The late Stone Age

As we talked about in the earlier post, there's dirrefent theories of the human evolution. But, something happened and a weird behavior that appeared 50 000 BP.

Let's dig deeper into that!

50 000 BP is a part of the stonge age --> upper paleolithic (late stone age)

Characteristics of the stone age:

·         Economic system based on hunting and gathering. Plants or hunt animals.

·         Due to the hunting and gathering we move around a lot to follow the animals or specific plant. So we are either nomadic (you don't live in one place, you travel e.g. with the animals to another place. You don't live in the same place the whole year.) or semi-nomadic (lives on two places, one in the summer and one in the winter.)

·         People made tools out of stone, wood (and later bone)

·         Absence of:

o    Pottery  -they take clay and make animals of it to decorate it (artistic use) but NO PRACICAL USE!

o    Metals - not avaialble yet either, don't have that technology

o    Farming - don't plant crops, don't have any animals that they demasticated (don't have any agricultiral techonology)

o    Domesticated animals look abbove

There's been a mathematical formula for the community units, how they lived.

                                                                                 25 (1/19 of a tribe)

A family of five can’t provide for themselves, so they go together with other people to supply everything they need. But when they reproduce, they form a Tribe (a tribe is a community of 475 -19 groups of 25) so they switch pepple inbetween these to not harm the DNA.

Collonize on another planet, (NASA for ex. to make healthy DNA) must have 5x5x5 people (125!)

There's tribes today such as the sand people of South Africa --> They didn't need to change or adapt or use new techniqe and therefor just stayed the same.

The great leap forward: behaviour revolution

50 000 BP homo sapiens modern changed - behavior revolution (or the great leap forward) 
BIG change.

5 areas in which the behavior change occurs:

·         Rapid Technological Advancement (which continues develope)

·         Burial

·         Art - being produced for the first time

·         Self decorated - for the first time

·         Religion - Most controversioal

Technology:

• Mousterian - 

Neandethals and Homo Sapien Modern used these tools.

Relatively easy to make : flint and another stone and strike it. You "Nap it" and a little bit of flint breakes of until it's a sharp blade. About 20  napps, takes a few minutes to make. General purpose tools - one tool for many different tasks.

Moustiran tools - stayed around for 90 000 years. THE SAME for 90 000 years. Doesn't develope.

• Aurignacian 

This is MUCH more complex! It's can't be the same animal that made it! Something has occured in the brain to make this new technology! Didn't change first for 90 000 years, and then really advanced.

It's about 100 napps - delicate little cuts, took hours or even days to produce!

They are more specialized - different jobs, different tools! A whole renge of tools and use tool kits (!!!!!)

One brilliant thing - eargonomic (thought about to make it easy and comfortable to use)! Not only practical use with a sharp blade - but it's also a handle or such to make it easier to hold.

These you don't use once and throw away (like the one before)  - you might even pass these on because it's so much work behind it. ESCPECIALLY you pass the knowledge how to make it on! It's a skill.

HUGE jump forward! 90 000 years the same and THEN change!!! HUGE leap forward!

It doesn't end here, we get more and more advancement!

• Solutrean 

There's a whole new techique in manifacturing these. You dont only nap - you use pressure! You can produce really shaprt, really light thin blade. (thinner than your finger)

More complexer.

A brilliant idea, A HANDLE ATTACHED TO THE AX! Somebody  invented that! Once they do that - even more efficient! Not only handles on ax heads - but spears! Attaching a blade to a wooden handle making it a spear.

• Magdalenian 

Finally - the magdalenian!

The great innovation is they don't use stone. They use bone - and bone has to be carved. In order to carve it requeres a great deal of skill which probably is passed on for genereations - and you need a set of tools to carve and make these new tools.

More afficient fisherman! FISHERMAN! As a harpune or even fish hook on a fish line.

Amazing feature  - not only practical use but they decorate it!!!!!!!! Suggest a great deal of sofistication!

---> these ideams makes us see our selves and our behavior.

The important thing in this is that it doesn't just develope one - it changes and continues to change!!!

Upper paleolitical burials:

A man was found in Russia - the band around his head made from beans - stung onto lether stings and several of them on his head. Also beads across his cheast, ancles, armes and so on.

When first excavated - thought it was high status (rich, important) 
But when they dig up other graves from same area - they all have these beads. All people from this community has beads. CHILDREN has even more beads than the adults. So owerwhealmingly - stonge age burial suggest it isn't anyone with high status. They all (graves) are uniformed - there's no one that sticks out.

A drifferent  part of the world would have a differend decoration, but community the same. Very little sign of status!

All burrial throught Europe and Aisa all contain grave goods! Burried with purpuse, items, or decoration, or food, animal or part of animal (BUT GOODS!) burried with them!

They all also contain red ochre - it's a natural die that you find in earth - licquid form of iron (to dye clothes and the skin and so on) but all stone age burrial contained red ochre. Powder form and put it over the humans (ritual thing)

This means it's a equal society (probably believe in after life.)

There are 3 exceptions - 2 are shammon (religious) and have different burrial pattern than the others. 
BOTH of them are female!

Femal religious figures! Overwhelmingly thought, they all are uniformed.

Art:

Cave painting or portable art (=scratched into stone or bone or wood or shaped clay or scratching into clay - and it's small enought to carry with.)

Portable art is the oldest - they spend every day making tools, same skills is required to make tool as it is making portable art.

Talanted work of art, capture of movement are really impressive. It's very few examples of human in the cave paintings, most are of animals - HORSE most common figure! They theorised that it was the most common. It's the right size for a human to hunt, it's not agressive. Doesn't have horns on the head to hurt you.

They put a hand on the stone, put red orchre in the mouth
and spit on the hand so the hand was formed in to the wall-

Self decoration

Red ochre is used - produces a nice color - on the skin and in your hair. Solid evidence is that they used beads - got a hole drilled in it so you can have a tread through.

Every community different type of beads. Diffrent regions use different type of beads - Shells, precious stone from mountain for ex.

But shell beads in the mountain and  precious stone from mountain on the cost --> they traded their beads with each other.

Upper paleolithic religion

Controversial! Occurs in the mind, so it's diffiult to proof. A bead means they self decorated themselves. But we can't prove a bead was for a religios purpose.

Making sense of their wold:

·         Anthropomorphic imaginary - Animal acting in a human way

·         Animal woreship - Takes a lot of time and effort - must be religious.

·         Animism - all object has some kind of spirit in it.

·         Apotropia - things that protect you from evil - e.g. the turky's "evil eye" - put on the airplanes to protect the planes from storms. "Dream cachers" caches all the bad dreams.

·         Ancestor worship - a group of stone age people in the middle east - build hoods they lived and sleept in half the year, and in the center of the hoods there's a grave. They just dig a whole and continue to live on the grave. Continued for several 100 years --_ but then they. Continued to burry in home and then they dig up the skull and display the scull in the living room

Questionable theory

·         Assumtion

·         Anthropological studies (is the best theory. They go there and study their living. "maybe that's how they thought"