The Rise Of The Paleolithic Societies

The transition from the traditional hunter gatherer societies, in to an agriculture based living system, has allowed humans to increase their population size, putting strains on the Earth’s environment. Agriculture has also brought along with it a decrease in women’s roles in the community, while also bringing about a class system where the wealthy rule, and were the weak and poor obey. As humans began to domesticate more plants and animals, they settled in permanent areas. The Change from hunter gatherer benefited few, but had dire consequences for the earth and groups with in it. One such consequence was the population increase, which has lead to major issues throughout history, and one that has ties to current global issues.

The start of agriculture during the Neolithic Revolution led directly to the beginning of civilization. The Neolithic Revolution, which happened 10,000 years ago, was the shift from hunter-gathers to a food-producing culture meaning humans started to farm and domesticate animals. This was the catalyst to help create civilizations. We know now how to distinguish groups of humans from actual civilization if those groups have certain characteristics. Those characteristics are complex institutions, record keeping, advanced cities, specialized workers, and advanced technology. A result of the Neolithic Revolution is that more people were able to thrive since there was a surplus of food. These early civilizations were able to take advantage of the rivers and create irrigation systems to water their crops.

The people of the Paleolithic Age were mostly nomads. To survive they had to travel everywhere, and follow the

     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?

The societies in the Paleolithic era differed from one another because each society had a different governments, diets, social organizations, what tools they used, and how they adapted to their environment. Some societies decided to move into a permanent settlement or village while others decided to keep their way of hunting and gathering. The societies that decided to move into a settlement started to become larger and complex. This allowed early humans to be able to accumulate more goods which caused more inequality in these societies.

The hunter-gatherer society had been around for thousands of years. In this type of environment the men are known to be the hunters and the women are the gatherers. In many cases this saying could be argued, but the actions of the two genders prove to be very different. This can be in todays world in simple activities such as shopping. Men and women differ in shopping by how they shop, why they stop, and what the stop for.

Paleolithic men hunted animals like bison, mammoths, bears and deer. Women gathered berries, and nuts. Meat was a source of food in both ages. Paleolithic diet was way healthier. The Neolithic age began when humans discovered agriculture, farming, and raising cattle in permanent areas.

The first scholars that existed named the whole period of human devolvement the “Stone Age.” The stone age is divided into three periods which are Paleolithic which means the old Greek age, Mesolithic and Neolithic which is the new Greek age. The Paleolithic and Neolithic stone ages have many great differences and has changed greatly between the two periods.

Neanderthals, also known as Homo neanderthalensis, existed mainly in the time period known as the Middle Paleolithic in the regions of Europe and southwestern to central Asia. The Middle Paleolithic took place from about 200,000 years ago until around 45,000 years ago. However, the Neanderthals still existed for about 15,000 years after that. After the Middle Paleolithic, the Neanderthals existed alongside anatomically modern humans and most likely interbred with them. Although the species of Homo neanderthalensis became extinct around 25,000 years ago, their DNA is still present in humans today. Neanderthals are without a doubt the closest extinct human relatives to modern humans. The first Neanderthal fossil was not found until the year 1829. This discovery in Belgium would prove to be one of the most important archaeological findings in history. After several more of these findings occurred, we have been able to learn countless facts about Neanderthals. Scientists believe they had very short, stocky, and powerful bodies, along with very strong teeth and jaw bones and a surprisingly large brain. Neanderthals had the ability to walk bipedally as we do today, and it is believed that they matured much faster than modern humans. Dental fossil evidence shows that an eight year old Neanderthal possessed the same dental structure as that of a ten to twelve year old

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

#3 Surviving evidence enables people to reconstruct the beliefs of the unseen of Paleolithic humans. Their spiritual world shows that the time is cyclical, which is mirrored in the life of women. Such examples were birth, menstruation, pregnancy, and death, showing Paleolithic people’s strong feminine dimensions. Some people were either polytheistic or monotheistic; however, polytheistic religions contained many levels of spiritual beings, such as the Creator deity, spirits of the dead, and other lesser gods. Also, to certain tribe members saw natural forces that were contained within natural elements. Paleolithic people’s interaction with spiritual world contained many ceremonies, but without any professional priests. Talented tribe members

For thousands of years, humans lived in tiny communities without a permanent home. Most societies consisted of only a few dozen people who traveled in pursuit of game and edible plants. Humans were set apart from other animals because they could build tools, using intelligence that was unmatched by other members of one animal kingdom.

During the pre-agricultural, paleolithic era, population density was lower than in the post agricultural ,Neolithic era despite their healthy diets and slow pace lifestyles. The nutritious diet allowed these people to avoid chronic health issues such as heart disease and diabetes. In the paleolithic era people had a slow pace of life because they typically only required approximately ten to twenty hours a week dedicated for survival task. These survival task included gathering food, finding drinking water, and building shelters. The people in the paleolithic era still died frequently causing the population density to run low. They typically died younger than normal from infections, injuries, violence between each other, and animal attacks.

The changeover from Mesolithic-to-Neolithic manifest a histrionic change in human society as the hunter/gather community gave way to life of agriculture and developing complex societies. They established several roles/jobs to give to their people to choose from butchers, to farmers, to caretakers, to doctors, to gathers, or even hunters. The societies dedicated in roles that would make their way of living more controllable. As before, their way life mostly involved enduring together and finding their next meal. There was no one there who was ready to give medical help. The mothers would stay back and care for their children whenever times were getting rough. This made her unproductive because she has more potential of work because she is young