Reference.com

Paleolithic

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - Cite This Source

The Paleolithic (or Palaeolithic) is a prehistoric era distinguished by the development of stone tools. It covers the greatest portion of humanity's time (roughly 99% of human history) on Earth, extending from 2.5 or 2.6 million years ago, with the introduction of stone tools by hominids such as Homo habilis, to the introduction of agriculture and the end of the Pleistocene around 10,000 BC. The term Paleolithic, literally "Old Age of the Stone", was coined by archaeologist John Lubbock in 1865 and derives from the Greek παλαιολιθικός—palaiolithikos, παλαιός—palaios ("old") and λίθος—lithos ("stone"). The Paleolithic era ended with the Mesolithic, or in areas with an early neolithisation, the Epipaleolithic.

During the Paleolithic humans were grouped together in bands of 25 to 100 members and gained their subsistence from gathering plants and hunting wild animals.. The Paleolithic is characterized by the use of knapped stone tools, although at the time, humans also used wood and bone tools. Other organic commodities were adapted for use as tools, including leather and vegetable fibers; however, given their nature, these have not been preserved to any great degree. Humankind gradually evolved from early members of the genius homo such as Homo habilis who used simple stone tools into fully behaviorally and anatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens sapiens) during the Paleolithic era. During the end of the Paleolithic specifically the Middle and Upper Paleolithic humans began to produce the earliest works of art and engage in religious and spiritual behavior. The climate during the Paleolithic consisted of a set of glacial and interglacial periods in which the climate periodically fluctuated between warm and cool temperatures.

Chronology

Traditionally, the Paleolithic is divided into three periods: the Lower Paleolithic, Middle Paleolithic, and the Upper Paleolithic. The three ages mark technological and cultural advances in different human communities.
Paleolithic
Lower Paleolithic (c. 2.6 million years ago–100,000 years ago)
Olduwan culture
Acheulean culture
Clactonian culture
Middle Paleolithic (c. 300,000–30,000 years ago)
Mousterian culture
Aterian culture
Upper Paleolithic (c. 40,000–10,000 years ago)
Châtelperronian culture
Aurignacian culture
Gravettian culture
Solutrean culture
Magdalenian culture

Human evolution

Human evolution is the part of biological evolution concerning the emergence of humans as a distinct species. It is the subject of a broad scientific inquiry that seeks to understand and describe how this change and development occurred. The study of human evolution encompasses many scientific disciplines, most notably physical anthropology, paleoanthropology, paleontology, archeology, linguistics, and genetics. The term human, in the context of human evolution, refers to the genus Homo, but studies of human evolution usually include other hominids, such as the australopithecines.

Human evolution during the Paleolithic

The evolutionary history of humankind is often traced back by paleoanthropologists to 5 or 7 million years ago prior to the start of the Paleolithic when our closest hominid ancestors diverged from the shared common ancestor of humans, chimpanzees and bonobos. These early pre-Paleolithic hominids (such as Sahelanthropus tchadensis and Australopithecus) began to develop bipedalism (though bipedalism was not fully developed until Homo erectus/Homo ergaster first appeared in the human fossil record) and eventually gave rise to the earliest member of the genus homo, Homo habilis, around 2.6 million years ago. Numerous explanations have been proposed by anthropologists and biologists to explain why bipedalism evolved in humans including the provisioning model, which states that bipedalism was an adaptation to a monogamous society; the postural feeding hypothesis, which proposes that bipedalism was invented to help obtain food; and the thermoregulatory model, which claims that human bipedalism arose to reduce body heat.

The earliest member of the genus homo, Homo habilis, appeared around 2.6 million years ago and was responsible for the beginning of the Paleolithic era and the creation of the Oldowan tool case. Most experts assume the intelligence and social organization of H. habilis were more sophisticated than typical australopithecines or chimpanzees. Homo habilis coexisted with other Homo-like bipedal primates, such as Paranthropus boisei, some of which prospered for many millennia. However, H. habilis, possibly because of its early tool innovation and a less specialized diet, became the precursor of an entire line of new species, whereas Paranthropus boisei and its robust relatives disappeared from the fossil record. Homo habilis eventually became Homo ergaster.

Homo ergaster was the first hominid to stand fully upright and migrate out of Africa (c. 2 million years ago). Homo ergaster may also have been the first hominid to discover fire. Homo ergaster is often considered to be the primogenitor of the later species Homo erectus, though H. ergaster is sometimes categorized as a subspecies of Homo erectus. Homo erectus (along with Homo ergaster) was probably the first early human species to fit squarely into the category of a hunter-gatherer society. Homo erectus was the first hominid to use controlled fire (c. 300,000 BP), though earlier (disputed) evidence for controlled fire also exists at sites such as the Zhoukoudian Caves in China, which contain possible evidence for controlled fire as early as 1.5 million years ago. The latest populations of Homo erectus were probably the first hominid societies to live in small scale (possibly egalitarian) band societies similar to modern hunter-gatherer band societies. It is unknown who was the ancestor of Homo rhodesiensis, the primitive hominid species that humans are likely to have descended from, though many current paleoanthropologists postulate that Homo rhodesiensis was the same species as Homo heidelbergensis, also the immediate ancestor of the Neanderthals.

Although the first members of the species Homo sapiens, the Archaic Homo sapiens, may have existed as long as 300,000 years ago, Homo sapiens only became completely behaviorally modern during the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic (c. 50,000 BP). This change in human behavior is known as the Upper Paleolithic revolution and scientists suggest that these changes may have been caused by the development of language, though the development of behavioral modernity may have been the result of a gradual transition as the earliest evidence of behavioral modernity including artistic expression (such as ochre being used as body paint and early rock art) exists prior to the Upper Paleolithic during the Middle Paleolithic.

The driving force behind human evolution during the Paleolithic is a matter of significant debate amongst anthropologists. The hunting hypothesis suggests that human evolution was primarily shaped by the hunting of other animals, however it is currently known that humans during most of the Paleolithic period gained the majority of their meat from scavenging dead animals, rather than hunting, and were often prey for larger large carnivores such as the saber-toothed cat, Dinofelis, and hyenas which apparently preyed on the hominid Homo habilis. It is also currently understood by anthropologists that even Middle Paleolithic Neanderthals, who hunted large game just as frequently and successfully as modern Upper Paleolithic humans, intermittently (and sometimes unsuccessfully) competed with carnivores such as hyenas for shelter in caves and food.

Several contending theories also exist including the somewhat related killer ape theory, which proposes that warfare and violence were the driving forces behind human evolution. The killer ape theory was first described by Raymond Dart in the 1950s and was further developed by the anthropologist Robert Ardrey (who also supported the hunting hypothesis) in his book African Genesis (1961). The killer ape theory is no longer supported by the majority of the anthropological community. A number of feminist anthropologists, such as Adrienne L. Zihlman, propose a reverse version of the hunting hypothesis in which gathering was the driving force behind evolution and female primates played a significant part in human evolution. The aquatic ape hypothesis is another theory that seeks to uncover the driving force behind human evolution. In contrast to the two previously mentioned theories, the hunting hypothesis and the killer ape theory, the aquatic ape theory claims that life in aquatic or semi-aquatic settings was responsible for the development of many of the characteristics of Homo that are not seen in other primates. However, like the killer ape theory, it is not widely accepted by the scientific community. Richard Wrangham of Harvard University argues that cooking of plant foods may have triggered brain expansion by allowing complex carbohydrates in starchy foods to become more digestible and in effect allow humans to absorb more calories.

Simplified human genealogy

The timeline below shows a simplified genealogy of Paleolithic humanity, although other ideas of human genealogy exist for the same period: DateFormat = yyyy ImageSize = width:800 height:auto barincrement:18 PlotArea = left:20 right:20 bottom:20 top:10 Colors = 

 id:white             value:rgb(1,1,1)
 id:black             value:black
 id:canvas            value:gray(0.98)
 id:holocene          value:rgb(1,0.984,0.941)
 id:pleisto           value:rgb(1,0.968,0.690)
 id:pliocene          value:rgb(1,1,0.6)
 id:miocene           value:rgb(1,1,0)
 id:paleo             value:rgb(0.651,0.875,0.616)
 id:gray             value:gray(0.80)
 id:darkblue            value:rgb(0.3,0.3,0.7)
 id:blue              value:rgb(0.45,0.45,0.80)
 id:lightblue        value:rgb(0.65,0.65,0.90)
 id:red             value:rgb(0.8,0.30,0.30)
 id:rougemoy          value:rgb(0.88,0.45,0.45)
 id:lightred       value:rgb(0.92,0.64,0.64)
 id:lightred2       value:rgb(0.95,0.84,0.84)
 id:orange            value:rgb(1,0.7,0.3)
 id:orangesom         value:rgb(0.9,0.45,0.25)
 id:or                value:rgb(1,0.9,0)
 id:grilleMajor       value:gray(0.7)
 id:grilleMinor       value:gray(0.9)

Period = from:-3000 till:1 TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal format:yyyy AlignBars = justify ScaleMinor = unit:year increment:100 start:-3000 gridcolor:grilleMinor ScaleMajor = unit:year increment:500 start:-3000 gridcolor:grilleMajor BackgroundColors = canvas:canvas bars:canvas BarData= 

 bar:evenement1
 bar:espace1
 bar:evenement2
 bar:espace2
 bar:evenement3
 bar:espace3
 bar:evenement4
 bar:espace4
 bar:evenement5
 bar:espace5
 bar:evenement6
 bar:espace6

  1. barset:evenement

 bar:ages0
 bar:ages

Define $center = anchor:from align:center Define $left = anchor:from align:left shift:(4,-4) Define $right = anchor:till align:right shift:(-4,-4) Define $left2 = anchor:from align:left shift:(4, 3) Define $right2 = anchor:till align:right shift:(-4, 3)

PlotData=

 bar:evenement1 color:black width:20 $left
 from:-3000  till:-1950 color:gray
               at:-2650 textcolor:black text:" Australopithecus"

 bar:espace1 width:12 at:-2556 mark:(line, blue)

 bar:evenement2   color:black width:20 $left
 from:-2556  till:-1700 color:or
               at:-2300 textcolor:black text:" Homo habilis"

 bar:espace2 width:12 at:-2043 mark:(line, blue)

 bar:evenement3   color:black width:20 $left
 from:-2043  till:-1000 color:darkblue
               at:-1650 textcolor:black text:" Homo ergaster"
 from:-700   till:-300 color:blue textcolor:black text:"Homo rhodesiensis"
 from:-200  till:0 color:lightblue
               at:-300 textcolor:black text:" Homo sapiens"
               at:-880  textcolor:black text:"?"

 bar:espace3 width:12 at:-1121 mark:(line, blue)
 bar:espace3 width:36 at:-1750 mark:(line, blue)

 bar:evenement4   color:black width:20 $left
 from:-1121  till:-800 color:lightred
               at:-1125 textcolor:black text:"Homo antecessor"
 from:-700   till:-201 color:rougemoy
               at:-675 textcolor:black text:"Homo heidelbergensis"
 from:-199   till:-35 color:red
             at:-225 textcolor:black text:"Neanderthal"
             at:-1750  mark:(line, darkblue)
             at:-770  textcolor:black text:"?"
 bar:espace4 width:12 at:-1750 mark:(line, darkblue)

 bar:evenement5   color:black width:20
 bar:evenement5   color:black width:20 $left
 from:-1750  till:-100 color:orange
               at:-1000 textcolor:black text:" Homo erectus"

 bar:espace5 width:12 at:-100 mark:(line, blue)

 bar:evenement6   color:black width:20 $left
 from:-100   till:-27 color:orangesom
               at:-315 textcolor:black text:" Homo soloensis"

 bar:ages0
 from:-2600 till:-10 width:10 color:paleo textcolor:white
              at:-1600 text:"Paleolithic"

 bar:ages fontsize:9
   from:-3000 till:-1806   color:pliocene
              at:-2400 text:"Pliocene"
 from:-1806 till:-11     color:pleisto
              at:-1000 text:"Pleistocene"
 from:-11   till:0    color:holocene
              at:-100  text:"H->"
              at:-3000 mark:(line, black)
              at:-1806 mark:(line, black)
              at:-11 mark:(line, black)
              at:0 mark:(line, black)

Timeline scale is in thousands of years.

Climate

Currently agreed upon classifications as Paleolithic geoclimatic episodes

Age
(before) 		America Atlantic Europe Maghreb Mediterranean Europe Central Europe
10,000 years Flandrian interglacial Flandriense Mellahiense Versiliense Flandrian interglacial
80,000 years Wisconsin Devensiense Regresión Regresión Wisconsin glaciation
140,000 years Sangamoniense Ipswichiense Ouljiense Tirreniense II y III Eemian interglacial
200,000 years Illinois Wolstoniense Regresión Regresión Wolstonian glaciation
450,000 years Yarmouthiense Hoxniense Anfatiense Tirreniense I Hoxnian interglacial
580,000 years Kansas Angliense Regresión Regresión Kansan glaciation
750,000 years Aftoniense Cromeriense Maarifiense Siciliense Cromerian interglacial
1,100,000 years Nebraska Beestoniense Regresión Regresión Beestonian stage
1,400,000 years interglaciar Ludhamiense Messaudiense Calabriense Donau-Günz

Way of life

The Old Stone Age, or Paleolithic, comprised more than a million years. During this period, major climatic and other changes occurred which affected the evolution of humans. Humans themselves evolved into their current morphological form during the later period of the Stone Age.

Paleolithic humans appear to have ranged widely and were distributed sparsely, but uniformly. The Paleolithic remains which have been found are astonishingly uniform, everywhere in the range of humans. Implements of the same type have been found in what is now Britain, France, and along the banks of the Nile.

The economy of a typical Paleolithic society was primitive, with humans living a hunter-gatherer lifestyle. They hunted for meat and gathered food, firewood, and materials for their tools, clothes, or cabins.

Technology

During this time period people made tools of stone, bone, and wood. The most ancient Paleolithic stone tool industry the Oldowan was developed by the earliest members of the genus Homo such as Homo habilis around 2.6 million years ago. and contained tools such as choppers, burins and awls though it completely disappeared around 250,000 years ago and was followed by the more complex Acheulean industry which was first conceived by Homo ergaster around 1.65 million years ago. The most recent Lower Paleolithic (Acheulean) implements vanished from the archeological record around 50,000 years ago.

Lower Paleolithic humans are known to have used a variety of stone tools, including hand axes, which were likely used as cutting/chopping tools, digging implements, animal traps, or possibly in courting behaviour. Choppers and scrappers were most likely used for the purpose of skinning and butchering scavenged animals and sharp ended sticks were often procured for the purpose of digging up edible roots. Early humans presumably have been using wooden spears as early as 5 million years ago to hunt small animals, much like our close relatives the common chimpanzee have recently been observed doing in Senegal, Africa. Lower Paleolithic humans additionally known to have constructed shelters such as the possible wood hut at Terra Amata. Although fire was used by the Lower Paleolithic hominid Homo erectus/Homo ergaster as early as 300,000 or 1.5 million years ago the use of fire only became common in the societies of the following Middle Stone Age/Middle Paleolithic Period..

The lower Paleolithic hominid Homo erectus possibly invented rafts (c. 800,000 or 840,000 BP) to travel over large bodies of water which may have allowed a group of Homo erectus to reach the island of Flores and evolve into the small hominid Homo floresiensis. However, it must also be noted that this hypothesis is disputed within the anthropological community. Supplementary evidence from Neanderthal and Modern human sites located around the Mediterranean sea such as Coa de sa Multa (c.300.000 BCE) has also indicated that both Middle and Upper Paleolithic humans used rafts to travel over large bodies of water (I.e. the Mediterranean sea) for the purpose of colonizing other bodies of land.

Around 200,000BCE Middle Paleolithic Stone tool manufacturing spawned a tool making technique known as the prepared-core technique, that was more elaborate than previous Acheulean techniques. This method increased efficiency by permitting the creation of more controlled and consistent flakes. This method allowed Middle Paleolithic humans to correspondingly create stone tipped spears which were the earliest composite tools by hafting sharp, pointy stone flakes onto wooden shafts. Neanderthals who possessed a Middle Paleolithic level of technology appear to have hunted large game just as modern humans have done and Neanderthals may have likewise hunted with projectile weapons.

During the end of the Paleolithic (The late Middle Paleolithic and the Upper Paleolithic) further technological advances were made such as the invention of bolas, the spear thrower, the bow and arrow (c. 30,000 BP) and the creation of the world's oldest example of ceramic art the Venus of Dolní Věstonice (c. 29,000–25,000 BP). Early dogs were also domesticated during the end of the Paleolithic sometime between 100,000 BP and 14,000 BP (presumably) to aid in hunting. Both Middle and Upper Paleolithic cultures appear to have had significant knowledge about plants and herbs and may have, albeit very rarley practiced rudimentry forms of horticulture. Archeological evidence from the Dordogne region of France demonstrates that members of the European early Upper Paleolithic culture known as the Aurignacian were the first people to use calendars (c. 30,000 BP). This early calendar was a lunar calendar that was used to document the phases of the moon. Genuine solar calendars did not appear until the following Neolithic period. An artifact of the Paleolithic period is often known as a Paleolith‎.

Society

More primitive humans or societies such as the Neanderthals, Homo habilis and Homo erectus vanished, and the crudest types of Paleolithic implements vanished. It is not certain whether they were absorbed into the new groups or displaced by them. The Neanderthals and Homo erectus for instance may have interbred with modern humans (Homo sapiens) in Europe and Asia.

Neanderthals seemed acquainted with the use of fire, and as the last glacial era approached in Europe they began to seek shelter under rock ledges and in caves, leaving their remains for later discovery. Lower Paleolithic humans such as Homo Erectus and Homo Habilis discovered fire, invented shelters and used simple sharp stone tools known as axes as cutting and chopping tools, digging implements and possibly in courting behavior.

The human population density in the Paleolithic was very small and numbered around only one person per square mile. The low population density during the Paleolithic was most likely due to low body fat, Infanticide, women regularly engaging in intense endurance exercise, late weaning of infants and a nomadic lifestyle.

Among the prey of late Paleolithic humans were the large mammals. They brought the large bones of these animals into caves to crack for the marrow. Animal skins were being used. These people were right-handed, demonstrated by the fact that the left side of their brains were larger than the right.

Like contemporary hunter-gatherers Paleolithic humans enjoyed an abundance of leisure time unparalleled in both Neolithic farming societies and modern industrial societies.

Social organization

Paleolithic humans lived without states and organized governments and instead were grouped in bands that ranged from 25 to 100 members.). These bands were formed by several families. However bands sometimes joined together into larger "macrobands" or tribes for activities such as acquiring mates and celebrations. By the end of the Paleolithic era—which ended about 10,000 BP—people began to settle down into permanent locations and agriculture began to be relied upon for sustenance in many locations. A large body of scientific evidence exists to suggest that humans took part in long distance trade between bands for rare commodities (such as ochre, which was often used for religious purposes such as ritual) and raw materials as early as 120,000 years ago in Middle Paleolithic. Inter band trade may have appeared during the Middle Paleolithic because trade between bands would have helped ensure their survival by allowing them to exchange recourses and commodities such as raw materials during times of relative scarcity (I.e. famine, drought). Paleolithic society was communal and collectivistic and individuals were subordinate to the band as a whole. Both Neanderthals and modern humans took care of the elderly members of their societies during the Middle and Upper Paleolithic.

Like the societies of our closest existent relative the Bonobo Middle and Upper Paleolithic societies were fundamentally egalitarian and did not engage in organized violence between groups (i.e. war), though (like Bonobo societies) Middle and Upper Paleolithic cultures may have practiced some (small-scale) status ranking within bands. Theories to explain the apparent egalitarianism of Paleolithic societies have arisen, notably the Marxist concept of primitive communism . Christopher Boehm (1999) has hypothesized that egalitarianism may have evolved in Paleolithic societies because of a need to distribute recourses such as food and meat equally to avoid famine and ensure a stable food supply. Raymond C. Kelly speculates that the relative peacefulness of Middle and Upper Paleolithic societies resulted from a low population density, cooperative relationships between groups such as reciprocal exchange of commodities and collaboration on hunting expeditions and lastly because the invention of projectile weapons such as throwing spears provided less incentive for war because they increased the amount of damage that is done to the attacker and decreased the relative amount of territory aggressors could gain.

Typically it has been assumed by anthropologists that women were responsible for gathering wild plants and men were responsible for hunting and scavenging dead animals amongst Paleolithic humans. However according to recent archeological research carried out by anthropologist and archaeologist Steven Kuhn from the University of Arizona this division of labor did not exist prior to the Upper Paleolithic and was invented relatively recently in human pre-history. The sexual division of labor may have been developed to allow humans to acquire food and other resources more efficiently. There was approximate parity between men and women during the Paleolithic and this era was the most gender-equal period in human history. Indeed archeological evidence from art and funerary rituals indicates that a number of individual women enjoyed seemingly high status in their bands and additional scientific research of Paleolithic society has also revealed that the earliest known Paleolithic shaman (c. 30,000 BC) was female. Jared Diamond suggests that the status of women may have declined with the adoption of agriculture because farming women typically have more pregnancies and are expected to do more demanding work then women in hunter-gatherer societies. Matrilineal decent patterns were likely to have been more common during the Paleolithic and the Mesolithic than in the following Neolithic period.

Paleolithic Art and Music

The earliest undisputed evidence of art during the Paleolithic period comes from Middle Paleolithic/Middle Stone Age sites such as Blombos Cave in the form of bracelets, beads, rock art, ochre used as body paint and perhaps in ritual, though earlier examples of artistic expression such as the Venus of Tan-Tan and the patterns found on elephant bones from Bilzingsleben in Thuringia may have been produced by Acheulean tool users such as Homo Erectus prior to the start of the Middle Paleolithic period.

Upper Paleolithic humans produced works of art such as cave paintings, Venus figurines, animal carvings and rock paintings. The cave paintings have been interpreted in a number of ways by modern archeologists, the earliest explanation of the Paleolithic cave paintings first proposed by the Physical anthropologist Abbe Breuil interpreted the paintings as a form of magic designed to ensure a successful hunt, although this hypothesis falls short of explaining the existence of animals such as saber-toothed cats and lions which were not hunted for food and the existence of half human-half animal beings in cave paintings. The anthropologists Graham Hancock and David Lewis-Williams have suggested that Paleolithic cave paintings were indications of shamanistic practices as the paintings of half animal-half human paintings and the remoteness of the caves are reminiscent of modern hunter-gatherer shamanistic practices. The Venus figurines have evoked similar controversy amongst archeologists and have been described at various times and by various archeologists and anthropologists as representations of Goddesses, pornographic imagery, apotropaic amulets, used for sympathetic magic and even as self-portraits of women themselves.

R. Dale Guthrie has studied not only the most artistic and publicized paintings but also a variety of lower quality art and figurines, and he identifies a wide range of skill and ages among the artists. He also points that the main themes in the paintings and other artifacts (powerful beasts, risky hunting scenes and the over-sexual representation of women in the Venus figurines) are to be expected in the fantasies of adolescent males during the Upper Paleolithic.

Additionally Upper Paleolithic (and possibly Middle Paleolithic) humans used flute-like bone pipes as musical instruments, though music can be theoretically traced to prior to the Oldowan era of the Paleolithic age. The anthropological and archeological designation suggests that music first arose (amongst humans) when stone tools first began to be used by hominids. The noises produced by work such as pounding seed and roots into meal is a likely source of rhythm created by early humans.

Religion and beliefs

A controversial scholar of prehistoric religion and anthropology James Harrod, (Ph.D) has recently proposed that religion and spirituality (and art) may have first arose in Pre-Paleolithic chimpanzee and or Early Lower Paleolithic (Oldowan) societies, however the established anthropological view holds that it is more probable that humankind first developed religious and spiritual beliefs during the Middle Paleolithic or Upper Paleolithic.

It is likely that Middle Paleolithic cultures believed in an afterlife as evidenced by Middle Paleolithic humans use of burials at sites such as Krapina , Croatia (around 130,000 BP) and Qafzeh, Israel (around 100,000 BP) which have lead anthropologists and archeologists such as Philip Lieberman to believe that Middle Paleolithic humans may have possessed a belief in an afterlife and a "concern for the dead that transcends daily life". Cut marks on Neanderthal bones from various sites such as Combe-Grenal and Abri Moula in France may imply that the Neanderthals like some contemporary human cultures may have practiced ritual defleshing for (presumably) religious reasons. According to recent archeological findings from H. heidelbergensis sites in Atapuerca humans may have begun burying their dead much earlier during the late Lower Paleolithic but this theory is widely questioned in the scientific community.

Likewise some scientists have proposed that Middle Paleolithic societies such as Neanderthal societies may also have practiced the earliest form of totemism or animal worship in addition to their (presumably religious) burial of the dead. Emil Bächler in particular suggested (based on archeological evidence from Middle Paleolithic caves) that a widespread Middle Paleolithic Neanderthal bear cult existed (Wunn, 2000, pp. 434–435). Additional evidence in support of Middle Paleolithic animal worship originates from the Tsodilo Hills (c. 70,000 BCE) in the African Kalahari desert where a giant rock resembling a python that is accompanied by large amounts of colored broken spear points and a secret chamber has been discovered inside a cave. The Broken spear points were most likely sacrificial offerings and the python is also important to and worshipped by contemporary Bushmen hunter-gatherers who are the descendants of the of the people who devised the ritual at the Tsodilo Hills and may have inherited their worship of the python from their distant Middle Paleolithic ancestors.

The existence of anthropomorphic images and half human-half animal images in the Upper Paleolithic period may further indicate that Upper Paleolithic humans were the first people to believe in a pantheon of gods or supernatural beings, though the half human-half animal images may have also been indicative of shamanistic practices similar to those practiced by contemporary tribal societies. The earliest known undisputed burial of a shaman (and by extension the earliest undisputed evidence of shamans and shamanic practices) dates back to the early Upper Paleolithic era (c. 30,000 BC) in what is now the Czech Republic howbeit, it was probably more common during the early Upper Paleolithic for religious ceremonies to receive equal and full participation from all members of the band in contrast to the religious traditions of later periods when religious authorities and part-time ritual specialists such as shamans, priests and medicine men were relatively common and integral to religious life.

Religion was often apotropaic specifically, it involved sympathetic magic, the Venus figurines which are abundant in the Upper Paleolithic archeological record provide an example for Paleolithic sympathetic magic as they may have been used for ensuring success in hunting and to bring about fertility of the land and women. The Upper Paleolithic Venus figurines have been sometimes explained as depictions of an Earth Goddess similar to Gaia additionally, they have described by James Harrod as representative of female (and male) shamanistic spiritual transformation processes.

Diet and nutrition

The diet of the Paleolithic hunting and gathering peoples consisted primarily of animal flesh, fruits, and vegetables. There is insufficient data to determine with any certainty the relative proportions of plant and animal foods in the diets of Paleolithic humans. According to some anthropologists and many advocates of the Paleolithic diet, Paleolithic hunter-gatherers consumed a significant amount of meat and possibly obtained the majority of their food from hunting. Competing theories suggest that Paleolithic humans may have consumed a plant-based diet in general, or that hunting and gathering possibly contributed equally their diet.

Overall they experienced less famine and malnutrition than the Neolithic farming tribes that followed them due in part to the fact that Paleolithic hunter-gatherers had access to a wider variety of plants and other foods than Neolithic farmers did which allowed Paleolithic hunter-gathers to have a more nutritious diet along with a decreased risk of famine as many of the famines experienced by Neolithic (and some modern) farmers were caused or amplified by their dependence on a small number of crops furthermore, it is unlikely that Paleolithic hunter-gatherers were affected by modern diseases of affluence such as Type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease and cerebrovascular disease either.

Large seeded legumes were part of the human diet long before the Neolithic agricultural revolution as evident from archaeobotanical finds from the Mousterian layers of Kebara Cave, in Israel. Moreover, recent evidence indicates that humans processed and consumed wild cereal grains as far back as 23,000 years ago in the Upper Paleolithic. Recent archeological evidence also indicates that the processes of winemaking had its origins in the Paleolithic when early humans drank the juice of naturally fermented wild grapes from animal-skin pouches. Paleolithic humans consumed animal organ meats, including the livers, kidneys and brains. People during the Middle Paleolithic such as the Neanderthals and Middle Paleolithic Homo sapiens in Africa began to catch shellfish for food as revealed by shellfish cooking in Neanderthal sites in Italy about 110,000 years ago and Middle Paleolithic Homo sapiens sites at Pinnacle Point, in Africa. Fishing was invented during the Upper Paleolithic and it allowed some hunter-gatherer communities in the following Mesolithic period such as Lepenski Vir as well as some contemporary hunter-gatherers such as the Native Americans of the northwest coast to become sedentary or semi-nomadic and even in some instances (at least in the case of the Native Americans of the northwest coast) develop social stratification and Cheifdoms. Anthropologists such as Tim White suggest that Cannibalism was common in human societies prior to the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic based on the large amount of “butchered human" bones found in Neanderthal and other Lower/Middle Paleolithic sites. Cannibalism in the Lower and Middle Paleolithic may have occurred because of food shortages. Humans probably consumed hallucinogenic plants during the Paleolithic period.

The Paleolithic-style diet (also known as the paleodiet or the caveman diet) is a modern diet that seeks to replicate the dietary habits of Paleolithic hunter-gatherers.

Footnotes

References

See also



Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia © 2001-2006 Wikipedia contributors (Disclaimer)
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
Last updated on Thursday March 13, 2008 at 16:26:49 PDT (GMT -0700)
View this article at Wikipedia.org - Edit this article at Wikipedia.org - Donate to the Wikimedia Foundation