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Prehistoric Humankind. Major Periods of Human Culture bp=before present. PALEOLITHIC: Old Stone Age Lower paleolithic 2.5 million-75,000 bp Middle paleolithic 75,000-35,000 bp Upper paleolithic 35,000-12,000 bp MESOLITHIC: Middle Stone Age 12,000-10,000 bp NEOLITHIC: New Stone Age
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Major Periods of Human Culturebp=before present • PALEOLITHIC: Old Stone Age • Lower paleolithic 2.5 million-75,000 bp • Middle paleolithic 75,000-35,000 bp • Upper paleolithic 35,000-12,000 bp • MESOLITHIC: Middle Stone Age • 12,000-10,000 bp • NEOLITHIC: New Stone Age • Began 10,000 bp • BRONZE AND IRON AGES: Civilization • Began 5000 bp
Paleolithic PeriodBegan 2 1/2 Million Years Ago • Also called Old Stone Age culture • Characterized by the use of rudimentary chipped stone tools • Hominids, Homo habilis, Homo erectus, • Homo sapiens -- Neanderthal and Cro-magnon • Hunter-gatherers
Lower Paleolithic2.5 Million-70,000 Bp • Hominids and earliest human ancestors • Gatherer/scavengers • Simple pebble tools, pebble chopper tools, and hand axes associated with Homo habilis and Homo erectus • Remains found in Europe, Africa and Asia
Hominids:Australopithicenes • Immediate ancestors of humans: intermediate between apes and humans • Classified hominidiae because of biological similarity to humans • Large brains • Bi-pedal: walked upright • Began evolving 5 million years ago and were widespread 3 million years ago
Homo Habilis2.4-1.6 Million Years Ago • Early transitional human fossils first discovered in Olduvai Gorge in 1960s • Homo habilis -- “handy or skilled humans” -- strong evidence of stone tool usage • Larger brains, smaller mouths and teeth than Australopithicenes
HOMO ERECTUSca. 1.9 Million bp- ca. 100,000 bp • First fully human species • Moved out of Africa to populate tropical, subtropical and temperate zones throughout the old world • Skilled tool makers • Highly successful species
Subsistence and Living • Much fuller exploitation of animal food resources through hunting and carcass scavenging: sheep, pigs, buffalo, deer, turtles, birds, etc.. • Movement out of Africa to populate colder temperate zones made possible through new inventions and increased meat consumption • Began to occupy caves and build shelter • Family units • Use of fire reconstruction of a possibledwelling at Terra Amata, France
The Coming of FireWhat are the implications of fire use? Light Warmth Animal management Cooked food Communal gatherings Special status for fire-bearers
Early Archaic Homo Sapiens • Blurry dividing line between Homo erectus and Homo sapiens • Evolutionary changes extended over several hundred thousand years: ca. 600,000 bp-100,000 bp • Fossils of archaic Homo sapiens have been found throughout the old world. • Extent of the interaction between the diverse and widely distributed populations is not clear. • No agreement about which populations were the ancestors of modern humans.
Middle Paleolithic75,000-35,000 bp • Major leap forward in tool making traditions: The Mousterian tool tradition • Tools employed by Neandertals, other late archaic Homo sapiens and by such early modern Homo sapiens as Cro-magnons • Part of successful adaptation to hunting and gathering, especially in sub-arctic and temperate environment during the last Ice Age which began about 75,000 years ago
Mousterian Tools Mousterian Flake Tools: spear points (top); scrapers (bottom) Neandertal Awl Mousterian Hand Ax
NEANDERTALSca. 130,000-29,000 bp • Best known of late archaic Homo sapiens • Bones first discovered in late 1820s • First humans to live successfully in sub-arctic regions during ice ages
NEANDERTAL Figures modeled fromskulls and skeletons Israel France
Neandertal modern human Continuing controversy over relationship to Homo sapiens: Homo sapiens neandertalis or Homo neandertalis? Genetic evidence indicates that Neandertals were a separate variety of Homo sapiens, but successfully interbred with Homo sapiens sapiens
Neandertal Death Rituals Burial in Fetal Position Model of mourning Neandertal womanGibraltar
Indications of Burial Rituals • Burials contain food and tool offerings • Some sites have hearths built around skeletons • In many sites skeletons are carefully arranged in sleep-like positions • A burial at Teshik-Tash is surrounded with animal horns • A body a Le Moustier, France, was covered in red ochre powder • Stone slabs are found over some burial sites
Shanidar Cave, Iraq • Corpse placed in fetal position on bed of herbs • Flowers of various species carefully arranged around body: yarrow, cornflowers, St. Barnaby's thistle, groundsel, grape hyacinths, woody horsetail, and a kind of mallow. • Many of these have medicinal qualities.
La Chapelle-aux-saints Cave • Individual was buried on his back, with his head to the west, the left arm extended and his legs flexed to the right. • Next to the head were burnt animal remains, which could represent some feast or ritual.
Community Paradox • Social concern:social organization allowed disabled members of community to be cared for: La Chapelle-aux-Saints man had crippling arthritis and Shanidar man had degenerative joint disease caused by early bone injuries • Cannibalism:evidence from the cave at Moula-Guercy, Ardeche, France indicates that humans were butchered and brain and bone marrow removed to be eaten
Cave Bear Cult • Ritual burial of the heads of cave bears in at least 2 caves in Western Europe: • Regourdou Cave in southern France • Drachenloch Cave in Switzerland • At 12 feet tall standing up, these animals were larger than any bear species today. • Cave bears hunted the same animals that the Neandertals did, and they probably would have considered people to be food as well. • Cave bears would have engendered considerable fear and respect as powerful, dangerous creatures.
Drachenloch Cave in Switzerland • Stone chest built by the Neandertals, who also inhabited the entrance of the cave. • Top of the structure covered by a massive stone slab. • Inside were the skulls of seven bears arranged with muzzles facing the cave entrance, and deeper in the cave six more bear skulls in niches along the wall
Drachenloch Cave in Switzerland • Supposed symbol of the "cult of the cave bear" consisted of the skull of a three-year-old bear pierced in the cheek by the leg-bone of younger bear.
Neandertal Art • Few artifacts in archeological record • Bones and rocks with scratched patterns • Highly polished, colored mammoth’s molar • Pendant from Arcy-sur-Cure, France • Bone with clear markings • Amulet • May indicate interaction between Neandertals and Cro-magnons
Neandertal Music • In 1996, a flute made from a juvenile bear femur with two intact pierced holes was found at the former Neandertal hunting camp of Divje Babei, in Slovenia • The notes on the Neanderthal flute, are consistent with 4 notes of the minor diatonic scale.
Neandertal Music Daniel Maurer/Associated Press Nicholas J. Conard of the University of Tübingen, in Germany, showed a thin bird-bone flute carved some 35,000 years ago.
Neandertal Music • Music played on replica flute. • The bone flute, with 5 finger holes, found in HohleFels Cave in Ulm, Germany, in 2009, is at least 35,000 years old. • It was fashioned from a hollow bone of griffin vulture. • An abundance of stone and ivory artifacts, flint-knapping debris and bones of hunted animals had been found in the sediments with the flutes.
Upper Paleolithic35,000-12,000 bp • Movement of Homo sapiens sapiens throughout the world • Extinction of at least 50 types of large animals • Height of Old Stone Age technical sophistication • Most advanced tool tradition was the Magdalenian tradition of Western Europe ca. 17,000-10,000 bp • First major art works: • Cave paintings • Small sculptured figurines
Modern Humans:HOMO SAPIENS SAPIENS • First fossil remains of Homo sapiens sapiens -- named Cro-magnon-- found in 1868 in a 28,000 year old rock shelter in Les Eyzies-de-Tayac, France • Homo sapiens sapiens very likely evolved from archaic Homo sapiens in Africa and/or the Near East • Earliest remains dated to 120,000-100,000 years ago in Near East and south Africa • Began to appear in Europe and east Asia. 50,000-40,000 years ago
Les Eyzies-de-Tayac, known as the "Capital of Prehistory" because remains of Cro-Magnon man were first discovered here. In the cliffs above town, caves provided shelters for the practice of magic. For thousands of years, humans inhabited these caves and left bones, tools, utensils
Ivory figurines Les Eyzies-de-Tayac
Cro-magnon Hunters • Developed coordinated group hunting techniques • Increased importance of small game and plant food • New specialized hunting weapons: • Spears • Toggle-head harpoons • Bow and arrow • Fishing spears, hooks and nets
Cro-magnon Tools • Development of tools for making tools • Burins: narrow gouging chisels -- used to carve bone, tusks and antlers • Punches and pressure flakers • Compound tools: detachable points connected to spears -- allowed for replacement and repair • Sewing needles
Cro-magnon Artists "If the total span of human existence on earth equals one year, then art originated within the last two weeks." • PALEOGRAPHICS:any activity that results in the production of visual signs in any medium -- what is generally referred to as "art” as well as images typically designated as signs and symbols. • Beginnings of graphic activity. Prior to 33,000 b.p.
Paleographics • There are two very general classes of graphic activity: • Mobiliary statuary and graphics in stone, bone, ivory, horn, antler, clay. • Painted or carved graphics in rock shelters and caves.
Paleographics The graphics consist largely of • Megafauna (large animals: mainly horses, bison, aurochs (wild cattle), mammoths, various species of deer, and goats) • A few birds and smaller mammals, • Enigmatic signs (rectilinear shapes, wedges ("claviforms"), tectiforms (like a roof), dots, lines, strands ("spaghetti") • Hand prints • Human figures are rare (except for the so-called "venus" figurines) and are almost always abstractly rendered.
La Grotte Chauvet: 30,000 bp – World’s Oldest Painted Cave • The cave was not used for human habitation • A hearth was possibly used to provide light for Paleolithic artists • Scores of cave bears appear to have hibernated in the grotto, and the ground is littered with their bones • Discovered in 1994 near Vallon-Pont-d‘Arc in southern France
Lascaux1700 bp“the Sistine Chapel of Caves” • The western edges of the Massif Central and the northern slopes of the Pyrenees are noted for an exceptional concentration of Paleolithic caves. • 130 sanctuaries • The most renowned is Lascaux • Discovered in 1940 by 4 teenagers, closed to public in 1963, Lascaux II opened in 1980 • Contains over 1500 paintings
