Ice Age

Ice Age
• An ice age is a period of colder global temperatures and recurring
glacial expansion capable of lasting hundreds of millions of years.
• Thanks to the efforts of geologist Louis Agassiz and mathematician
Milutin Milankovitch, scientists have determined that variations in
the Earth’s orbit and shifting plate tectonics spur the waxing and
waning of these periods. 
Ice Age
• There have been at least five significant ice ages in Earth’s history,
with approximately a dozen epochs of glacial expansion occurring in
the past 1 million years.
• Humans developed significantly during the most recent glaciation
period, emerging as the dominant land animal afterward as
megafauna such as the wooly mammoth went extinct.
Ice Age
• During an ice age, colder global temperatures lead to recurring glacial
expansion across the Earth’s surface.
• Capable of lasting hundreds of millions of years, these periods are
interspersed with regular warmer interglacial intervals in which at
least one major ice sheet is present.
• Earth is currently in the midst of an ice age, as the Antarctic and
Greenland ice sheets remain intact despite moderate temperatures.
Ice Age
• These global cooling periods begin when a drop in temperature
prevents snow from fully melting in some areas.
• The bottom layer turns to ice, which becomes a glacier as the weight
of accumulated snow causes it to slowly move forward.
• A cyclical pattern emerges in which the snow and ice traps the Earth’s
moisture, fueling the growth of these ice sheets as the sea levels
simultaneously drop.
How an Ice Age Changes Earth?
• An ice age causes enormous changes to the Earth’s surface. Glaciers
reshape the landscape by picking up rocks and soil and eroding hills
during their unstoppable push, their sheer weight depressing the
Earth’s crust. As temperatures drop in areas adjacent to these ice cliffs,
cold-weather plant life is driven to southern latitudes. 
• Meanwhile, the dramatic drop in sea levels enables rivers to carve out
deeper valleys and produce enormous inland lakes, with previously
submerged land bridges appearing between continents. Upon
retreating during warmer periods, the glaciers leave behind scattered
ridges of sediment and fill basins with melted water to create new
lakes.
How an Ice Age Changes Earth?
• Scientists have recorded five significant ice ages throughout the
Earth’s history: the Huronian (2.4-2.1 billion years ago), Cryogenian
(850-635 million years ago), Andean-Saharan (460-430 MYA), Karoo
(360-260 MYA) and Quaternary (2.6 MYA-present). Approximately a
dozen major glaciations have occurred over the past 1 million years,
the largest of which peaked 650,000 years ago and lasted for 50,000
years. The most recent glaciation period, often known simply as the
“Ice Age,” reached peak conditions some 18,000 years ago before
giving way to the interglacial Holocene epoch 11,700 years ago.
How an Ice Age Changes Earth?
• At the height of the recent glaciation, the ice grew to more than
12,000 feet thick as sheets spread across Canada, Scandinavia, Russia
and South America. Corresponding sea levels plunged more than 400
feet, while global temperatures dipped around 10 degrees Fahrenheit
on average and up to 40 degrees in some areas. In North America, the
region of the Gulf Coast states was dotted with the pine forests and
prairie grasses that are today associated with the northern states and
Canada.
Ice Age Theory Origins
• The origins of ice age theory began hundreds of years ago, when
Europeans noted that glaciers in the Alps had shrunk, but its
popularization is credited to 19th century Swiss geologist Louis
Agassiz.
• Contradicting the belief that a wide-ranging flood killed off such
megafauna as the wooly mammoth, Agassiz pointed to rock striations
and sediment piles as evidence of glacier activity from a destructive
global winter. Geologists soon found evidence of plant life between
glacial sediment, and by the close of the century the theory of
multiple global winters had been established.
Ice Age Theory Origins
• A second important figure in the development of these studies was
Serbian mathematician Milutin Milankovitch.
• Seeking to chart the Earth’s temperature from the past 600,000 years,
Milankovitch carefully calculated how orbital variations such as
eccentricity, precession and axial tilt affected solar radiation levels,
publishing his work in the 1941 book Canon of Insolation and the Ice
Age Problem.
• Milankovitch’s findings were corroborated when technological
improvements in the 1960s allowed for the analyzation of deep sea ice
cores and plankton shells, which helped pinpoint periods of glaciation.
Ice Age Theory Origins
• Along with solar radiation levels, it is believed that global warming
and cooling is connected to plate tectonic activity. The shifting of the
Earth’s plates creates large-scale changes to continental masses,
which impacts ocean and atmospheric currents, and triggers volcanic
activity that releases carbon dioxide into the air.
How Humans Adapted to Ice Age's Harsh
Climate
• One significant outcome of the recent ice age was the development of
Homo sapiens.
• Humans adapted to the harsh climate by developing such tools as the bone
needle to sew warm clothing, and used the land bridges to spread to new
regions.
• By the start of the warmer Holocene epoch, humans were in position to take
advantage of the favorable conditions by developing agricultural and
domestication techniques.
• Meanwhile, the mastodons, saber-toothed cats, giant ground sloths and
other megafauna that reigned during the glacial period went extinct by its
end.
How Humans Adapted to Ice Age's Harsh
Climate
• The reasons for the disappearance of these giants, from human
hunting to disease, are among the ice age mysteries that have yet to
be fully explained.
• Scientists continue to study the evidence of these important periods,
both to gain more insight into the Earth’s history and to help
determine future climatic events.
 How Early Humans
Survived the Ice Age
Our human ancestors' big, creative brains helped them devise tools and
strategies to survive harsh climates.
How Early Humans Survived the Ice Age
• The most recent ice age peaked between 24,000 and 21,000 years
ago, when vast ice sheets covered North America and northern
Europe, and mountain ranges like Africa's Mt. Kilimanjaro and South
America's Andes were encased in glaciers.
How Early Humans Survived the Ice Age
• At that point, our Homo sapiens ancestors had migrated from the
warm African heartland into northern European and Eurasian
latitudes severely impacted by the sinking temperatures.
• Armed with big, creative brains and sophisticated tools, though, these
early modern humans—nearly identical to ourselves physically—not
only survived but thrived in their harsh surroundings.
Language, Art and Storytelling Helped
Survival
• For our Homo sapiens forebears living during the last ice age, there
were several critical advantages to having a large brain, explains Brian
Fagan, an emeritus professor of anthropology at the University of
California, Santa Barbara, and author of many books, including Cro
Magnon: How the Ice Age Gave Birth to the First Modern Humans
 and Climate Chaos: Lessons on Survival from our Ancestors.
• "One of the most important things about Homo sapiens is that we
had fluent speech," says Fagan, "plus the ability to conceptualize and
plan ahead."
Language, Art and Storytelling Helped
Survival
• With the advent of language, knowledge about the natural world and
new technologies could be shared between neighboring bands of
humans and also passed down from generation to generation via
storytellers.
• "They had institutional memory through symbolic storytelling, which
gave them a relationship with the forces of the environment, the
supernatural forces which governed their world."
Language, Art and Storytelling Helped
Survival
• Also through music, dance and art, our ancestors collected and
transmitted vast amounts of information about the seasons, edible
plants, animal migrations, weather patterns and more.
• The elaborate cave paintings at sites like Lascaux and Chauvet in
France display the intimate understanding that late ice age humans
possessed about the natural world, especially the prey animals they
depended on for survival.
THIS PAINTING IN THE CHAUVET CAVE IN
SOUTHERN FRANCE DATES TO AROUND 32,000-
30,000 B.C.
Language, Art and Storytelling Helped
Survival
• "When wildlife biologists look at those paintings of reindeer and
bison, they can tell you what time of year it was painted just from the
appearance of the animals' hides and skins," says Fagan. "The way
these people knew their environment was absolutely incredible by
our standards."
Tools Used by Ice Age Humans
• The last ice age corresponds with the Upper Paleolithic period (40,000
to 10,000 years ago), in which humans made great leaps forward in
toolmaking and weaponry, including the first tools used exclusively for
making other tools.
Tools Used by Ice Age Humans
• One of the most important of these was called a burin, a humble-
looking rock chisel that was used to cut grooves and notches into
bone and antler, lightweight material that was also hard and durable.
• The intricate spearheads and harpoon tips made from that bone and
antler were small and light enough to be carried on foot by hunters
over long distances, and were also detachable and interchangeable,
creating the first compound tools.
Tools Used by Ice Age Humans
• "Think of the Swiss army knife—it’s the same thing," says Fagan. "The
weaponry they made covered an extraordinary range of specialized
tools, most of which were made from grooving antler and bone."
MICROLITHS WERE ADDED TO BONE TOOLS
LIKE THESE, INCLUDING NEEDLES, HARPOONS
AND PROJECTILE POINTS.
Tools Used by Ice Age Humans
• But even these sophisticated hunting weapons were useless outside
of close-range attacks, which sometimes required the hunter to leap
on the back of his massive prey. Once again, our human ancestors
used their intelligence and planning skills to take some of the danger
and guesswork out of hunting.
Tools Used by Ice Age Humans
• In one famed hunting ground in eastern France, ice-age hunters built
fires every fall and spring to corral migrating herds of wild horses and
reindeer into a narrow valley marked by a limestone tower known as
the Roche de Salutré.
• Once in the corral, the animals could safely and easily be killed at
close quarters, harvesting an abundance of meat that was then dried
for the summer and winter months. Archeological evidence shows
that this well-coordinated slaughter went on for tens of thousands of
years.
The Invention of the Needle Brings Tailored
Clothing
• When the first humans migrated to northern climates about 45,000
years ago, they devised rudimentary clothing to protect themselves
from the cold. They draped themselves with loose-fitting hides that
doubled as sleeping bags, baby carriers and hand protection for
chiseling stone.
The Invention of the Needle Brings Tailored
Clothing
• But everything changed around 30,000 years ago with what Fagan
argues is the most important invention in human history: the needle.
• "If you saw a needle from 20,000 or 30,000 years ago, you'd know
what it was in an instant, a very fine-pointed tool with a hole in one
end to put thread through," says Fagan. "The miracle of the needle
was that it enabled humans to make tight-fitting clothing that was
tailored to the individual, and that's vital."
 The Prehistoric Ages: How
Humans Lived Before
Written Records
For roughly 2.5 million years, humans lived on Earth without leaving a
written record of their lives—but they left behind other kinds of remains
and artifacts.
Time periods
• In dividing up human prehistory in Eurasia, historians typically use
the three-age system, whereas scholars of pre-human time periods
typically use the well-defined geologic record and its internationally
defined stratum base within the geologic time scale.
• The three-age system is the periodization of human prehistory into
three consecutive time periods, named for their predominant tool-
making technologies: Stone Age, Bronze Age and Iron Age. 
• In some areas, there is also a transition period between Stone Age
and Bronze Age, the Chalcolithic or Copper Age.
Prehistoric Period
• Earth’s beginnings can be traced back 4.5 billion years, but human
evolution only counts for a tiny speck of its history.
• The Prehistoric Period—or when there was human life before records
documented human activity—roughly dates from 2.5 million years
ago to 1,200 B.C. It is generally categorized in three archaeological
periods: the Stone Age, Bronze Age and Iron Age.
The Prehistoric Period
• From the invention of tools made for hunting to advances in food
production and agriculture to early examples of art and religion, this
enormous time span—ending roughly 3,200 years ago (dates vary
upon region)—was a period of great transformation. 
 The Stone Age

EARLY HUMAN ANCESTORS PAINTING A BISON INSIDE A CAVE DURING

THE PALEOLITHIC AGE.
The Stone Age
• Divided into three periods: Paleolithic (or Old Stone Age), Mesolithic
(or Middle Stone Age), and Neolithic (or New Stone Age), this era is
marked by the use of tools by our early human ancestors (who
evolved around 300,000 B.C.) and the eventual transformation from a
culture of hunting and gathering to farming and food production.
• During this era, early humans shared the planet with a number of
now-extinct hominin relatives, including Neanderthals and
Denisovans.
The Stone Age
• In the Paleolithic period (roughly 2.5 million years ago to 10,000 B.C.),
early humans lived in caves or simple huts or tepees and were hunters
and gatherers.
• They used basic stone and bone tools, as well as crude stone axes, for
hunting birds and wild animals.
• They cooked their prey, including woolly mammoths, deer and bison,
using controlled fire. They also fished and collected berries, fruit and
nuts.
The Stone Age
• Ancient humans in the Paleolithic period were also the first to leave
behind art.
• They used combinations of minerals, ochres, burnt bone meal and
charcoal mixed into water, blood, animal fats and tree saps to etch
humans, animals and signs.
• They also carved small figurines from stones, clay, bones and antlers.
The Stone Age
• The end of this period marked the end of the last Ice Age, which
resulted in the extinction of many large mammals and rising sea levels
and climate change that eventually caused man to migrate.
 THE SHELL MOUND PEOPLE, OR KITCHEN-MIDDENERS, WERE HUNTER-
GATHERERS OF THE LATE MESOLITHIC AND EARLY NEOLITHIC PERIOD.
THEY GET THEIR NAME FROM THE DISTINCTIVE MOUNDS (MIDDENS) OF
SHELLS AND OTHER KITCHEN DEBRIS THEY LEFT BEHIND.
The Stone Age
• During the Mesolithic period (about 10,000 B.C. to 8,000 B.C.),
humans used small stone tools, now also polished and sometimes
crafted with points and attached to antlers, bone or wood to serve as
spears and arrows.
• They often lived nomadically in camps near rivers and other bodies of
water. Agriculture was introduced during this time, which led to more
permanent settlements in villages.
The Stone Age
• Finally, during the Neolithic period (roughly 8,000 B.C. to 3,000 B.C.),
ancient humans switched from hunter/gatherer mode to agriculture
and food production.
• They domesticated animals and cultivated cereal grains.
• They used polished hand axes, adzes for ploughing and tilling the land
and started to settle in the plains.
• Advancements were made not only in tools but also in farming, home
construction and art, including pottery, sewing and weaving.
9 Ways Stone Age Human
Ancestors Were Like Us
Early humans may have been primitive—but they had some
sophisticated habits and tastes.
9 Ways Stone Age Human Ancestors Were
Like Us
• 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.
1. 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.”
THIS 5,000-YEAR-OLD MAN, DUBBED ÖTZI, WAS DISCOVERED
ON THE SIMILAUN MOUNTAIN ON THE AUSTRIAN-ITALIAN
BORDER. (CREDIT: LEOPOLD NEKULA/SYGMA VIA GETTY
IMAGES)
THIS 5,000-YEAR-OLD MAN, DUBBED ÖTZI, WAS DISCOVERED
ON THE SIMILAUN MOUNTAIN ON THE AUSTRIAN-ITALIAN
BORDER. (CREDIT: LEOPOLD NEKULA/SYGMA VIA GETTY
IMAGES)
2. 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.
2. They played music on instruments.
3. 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.
3. They kept their homes clean, and spent
time hanging out on their rooftops.
• 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.
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.”
NEOLITHIC HOMES AT CATALHOYUK
IN KONYA, TURKEY.
4. 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.
EARLY NEOLITHIC WOMEN PLAYED
THE ROLES OF BOTH HUNTERS AND
GATHERERS
5. 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.”
LIFE AND ACTIVITY OF PREHISTORIC
PEOPLE IN THE STONE AGE.
6. 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.”
PREHISTORIC MEN ALONG NORTHERN
FRANCE.
7. 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.
7. They survived climate change.
8. 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,” University of Copenhagen archaeologist Tobias Richter told 
Atlas Obscura.
NEOLITHIC GRAIN PRODUCTION.
9. 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.
9. They had pets.
• 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,” researcher Liane Giemsch told 
National Geographic.
• “It probably could only have survived thanks to intensive and long-
lasting human care and nursing.” A lot of love, a very long time ago.
 The Bronze Age
VILLAGE LIFE IN GRIMSPOUND, A LATE BRONZE AGE SETTLEMENT
SITUATED ON DARTMOOR IN DEVON, ENGLAND.
The Bronze Age
• During the Bronze Age (about 3,000 B.C. to 1,300 B.C.), metalworking
advances were made, as bronze, a copper and tin alloy, was
discovered.
• Now used for weapons and tools, the harder metal replaced its stone
predecessors, and helped spark innovations including the ox-drawn
plow and the wheel.
The Bronze Age
• This time period also brought advances in architecture and art,
including the invention of the potter’s wheel, and textiles—clothing
consisted of mostly wool items such as skirts, kilts, tunics and cloaks.
• Home dwellings morphed to so-called roundhouses, consisting of a
circular stone wall with a thatched or turf roof, complete with a
fireplace or hearth, and more villages and cities began to form.
The Bronze Age
• Organized government, law and warfare, as well as beginnings of
religion, also came into play during the Bronze Age, perhaps most
notably relating to the ancient Egyptians who built the pyramids
 during this time.
• The earliest written accounts, including Egyptian hieroglyphs and
petroglyphs (rock engravings), are also dated to this era.
 What Caused the Bronze
Age Collapse?
More than 3,200 years ago, a vast, interconnected civilization thrived.
Then it suddenly collapsed. What happened?
Bronze Age Civilizations
• More than 3,200 years ago, the Mediterranean and Near East were
home to a flourishing and interconnected Bronze Age civilization
 fueled by lucrative trade in valuable metals and finished goods. The
great kingdoms and empires of the day—including the Egyptians,
Babylonians, Minoans, Mycenaeans, Hittites and more—had the
technological know-how to build monumental palaces and employed
scribes to keep records of their finances and military exploits.
Bronze Age Civilizations
• In a matter of decades, though, that thriving culture underwent a
rapid and near-total collapse. After 1177 B.C., the survivors of this
Bronze Age collapse were plunged into a centuries-long "Dark Ages"
that saw the disappearance of some written languages and brought
once-mighty kingdoms to their knees.
Bronze Age Civilizations
• But what kind of catastrophic event could have triggered such a
sudden and sweeping downfall?
• It's likely that the simultaneous demise of so many ancient
civilizations wasn't caused by a single event or disaster, but by a
"perfect storm" of multiple stressors—an epic drought, desperate
famine, roving marauders, and more—that toppled these
interdependent kingdoms like dominos, according to Eric Cline,
author of 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed.
A 'Globalized' Ancient World
• Not unlike today, a truly "globalized" economy once existed in the
Late Bronze Age in which multiple ancient civilizations depended on
each other for raw materials—especially copper and tin to produce
bronze—and also trade goods made from ceramic, ivory and gold.
• "We're talking about a region that today would stretch from Italy in
the West to Afghanistan in the East, and from Turkey in the North to
Egypt in the South. That whole area was completely interconnected,"
says Cline, a professor of classical and ancient Near Eastern studies
and anthropology at George Washington University.
A 'Globalized' Ancient World
• One way to grasp the extent of this interconnectedness is through
archeological finds like the Uluburun shipwreck off the coast of
modern-day Turkey. The wreckage dates from the Late Bronze Age
(roughly 1320 B.C.) and its contents, strewn across the Mediterranean
floor, include a dazzling array of luxury goods: carved ivory trinkets,
gold and agate jewelry, and expensive raw materials from distant
ports like elephant tusks and ostrich eggshells.
A 'Globalized' Ancient World
• Also on board were bulk shipments of copper and tin ingots in the
typical ratio of 10 to 1, the recipe for making bronze, the strongest
and most brilliant metal of its day. Cline says the copper was mined in
Cyprus, the tin in Afghanistan, while precious metals like silver and
gold came from Greece and Egypt. Even the wood used to build the
ship's hull was imported cedar from Lebanon.
• "That one ship is a microcosm of the international trade that was
going on in the Late Bronze Age, both in raw materials and finished
products," says Cline.
SHOWN IS A REPLICA OF THE ULUBURUN SHIPWRECK, A
BRONZE AGE VESSEL DISCOVERED OFF THE COAST OF KAS, TURKEY.
THE SHIP DATES TO BETWEEN 1330 AND 1300 B.C. AND WAS CARRYING
A FULL CARGO OF TRADE GOODS.
A 'Globalized' Ancient World
• Not unlike today, a truly "globalized" economy once existed in the
Late Bronze Age in which multiple ancient civilizations depended on
each other for raw materials—especially copper and tin to produce
bronze—and also trade goods made from ceramic, ivory and gold.
• "We're talking about a region that today would stretch from Italy in
the West to Afghanistan in the East, and from Turkey in the North to
Egypt in the South. That whole area was completely interconnected,"
says Cline, a professor of classical and ancient Near Eastern studies
and anthropology at George Washington University.
A 'Globalized' Ancient World
• One way to grasp the extent of this interconnectedness is through
archeological finds like the Uluburun shipwreck off the coast of
modern-day Turkey. The wreckage dates from the Late Bronze Age
(roughly 1320 B.C.) and its contents, strewn across the Mediterranean
floor, include a dazzling array of luxury goods: carved ivory trinkets,
gold and agate jewelry, and expensive raw materials from distant
ports like elephant tusks and ostrich eggshells.
A 'Globalized' Ancient World
• Also on board were bulk shipments of copper and tin ingots in the
typical ratio of 10 to 1, the recipe for making bronze, the strongest
and most brilliant metal of its day. Cline says the copper was mined in
Cyprus, the tin in Afghanistan, while precious metals like silver and
gold came from Greece and Egypt. Even the wood used to build the
ship's hull was imported cedar from Lebanon.
• "That one ship is a microcosm of the international trade that was
going on in the Late Bronze Age, both in raw materials and finished
products," says Cline.
Invasion of the 'Sea Peoples'
• The traditional explanation for the sudden collapse of these powerful and
interdependent civilizations was the arrival, at the turn of the 12th century
B.C., of marauding invaders known collectively as the "Sea Peoples," a
term first coined by the 19th-century Egyptologist Emmanuel de Rougé.
• At Ugarit, a major port city in Canaan, the king wrote of unknown enemies
who burned his cities and “did evil things in my country.” In Egypt, the
pharaoh's armies fought off two separate attacks from these mysterious
foreigners, once in 1207 B.C. and again in 1177 B.C. A stunning relief on
the walls of Ramses III’s temple at Medinet Habu depicts the second
massive sea battle, in which Egypt was finally victorious against the swarm
of Sea Peoples.
Invasion of the 'Sea Peoples'
• While the Egyptians were able to fight off the Sea Peoples, other civilizations
weren’t so lucky. The entire Mediterranean and Near East is littered with
archeological remains of cities burned to the ground during this time period,
like Hattusa, the ancient capital of the Hittite Empire, and Meggido in Canaan.
Some believe that the mythical destruction of Troy may have originated with
the Sea Peoples invasion.
• The true origins of the Sea Peoples is one of history’s great unsolved mysteries.
One leading theory is that they emerged from the western Mediterranean—
the Aegean Sea or as far as the Iberian Peninsula of modern Spain—and were
driven East by drought and other climate disasters. Their ships invaded
Mediterranean strongholds with women and children in tow, evidence that the
Sea Peoples were both raiders and refugees.
Invasion of the 'Sea Peoples'
• “The Sea Peoples are the big boogeymen of the Bronze Age collapse,”
says Cline. “I do think they're part of it, but not the sole reason. I
believe they're as much a symptom of the collapse as they were a
cause.”
A RELIEF ON THE WALLS OF RAMSES III’S TEMPLE AT
MEDINET HABU DEPICTS THE MASSIVE SEA BATTLE
WHEN EGYPT DEFEATED THE SEA PEOPLES.
'Megadrought' and 'Earthquake Storms'
• In 2014, researchers from Israel and Germany analyzed core samples
taken from the Sea of Galilee and determined, using radiocarbon
dating, that the period from 1250 to 1100 B.C. was 
the driest of the entire Bronze Age, what some scholars call a
“megadrought.”
• “This was a huge drought event,” says Cline. “It looks like it lasted at
least 150 years and up to 300 years in some places.”
'Megadrought' and 'Earthquake Storms'
• The Egyptians and Babylonians were spared the worst of the drought
because of their proximity to mighty rivers like the Nile and the Tigris
and Euphrates. But other civilizations weren’t so lucky. Where there's
drought, there's famine. And Cline doesn’t believe it's a coincidence
that the worst famine years correspond with the invasion of the Sea
Peoples, when desperate climate refugees would have been on the
hunt for resources.
'Megadrought' and 'Earthquake Storms'
• The megadrought wasn't the only natural disaster that destabilized Late
Bronze Age civilizations. Cline conducted research with the geophysicist
Amos Nur which revealed that during the 50-year period from 1225 to
1175 B.C. the Mediterranean region was hit with 
a rapid-fire series of major earthquakes known as an "earthquake storm."
• "If you look at all of these events individually: drought, famine, invaders,
earthquakes, maybe disease—any one of them is probably not enough to
bring down an entire civilization, let alone eight civilizations or more,"
says Cline. "But if you get three or four of these catastrophes all
happening in quick succession, that's when you have a 'perfect storm' and
there's no time to recover."
After the Collapse: Knowledge Lost
• Ironically, the interconnectedness that had strengthened these Bronze
Age kingdoms may have hastened their downfall. Once trade routes
for tin and copper were disrupted and cities began to fall, Cline says it
had a domino effect that resulted in a widespread “system collapse.”
• Among the casualties of the Late Bronze Age collapse was large-scale
monument building and an entire system of writing called Linear B, an
archaic form of Greek used by Mycenaean scribes to record economic
transactions.
After the Collapse: Knowledge Lost
• “Since only the top 1 percent could read or write, they lost that ability
after the collapse,” says Cline. “It took centuries for writing to return
to Greece, only after the Phoenicians brought their alphabet.”
• Not all civilizations were impacted equally. Some, like the 
Mycenaeans and Minoans, suffered a complete collapse. Same with
the Hittites, who simply ceased to exist as a civilization. The Assyrians
and the Egyptians were largely unaffected, while others showed
resilience and either transformed or redefined themselves.
After the Collapse: Knowledge Lost
• One example is the rise of iron as the new metal of choice. Once
copper and tin were in short supply and demand for bronze dropped
off in Greece, there was an opportunity for something to take its
place.
• “The Cypriots pivoted from being the masters of copper to suddenly
being the masters of this new iron technology,” says Cline. “As it
turned out, iron was a far better cutting edge for ploughs, and it made
swords that were far better at killing your enemies.” 
 8 Bronze Age Weapons
The introduction of bronze led humans to develop array of new,
intimidating weaponry.
Bronze Age weaponry
• European archeologists have uncovered hoards of Bronze Age weaponry dating
from more than 4,000 years ago. Some of the larger and more elaborate
weapons—like the 28-inch dagger known as the Oxborough Dirk—may have
been ceremonial or prestige pieces, but others show clear markings of combat,
hints of violent clashes between ancient communities.
• “Throughout the Bronze Age, you see some real evolutions in weaponry,” says
Andrea Dolfini, a senior lecturer in later prehistory at Newcastle University, U.K.,
and author of Bronze Age Combat: An Experimental Approach. “Making bronze
was a major technological innovation over copper. It’s a stronger alloy and easier
to cast into complex shapes and longer weapons.”
• The following eight Bronze Age weapons began to appear in the archeological
record around 2,200 B.C.
1. Spears
• Long before there were swords, there were spears. The first ancient
spearheads were chiseled from flint, obsidian and other flaking stones, then
strapped to the end of a wooden shaft. Invented for hunting, stone-tipped
spears were later adapted for warfare, but they paled in comparison to the
first bronze spear tips cast in Europe around 1800 B.C.
• Bronze Age spearheads came in a variety of shapes and lengths, some nearly
as small as an arrowhead and others more than a foot long. The oldest
bronze spearheads were attached to the shaft with an elongated, tail-like
“tang,” but few wooden shafts survive. As metalworkers improved their
casting techniques, they produced longer, sharper spearheads with conical
sockets into which the wooden shaft was inserted and bolted into place.
1. Spears
• Since bronze is still a relatively soft metal compared to iron and steel,
Dolfini believes that Bronze Age warriors may have used spears in a
“hybrid” fashion, as both stabbing and slashing weapons. Dolfini and
his team have staged experimental fights using replica Bronze Age
spears to test the theory.
• “If you use a shorter, lighter-weight shaft, the spear becomes a
fantastic weapon,” says Dolfini. “You can use it like a sword or throw it
like a javelin. The question is whether people in the Bronze Age did it
that way. The damage patterns found on ancient weapons seem to
back that up.”
SPEAR TIPS RECOVERED FROM WHAT IS NOW
ITALY AND DATING TO THE BRONZE AGE.
2. Swords
• Swords were a later invention and either evolved from shorter daggers
or large spearheads. The first true Bronze Age swords appeared
between 1700 and 1600 B.C and were tapered and lightweight like an
elongated dagger. But Dolfini says that the damage patterns on those
early swords, known as rapiers, shows that they were too soft to
sustain repeated blade-to-blade contact.
• Closer to 1300 B.C., a new type of sword with a game-changing design
spread across Europe. Both types of sword could be used for either
stabbing or slashing at the enemy, but the later swords were generally
better at sustaining heavier blows and more protracted combat
engagements.
2. Swords
• “These later swords have a bulge two-thirds of the way along the
blade that changes the point of balance and adds weight,” says
Dolfini. “If you strike armor or an enemy’s blade, it’s more capable of
sustaining that kind of heavy contact.”
• Dolfini notes that even the longest Bronze Age swords weighed under
one kilogram (2.2 pounds), so they were far smaller and lighter than a
medieval long sword, for example.
•a
3. Shields & Armor
• Shields were essential Bronze Age weapons and 99 percent of them
would have been made from leather or wood. Only a few of those
wooden or hide-covered shields survived the millennia, mainly in Irish
peat bogs.
• Bronze shield-making required beating bronze into flat sheets, a
technique that wasn’t discovered until the later Bronze Age. What’s
amazing, says Dolfini, is the strength of hand-beaten bronze when
compared with a modern, machine-rolled sheet of bronze.
3. Shields & Armor
• “It’s not about thickness,” says Dolfini. “The average thickness of
many Bronze Age shields is 1 mm, but the difference is inside the
bronze. When you beat the bronze into shape, you stretch the
micrograins making up the metal matrix in such a way that it creates a
highly effective barrier against penetration.”
• In their combat experiments with replica beaten-bronze shields,
Dolfini’s lab bent a replica sword and broke a spearhead trying to
penetrate the shield. The same technique for beaten bronze was used
to create armor designed for an elite warrior.
4. Axes
• “The most common object in the Bronze Age is the ax, but they were mostly
made of stone and used as tools, not weapons,” says Dolfini. “You could go into
battle, bash someone’s head with an ax and do some damage, though.”
• There are a lot of examples of Bronze Age axes with metal heads, too.
Metalworkers honed their casting techniques over centuries to produce different
types of ax head designs: flanged, socketed and a third style called a palstave.
• The palstave is a particularly wicked-looking ax with flat side flanges that fit
squarely into a piece of shaped wood. To function as an ax, Bronze Age
toolmakers would have chosen a shaft with a natural 90-degree crook 
like these replicas. Whether a tool or a weapon, the palstave is an imposing
object.
A PALSTAVE AX, CIRCA 1400-1200 B.C.
5. Halberds
• A halberd is a scythe-shaped bronze blade that is attached to a wooden or
metal shaft at a right angle. Archeologists have unearthed them across Europe
dating from 2,200 to 1,700 B.C., with the highest concentration in Ireland.
When wielded as a weapon, it would function like a hand-held sickle,
transforming the momentum of the heavy swinging handle to the sharp
blade.
• There is some question whether halberds recovered in Ireland were
ceremonial or used in combat. According to recent research, though, damage
marks on museum-piece halberds exhibit telltale battle scars, and
experimentation with replica bronze halberds have shown that a properly
hafted halberd blade can easily pierce through a sheep’s skull, making it a
formidable weapon.
6. Daggers and Dirks
• Short, tapered daggers were some of the earliest Bronze Age weapons,
because they required relatively small amounts of the prized metal to
cast. A nearly 6-inch bronze dagger from Cyprus (shown above) may
date as far back as 2,500 B.C.
• Later daggers, like this one in the Museum of London, were thicker in
the middle with tapered edges and rivet holes for bolting them into a
handle. The same design is found on dirks, a Scottish term for massive
Bronze Age dagger blades likely used as ceremonial objects. This dirk
 auctioned by Christie’s is one of only five in existence. Since it lacks
rivet holes at the base, the dirk was never meant to be used in battle,
but was a potent symbol of power.
A BRONZE AGE DAGGER BLADE RECOVERED IN
CYPRUS THAT DATES TO BETWEEN 2500–1900 B.C.
7. Bows and Arrows
• The bow and arrow is an ancient weapon used for both hunting game and
killing enemies. Bronze Age bows came in two types: the simple curved bow
and the composite bow. The simple bow was constructed from one piece of
wood, sometimes strengthened with sinew and a natural glue. Composite
bows, more common in Egypt and the Aegean during the Bronze Age,
delivered far greater power and distance by gluing together layers of wood,
animal horn, tendons and sinew.
• Throughout the Bronze Age, arrowheads were just as likely to be made of flint
or obsidian as bronze. In Germany, archeologists recovered dozens of weapons
from what appears to be a Bronze Age battlefield dating between 1300 and
1200 B.C. Among the finds were human remains with a flint arrowhead still
lodged in a shoulder joint.
8. Wooden Clubs & Mallets
• “Blunt force weaponry remained common throughout the Bronze Age and
even later,” says Dolfini, although wooden objects like clubs rarely survive
in the archeological record.
• That’s why it was so remarkable when researchers identified two well-
preserved wooden weapons in that same Bronze Age battlefield in
Germany. One was a heavy wooden club more than two feet long with a
thickened end similar to a baseball bat. The other was more menacing—it
looked like a croquet mallet with a slightly bent handle and a fist-like head.
• “There is no doubt that such hammer-like, wooden weapons could cause
heavy lesions,” wrote the researchers, citing that one of the recovered
human skulls had a large round fracture in its forehead. 
The Iron Age
HOME LIFE DURING THE IRON AGE.
The Iron Age
• The discovery of ways to heat and forge iron kicked off the Iron Age
 (roughly 1,300 B.C. to 900 B.C.).
• At the time, the metal was seen as more precious than gold, and
wrought iron (which would be replaced by steel with the advent of
smelting iron) was easier to manufacture than bronze.
The Iron Age
• Along with mass production of steel tools and weapons, the age saw
even further advances in architecture, with four-room homes, some
complete with stables for animals, joining more rudimentary hill forts,
as well as royal palaces, temples and other religious structures.
• Early city planning also took place, with blocks of homes being
erected along paved or cobblestone streets and water systems put
into place.
The Iron Age
• Agriculture, art and religion all became more sophisticated, and
writing systems and written documentation, including alphabets,
began to emerge, ushering in the Early Historical Period.
 5 Iron Age Tools and
Innovations
New techniques helped make iron stronger—but there were also
innovations in the use of gold, silver and stone.
The Iron Age
• The Iron Age was the period in which the use of iron became
widespread in Europe, Asia and parts of Africa. Because the adoption
of iron didn’t happen at the same time in every part of the world,
there isn’t really one Iron Age, but rather multiple ones across
different regions.
• “The earliest iron objects in the world…start showing up around 3000
B.C.,” says Nathaniel Erb-Satullo, a lecturer in archaeological science
at the Cranfield Forensic Institute in the United Kingdom. But “that’s
way before what anybody would call [the] ‘Iron Age.’”
The Iron Age
• European scholars started using the categories of Stone Age, Bronze
Age and Iron Age in the 19th century (A.D.) to try to create a
chronology of European artifacts based on their composition. In
Europe and Asia, these Iron Ages began around the second and first
millennium B.C. Here are some of the inventions and innovations that
came out of them.
1. Cast Iron
• The earliest known cast iron dates to China in the 8th century B.C.,
according to research published in Advances in Archaeomaterials in
May 2021. The process of casting iron involves mixing iron with
carbon and other alloys, creating an iron alloy that is more brittle, but
also harder.
• Cast iron played a large role in Iron Age China’s agricultural
development. The moldboard plow that emerged in Iron Age China
around the third century B.C. used a cast-iron point to push soil away,
allowing for the development of contour plowing, which reduced soil
erosion.
ARTIST'S RECONSTRUCTION OF
CASTING WEAPONS IN THE IRON AGE
2. Quenching
• Quenching is another process of making iron harder and more brittle
that became important during the Iron Ages in Europe and Asia. Iron
itself isn’t necessarily harder than bronze, but once transformed into
steel, which is harder than bronze, quenching can make steel stronger.
2. Quenching
• It’s very difficult to tell when quenching began, says Erb-Satullo. He
points out that The Odyssey, which the Greek poet Homer composed
around the 8th or 7th century B.C., contains a reference to quenching.
This comes during the scene in which Odysseus throws a sharpened
and heated piece of wood into the cyclops’ eye: “as when a man who
works as a blacksmith plunges a screaming great ax blade or plane
into cold water, treating it for temper, since this is the way steel is
made strong, even so Cyclops’ eye sizzled about the beam of the
olive.”
3. Steel Weapons
• Iron swords and daggers didn’t start with the Iron Age. King
Tutankhamun was buried with an iron dagger likely made from a
meteorite in the 14th century B.C., which is way before scholars
would place the beginning of the Iron Age. The key innovation of Iron
Age weapons was not that they used iron, but that they eventually
used steel produced from new metallurgy techniques.
3. Steel Weapons
• ​Early iron swords were not necessarily better or harder than bronze
ones, but innovations like quenching helped make strong, steel
swords that became more common over time. One of the most
famous surviving Iron Age steel swords is the Vered Jericho, which
dates to the 7th century B.C. in ancient Israel.
• Even as iron and steel became more widespread, Iron Age people
continued to make bronze weapons and tools, too. In addition, there
were new technological developments that used older materials like
gold, silver and even stone.
4. Coins
• Gold and silver weights existed during the Bronze Age, but the first coins—i.e.,
imprinted metal pieces for exchange—seem to have emerged in Iron Age
Anatolia, Erb-Satullo says.
• The first coins appeared around 600 B.C. in Lydia, a kingdom on the Anatolia
peninsula (modern-day Turkey). These coins, imprinted with images like lions,
had similar weight and purity, and so may have been used as a form of
currency.
• The Roman Empire began to produce coins in the late 4th century B.C., starting
with bronze and later shifting to silver and gold. Coins unearthed in London
dating to the first century B.C., around the time the Roman Empire invaded the
region, show the god Apollo on one side and a charging bull on the other.
4. Coins
• Gold and silver weights existed during the Bronze Age, but the first coins—i.e.,
imprinted metal pieces for exchange—seem to have emerged in Iron Age
Anatolia, Erb-Satullo says.
• The first coins appeared around 600 B.C. in Lydia, a kingdom on the Anatolia
peninsula (modern-day Turkey). These coins, imprinted with images like lions,
had similar weight and purity, and so may have been used as a form of
currency.
• The Roman Empire began to produce coins in the late 4th century B.C., starting
with bronze and later shifting to silver and gold. Coins unearthed in London
dating to the first century B.C., around the time the Roman Empire invaded the
region, show the god Apollo on one side and a charging bull on the other.
SOME OF THE THOUSANDS OF COINS FROM THE
IRON AGE FOUND IN SOMERSET, ENGLAND.
5. Rotary Quernstone
• Another Iron Age invention that doesn’t directly involve iron is the rotary
quernstone. This was a new type of quern, a tool used for grinding grain
by hand that has existed for thousands of years, since before 5600 B.C.
• The rotary quernstone that emerged in Iron Age Britain around 400 B.C.
consisted of two stones on top of each other. The top stone had a hole in
it in which a person would pour grain. The user would then rotate the top
stone to grind the grain between the stones, and the ground grain would
spill out over the sides.
• The rotary quernstone took more time to make than other querns, but ​
was able to produce grain much faster.
Rotary quernstone
Rotary querns were used in the Iron Age to grind corn, possibly as early as 400 BC. A central hole in
the upper stone was filled with grain. The stone was rotated to produce coarse flour, which gradually
spilled out between the two stones.
 What Prehistoric Cave
Paintings Reveal About
Early Human Life
Some of the oldest known art may hint at the beginning of language
development, while later examples portray narratives with human and
animal figures.
Earliest known images
• What does the oldest known art in the world tell us about the people
who created it? Images painted, drawn or carved onto rocks and cave
walls—which have been found across the globe—reflect one of
humans’ earliest forms of communication, with possible connections
to language development.
• The earliest known images often appear abstract, and may have been
symbolic, while later ones depicted animals, people and hybrid figures
that perhaps carried some kind of spiritual significance.
Earliest known images
• The oldest known prehistoric art wasn't created in a cave. Drawn on a
rock face in South Africa 73,000 years ago, it predates any known cave
art. However, caves themselves help to protect and preserve the art
on their walls, making them rich historical records for archaeologists
to study. And because humans added to cave art over time, many
have layers—depicting an evolution in artistic expression.
Early Cave Art Was Abstract
• In 2018, researched announced the discovery of the oldest known
cave paintings, made by Neanderthals at least 64,000 years ago, in
the Spanish caves of La Pasiega, Maltravieso and Ardales. Like some
other early cave art, it was abstract. Archaeologists who study these
caves have discovered drawings of ladder-like lines, hand stencils and
a stalagmite structure decorated with ochre.
Early Cave Art Was Abstract
• Neanderthals, an archaic human subspecies that procreated with 
Homo sapiens, likely left this art in locations they viewed as special,
says Alistair W.G. Pike, head of archaeological sciences at the
University of Southampton in the U.K. and co-author of a study about
the caves published in Science in 2018. Many of the hand stencils
appear in small recesses of the cave that are hard to reach, suggesting
the person who made them had to prepare pigment and light before
venturing into the cave to find the desired spot.
Early Cave Art Was Abstract
• The markings themselves are also interesting because they
demonstrate symbolic thinking. “The significance of the painting is
not to know that Neanderthals could paint, it’s the fact that they were
engaging in symbolism,” Pike says. “And that’s probably related to an
ability to have language.”
• The possible connection between cave art and human language
development is something Shigeru Miyagawa, a professor of
linguistics and Japanese language and culture at MIT, theorized about
in a 2018 paper he co-authored for Frontiers in Psychology.
Early Cave Art Was Abstract
• “The problem is that language doesn’t fossilize,” Miyagawa says. “One
of the reasons why I started to look at cave art is precisely because of
this. I wanted to find other artifacts that could be proxies for early
language.”
• One particular thing he’s interested in is the acoustics of the areas
where cave art is located, and whether its placement had anything to
do with the sounds people could make or hear in a particular spot.
NEANDERTHAL CAVE PAINTINGS INSIDE THE ANDALUSIAN CAVE OF
ARDALES, PICTURED MARCH 1, 2018. THE CAVE  PAINTINGS
WERE CREATED BETWEEN 43,000 AND 65,000 YEARS AGO, 20,000 YEARS
BEFORE MODERN HUMANS ARRIVED IN EUROPE.
Telling Stories With Human and Animal
Figures
• Over time, cave art began to feature human and animal figures. The
earliest known cave painting of an animal, believed to be at least
45,500 years old, shows a Sulawesi warty pig. The image appears in
the Leang Tedongnge cave on Indonesia’s Sulawesi island. Sulawesi
also has the first known cave painting of a hunting scene, believed to
be at least 43,900 years old.
Telling Stories With Human and Animal
Figures
• These Sulawesi cave paintings demonstrate the artists’ ability to
depict creatures that existed in the world around them, and predate
the famous ​paintings in France’s Lascaux cave by tens of thousands of
years. The Lascaux paintings, discovered in 1940 when some
teenagers followed a dog into the cave, feature hundreds of images of
animals that date to around 17,000 years ago.
• Many of the images in the Lascaux cave depict easily -recognizable
animals like horses, bulls or deer. A few, though, are more unusual,
demonstrating the artists’ ability to paint something they likely hadn’t
seen in real life.
Telling Stories With Human and Animal
Figures
• The Lasacaux cave art contains something like a “unicorn”—a horned,
horse-like animal that may or may not be pregnant. Another unique
image has variously been interpreted as a hunting accident in which a
bison and a man both die, or an image involving a sorcerer or wizard.
In any case, the artist seems to have paid particular attention to
making the human figure anatomically male.
PANEL OF THE UNICORN AT LASCAUX.
Cave and Rock Art in America
• In North America, rock and cave art can be found across the
continent, with a large concentration in the desert Southwest, where
the arid climate has preserved thousands of petroglyphs and
pictographs of ancient puebloan peoples. But some of continent's the
oldest currently known cave paintings—made approximately 7,000
years ago—were discovered throughout the Cumberland Plateau,
which stretches through parts of Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama and 
Georgia. Indigenous peoples continued to create cave art in this
region all the way into the 19th century.
Cave and Rock Art in America
• Many of the Cumberland Plateau caves feature a spiritual figure who
changes from a man into a bird, says Jan F. Simek, an archaeology
professor at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, who has studied
and written about cave and rock art in the region.
• It’s clear from the way that some paintings in the Cumberland Plateau
caves are grouped that the artists were telling a story or narrative.
Cave and Rock Art in America
• “There’s a cave that’s actually relatively early in time in middle
Tennessee that has a number of depictions of a boxlike human
creature…paired with a more normal-looking human,” he says. “And
they are interacting with each other in relation to what appears to be
a woven textile.”
• He continues, “there is a narration there, there’s a story there, even
though we don’t know what the story is.”
• That’s true of a lot of cave art as well. Even if archaeologists can’t tell
what an early artist was saying, they can see that the artist was using
images purposefully to create a narrative for themselves or others.
ANCIENT PETROGLYPHS ARE ETCHED INTO THE
STONE WALLS AT CANYON DE CHELLY NATIONAL
MONUMENT NEAR CHINLE, ARIZONA.
The End