The Paleolithic Era

Modern humans today have the option to go to their local grocery stores for food and water. However, that is not case with early humans, to survive they had to hunt, or gather their food. Harsh climate changes could cause a scarce food supply. Without any food to hunt or find, the small groups were forced to move. Early humans would eventually overcome some of these obstacles, by learning how to make simple tools. One of the biggest discoveries was how to start a fire (Wilkinson, 16). Harsh climates soon became bearable with the aid of fire. Approximately 120,000 years

There were changes that occurred from the Paleolithic Period to the Neolithic. Small changes were made in this time, from the culture, to bigger changes like economics, and agriculture. How did man deal with these changes and what kind of impact did it have on society?

Human existence has lasted over several million years and in that time there has been countless advances in the way we live. Human history has had many diverse periods of time, one being the Stone Age. During the Stone Age there were two major subdivisions, the Paleolithic and Neolithic periods. The Paleolithic, which lasted until about 10,000 years ago, had a significant separating factor from the Neolithic, ending in 2000 B.C.E. This factor was the way in which the people in these periods acquired food. The Paleolithic people hunted and gathered their food while the Neolithic people produced their own food by agriculture. These two different styles of obtaining food greatly affected the lifestyles of each period’s people. The

Unlike Paleolithic time's, man could have more leisure time to spend. This led him to broaden the society he was living in and led to increased populations in the Neolithic Age. The more people there were the more discovery man made during this time. The invention of agriculture led to the settled life. Since man no longer needed to roam, all they had to do was put a seed in the ground and watch it grow. Tool and weaponry became more advanced, and pottery and the potters wheel was invented.

4. Humans used fire to ward off predators, adapt to colder climates, and to assist in hunting and gathering. Other technologies included stone tools which were used for both hunting and protection.

They would also collect nuts, berries, wild fruits, and roots from trees, but when all the resources were extinguished. Their tribe would move on to a new environment with supportable resources. Fire was developed a million years ago and was used in many ways like hunting and foraging, protection against predators, and for cold weather. Some of the Paleolithic people believed in Animism. This is the belief that everything had its own spirit, like people, animals, trees, rivers, mountains, and the sky. This interaction between them developed the visible events of everything around them like weather, health, and wars. In their society they had people known as Shamans or Witchdoctors. They were greatly respected and at the same time greatly feared because they were said to have some special powers that could be worked to the good or bad of the community. These societies engaged themselves in rituals like war dances, hunting dances, rain dances, and medicine dances. This was said to shape a favorable destiny to the community by controlling the unseen spirits. Paleolithic art is normally oriented with hunting scenes, animal carvings, animals, or fertility.

The ability to cook with fire separates human beings from animals. Pollan was searching for a new way to indulge in the flavor he had never experienced before. He wanted to learn about the whole hog barbecue experience. Pollan used humor effectively to describe the origin of cooking with fire. For example, he defined a shift in human history occurring because some prehistoric person decided that they did not, in fact, need to urinate on fire and put it out. Human self-control led to human control of fire.

Three societies started the early times of life. Each society had different cultures and beliefs. With the three societies, Native America, African, and European. There where various of ways that believed settler differentiated through time Paleo, Archaic, Pre-Columbian Era. The Era’s had different belief in each of them but also had growth. Starting with the Paleo- Indian era, numerous years ago, was the first people who travel to the North America or that to be believed were the Paleo-Indian. Not knowing the true impacted on what they were coming to settled to the North America for. Different opinions on the settlement of the Native America what brought them to North America, were they just being lucky and chasing food. The Paleo-Indian Era 10,000- 15,000 years ago, not really having the knowledge of the Paleo

Humans have controlled fire for thousands of years. This basis of technology has since allowed humans to expand. Fire allowed humans to hunt during the winter and eventually hunt in groups. These groups had to have a certain understanding to create a society that allowed everybody to survive. Through many years a language developed which became a basis for society. These hunter groups had evolved enough to settle down and create agriculture. Agriculture brought in people from many different areas, and those people eventually learned that same language. Language helped them by assigning a position in society such as hunters, farmers, and gatherers. As these groups expanded, the area for hunting also expanded which may have led to the discovery of other civilizations. Language was traded between the groups and created even more languages by combining them together. Over time these groups took language to many different areas in the Indo-European area and allowed over 500 languages to develop. Language has since been crucial to the survival of humans. Humans would have a difficult time communicating without language, and would not be able to teach new techniques of farming and other jobs. Since humans can communicate, it has allowed them to create many wonders of the world and many advancements in technology (Evolution of Language).

The Paleolithic era was an era of hunting, gathering, and no permanent settlements. This constant moving helped many people survive better because there was more food available as they were not exhausting the resources of one set place. “First hunter-gatherers enjoyed a varied diet” page 97. The varied diet of hunter-gathers caused them to have a very healthy lifestyle, which helped them survive more efficiently. The Paleolithic

From the Paleo-Indian period came the Archaic Period. The archaic was from 8,000 to 2,000 B.C. The people in the Archaic period began to adapt to their environment. Whereas the paleo- Indians traveled in small groups the Archaic people started traveling in larger groups. The Archaic people also started developing new tools. They designed baskets and nets which helped them collect and store food. To a small degree they did small scale farming, but it was not a big production. They remained solely dependent on hunting and gathering food (Encyclopedia Britannica). It is important to note that the Archaic period is divided into three sections called Early, Middle, and Late. A couple of burial mounds from the Archaic period were discovered. The

Technology has changed everything greatly since the Paleolithic age which include transportation, medicine, and communication. The changing of climate, becoming warmer has brought the ice age to an end. The world started to form going through many changes, the temperature changing, ocean levels rising which was starting to form islands. Living has improved greatly, people having boats for fishing and hunting, bow and arrow which was easier to kill for food. The change of environment has made a big impact on the way people live. People became farmers, living in villages and making enough food to survive for themselves. The farmers learned how to cultivate their plants and handle their animals much better. There forms of living was much different to they could accommodate up to 45-50 people which provided large amounts of storage for food. Walls were made of mud or clay and ceilings were made with plant such as straw or reed. The beds and seating was made from stone. Their houses were located near rivers, plateaus, or in swamps. Their art has improved instead of cave paintings and cave work now they use clay, ceramics and pottery.

1.Three major cultural changes or contributions to the humanities that occurred between the Paleolithic period and the and the Neolithic period are the different techniques developed to hunt, the importance of the human figures, and the architecture. Different techniques to hunt were shown by looking at wall paintings, in the Paleolithic era paintings were found in deep caves and showed a realism of the animals they depended on for food, where as the Neolithic era paintings were located on smooth limestone, beneath cliff hangs, and in rock shelters these paintings showed the animals that they depended on for food also but these paintings showed the animals being hunted by human figures with bows and arrows. This shows that somewhere between the two eras humans developed a more efficient way to hunt and human figures became more important. Human figures were rarely known before the Neolithic era, wall paintings did not show them and sculptures of them were very rare except few female figures found from the Paleolithic age. In the Neolithic age, paintings not only showed the importance of human figures hunting but it showed them dancing, and fighting as a community. Architecture is not known from before the Neolithic period, very little survives because it was made out of material that disappeared long ago. The most famous piece of architecture from that era is the Stonehenge, not only was the Stonehenge believed to serve as a religious purpose, it also was known as a clock

The Paleolithic Era consists of hunter-gather societies. Living a nomadic lifestyle, the Paleolithic people followed their PREY and used resources provided by the land. AS A RESULT, THEY WERE ALWAYS MOVING SINCE they hunted mammoths, bison, deer, and rodents and gathered roots and berries. The earliest humans used very rudimentary and basic tools for tasks like cracking open bones and preparing animal hide. These tools were later improved on to help provide protection, food, and clothing. By the end of the Paleolithic Era, the hominids made weapons for hunting and food preparation, such as spears and the bow and arrow, out of bone and were creating more advanced stone and wood structures. There is also evidence of fishing. The development of tools helped hominids adapt to different

Jurassic is a period of time with Dinosaurs, rodents and birds. There were also island seas consisting of sharks, sea monsters and blood-red planktons. The existing plants in that period were cycads, ferns and conifers. The Mesozoic era was about 245 million years ago to 65 years ago, so it almost lasted about 180 years in total. The Mesozoic era is divided into three periods of Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous. Mesozoic era means middle animals and it is the era, which the word’s fauna has changed from what is in the Paleozoic era and the most famous organisms of this era are dinosaurs. In the Mesozoic era, the extinction of more than 90 percent of species in the earth was observed and the reason behind it was mostly volcanic eruptions and climate changes. On the other hand, this era had massive changes that represented ecological niches and rise to new creatures such as rodent-size mammals and first dinosaurs. In Triassic, which was the first period of Mesozoic, the mammals and first dinosaurs existed. Later than that, the second period was Jurassic, which giant shaped dinosaurs and other kinds of dinosaurs were developed. Besides that the first flowering plants and primitive birds, with long teeth appeared in that era as well.