Women - higher status?

It is said that during this time, the women had a higher status and more power.

Let's take a deeper look into that!

Men:

• It is assued that the men were the hunters, because of their physical capability. The hunting brought in mainly meat that supplied 30% to the collection of food. Because of the hunting, they had periodically traveling - they sepperate from the main group to hunt.

Women:

Cecause the women were the ones carrying the babies, they shouldn't be put in danger. Therefor the women were the gatheres!

• Gathering brought in 70% of the food supplies. Examples given are grains, pulses, wild vegetables, wild fruits, shell fish (High in protein and Omega3, good for the barin!) and fire woods!
• Women always at center of community - Because of the mens periodically traveling - the women had to make the decisions in the community!
• Child rearing, passing of cultural traditions! They decide what cultural decisions they want to pass on and shape the next generation!
• There was also an absence of conflict because there's no economic benefit of that.

One more piece of evidence:

Venus of willendorf 

About 30 000 BP. This is the most famous image of a human. These are nomadic statues! What's even more fascinating is that all these images that are found during this time are in the shape of a woman. It's an icon of prehistoric art. 

Venus of lespuge -  Excisted about 30 000 BP to 10 000 BP. 188 of these statues have been found!

They all have certain charachteristics in common:

• All Female
• Featureless faces
• Thin arms over breasts
• No feet
• Protruding genitals
• Large breasts and hips

Some featues of the sates can be analyzed. The facelessness  of the figurine for example gives them an  anonymity, which suggests that it may have been  not just a statue of one women - but representing all women during this time.  

I also belive the arms resting on her breasts are suppose to give a calm, confident feeling. For instance, if a man was to be sculptures during this time I think it would have been made with some indication of their hunting (like more aggressive or holding a weapon)

The fact that it doesn't have any stabil feet to stand on might suggest that these statues were carried around with the humans.

As earlier mentioned, women has been seen as more powerful during this time because of e.g. their influence on the children and supplying more food than the men.

So going through trouble of making women instead of men might show they had more power. So from the evidence given in this post, I therefor belive that women during this time had a higher status than the men.

Stone Age Paradise

50 000 BP - 10 000 BP

During this time, there's e.g. different roles of gender, economic system and society. However, it has been called the stone age paradise. 

Stone Age ParadiseWhy idealized the Stone Age? Simply because it has being pointed to be a paradise!

• Absense of major conflict (no evidence of war that took place) If it happened, it would have been mass graves, dead bodies left behind, burried. You would have find evidence of that. No human injury. Very little evidence of major conflict in the Stone Age.
• But logical! Hunter gatherer, nomadic, and semi nomatic - what would they gain by fighting with each other? --> Nothing!

Nomadic - you don't live in the same place the whole year., you travel e.g. with the animals to another place. 

Semi nomadic - live on 2 places, one in the summer and one in the winter.

Sami people is an example os nomadic living people - the follow their reindeers.

When do we start fighting? --> When they stop being nomadic and start agriculture, and want to gather more land! A matter of life and death to defende that piece of land!

• Egalatarian Society
• People are equal (--> hint the burrials)

• Female Power
• It is women that has the highest status.
• Hunter gatherer 

• Economic system!!! Something unique to the stone age, doesn't happen today and probably not in the future.

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"

Where do we come from?

For this post we're going to discuss the story of human evolution, the two conflicting theories, the latest discoveries, new evidence that changes history and human characteristics changed.

First, let's discuss the different types of evidence that are used to prove where we come from:

Primary evidence 

·         Skulls - Comes directly form the creature during the time that's investigated. All the measurements, skull capacity, height of the animal are all primary evidence, 

Example given: World War II

o    Soldiers diary - (written during that time)

o    T.ex. concentration camp - Created during that time

o    Fotos, films (as long as they are made during that time!)

Seconday evidence

·         Theories - someones opinion on historical quesion , answers, analyses of source. One looked at the  primary evidence and made a theory.

Now let's go to the 2 major theroies!

There's different species that we're going to look at and discuss:

• Australopithecus
• Homo habilis
• Homo erectus
• Homo sapien archaic
• Homo sapiens neanderthalensis
• Homo sapiens modern

Primary evidence:

• Astralopithecus 

First to walk on two legs! Even though scientests says it walks a bit like a penguin (not one foot in front of the other like us) - so is it still standing up! They are only found in Africa (The Rift Valley to be more specific) by their skull location. Because the location is geologically unstable (the ground moves) evidence have been uplifted to surface. It seems like they originate from there because of its plant life and fresh water. 

• Homo hablis 

They live in the same area as Astralopithecus, but this species walk like us (one foot infront of another). It also has a lager brain, it works in groups, it hunts (small animals) and scavengers in groups!
Please note: IN GROUPS!!!! 

• Homo erectus 

 This species is the most successfull man in our family - they excisted for a million years! It's the first spieces that comes out of  Africa (to Asia, Indonesia and even Europe). They survuved longer than our spicies have so far. But how did they manage to survive for such a long time? Well it had one really good adaptation - body temprature! By sweating it could controll it's body temperature. This is different from many other animals (I mean try to put a polar bear in Africa) So in hot sun it could still go hunting and go on journeys without any bigger problem! Besides they no lobger have to  pant, they have more construvtive activities like talking! They're probably first to use language!

• Homo sapien archaic 

This species is very much alike Homo erectus - it depends on which paelotologist you ask if erectus and archaic is the same spicies because it's very difficult  to spot differences. These have broader fore-heads, while erectus have flatter. Archaic lived in Europe and because of the sunlight, it didn't need that forehead against the sun (Archaic found in China had more direct sunligt and  the forehead developed kept the sun out of the head.) One big thing is that paleontologists say that next to Archaic there's stone tooles, and the tooles are formed to be  held by hands! Therefor it's a debate since some paleontologists say it must be an other speices than the one before. However, another argument some paleontologists have said is that the ones in China didn't need  tools - they had bambu for e.g. cutting blades and bambu rot and therefore no proof. However, one can say they're petty much the same spieces.

• Neanderthals 

They're close to our species. They seem to have adapted to cold climate (during a period that was a lot colder than  today.) They lived along the edges of glaciers in Europe. It's body is adapted: shorter arms and shorter legs to preserve heat, nose is flatter and broader to control temperature. Another thing is that they healed themselves - if they'd get injured (like a cut), they didn't die but the wound healed. They also seemed to care for each other - if you broke a leg the group would look after you with food, water and warmth untill your leg healed. Another interesting piece of  information is their skull size which is bigger than ours. Does that mean that their brains were bigger brain than ours? Were they more intellegent? But neanderthals became extinct because of the glacier. When the glaciers go back and it becomes warmer - homo sapien modern steps in.

• Homo Sapien Modern 

We are homo sapien modern! Our spicies have lived 200 00 years so far. 

Those are our primary evidence, let's take a look at our secondary evidence!

Seconday evidence (to analyse primary evidence!) :

2 THEORIES:

·         OUT OF AFRICA

Erectus evolves in Africa and head in to Asia.

Archaic originated in Africa and head in to Europe.

When erectus archaic went out of Africa they extinct.
And left in Africa alone now Homo sapien modern evolves. Then later on they migrated out to the rest of the world.

·         MULTI REGIONAL

Erectus evolves in Africa, head in to Asia.

Archaic originated in Africa too, head in to Europe 

BUT they don't extinct! They evolve there!!! So a Europiens, asians and Africans are homo sapien modern. This is seen as a racist theory.

In other words: Three seperated spieces with different local climated and therefor they adapt differently but still bond together  to one spieces.

Analysis of the 2 theories and some new evidence...

Multi regional theory is the oldest theory - produced in Europe (written in germany in 1880's.) It was used by nazis people. So the theories can be used politically.

The out of Africa theory - From the 1960's and originated in the US during the civil right movement. The African American people want to remove  segregation and used this politically to promote liberals and equal rights.

Year 2000 there was some new aspects and evidence applied to the debate where we came from: DNA! They extracted DNA from the earliest  homo sapien modern found, 200 000 BP, DNA from Africa. Then they looked at population around the world, and looked  for same pattern in Europe and Asia. The result was that this African DNA has a good percent found in euorpeens and asians! The pattern is found around the  world!

But this wouldn't end the debate, they had to consider another factor. The pattern of Homo sapien modern (originate 200 00 BP) changed suddenly in 50 000 BP.

At 50 000 BP - We started to a weird behavior! We started to decorate ourselves with jewerly, art, religious images, sofisticated tools and more.

They always looked like us, but suddenly acted differently. An uniqe behavior around 50 000 BP. They also think in a religious way like burry people with things (as if they had an after life) and the tools suddelny jump ahead in it's advanceness.

Where we come from, THIS BEHAVIOR must be included! These things makes us human!


Archaeologist have lately also found new pieces of evidence that changes out history!

Latest piece of evidence:

1.       Homo floresiensis (hobbit) - it's smaller than all the other species

A hobbit skull compared to a humans

2.       Neanderthal interbreeding 

3.       Homo denisovan - totally new speices discovered in Russia

A tooth and a finger were found in Russia.

A big chunk of our DNA comes from Africa (95% seems to come from there) but we can see that neantherthael contributed some DNA (4%). We also have Homo denisovan DNA in us.
We can't say that the out of Africa theory is true (there's others spieces from Africa that evolved and survives long enought to meet homo modern from africa, like the tree spiecies named above)

A COMBINATION of both theories is the best solution!

So maybe the best conclusion is that we come from Africa, but what happened at 50 000 BP makes us humans today.

--> Click on the picture! <--

What is history?

History is the past, and the study of the human past through written sources
Some might think the past and  history is the same thing, however the past is the time that has ever gone by whilst from a scientific perspective, history is to gather the information and doing research to find out what happened in the past. We interpret facts and choose how to add it together.

It’s from when we took our first steps as humans until present time, and what events that has affected and formed how our world looks today. History also changes when new things are being discovered.

.

But how do we know what we think happened, really happened?

Well, with research we’ve found remnants like books, clothes, tools, paintings, letters and photographs.
There's some parts in history that we never will know for sure how it happened, but with different sources like scientific evidence, archeology and evolution one can draw a conclusion of how it could have been.

So it's important to use logical thinking (like analyze why we did certain things in a special way) and primary sources (sources that came from that specific time when it happened) 

So why and how is history useful?


History is knowledge that we can learn from e.g. by looking how we acted in the past we can learn from our mistakes (example WWII)

      But maybe the biggest reason why we study history is to being able to better answer the big questions (metaphysical): What are we? Where do we come from? Where are we going?

During the Age of Enlightenment, historian started to gather and establish facts with different methods:

àPositivism - A method to interpret history, prove facts (this is what we’ve reached and know). You use source-critical methods which means:

·         Close-in time - The sources are so close in time when it happened, it becomes primary sources.

·         Dependent - Sources that are not build on each other. A source should not be taken from another source, the source must be independent  from any other source.

·         Tendency – Is it completely biased or impartial, objective or subjective, written in honor of a king or written for a particular view? (is it a mission from someone or is it from a perspective you’ve seen it?) Is it colored by someone's opinion?

àEmpirically - Must be evidence of what you say, and it’s based on experience-study or facts-study. From that, one can draw conclusions.

Empiricism and positivism tries to gather lots of facts and draw conclusions based on source-critical method. These methods came at the same time during the Enlightenment and go hand in hand.

Historians interpret facts based on the purpose and motive:

àHermeneutics (a method to interpret history) - To answer questions like –Why? Why did they go there, what was the purpose? and why did so many do what they did?

Interpret facts based on objective and motives , which helps you to understand and get into the situation and making it a living history.

Hermeneutics is used mostly to go deeper and answer why they did certain things.

àAnachronistic - it’s when you interpret too much from your own "frame of reference" (You look at the situation from a present perspective when you interpret another time, you should “take a walk in their shoes” and try to understand what they were thinking)

The goal with history 

- is to get close to the truth and to search for the understanding.