Monday 17 September 2012

Monday 17 September 2012

The Stone Age:  50 000 BP-10 000 BP

Characteristics:

•          Hunter/gatherers (the economic system of the time)
•          Nomadic/semi-nomadic
•          Tools made from stone, wood and bone

Absence of:

•           Pottery
•           Metals
•           Farming
•          Domesticated animals

Maths of the community:

•         Lived in extended families of five
•         Five of those families lived together to maintain everything they needed
•         They only needed to extend gene pool, therefore an estimated 19 groups of 25 people were in one community

San people of SA:

•           Unchanged for 20 000 years
•           Complete stone age way of life
•           Khoisan still lives today
•           Used wood, stone and bone
•           No domestication of animals
•           No pottery
•          No metals
•          Remained ‘Stone Age’ because they had no contact with the modern world. They   also did not need to change.

The Great Leap Forward: Behavioural Revolution

•           Rapid technological advancement
•           Art
•           Burial
•           Self decoration
•           Religion

1.       The earliest tool kits Mousterian: 120 000-35 000 BCE

Before Neandethal there were no ‘made’ tools.

Neanderthal OR Homo Sapiens modern created this flint tool:

•           Multi purpose tool
•           Stays the same for 90 000 years
•           Does not develop
•           Produced by napping them
•            Flint is theorized to come from sponge that was compressed by earth and old plants over millions of years at the bottom of the sea.

2.       The earliest tool kits Aurignacian: 40 000-30 000 BCE

•           More advanced,
•           More useful
•           Ergonomic – easily held and comfortable
•           Passed on to your children
•         Skills necessary to make them (advanced napping)

3.       The earliest tool kits Solutrean 20 000-17 000 BCE

•         Pressure used to make it, apply pressure on the flint stone to produce flakes like  sharp blades.
•        Developed a handle

4.       The earliest tool kits Magdalenian: 17 000-12 000 BCE

•       Made out of bone
•       Usually used to catch fish
•       First decorated tool, suggests great sophistication

Paleolithic – second part of the Stone Age

Upper Paleolithic Burials

-          Ritualized burials, common practices among groups

-          Use of grave goods

-          Red ochre – a type of dye (liquid iron)

-          No sign of status

-          Female shaman

-          Wrapped in strings of beads – the children had more beads

-          All graves around this time contained goods e.g. tools, arts, jewelry

Upper Paleolithic Art

-          Portable art: 25 000 BP

-          Cave painting:

o   18 000 BP

o   From Lascaux, France

o   Diluted colour in the mouth and spat to create an image

Upper Paleolithic Self Decoration

-          Use of red ochre

-          Production of beads

-          Exchange

-          Purpose

o   Social

o   Religious

-          Different regions make different types of decoration

o    Coastal areas e.g. shells

o   Mountainous areas e.g. semi-precious stones

o   In land areas e.g. (animal products) ivory

Upper Paleolithic Religion

-          Make sense of their world

o   Anthropomorphic imagery – images of animals with human spirits

o   Animism – belief that all objects have spirit in them

o   Apotropia – symbols that protect from evil e.g. dream catchers

o   Ancestor worship – people slept in a tent with a buried ancestor in the middle, displayed skulls in their homes.

-          Questionable theory

o   Assumption – people ‘think’ it is religious

o   Anthropological studies

- Filippa