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