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
¤ Began 10,000 bp
¤ BRONZE AND IRON AGES: Civilization
¤ Began 5000 bp
The Paleolithic Period
Paleolithic Period
Began 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 Paleolithic
2.5 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 Habilis
2.4-1.6 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 ERECTUS
ca. 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 possible dwelling at Terra Amata, France
The Coming of Fire
What 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 Paleolithic
75,000-35,000 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)
Mousterian Hand Ax
Neandertal Awl
NEANDERTALS
ca. 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 from
skulls 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 woman
Gibraltar
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 MoulaGuercy, 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 Hohle Fels 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 Paleolithic
35,000-12,000 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 Cromagnon-- 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
Europe
28,000-20,000 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.
Cave Art
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 VallonPont-d‘Arc in southern France
Herd of animals, Chauvet
Hyena, Chauvet
Bear, Chauvet
Horses and Rhino, Chauvet
Lions, Chauvet
Lascaux
1700 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
Hall of Bulls, Lascaux
Bulls, Lascaux
Ceiling, Painted Gallery,
Lascaux
Animals, Lascaux
Horse, Lascaux
Reindeer, wall painting,
Font-de-Gaume caves, Dordogne
Altamira, Spain
19,000-11,000 bp
 Paintings located in the deep recesses of caves in the
mountains of northern Spain
Altamira is the only site of cave paintings where people
lived in the first cavern with actual paintings
 The paintings at Altamira primarily focus on bison,
important because of the hunt.
Ceiling, Altamira: 15 bison
The frieze of swimming stags
Venus of Laussel
20,000-18,000 bce
Left hand rests on
pregnant belly
Right hand holds a horn
marked with 13 lines: 13 lunar
months in a year.