smaller game or
through scavenging. As their brains evolved, hominids developed more intricate knowledge of
edible plant life and growth cycles. Examination of the Gesher Benot Ya‗aqov site in Israel,
which housed a thriving community almost 800,000 years ago, revealed the remains of 55
different food plants, along with evidence of fish consumption.
With the introduction of spears at least 500,000 years ago, hunter-gatherers became capable of
tracking larger prey to feed their groups. Modern humans were cooking shellfish by 160,000
years ago, and by 90,000 years ago they were developing the specialized fishing tools that
enabled them to haul in larger aquatic life.
Hunting and Gathering Society
Studies of modern-day hunter-gatherers offer a glimpse into the lifestyle of small, nomadic tribes
dating back almost 2 million years ago. With limited resources, these groups were egalitarian by
nature, scraping up enough food to survive and fashioning basic shelter for all. Division of labor
by gender became more pronounced with the advancement of hunting techniques, particularly
for larger game. Along with cooking, controlled use of fire fostered societal growth through
communal time around the hearth. Physiological evolution also led to changes, with the bigger
brains of more recent ancestors leading to longer periods of childhood and adolescence.
By the time of the Neanderthals, hunter-gatherers were displaying such ―human‖ characteristics
as burying their dead and creating ornamental objects. Homo sapiens continued fostering more
complex societies. By 130,000 years ago, they were interacting with other groups based nearly
200 miles away.
Where Did The Hunter-Gatherers Live?
Early hunter-gatherers moved as nature dictated, adjusting to proliferation of vegetation, the
presence of predators or deadly storms. Basic, impermanent shelters were established in caves
and other areas with protective rock formations, as well as in open-air settlements where
possible. Hand-built shelters likely date back to the time of Homo erectus, though one of the
earliest known constructed settlements, from 400,000 years ago in Terra Amata, France, is

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attributed to Homo heidelbergensis. By 50,000 years ago, huts made from wood, rock and bone
were becoming more common, fueling a shift to semi-permanent residencies in areas with
abundant resources. The remains of man‘s first known year-round shelters, discovered at
the Ohalo II site in Israel, date back at least 23,000 years.

Neolithic/ New Stone Age

Like the Old Stone Age, the people of the New Stone Age used stone for tools. Neo is a root we
use in the English language; it comes from the Greek word neos, which means new or recent. So,
Neolithic means "New Stone." If people were still using mostly stone for tools, why do we
bother separating these two eras? The New Stone Age was a time when the Earth's climate was
warmer than the climate in the Old Stone Age. No one knows for sure why the Earth warmed;
around 12,000 years ago, the Earth ended its last great ice age.

Neolithic, also called New Stone Age, final stage of cultural evolution or technological
development among prehistoric humans. It was characterized by stone tools shaped by polishing
or grinding, dependence on domesticated plants or animals, settlement in permanent villages, and
the appearance of such crafts as pottery and weaving. The Neolithic followed the Paleolithic
Period, or age of chipped-stone tools, and preceded the Bronze Age, or early period of metal
tools.

The Neolithic stage of development was attained during the Holocene Epoch (the last 11,700
years of Earth history). The starting point of the Neolithic is much debated, with different parts
of the world having achieved the Neolithic stage at different times, but it is generally thought to
have occurred sometime about 10,000 BCE. During that time, humans learned to raise crops and
keep domestic livestock and were thus no longer dependent on hunting, fishing, and gathering
wild plants.

Neolithic cultures made more-useful stone tools by grinding and polishing relatively hard rocks
rather than merely chipping softer ones down to the desired shape. The cultivation of cereal
grains enabled Neolithic peoples to build permanent dwellings and congregate in villages, and
the release from nomadism and a hunting-gathering economy gave them the time to pursue
specialized crafts.

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Archaeological evidence indicates that the transition from food-collecting cultures to food-
producing ones gradually occurred across Asia and Europe from a starting point in the Fertile
Crescent. The first evidence of cultivation and animal domestication in southwestern Asia has
been dated to roughly 9500 BCE, which suggests that those activities may have begun before
that date. A way of life based on farming and settled villages had been firmly achieved by
7000 BCE in the Tigris and Euphrates river valleys (now in Iraq and Iran) and in what are
now Syria, Israel, Lebanon, and Jordan. Those earliest farmers raised barley and wheat and
kept sheep and goats, later supplemented by cattle and pigs. Their innovations spread from
the Middle East northward into Europe by two routes: across Turkey and Greece into central
Europe, and across Egypt and North Africa and thence to Spain. Farming communities appeared
in Greece as early as 7000 BCE, and farming spread northward throughout the continent over the
next four millennia. This long and gradual transition was not completed
in Britain and Scandinavia until after 3000 BCE and is known as the Mesolithic.

Neolithic technologies also spread eastward to the Indus River valley of India by 5000 BCE.
Farming communities based on millet and rice appeared in the Huang He (Yellow River) valley
of China and in Southeast Asia by about 3500 BCE. Neolithic modes of life were achieved
independently in the New World. Corn (maize), beans, and squash were gradually domesticated
in Mexico and Central America from 6500 BCE on, though sedentary village life did not
commence there until much later, at about 2000 BCE. In the Old World the Neolithic was
succeeded by the Bronze Age when human societies learned to combine copper and tin to
make bronze, which replaced stone for use as tools and weapons.

The origins and history of European Neolithic culture are closely connected with the postglacial
climate and forest development. The increasing temperature after the late Dryas period during
the Pre-Boreal and the Boreal (c. 8000–5500 BCE, determined by radiocarbon dating) caused a
remarkable change in late glacial flora and fauna. Thus, the Mediterranean zone became the
centre of the first cultural modifications leading from the last hunters and food gatherers to the
earliest farmers. This was established by some important excavations in the mid-20th century in
the Middle East, which unearthed the first stages of early agriculture and stock breeding (7th and
6th millennia BCE) with wheat, barley, dogs, sheep, and goats. Early prepottery Neolithic finds
(probably 6th millennium BCE) have been made in the Argissa Magula near Larissa (Thessaly,

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Greece), while excavations in Lepenski Vir (Balkan Peninsula) have brought to light some
sculptures of the same period. The independent origin of European Neolithic was established,
and it was thought highly probable that the cradle of farming in the Middle East had not been the
only one: there were others in Europe, too.

The zones

Neolithic farming in Europe developed on its own lines in the four different ecological zones.
These are: the Mediterranean zone of evergreen forest and winter rains; north of the Pyrenees,
the Alps, and the Balkans, the temperate zone of deciduous forest and evenly distributed annual
rainfall; still farther north the circumpolar taiga, or coniferous forest (the only zone to remain
free of agriculture and stock breeding); and to the southeast the western end of the Eurasian
Steppe. Each zone itself is subdivided into natural regions by physiographic boundaries and
peculiarities of climate or soil. Only the three major divisions of the temperate zone are not
obvious from every map. We may distinguish: western Europe, from the Atlantic to the Vosges
and Alps and including the British Isles; the loesslands of central Europe, including
the Ukraine and limited by the Balkans and the Harz; and the northern province, that portion of
the Eurasiatic plain lying between the Rhine and the Vistula and including Denmark and
southern Sweden. The substantial Neolithic communities that arose by 6000 BCE must have
been largely recruited from indigenous Mesolithic hunters and fishers, attested to so abundantly
in western and northern Europe by various remains. (Some communities indeed seem to be
composed entirely of such Mesolithic stocks, though they had adopted Neolithic equipment from
immigrant farmers; such are sometimes termed Secondary Neolithic. From these Mesolithic
survivors, too, must be derived much of the science and equipment applied in Neolithic times to
adapting societies to European environments. Upon the resultant distinctively
European technology and economy was reared a no less original ideological superstructure
expressed in distinctive sepulchral monuments, styles of ceramic decoration, and fashions in
personal ornaments.

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Neolithic Revolution to Modern Day
With favorable conditions supporting permanent communities in areas such as the Middle
East‘s Fertile Crescent and the domestication of animals and plants, the agriculture-
based Neolithic Revolution began approximately 12,000 years ago. The full-time transition
from hunting and gathering wasn‘t immediate, as humans needed time to develop proper
agricultural methods and the means for combating diseases encountered through close proximity
to livestock. Success in that area fueled the growth of early civilizations in Mesopotamia, China
and India, and by 1500 A.D., most populations were relying on domesticated food sources.
Modern-day hunter-gatherers endure in various pockets around the globe. Among the more
famous groups are the San, the Bushmen, of southern Africa, and the Sentinelese of the
Andaman Islands in the Bay of Bengal, known to fiercely resist all contact with the outside
world.
As technology progressed, humans created increasingly more sophisticated stone tools. These
included hand axes, spear points for hunting large game, scrapers which could be used to prepare
animal hides and awls for shredding plant fibers and making clothing. Not all Stone Age tools
were made of stone. Groups of humans experimented with other raw materials including bone,
ivory and antler, especially later on in the Stone Age. Later Stone Age tools are more diverse.
These diverse ―toolkits‖ suggest a faster pace of innovation and the emergence of distinct
cultural identities. Different groups sought different ways of making tools. Some examples of
late Stone Age tools include harpoon points, bone and ivory needles, bone flutes for playing
music and chisel-like stone flakes used for carving wood, antler or bone.
Stone Age Wars
While humans had the technology to create spears and other tools to use as weapons, there‘s
little evidence for Stone Age wars. Most researchers think the population density in most areas
was low enough to avoid violent conflict between groups. Stone Age wars may have started later
when humans began settling and established economic currency in the form of agricultural
goods.
Stone Age Art
The oldest known Stone Age art dates back to a later Stone Age period known as the Upper
Paleolithic, about 40,000 years ago. Art began to appear around this time in parts of Europe, the
Near East, Asia and Africa.

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The earliest known depiction of a human in Stone Age art is a small ivory sculpture of a female
figure with exaggerated breasts and genitalia. The figurine is named the Venus of Hohle Fels,
after the cave in Germany in which it was discovered. It‘s about 40,000 years old.
Humans started carving symbols and signs onto the walls of caves during the Stone Age using
hammer stones and stone chisels. These early murals, called petroglyphs, depict scenes of
animals. Some may have been used as early maps, showing trails, rivers, landmarks,
astronomical markers and symbols communicating time and distance traveled.
Shamans, too, may have created cave art while under the influence of natural hallucinogens.
The earliest petroglyphs were created around 40,000 years ago. Archaeologists have discovered
petroglyphs on every continent besides Antarctica.

References

Henry Fairfield Osborn, 2013. Men of the Old Stone Age: The Environment, Life and Art.
WWW.Britanica.Com
Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, Social Sciences.

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