Scribd Logo
Upload

Welcome to Scribd!

  • 208 views

    Prehistory PDF

    Uploaded by

    Mano Ratyi
    The document summarizes prehistoric periods from the Stone Age through the Bronze Age. It describes how early humans like Homo habilis used basic stone tools for survival. During the Stone Age periods of Paleolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic, tools became more specialized and humans began settling in villages and developing agriculture. In the Copper and Bronze Ages, metals like copper and tin were discovered and used to create bronze tools and weapons, fueling technological advancements and the rise of early civilizations in places like Mesopotamia, Crete, and Greece. Cave paintings, figurines, ornaments and other prehistoric art provide clues about the cultures and lives of early humans.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Prehistory PDF

    Uploaded by

    Mano Ratyi
    208 views11 pages
    The document summarizes prehistoric periods from the Stone Age through the Bronze Age. It describes how early humans like Homo habilis used basic stone tools for survival. During the Stone Age periods of Paleolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic, tools became more specialized and humans began settling in villages and developing agriculture. In the Copper and Bronze Ages, metals like copper and tin were discovered and used to create bronze tools and weapons, fueling technological advancements and the rise of early civilizations in places like Mesopotamia, Crete, and Greece. Cave paintings, figurines, ornaments and other prehistoric art provide clues about the cultures and lives of early humans.

    Original Title

    prehistory.pdf

    Copyright

    © © All Rights Reserved

    Available Formats

    PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Did you find this document useful?

    Is this content inappropriate?

    The document summarizes prehistoric periods from the Stone Age through the Bronze Age. It describes how early humans like Homo habilis used basic stone tools for survival. During the Stone Age periods of Paleolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic, tools became more specialized and humans began settling in villages and developing agriculture. In the Copper and Bronze Ages, metals like copper and tin were discovered and used to create bronze tools and weapons, fueling technological advancements and the rise of early civilizations in places like Mesopotamia, Crete, and Greece. Cave paintings, figurines, ornaments and other prehistoric art provide clues about the cultures and lives of early humans.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    208 views11 pages

    Prehistory PDF

    Uploaded by

    Mano Ratyi
    The document summarizes prehistoric periods from the Stone Age through the Bronze Age. It describes how early humans like Homo habilis used basic stone tools for survival. During the Stone Age periods of Paleolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic, tools became more specialized and humans began settling in villages and developing agriculture. In the Copper and Bronze Ages, metals like copper and tin were discovered and used to create bronze tools and weapons, fueling technological advancements and the rise of early civilizations in places like Mesopotamia, Crete, and Greece. Cave paintings, figurines, ornaments and other prehistoric art provide clues about the cultures and lives of early humans.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    of 11
    At a glance
    Powered by AI
    Early humans evolved in Africa and spread across Europe. They lived in caves and relied on hunting, gathering, and basic stone tools to survive.

    Early humans lived nomadic lifestyles and used resources like caves, clothing, fire, and tools made from materials like stone, wood, and bone to adapt to cold climates and find food.

    Over thousands of years, tools became more specialized and advanced as humans progressed from the Stone Age to the Bronze and Iron Ages. Materials like copper, bronze, and iron replaced stone and allowed for more complex tools and weapons.

    PREHISTORY

    The evolution of Human Species followed different stages


    beginning with the Australopethicus and continuing with homo
    habilis, homo erectus and homo sapiens. The last stages include those
    people who lived thousands of years ago in the Palaeolithic and
    Neolithic Age and are the immediate ancestors of modern man.

    Stone

    Age

    Once upon a time, when the man starting living in the earth, he used the
    first tools that he could get from the environment like stones, wood,
    bones Thats the reason fon the name of that Age, and is divided in three
    periods: Palaeolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic.

    ! The first men


    The race of the actual man, homo sapiens, from which all of us
    descend, a relative from a hominids that they appeared in Africa 2,5
    millions years ago, and later they expanded for all Europe.

    ! Their way of life


    In that time the weather isnt the same as we have nowadays in Spain.
    That weather was very cold with a lot of rain and due to it there were a lot
    of different animals like bison, reindeer, red deer, etc. The man lived in
    caves because of that horrible weather and he lived with another animals
    too. They lived from all the things that the environment offer him:
    hunting, fishing, gathering of wild fruits but when the food was
    finishing, they had to move to another place to get more, so they dont live
    a lot of time in the same place. The need to get food, make them advances
    in technology: new tools, techniques, social organization, life places

    The Prehistory periods


    ! Palaeolithic
    Over time, a variety of tools were made for specific purposes. By about
    100,000 years ago, Neanderthal cultures had several types of tools and
    were using bone implements.
    At the end of the Palaeolithic stage, modern humans (Homo
    sapiens) made specialized tools as needles and harpoons.
    In the Cro-Magnon caves of Europe there was wall
    paintings and evidence of religious cults. In tropical and

    temperate forest regions, Palaeolithic tools, were adapted to the new


    conditions. In this period of time the prehistoric man discovered some
    very important: the fire; so he could light the caves, shoo away the
    animals, be warm and roast the meat.

    ! Mesolithic
    12.000 years ago, the weather started to change and it began to
    seem as the weather we have nowadays. The life of the prehistoric man
    changed too: they didnt live in caves, they lived in rock shelters. This
    period is known as the Mesolithic, or Middle Stone Age.

    ! Neolithic
    But a lot of thousand years later, the men discovered the animal
    husbandry and the agriculture. Now the had known how to get their own
    food. That discovers produced the Neolithic Revolution. Because of all the
    discovers, they started to live in villages. This is known as the Neolithic
    period, or New Stone Age. Stone tools became highly varied. By 6000
    BC. it also appeared pottery and the knitting, and copper was used for the
    first time in some regions. In other regions, the Neolithic arrived much
    later.

    STONE AGE ART


    The prehistoric art began on the caves walls

    ! Cave paintings
    There are three places containing cave paintings in Northern Spain .
    The paintings are located in the deep recesses of caves in the mountains of
    Northern Spain, far out of the destructive forces of wind and water. The

    wall illustrations are not the only signs of human habitation here. Tools,
    hearths and food remains were preserved here for
    thousands of years. Altamira is the only site of cave
    paintings in which the signs of domestic life extend
    into the first cavern which contain the actual paintings.

    The colours have lasted because they were made from


    permanent natural earth pigments which are minerals. The
    iron minerals give the reds, yellow and browns, while
    manganese dioxide gives the blacks. They were 'fixed' by
    mixing them with blood, animal fat, urine, fish glue, egg white or
    vegetable juices. The cave paintings had a magic meaning; they did that
    paintings so that the hunting was good.

    ! Venus figurines
    Venus figurines, statues dated between 27,000 and 26,000
    years ago,

    depict women with exaggerated reproductive and

    sexual parts. Scientists think that these were used as a universal


    artistic symbol; a sign of recognition between peoples. While
    some male figurines have been uncovered, the vast majority of
    the figurines found in the late Palaeolithic represent women.

    ! Ornaments
    Ornaments to decorate the body first surfaced around 30,000 years
    ago. This was jewellery made out of shells, animal teeth, and ivory. Later
    these advanced into beads (28,000 years ago).
    This gives us a clue that they felt that the

    ornaments were important enough to devote their time (each bead took
    two hours to make).

    Some of the ornaments that these people made were out of materials that
    were far from their homes, in some cases hundreds of miles. Scientists
    have come up with the interpretation that the different bands of people
    traded goods with each other. If this occurred they must of had some
    ability to communicate with each other. This also brings up the point that
    we lived a rather peaceful existence with one another.

    ! Flutes
    There has been at least a dozen flutes found
    between the time period of 28,000 to 22,000
    years ago. There has also been one found in
    south-western France dating 32,000 years ago!
    These instruments are made of bird bone with
    finger holes carved into the bone. The flute indicates that our ancestors
    had music, which is another form of artistic expression.

    Shelters

    Prehistoric people lived in huts and caves. They built their huts using
    the large bones of the giant mammals for frames. They covered the bone
    frames with branches and earth. Prehistoric people had two homes. One
    home for winter and one other for summer.
    The winter home was near where the

    animals grazed in winter. The summer home was near where the animals
    grazed in summer. The prehistoric hunters were nomads and followed the
    mammoths

    to

    their

    grazing

    lands.

    In the Neolithic period began the megalithic art


    The megalithic is a great stone, a large stone used in the construction of
    monumental structures such as dolmens, monoliths, cromlech.

    The dolmens are large stones (megaliths) creating with a horizontal stone.
    Numerous such structures have survived from
    Stone Age France and England -- for example,
    at Stonehenge, 2,500-1,500 b. C.. About half of
    the original monument is missing, but enough
    ruins to give an idea of what it
    was. It was begun by people of
    the late Neolithic period and
    completed by a Celtic people,
    began to use metal implements
    and to live in a more communal
    fashion than their ancestors. The popular story has been that Stonehenge
    was built by the Druids, but they were Celts present during the much later
    time of Roman occupation.

    The monolithic was a stone, also decorated or not decorated, erected as a


    single block.
    The cromlech was a prehistoric monument, consisting of a hill surrounded
    by a circle of monoliths. It was usually used for funereal rites.

    Metal Age
    After the Neolithic, the last of the Stone Ages, come the Metal Age, it
    called this way because metal was used after of stone in this period.

    Metal Age Periods


    !

    Copper Age

    At the end of the 5th millennium BC significant changes took place in the
    life of Neolithic people. The climate, that suddenly turned cooler, was no
    longer favourable to the vegetable growing
    agriculture and animal husbandry became
    more important. All these changes affected
    the thinking of the late Neolithic man.
    Numerous

    elements

    of

    religion

    were

    revived or replaced, and under the new


    circumstances new cults and new types of objects were produced. The
    stone tool industry, which had been brought
    to a high quality in previous periods, and the
    constant search for new raw material resulted
    in another very important change. A mineral
    was discovered and mined in big quantities,

    which had already been used sporadically, however its conscious use in
    such large quantities became a practice only then. The utilisation of copper
    and the production of more effective copper tools started, which soon
    transform society at the time.
    ! Bronze Age
    Bronze Age, the time in the development of any human culture, before the
    introduction of iron, when most tools and weapons were made of bronze.
    Chronologically, the expression is of strictly local value, for bronze came
    into use, and was again replaced by iron, at different times in different
    parts of the world. Archaeological
    discoveries since 1960 have disturbed
    traditional theories concerning the
    origins

    of

    copper

    and

    bronze

    technologies.
    Bronze objects have been found in
    Asia Minor that date from before 3000 BC. At first this alloy was used
    carefully, mostly for decorative reasons; the tin needed to make it was not
    available in the region.
    Regular imports of tin from Cornwall in Britain during the 2nd
    millennium BC, however, made possible wider use of bronze in the
    Middle East, and it was eventually utilized for tools and weapons.
    Unprocessed copper was being pounded into tools and ornaments as early
    as 10,000 BC. Later discoveries in Yugoslavia have
    shown that copper was in use there in 4000 BC. although
    bronze was not made at that time.
    By 3000 BC. bronze began to be used in Greece. In
    China the Bronze Age did not begin until 1800 BC. The

    pre-Columbian civilizations of the Americas had no bronze technology


    until about ad 1000.
    The Bronze Age in the Middle East and the eastern Mediterranean has
    been divided into three phases early, middle, and late.
    The early phase is characterized by increased use of the metal, from the
    sporadic to the common. It was the time of the Sumerian civilization and
    the originate of Akkad to prominence in Mesopotamia; it also generated
    the spectacular treasures of Troy.
    Babylon reached its height of glory during the middle Bronze Age.
    Minoan Crete and Mycenaean Greece were major late-Bronze-Age
    civilizations. The Bronze Age there ended about 1200 BC, after which
    iron technology became common.

    ! Iron Age
    Iron Age, marks the period of development of technology, when the
    working of iron came into general use, replacing bronze as the basic
    material for implements and weapons. It is the last stage of the
    archaeological

    sequence

    known as the three-age system


    (Stone Age, Bronze Age, &
    Iron Age).
    Chronologically, the term is
    only of local value because
    iron took the place of bronze at different times in different cultures.
    The major technical advance of the early Greek period was the widespread
    use of iron. Furnaces were developed that could reach the high melting

    temperature of that metal. Iron technology had spread throughout the


    classical world by about 500 BC.
    Early steels were discovered by adding small amounts of carbon to iron as
    it was hammered over a charcoal fire. Mining became well developed and
    included the use of pumps to keep mines from flooding.
    Metalware was used for pots and dishes, sometimes with unexpected
    disastrous results such as lead poisoning. Among the
    greatest Roman works were the large aqueducts that
    carried water for hundreds of miles, roads that spanned the
    empire, and public sewer systems.
    Advances in building construction led to the extensive use
    of the arch by the Romans and to the invention of durable
    cements and concretes for structures that have survived to
    the present.
    Technology also advanced armaments with the development of catapults,
    better swords, and body armament.

    Bibliography
    http://users.hol.gr/~dilos/prehis/preint.htm
    http://www.uit.no/melkoya/perioder/early_metal.htm
    http://pandora.cii.wwu.edu/vajda/ea210/geological_chronology.htm
    http://www.danishembassy.ro/page.php?id=87
    http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Venus%20figurines

    Ana D. Martnez Miras / Carmen Rosa Useros Sierra

    You might also like