89-539: See text Osteolepiformes , also known as Osteolepidida , is a group of prehistoric lobe-finned fishes which first appeared during the Devonian period . The order contains the families Canowindridae , Megalichthyidae , Osteolepididae and Tristichopteridae , in addition to several monotypic families. The order is generally considered to be paraphyletic because the characters that define it are mainly attributes of stem tetrapodomorphs . The following taxonomy
178-439: A tetrapodomorph is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Prehistoric Prehistory , also called pre-literary history , is the period of human history between the first known use of stone tools by hominins c. 3.3 million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems . The use of symbols, marks, and images appears very early among humans, but
267-592: A common impurity. Tin ores are rare, as reflected in the fact there were no tin bronzes in Western Asia before 3000 BCE. The Bronze Age forms part of the three-age system for prehistoric societies. In this system, it follows the Neolithic in some areas of the world. While copper is a common ore, deposits of tin are rare in the Old World , and often had to be traded or carried considerable distances from
356-760: A conference in anthropology held by the Wenner-Gren Foundation, at Burg Wartenstein Castle, which it then owned in Austria, attended by the same scholars that attended the Pan African Congress, including Louis Leakey and Mary Leakey , who was delivering a pilot presentation of her typological analysis of Early Stone Age tools, to be included in her 1971 contribution to Olduvai Gorge , "Excavations in Beds I and II, 1960–1963." However, although
445-420: A hammerstone to obtain large and small pieces with one or more sharp edges. The original stone is called a core; the resultant pieces, flakes. Typically, but not necessarily, small pieces are detached from a larger piece, in which case the larger piece may be called the core and the smaller pieces the flakes . The prevalent usage, however, is to call all the results flakes, which can be confusing. A split in half
534-674: A much more evident Mesolithic era, lasting millennia. In Northern Europe , societies were able to live well on rich food supplies from the marshlands fostered by the warmer climate. Such conditions produced distinctive human behaviours that are preserved in the material record, such as the Maglemosian and Azilian cultures. These conditions also delayed the coming of the Neolithic until as late as 4000 BCE (6,000 BP ) in northern Europe. Remains from this period are few and far between, often limited to middens . In forested areas,
623-782: A new Lower Paleolithic tool, the hand axe, appeared. The earliest European hand axes are assigned to the Abbevillian industry , which developed in northern France in the valley of the Somme River ; a later, more refined hand-axe tradition is seen in the Acheulian industry , evidence of which has been found in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. Some of the earliest known hand axes were found at Olduvai Gorge (Tanzania) in association with remains of H. erectus . Alongside
712-606: A separate Copper Age or Bronze Age. Moreover, the technologies included in those 'stages', as Goodwin called them, were not exactly the same. Since then, the original relative terms have become identified with the technologies of the Paleolithic and Mesolithic, so that they are no longer relative. Moreover, there has been a tendency to drop the comparative degree in favor of the positive: resulting in two sets of Early, Middle and Late Stone Ages of quite different content and chronologies. By voluntary agreement, archaeologists respect
801-654: A single room. Settlements might have a surrounding stone wall to keep domesticated animals in and hostile tribes out. Later settlements have rectangular mud-brick houses where the family lived in single or multiple rooms. Burial findings suggest an ancestor cult with preserved skulls of the dead. The Vinča culture may have created the earliest system of writing. The megalithic temple complexes of Ġgantija are notable for their gigantic structures. Although some late Eurasian Neolithic societies formed complex stratified chiefdoms or even states, states evolved in Eurasia only with
890-696: A single source. The emergence of metallurgy may have occurred first in the Fertile Crescent , where it gave rise to the Bronze Age in the 4th millennium BCE (the traditional view), although finds from the Vinča culture in Europe have now been securely dated to slightly earlier than those of the Fertile Crescent. Timna Valley contains evidence of copper mining 7,000 years ago. The process of transition from Neolithic to Chalcolithic in
979-727: A time known as the Copper Age (or more technically the Chalcolithic or Eneolithic, both meaning 'copper–stone'). The Chalcolithic by convention is the initial period of the Bronze Age. The Bronze Age was followed by the Iron Age . The transition out of the Stone Age occurred between 6000 and 2500 BC for much of humanity living in North Africa and Eurasia . The first evidence of human metallurgy dates to between
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#17328009823331068-565: A wide range of techniques derived from multiple fields. The work of archaeologists in determining the paleocontext and relative sequence of the layers is supplemented by the efforts of geologic specialists in identifying layers of rock developed or deposited over geologic time; of paleontological specialists in identifying bones and animals; of palynologists in discovering and identifying pollen, spores and plant species; of physicists and chemists in laboratories determining ages of materials by carbon-14 , potassium-argon and other methods. The study of
1157-740: Is also a transition period between Stone Age and Bronze Age, the Chalcolithic or Copper Age. For the prehistory of the Americas see Pre-Columbian era . The notion of "prehistory" emerged during the Enlightenment in the work of antiquarians who used the word "primitive" to describe societies that existed before written records. The word "prehistory" first appeared in English in 1836 in the Foreign Quarterly Review . The geologic time scale for pre-human time periods, and
1246-516: Is an example. In archaeology, the Iron Age refers to the advent of ferrous metallurgy . The adoption of iron coincided with other changes, often including more sophisticated agricultural practices, religious beliefs and artistic styles, which makes the archaeological Iron Age coincide with the " Axial Age " in the history of philosophy. Although iron ore is common, the metalworking techniques necessary to use iron are different from those needed for
1335-488: Is anonymous. Because of this, reference terms that prehistorians use, such as " Neanderthal " or " Iron Age ", are modern labels with definitions sometimes subject to debate. The concept of a "Stone Age" is found useful in the archaeology of most of the world, although in the archaeology of the Americas it is called by different names and begins with a Lithic stage , or sometimes Paleo-Indian . The sub-divisions described below are used for Eurasia, and not consistently across
1424-535: Is associated with the remains of Neanderthal man . The earliest documented stone tools have been found in eastern Africa, manufacturers unknown, at the 3.3 million-year-old site of Lomekwi 3 in Kenya. Better known are the later tools belonging to an industry known as Oldowan , after the type site of Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania. The tools were formed by knocking pieces off a river pebble, or stones like it, with
1513-797: Is based on Borgen & Nakrem, 2016: Below is a cladogram showing the paraphyly of Osteolepiformes compiled and modified from Ahlberg and Johanson (1998). See also Swartz (2012). Osteolepiformes is marked by the green bracket. Kenichthys Barameda Gooloogongia Gogonasus Osteolepis Megalichthys Cladarosymblema Ectosteorhachis Medoevia Koharolepis Canowindra Beelarongia Gyroptychius Eusthenodon Mandageria Cabonnichthys Platycephalichthys Jarvikina Eusthenopteron Tristichopterus Panderichthys Acanthostega Ichthyostega [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] This article about
1602-542: Is called bipolar flaking. Consequently, the method is often called "core-and-flake". More recently, the tradition has been called "small flake" since the flakes were small compared to subsequent Acheulean tools . The essence of the Oldowan is the making and often immediate use of small flakes. Another naming scheme is "Pebble Core Technology (PBC)": Pebble cores are ... artifacts that have been shaped by varying amounts of hard-hammer percussion. Various refinements in
1691-730: Is called the Lower Paleolithic (as in excavations it appears underneath the Upper Paleolithic), beginning with the earliest stone tools dated to around 3.3 million years ago at the Lomekwi site in Kenya. These tools predate the genus Homo and were probably used by Kenyanthropus . Evidence of control of fire by early hominins during the Lower Palaeolithic Era is uncertain and has at best limited scholarly support. The most widely accepted claim
1780-477: Is in the nature of this boundary. If there is no distinct boundary, then the population of A suddenly stopped using the customs characteristic of A and suddenly started using those of B, an unlikely scenario in the process of evolution . More realistically, a distinct border period, the A/B transition, existed, in which the customs of A were gradually dropped and those of B acquired. If transitions do not exist, then there
1869-564: Is no proof of any continuity between A and B. The Stone Age of Europe is characteristically in deficit of known transitions. The 19th and early 20th-century innovators of the modern three-age system recognized the problem of the initial transition, the "gap" between the Paleolithic and the Neolithic. Louis Leakey provided something of an answer by proving that man evolved in Africa. The Stone Age must have begun there to be carried repeatedly to Europe by migrant populations. The different phases of
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#17328009823331958-520: Is not generally used in those parts of the world where the working of hard metals arrived abruptly from contact with Eurasian cultures, such as Oceania , Australasia , much of Sub-Saharan Africa , and parts of the Americas . With some exceptions in pre-Columbian civilizations in the Americas, these areas did not develop complex writing systems before the arrival of Eurasians, so their prehistory reaches into relatively recent periods; for example, 1788
2047-571: Is now considered to be a facies of Acheulean , while Sangoan is a facies of Lupemban . Magosian is "an artificial mix of two different periods". Once seriously questioned, the intermediates did not wait for the next Pan African Congress two years hence, but were officially rejected in 1965 (again on an advisory basis) by Burg Wartenstein Conference #29, Systematic Investigation of the African Later Tertiary and Quaternary ,
2136-586: Is possible to speak of a general 'Stone Age' period for the whole of humanity, some groups never developed metal- smelting technology, and so remained in the so-called 'Stone Age' until they encountered technologically developed cultures. The term was innovated to describe the archaeological cultures of Europe. It may not always be the best in relation to regions such as some parts of the Indies and Oceania, where farmers or hunter-gatherers used stone for tools until European colonisation began. Archaeologists of
2225-558: Is provided by a wide variety of natural and social sciences, such as anthropology , archaeology , archaeoastronomy , comparative linguistics , biology , geology , molecular genetics , paleontology , palynology , physical anthropology , and many others. Human prehistory differs from history not only in terms of its chronology , but in the way it deals with the activities of archaeological cultures rather than named nations or individuals . Restricted to material processes, remains, and artefacts rather than written records, prehistory
2314-494: Is seen as a transition period between the Stone Age and Bronze Age. An archaeological site in Serbia contains the oldest securely dated evidence of copper making at high temperature, from 7,500 years ago. The find in 2010 extends the known record of copper smelting by about 800 years, and suggests that copper smelting may have been invented independently in separate parts of Asia and Europe at that time, rather than spreading from
2403-500: Is that H. erectus or H. ergaster made fires between 790,000 and 690,000 BP in a site at Bnot Ya'akov Bridge , Israel . The use of fire enabled early humans to cook food, provide warmth, have a light source, deter animals at night and meditate. Early Homo sapiens originated some 300,000 years ago, ushering in the Middle Palaeolithic . Anatomic changes indicating modern language capacity also arise during
2492-446: Is usually taken as the end of the prehistory of Australia . The period when a culture is written about by others, but has not developed its own writing system, is often known as the protohistory of the culture. By definition, there are no written records from human prehistory, which can only be known from material archaeological and anthropological evidence: prehistoric materials and human remains. These were at first understood by
2581-516: Is when the first signs of human presence have been found; however, Africa and Asia contain sites dated as early as c. 2.5 and 1.8 million years ago, respectively. Depending on the date when relevant records become a useful academic resource, its end date also varies. For example, in Egypt it is generally accepted that prehistory ended around 3100 BCE, whereas in New Guinea
2670-545: The 6th and 5th millennia BC in the archaeological sites of the Vinča culture , including Majdanpek , Jarmovac , Pločnik , Rudna Glava in modern-day Serbia. Ötzi the Iceman , a mummy from about 3300 BC, carried with him a copper axe and a flint knife. In some regions, such as Sub-Saharan Africa , the Stone Age was followed directly by the Iron Age. The Middle East and Southeast Asian regions progressed past Stone Age technology around 6000 BC. Europe, and
2759-540: The Copper Age or Bronze Age ; or, in some geographical regions, in the Iron Age ). The term Neolithic is commonly used in the Old World ; its application to cultures in the Americas and Oceania is complicated by the fact standard progression from stone to metal tools, as seen in the Old World, does not neatly apply. Early Neolithic farming was limited to a narrow range of plants, both wild and domesticated, which included einkorn wheat , millet and spelt , and
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2848-608: The Fauresmith and Sangoan technologies, and the Second Intermediate Period between Middle and Later, to encompass the Magosian technology and others. The chronologic basis for the definition was entirely relative. With the arrival of scientific means of finding an absolute chronology, the two intermediates turned out to be will-of-the-wisps . They were in fact Middle and Lower Paleolithic . Fauresmith
2937-487: The Indus Valley Civilisation , and ancient Egypt were the first civilizations to develop their own scripts and keep historical records, with their neighbours following. Most other civilizations reached their end of prehistory during the following Iron Age . The three-age division of prehistory into Stone Age , Bronze Age , and Iron Age remains in use for much of Eurasia and North Africa , but
3026-531: The Paleolithic , by the Neolithic only Homo sapiens sapiens remained. This was a period of technological and social developments which established most of the basic elements of historical cultures, such as the domestication of crops and animals , and the establishment of permanent settlements and early chiefdoms. The era commenced with the beginning of farming , which produced the " Neolithic Revolution ". It ended when metal tools became widespread (in
3115-440: The genus Homo , and possibly by the earlier partly contemporaneous genera Australopithecus and Paranthropus . Bone tools have been discovered that were used during this period as well but these are rarely preserved in the archaeological record . The Stone Age is further subdivided by the types of stone tools in use. The Stone Age is the first period in the three-age system frequently used in archaeology to divide
3204-500: The geologic time scale : The succession of these phases varies enormously from one region (and culture ) to another. The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic (from Greek: παλαιός, palaios , "old"; and λίθος, lithos , "stone" lit. "old stone", coined by archaeologist John Lubbock and published in 1865) is the earliest division of the Stone Age. It covers the greatest portion of humanity's time (roughly 99% of "human technological history", where "human" and "humanity" are interpreted to mean
3293-606: The three-age system for human prehistory, were systematised during the nineteenth century in the work of British, French, German, and Scandinavian anthropologists , archaeologists , and antiquarians . The main source of information for prehistory is archaeology (a branch of anthropology), but some scholars are beginning to make more use of evidence from the natural and social sciences. The primary researchers into human prehistory are archaeologists and physical anthropologists who use excavation, geologic and geographic surveys, and other scientific analysis to reveal and interpret
3382-475: The "Chalcolithic", "Eneolithic", or "Copper Age" refers to a transitional period where early copper metallurgy appeared alongside the widespread use of stone tools. During this period, some weapons and tools were made of copper. This period was still largely Neolithic in character. It is a phase of the Bronze Age before it was discovered that adding tin to copper formed the harder bronze . The Copper Age
3471-645: The Azilian cultures, before spreading to Europe through the Iberomaurusian culture of Northern Africa and the Kebaran culture of the Levant . However, independent discovery is not ruled out. "Neolithic" means "New Stone Age", from about 10,200 BCE in some parts of the Middle East, but later in other parts of the world, and ended between 4,500 and 2,000 BCE. Although there were several species of humans during
3560-460: The Iron Age, often through conquest by empires, which continued to expand during this period. For example, in most of Europe conquest by the Roman Empire means the term Iron Age is replaced by "Roman", " Gallo-Roman ", and similar terms after the conquest. Even before conquest, many areas began to have a protohistory, as they were written about by literate cultures; the protohistory of Ireland
3649-694: The Middle East is characterized in archaeological stone tool assemblages by a decline in high quality raw material procurement and use. North Africa and the Nile Valley imported its iron technology from the Near East and followed the Near Eastern course of Bronze Age and Iron Age development. The Bronze Age is the earliest period in which some civilizations reached the end of prehistory, by introducing written records. The Bronze Age, or parts thereof, are thus considered to be part of prehistory only for
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3738-739: The Middle Palaeolithic. During the Middle Palaeolithic Era, there is the first definitive evidence of human use of fire. Sites in Zambia have charred logs, charcoal and carbonized plants, that have been dated to 180,000 BP. The systematic burial of the dead , music , prehistoric art , and the use of increasingly sophisticated multi-part tools are highlights of the Middle Paleolithic. The Upper Paleolithic extends from 50,000 and 12,000 years ago, with
3827-592: The Nile valley. Consequently, they proposed a new system for Africa, the Three-stage System. Clark regarded the Three-age System as valid for North Africa; in sub-Saharan Africa, the Three-stage System was best. In practice, the failure of African archaeologists either to keep this distinction in mind, or to explain which one they mean, contributes to the considerable equivocation already present in
3916-521: The Stone Age ended in a given area. In Europe and North America, millstones were in use until well into the 20th century, and still are in many parts of the world. The terms "Stone Age", "Bronze Age", and "Iron Age" are not intended to suggest that advancements and time periods in prehistory are only measured by the type of tool material, rather than, for example, social organization , food sources exploited, adaptation to climate, adoption of agriculture, cooking, settlement , and religion. Like pottery ,
4005-407: The Stone Age has never been limited to stone tools and archaeology, even though they are important forms of evidence. The chief focus of study has always been on the society and the living people who belonged to it. Useful as it has been, the concept of the Stone Age has its limitations. The date range of this period is ambiguous, disputed, and variable, depending upon the region in question. While it
4094-649: The Stone Age thus could appear there without transitions. The burden on African archaeologists became all the greater, because now they must find the missing transitions in Africa. The problem is difficult and ongoing. After its adoption by the First Pan African Congress in 1947, the Three-Stage Chronology was amended by the Third Congress in 1955 to include a First Intermediate Period between Early and Middle, to encompass
4183-466: The Stone Age. In Sub-Saharan Africa, however, iron-working technologies were either invented independently or came across the Sahara from the north (see iron metallurgy in Africa ). The Neolithic was characterized primarily by herding societies rather than large agricultural societies, and although there was copper metallurgy in Africa as well as bronze smelting, archaeologists do not currently recognize
4272-569: The case of Indigenous Australian "highways" known as songlines . The Mesolithic, or Middle Stone Age (from the Greek mesos , 'middle', and lithos , 'stone'), was a period in the development of human technology between the Palaeolithic and Neolithic . The Mesolithic period began with the retreat of glaciers at the end of the Pleistocene epoch, some 10,000 BP, and ended with
4361-463: The collection of folklore and by analogy with pre-literate societies observed in modern times. The key step to understanding prehistoric evidence is dating, and reliable dating techniques have developed steadily since the nineteenth century. The most common of these dating techniques is radiocarbon dating . Further evidence has come from the reconstruction of ancient spoken languages . More recent techniques include forensic chemical analysis to reveal
4450-540: The decisions of the Pan-African Congress on Prehistory , which meets every four years to resolve the archaeological business brought before it. Delegates are actually international; the organization takes its name from the topic. Louis Leakey hosted the first one in Nairobi in 1947. It adopted Goodwin and Lowe's 3-stage system at that time, the stages to be called Early, Middle and Later. The problem of
4539-496: The discovery of these "Lomekwian" tools, the oldest known stone tools had been found at several sites at Gona, Ethiopia , on sediments of the paleo- Awash River , which serve to date them. All the tools come from the Busidama Formation, which lies above a disconformity , or missing layer, which would have been from 2.9 to 2.7 mya . The oldest sites discovered to contain tools are dated to 2.6–2.55 mya. One of
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#17328009823334628-506: The earliest known writing systems appeared c. 5,200 years ago. It took thousands of years for writing systems to be widely adopted, with writing having spread to almost all cultures by the 19th century. The end of prehistory therefore came at different times in different places, and the term is less often used in discussing societies where prehistory ended relatively recently. In the early Bronze Age , Sumer in Mesopotamia ,
4717-548: The early Stone Age, when species prior to Homo may have manufactured tools. According to the age and location of the current evidence, the cradle of the genus is the East African Rift System, especially toward the north in Ethiopia , where it is bordered by grasslands . The closest relative among the other living primates , the genus Pan , represents a branch that continued on in the deep forest, where
4806-506: The end of the Bronze Age large states, whose armies imposed themselves on people with a different culture, and are often called empires, had arisen in Egypt, China, Anatolia (the Hittites ), and Mesopotamia , all of them literate. The Iron Age is not part of prehistory for all civilizations who had introduced written records during the Bronze Age. Most remaining civilizations did so during
4895-639: The end of the prehistoric era is set much more recently, in the 1870s, when the Russian anthropologist Nicholai Miklukho-Maklai spent several years living among native peoples, and described their way of life in a comprehensive treatise. In Europe the relatively well-documented classical cultures of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome had neighbouring cultures, including the Celts and the Etruscans , with little writing. Historians debate how much weight to give to
4984-446: The few mines, stimulating the creation of extensive trading routes. In many areas as far apart as China and England, the valuable new material was used for weapons, but for a long time apparently not available for agricultural tools. Much of it seems to have been hoarded by social elites, and sometimes deposited in extravagant quantities, from Chinese ritual bronzes and Indian copper hoards , to European hoards of unused axe-heads. By
5073-493: The first organized settlements and blossoming of artistic work. Throughout the Palaeolithic, humans generally lived as nomadic hunter-gatherers . Hunter-gatherer societies tended to be very small and egalitarian, although hunter-gatherer societies with abundant resources or advanced food-storage techniques sometimes developed sedentary lifestyles with complex social structures such as chiefdoms, and social stratification . Long-distance contacts may have been established, as in
5162-444: The first signs of deforestation have been found, although this would only begin in earnest during the Neolithic, when more space was needed for agriculture . The Mesolithic is characterized in most areas by small composite flint tools: microliths and microburins . Fishing tackle , stone adzes , and wooden objects such as canoes and bows have been found at some sites. These technologies first occur in Africa, associated with
5251-400: The first to transition away from hunter-gatherer societies into the settled lifestyle of inhabiting towns and villages as agriculture became widespread . In the chronology of prehistory, the Neolithic era usually overlaps with the Chalcolithic ("Copper") era preceding the Bronze Age. The Stone Age is contemporaneous with the evolution of the genus Homo , with the possible exception of
5340-672: The genus Homo ), extending from 2.5 or 2.6 million years ago, with the first documented use of stone tools by hominins such as Homo habilis , to the end of the Pleistocene around 10,000 BC. The Paleolithic era ended with the Mesolithic , or in areas with an early neolithisation , the Epipaleolithic . At sites dating from the Lower Paleolithic Period (about 2,500,000 to 200,000 years ago), simple pebble tools have been found in association with
5429-589: The grasslands of the rift, Homo erectus , the predecessor of modern humans, found an ecological niche as a tool-maker and developed a dependence on it, becoming a "tool-equipped savanna dweller". The oldest indirect evidence found of stone tool use is fossilised animal bones with tool marks; these are 3.4 million years old and were found in the Lower Awash Valley in Ethiopia. Archaeological discoveries in Kenya in 2015, identifying what may be
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#17328009823335518-589: The hand-axe tradition, there developed a distinct and very different stone-tool industry, based on flakes of stone: special tools were made from worked (carefully shaped) flakes of flint. In Europe, the Clactonian industry is one example of a flake tradition. The early flake industries probably contributed to the development of the Middle Paleolithic flake tools of the Mousterian industry , which
5607-504: The intermediate periods were gone, the search for the transitions continued. In 1859 Jens Jacob Worsaae first proposed a division of the Stone Age into older and younger parts based on his work with Danish kitchen middens that began in 1851. In the subsequent decades this simple distinction developed into the archaeological periods of today. The major subdivisions of the Three-age Stone Age cross two epoch boundaries on
5696-473: The introduction of agriculture , the date of which varied by geographic region. In some areas, such as the Near East , agriculture was already underway by the end of the Pleistocene , and there the Mesolithic is short and poorly defined. In areas with limited glacial impact, the term " Epipalaeolithic " is preferred. Regions that experienced greater environmental effects as the last ice age ended have
5785-453: The journal Annals of the South African Museum . By then, the dates of the Early Stone Age, or Paleolithic , and Late Stone Age, or Neolithic ( neo = new), were fairly solid and were regarded by Goodwin as absolute. He therefore proposed a relative chronology of periods with floating dates, to be called the Earlier and Later Stone Age. The Middle Stone Age would not change its name, but it would not mean Mesolithic . The duo thus reinvented
5874-474: The keeping of dogs , sheep , and goats . By about 6,900–6,400 BCE, it included domesticated cattle and pigs, the establishment of permanently or seasonally inhabited settlements, and the use of pottery . The Neolithic period saw the development of early villages , agriculture , animal domestication , tools , and the onset of the earliest recorded incidents of warfare. Settlements became more permanent, some with circular houses made of mudbrick with
5963-638: The late 19th and early 20th centuries CE, who adapted the three-age system to their ideas, hoped to combine cultural anthropology and archaeology in such a way that a specific contemporaneous tribe could be used to illustrate the way of life and beliefs of the people exercising a particular Stone-Age technology. As a description of people living today, the term Stone Age is controversial. The Association of Social Anthropologists discourages this use, asserting: To describe any living group as 'primitive' or 'Stone Age' inevitably implies that they are living representatives of some earlier stage of human development that
6052-462: The literature. There are in effect two Stone Ages, one part of the Three-age and the other constituting the Three-stage. They refer to one and the same artifacts and the same technologies, but vary by locality and time. The three-stage system was proposed in 1929 by Astley John Hilary Goodwin, a professional archaeologist, and Clarence van Riet Lowe , a civil engineer and amateur archaeologist, in an article titled "Stone Age Cultures of South Africa" in
6141-420: The majority of humankind has left behind. In the 1920s, South African archaeologists organizing the stone tool collections of that country observed that they did not fit the newly detailed Three-Age System. In the words of J. Desmond Clark : It was early realized that the threefold division of culture into Stone, Bronze and Iron Ages adopted in the nineteenth century for Europe had no validity in Africa outside
6230-633: The metal used earlier, more heat is required. Once the technical challenge had been solved, iron replaced bronze as its higher abundance meant armies could be armed much more easily with iron weapons. All dates are approximate and conjectural, obtained through research in the fields of anthropology , archaeology, genetics , geology , or linguistics . They are all subject to revision due to new discoveries or improved calculations. BP stands for " Before Present (1950)." BCE stands for " Before Common Era ". Stone Age Paleolithic Epipalaeolithic Mesolithic Neolithic The Stone Age
6319-403: The most striking circumstances about these sites is that they are from the Late Pliocene , where prior to their discovery tools were thought to have evolved only in the Pleistocene . Excavators at the locality point out that: ... the earliest stone tool makers were skilled flintknappers ... The possible reasons behind this seeming abrupt transition from the absence of stone tools to
6408-401: The nature and behavior of pre-literate and non-literate peoples. Human population geneticists and historical linguists are also providing valuable insight. Cultural anthropologists help provide context for societal interactions, by which objects of human origin pass among people, allowing an analysis of any article that arises in a human prehistoric context. Therefore, data about prehistory
6497-532: The oldest evidence of hominin use of tools known to date, have indicated that Kenyanthropus platyops (a 3.2 to 3.5-million-year-old Pliocene hominin fossil discovered in Lake Turkana, Kenya, in 1999) may have been the earliest tool-users known. The oldest stone tools were excavated from the site of Lomekwi 3 in West Turkana , northwestern Kenya, and date to 3.3 million years old. Prior to
6586-626: The presence thereof include ... gaps in the geological record. The species that made the Pliocene tools remains unknown. Fragments of Australopithecus garhi , Australopithecus aethiopicus , and Homo , possibly Homo habilis , have been found in sites near the age of the Gona tools. In July 2018, scientists reported the discovery in China of the known oldest stone tools outside Africa, estimated at 2.12 million years old. Innovation in
6675-529: The primates evolved. The rift served as a conduit for movement into southern Africa and also north down the Nile into North Africa and through the continuation of the rift in the Levant to the vast grasslands of Asia. Starting from about 4 million years ago ( mya ) a single biome established itself from South Africa through the rift, North Africa, and across Asia to modern China. This has been called "transcontinental 'savannahstan ' " recently. Starting in
6764-658: The regions and civilizations who developed a system of keeping written records during later periods. The invention of writing coincides in some areas with the beginnings of the Bronze Age. After the appearance of writing, people started creating texts including written records of administrative matters. The Bronze Age refers to a period in human cultural development when the most advanced metalworking (at least in systematic and widespread use) included techniques for smelting copper and tin from naturally occurring outcroppings of ores, and then combining them to cast bronze . These naturally occurring ores typically included arsenic as
6853-605: The remains of what may have been the earliest human ancestors. A somewhat more sophisticated Lower Paleolithic tradition, known as the Chopper chopping tool industry, is widely distributed in the Eastern Hemisphere. This tradition is thought to have been the work of the hominin species named Homo erectus . Although no such fossil tools have yet been found, it is believed that H. erectus probably made tools of wood and bone as well as stone. About 700,000 years ago,
6942-431: The rest of Asia became post-Stone Age societies by about 4000 BC. The proto-Inca cultures of South America continued at a Stone Age level until around 2000 BC, when gold, copper, and silver made their entrance. The peoples of the Americas notably did not develop a widespread behavior of smelting bronze or iron after the Stone Age period, although the technology existed. Stone tool manufacture continued even after
7031-502: The rise of metallurgy, and most Neolithic societies on the whole were relatively simple and egalitarian. Most clothing appears to have been made of animal skins, as indicated by finds of large numbers of bone and antler pins which are ideal for fastening leather. Wool cloth and linen might have become available during the later Neolithic, as suggested by finds of perforated stones that (depending on size) may have served as spindle whorls or loom weights. In Old World archaeology,
7120-486: The scientific study of the lithic reduction of the raw materials and methods used to make the prehistoric artifacts that are discovered. Much of this study takes place in the laboratory in the presence of various specialists. In experimental archaeology , researchers attempt to create replica tools, to understand how they were made. Flintknappers are craftsmen who use sharp tools to reduce flintstone to flint tool . In addition to lithic analysis, field prehistorians use
7209-635: The sometimes biased accounts in Greek and Roman literature, of these protohistoric cultures. In dividing up human prehistory in Eurasia, historians typically use the three-age system, whereas scholars of pre-human time periods typically use the well-defined geologic record and its internationally defined stratum base within the geologic time scale . The three-age system is the periodization of human prehistory into three consecutive time periods , named for their predominant tool-making technologies: Stone Age , Bronze Age and Iron Age . In some areas, there
7298-403: The technique of smelting ore is regarded as the end of the Stone Age and the beginning of the Bronze Age . The first highly significant metal manufactured was bronze , an alloy of copper and tin or arsenic , each of which was smelted separately. The transition from the Stone Age to the Bronze Age was a period during which modern people could smelt copper, but did not yet manufacture bronze,
7387-418: The timeline of human technological prehistory into functional periods, with the next two being the Bronze Age and the Iron Age , respectively. The Stone Age is also commonly divided into three distinct periods: the earliest and most primitive being the Paleolithic era; a transitional period with finer tools known as the Mesolithic era; and the final stage known as the Neolithic era. Neolithic peoples were
7476-450: The transitions in archaeology is a branch of the general philosophic continuity problem, which examines how discrete objects of any sort that are contiguous in any way can be presumed to have a relationship of any sort. In archaeology, the relationship is one of causality . If Period B can be presumed to descend from Period A, there must be a boundary between A and B, the A–B boundary. The problem
7565-472: The typology of the stone tools combined with the relative sequence of the types in various regions provide a chronological framework for the evolution of humanity and society. They serve as diagnostics of date, rather than characterizing the people or the society. Lithic analysis is a major and specialised form of archaeological investigation. It involves the measurement of stone tools to determine their typology, function and technologies involved. It includes
7654-587: The use and provenance of materials, and genetic analysis of bones to determine kinship and physical characteristics of prehistoric peoples. The beginning of prehistory is normally taken to be marked by human-like beings appearing on Earth. The date marking its end is typically defined as the advent of the contemporary written historical record. Both dates consequently vary widely from region to region. For example, in European regions, prehistory cannot begin before c. 1.3 million years ago, which
7743-460: The whole area. "Palaeolithic" means "Old Stone Age", and begins with the first use of stone tools . The Paleolithic is the earliest period of the Stone Age . It extends from the earliest known use of stone tools by hominins c. 3.3 million years ago, to the end of the Pleistocene c. 11,650 BP (before the present period). The early part of the Palaeolithic
7832-458: Was a broad prehistoric period during which stone was widely used to make stone tools with an edge, a point, or a percussion surface. The period lasted for roughly 3.4 million years and ended between 4000 BC and 2000 BC, with the advent of metalworking . It therefore represents nearly 99.3% of human history. Though some simple metalworking of malleable metals, particularly the use of gold and copper for purposes of ornamentation,
7921-607: Was known in the Stone Age, it is the melting and smelting of copper that marks the end of the Stone Age. In Western Asia , this occurred by about 3000 BC, when bronze became widespread. The term Bronze Age is used to describe the period that followed the Stone Age, as well as to describe cultures that had developed techniques and technologies for working copper alloys (bronze: originally copper and arsenic, later copper and tin) into tools, supplanting stone in many uses. Stone Age artifacts that have been discovered include tools used by modern humans, by their predecessor species in
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