Formation and development of human society. The main periods of primitive society The Stone Age began

In its ancient period of development, which lasted for several thousand centuries, man went through three stages. The first stage was the Stone Age. After him, humanity stepped into the bronze, and then into the first stage, which was the longest stage. Throughout it, people made various tools, the material for which were fragments of animal bones and sticks with a sharp end. But the stone proved to be the most durable. It was this material that dominated the devices of our ancestors. For this reason, this period is called the Stone Age.

The longest era in the development of mankind is divided by archaeologists into three stages. The first of these is the ancient Stone Age (Paleolithic). The second is the Mesolithic. It is also called the Middle Stone Age. The third stage is the Neolithic. Scientists attribute it to the new stone age.

The period of the Stone Age of the Paleolithic era lasted from the beginning of the birth of the human community until the tenth millennium. According to scientists, they appeared in the tropics of Africa and from there they spread to other parts of the planet. At that time, man was an integral part of the world around him. He lived in caves, creating tribes, collecting edible plants and hunting small game. Fishing gear made of hard rocks (obsidan, quartzite and silicon) was not subjected to grinding and drilling. In the late Paleolithic period, fishing developed. Man learned to drill bone, on which he began to make the first engravings.

At the same time, the hunting technique became more complicated, housing construction was born, and a new way of life began to take shape. The maturation of the tribal system is a prerequisite for the strength of the primitive community. Its structure becomes more complex. A person begins to develop speech and thinking, which contributes to the expansion of his mental horizons and the enrichment of the spiritual world. It was in the Late Paleolithic that the art of the Stone Age arose and began to develop. Man has learned to use natural mineral paints with bright colors. He mastered new ways to process soft stone and bone. It was these methods that opened before him the possibility of conveying the world around him in carving and sculpture. The art of the Paleolithic is distinguished by its surprisingly truthful transmission of reality and fidelity to nature.

The Middle Stone Age, or Mesolithic, began in the tenth and ended in the sixth millennium BC. This is characteristic of the end of the Ice Age. The surrounding world has become similar to the modern one. Man and his way of life has undergone strong changes. The tribes broke up. They were replaced by the older and most experienced members. Man began to build his dwelling using wood and stone material, leaving the caves. The nascent sense of beauty was reflected in the original jewelry, which served as gold nuggets.

Great changes also affected the methods of making stone tools. Sharp knives appeared, as well as sharpened arrows and spears. In the Mesolithic period, the beginnings of handicraft, cattle breeding and agriculture arose. Art has also undergone fundamental changes. Images applied to open areas of rocks began to represent various scenes of hunting or ritual ceremonies. The man, who occupies a central place in the drawings of the Mesolithic era, was depicted in a simplified way, sometimes even in the form of a sign. The images were colored in black and red.

The last third of the Stone Age - the Neolithic lasted from the sixth to the third millennium BC. Man learned to polish and grind tools made of stone materials, took up cattle breeding and agriculture. Pottery appeared. Various utensils and dishes were made from clay. The growth and unification of several clans was a prerequisite for the emergence of tribes.

Archaeological periodization uses as the main criterion successive change of tools .

primitive tools

For hunting, carcass cutting, gathering, stone tools (made of flint and obsidian) were used - axes, side-scrapers, pointed points. Wooden tools were also used - digging sticks, clubs and spears. Later, new technologies resulted in the creation of a number of specialized tools - scrapers, knives, chisels, small javelin tips. Bone and horn are especially widely used. Spears, darts, stone axes, spears appear.

Hunting productivity has increased dramatically as a result of the invention spear throwers - planks with an emphasis that allows you to throw a spear at a speed comparable to the speed of an arrow from a bow. The spear thrower was the first mechanical tool that supplemented the muscular strength of a person. The first so-called gender and age division of labor occurs: men are mainly engaged in hunting and fishing, and women are engaged in gathering and housekeeping. The children helped the women.

Stone Age (2 million - 6 thousand years ago)

Stone Age- the oldest period in the development of mankind, when the main tools and weapons were made of stone, also of wood and bone. As a rule, recorded in all parts of the world, it is divided into Paleolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic. the so-called system of three ages - a scheme that divides the prehistoric period into stone, bronze and iron ages, which successively replace each other. Proposed by the Danish historian K.Yu. Thomsen in 1816-1819, who discovered consistency in the progress of the craftsmanship of an ancient person when analyzing the collection of primitive tools of the Danish National Museum.

Stone Age. Main stages:

Paleolithic(Old Stone Age) - is divided into lower (earliest in time), middle and upper (late). The Paleolithic began more than 2 million years ago, ended around the 8th millennium BC. e, During the Paleolithic period, a person masters fire, charcoal drawings appear on the walls of caves or carved on bone or stone in the form of a geometric ornament.

Mesolithic(Middle Stone Age) - VIII-V millennium BC e. In the Mesolithic era, a new microlithic technique appears. Microliths are small flint products that were inserted into wooden or bone tools and formed the cutting edge. Such a tool was more versatile than solid flint wares, but it was not inferior to metal wares in terms of sharpness.

Particularly stands out is the achievement of man in the invention of the bow and arrow - a powerful, rapid-fire ranged weapon. And also the boomerang was invented - a curved throwing club. Fishing methods are being improved, nets, a boat with oars, and a fishing hook appear.

Neolithic(new stone age) - V-III millennium BC e. During the Neolithic period, agriculture and cattle breeding appeared, clay processing in the form of primitive dishes (ceramics), miniature sculpture and adobe dwellings. First of all, clay is the main sign of the Neolithic. Copper forging technology is being mastered - from 10 thousand years BC. e. As a result of the appearance of the bow and arrows, the most ancient musical instruments appeared.

Table. Archaeological periodization

The last stage of the Stone Age is characterized by the emergence of new stone industry techniques - grinding, sawing and drilling of stone. Tools were made from new types of stone. During this period, such a tool as an ax was widely distributed.

In different parts of the world, the Paleolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic centuries occur at different times and are stages of development.

Copper Age (3-4 thousand years), also the Copper-Stone Age

Eneolithic - the transitional period from the Stone Age to the Bronze Age. During this period, tools made of fused copper appear, which are adjacent to stone ones. The main occupations of the population are primarily hoe farming, cattle breeding and hunting.

Bronze Age (4-1 thousand BC)

The Bronze Age is a historical period that replaced the Eneolithic and is characterized by the spread of bronze metallurgy, bronze tools and weapons. Nomadic pastoralism and irrigated agriculture, writing and slavery appear. While the drawings become more primitive - in the form of dry geometric patterns (petroglyphs). But more household items richly decorated with ornaments appeared. As a result, technology is crowding out art.

Iron Age (from the beginning of 1 thousand BC)

The Iron Age is a period in the development of mankind, which began with the spread of iron metallurgy and the manufacture of iron tools and weapons. For most peoples of Eurasia, the Iron Age means the disintegration of the primitive communal system and the transition to a class society.

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What is the "Stone Age", everyone knows. These are skins, dirt, a toilet in the far corner of the cave, rock art instead of comics and no certainty: today you will have breakfast with a mammoth, and tomorrow a saber-toothed tiger will bite you with appetite. However, our life consists of nuances, and the little things of the daily life of our ancestors are known only to individual specialists. A primitive way of life does not at all mean a dull life: something, but ancient people did not have to be bored. They had to wrap themselves in skins to protect themselves from the cold. Today we decided to turn history upside down and visit the skins of our ancestors.

Last year, World of Science Fiction published several articles about medieval life. At the request of our readers, we decided to dig deeper into the terra incognita of human history - a period when (according to some experts) aliens performed genetic experiments on monkeys, citizens of Atlantis flew into space, and our ancestors looked at all this disgrace and bitten fleas in bewilderment.

A long time ago, far, far away...

There has never been a Stone Age. At least, this directly follows from the sacred books of most religions. Bible scholars agree that our world was created between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago. It just so happened that after gastronomic experiments with apples, the first people immediately switched to settled agriculture, invented complex tools and writing, and then began to kill each other in the name of good.

In 1654, Irish Archbishop James Ussher calculated that man was created at exactly 9 am on October 23, 4004 BC. The Orthodox Church called a different date - 5508 BC. Scientists say that the formation of man began about 3 million years ago.

Unfortunately, not a single world religion contains a myth about how on April 1, a thousand of some year BC, the gods hid dinosaur skeletons and flint arrowheads in the ground in order to laugh heartily at archaeologists later. The Stone Age came independently and even contrary to the beliefs of billions of people.

It began about 100,000 years ago and (in some regions of the planet) lasted until the New Time. The active development of civilization coincided with the end of the last ice age about 10,000 years ago. The sea level rose, the climate changed, and humanity began to quickly adapt to new conditions - to create complex tools, establish permanent settlements, actively hunt.

The people of the late Stone Age were not much different from you and me. The volume of the brain, the structure of the skull, the proportions of the body, the degree of hairiness and other characteristics were the same as modern ones. If a child of that time got into modern times, he could grow up, get an education and become, for example, the author of articles in the World of Science Fiction.

Until comparatively recent times, most people could rightfully be considered ... Negroes. The mutation of the “white-skinned” SLC24F5 gene began in Europeans only 12 thousand years ago and ended 6 thousand years ago.

The darkness of the skin most likely varied from region to region. The most common hair color was black. Blondes and redheads began to appear later - with the increase in the number of mankind, mutations also diversified, which ultimately created various types of appearance. It is assumed that people of the Stone Age dyed their hair with grass juices, pollen from flowers and multi-colored clays not only for ritual, but also for aesthetic reasons.

Paradise in a hut

In almost all images, people of the Stone Age are somewhere in nature (usually among the endless steppe) or sit by the fires. This view is true for the Paleolithic, but does not reflect the realities of the Neolithic (7000 BC) at all. Man began to build the first buildings - large stones that served as a support for a roof made of branches - almost 2 million years ago, and 4.5 thousand years ago he was already building giant pyramids. So by the end of the ice age, architectural knowledge was enough to create long-term settlements.

The culture of the early Stone Age was surprisingly uniform. All over the planet, people, without saying a word, used similar tools and did almost the same things with them. 25 thousand years ago, near the village of Dolni-Vestonice (Czech Republic), houses were built from clay bricks, tents were made from skins and tusks of mammoths in Siberia, and when it came to burials, our ancestors were not too lazy to move huge stone slabs, folding them into impressive megalithic graves .

In addition, massive blocks of stone went to the signs that limit any territory, "monuments" in honor of any events, and in some cases they were turned into objects of worship.

Large cities began to be built about 5 thousand years ago. For example, Mohenjo-Daro (“The Hill of the Dead”) in modern Pakistan had several tens of thousands of inhabitants, and 5,000 people could gather in the Citadel alone at the same time. But the bulk of humanity lived in small settlements that could be abandoned in the event of depletion of soils or natural resources.

A typical "village" of the Stone Age was something like a tourist camp. For hunting societies, tents made of skins were characteristic, in agricultural settlements, houses were made of stone or reed. Nearby, rice fields were green (cultivated since 9000 BC) or a river flowed (the first fish bones began to appear at human sites 50,000 years ago, and by the Stone Age our ancestors were already excellent at fishing).

The first houses were round, one-room. Soon people began to build something resembling modern multi-room cottages, which served at the same time as tombs: the bones of deceased relatives were buried under the floor covered with skins or straw. Judging by the excavation data, the doors were made in the ceilings - people climbed into the houses and left them by stairs. Clay served as “wallpaper”, and the walls of houses could be painted from the inside (for example, the settlement of Chatal-Guyuk in Turkey).

O times! Oh manners!

A normal day for a person of that time began shortly before sunrise and ended shortly after sunset. The rhythm of life by today's standards was very leisurely. The main work areas were within walking distance. Only hunters moved far away from the settlements, which had an extremely unfavorable effect on the duration of their lives.

It should be borne in mind that 10,000 years ago, all of humanity numbered only about 5 million people, and the population of the "villages" was estimated at dozens of inhabitants, most of whom were related to each other. Wild animals - not intimidated, as they are today, but angry, hungry and considering meeting a person as something like a "happy hour" in an expensive restaurant - were sitting under almost every bush. There were tigers and lions in Europe. In some places, woolly rhinos and even mammoths were still found.

The Stone Age would be to the taste of fans of classic rock, professing the motto "live fast, die young." The fact is that the average life expectancy was 20-30 years. The dawn of civilization can hardly be called "paradise". It was a very harsh and dangerous time, when the main argument when meeting with an animal or a stranger was a stone ax.

Most of the daytime was spent on preparing food, replacing worn-out tools with new ones, repairing the home, religious ceremonies, and caring for children. The latter was in direct proportion to the low life expectancy - the age of marriage was low, and children were given much less care than now, which understandably affected child mortality. The shortage of men stimulated polygamy, so that 2-3 wives of 15 years old for one "old man" of 30 years old were not uncommon.

For the same reasons, matriarchy dominated Neolithic societies. Women lived longer than men, kept the family hearth and were actually responsible for the accumulation of cultural experience. The Neolithic was the age of women. There were many more of them on the "streets" of settlements than men.

In the south of Russia, burial places of the tribes of the "Amazons" who lived about 3000 years ago were discovered.

Little nothings of life

Contrary to some stereotypes, Stone Age people did not wear smelly skins on their naked bodies. The fashion of the Neolithic era was quite diverse and in some cases could compete with the medieval one. Seven thousand years ago, our ancestors began to make clothes from felt, around the same time linen fabric, woolen yarn appeared, and in the 30th century BC, the Chinese established silk production.

Throw in jewelry made of polished bone, feathers, colored stones - and a person born before the invention of writing will pass for his own in most modern third world countries. Moreover, if a Neolithic dandy wore bracelets or shell beads, this put him on the same level as today's watch owner Patek Phillipe. Settlements far from each other practiced barter, but 10,000 years ago, in some places there was already a developed market economy. Money - shells or stones - was often worn as jewelry. It was convenient for the ransom of the bride, the division of the inheritance or trade with neighboring tribes.

Gourmets in the Stone Age had nothing to do. The transition to settled agriculture meant a deterioration in the quality of food, because among hunters and gatherers it was more diverse. It is not easy for modern man to imagine the Neolithic diet. No tea or coffee. The main drink is unboiled water from the nearest reservoir. Herbal decoctions were made only for medical and religious purposes. Milk was considered a drink for children, and alcohol (or rather, fermented juice) was consumed much less frequently than now.

Cooking was in its infancy, so vegetables were eaten raw. There was quite a lot of meat and fish on the tables (pigs, goats and sheep were domesticated 9000 years ago), but the concepts of "salt" and "spices" were absent in the lexicon of cooks. Legumes and grains were consumed for some time without heat treatment - they were ground into a paste with water and eaten like porridge. One day, someone decided to heat this mixture over a fire for fun. This is how bread, one of the oldest and most important human foodstuffs, appeared.

Scientists suggest that, for all the isolation of the settlements, the Europeans of the Stone Age, if they could not freely understand each other, then they could almost certainly guess the meaning of most phrases. There is an opinion that in those days there was a certain Proto-Indo-European language with a uniform structure and universal word roots.

Artist - from the word "bad"

In conditions of general illiteracy of the population, the most important of the arts were painting, music and war. The oldest art artifact is the so-called "Venus from Tan-Tan" - a stone figurine found near the city of Tan-Tan in Morocco. It was carved 300,000 years ago, so by the beginning of the Stone Age, human culture was already in full swing.

The Upper Paleolithic entered the rock art textbooks. It is often considered the main form of art of the Stone Age, although vodka could just as well be considered the crowning achievement of Mendeleev's research. Oddly enough, the ancient Japanese began to promote material art to the masses. It is believed that they were the first on the planet to develop pottery (earlier than agriculture). 11,000 years ago, they already had clay figurines and utensils, on which, before firing, various patterns were applied using braided ropes or sticks.

In the fishing settlement of Löpenski Vir (7th millennium BC, modern Serbia), figurines of fish or, according to another version, magical fish-men were made of stone. In the 5th millennium BC, people of the European Vinca culture carved something suspiciously resembling cuneiform on clay products. It is assumed that it was proto-writing - something between drawings and symbols.

Unfortunately, small works of art from that era are very poorly preserved. But many megaliths have come down to us, the most famous of which is Stonehenge. It should not be thought that the decoration of gravestones with spiral carvings was a favorite pastime of artists of that time. Stone tools gave little scope for creativity - even embroidering leather with bone needles was a problem. Lavishly decorated jewelry, weapons and armor appeared only in the Bronze Age.

With music, things were much better. It developed from the hunting imitation of animal sounds. In the beginning, the only musical instrument was the human throat. In the Stone Age, people took up the manufacture of musical instruments (22 years ago in China they found a flute made of heron bone 8,000 years old), which suggested that ancient people were familiar with at least notes. String instruments appeared only at the end of the Stone Age.

Probably, learning to play music in the Stone Age was mechanical, without any abstract system. The first musical notation on clay tablets dates back to the 14th century BC (Ugarit, modern Syria).

Near the Spanish city of Castellón, there are the cliffs de la Mola, which depict marching warriors. Anyone who has played Sid Meier's Civilization knows very well that if the map is small and there are many players, the first unit in the first city should be a warrior. The fact that stone walls were erected around cities speaks volumes. It was in the Stone Age that organized armies and professional warriors began to appear.

"Army" is, of course, loudly said. Letters from El-Amarna (Egyptian official correspondence, 1350 BC) say that detachments of 20 people terrorized entire cities - and this is already in the Bronze Age! The Stone Age was shaken by the grandiose battles of several dozen people. True, some researchers believe that large settlements like Chatal-Guyuk could put up about a hundred soldiers. In this case, we can already talk about tactics, maneuvers, supplies and other delights of real wars.

The conflicts were incredibly bloody. The victors killed all the men and children, took the women and completely plundered the settlements. However, in some regions there could be tribes that lived in peace with each other and were practically unfamiliar with the concept of "murder" (a modern example would be the Bushmen from the Kalahari Desert).

The most terrible weapon of the ancient hunters was fire. They set fire to forests and grass, destroying the enemy's habitat. The scorched earth tactics were much more effective than hand-to-hand combat. In close combat, both hunting tools - primarily spears - and clubs were used.

According to the rock paintings, it is possible to reconstruct the average battle of the Stone Age: the warring "armies" lined up opposite each other in a line, the leaders came forward and gave the command to open archery (sling). Separate elements of the drawings suggest that the "infantry" at that time was trying to outflank the enemy.

Professor Lawrence Keely calculated that conflicts broke out between the tribes almost every year, and some of them fought constantly. Excavations of some settlements in Africa have shown that more than half of their inhabitants died a violent death. The wars of the Stone Age were many times bloodier than they are today. If we transfer the level of military losses to the realities of today, any local war would take two billion lives.

With the transition from hunting to farming, the number of wars dropped sharply. The population was still small enough to support idle warriors. The conflicts were fleeting, there were no siege devices, so the walls almost always guaranteed the invulnerability of the city.

* * *

The words "stone age" are usually used in a pejorative sense - to denote primitiveness, stupidity and savagery. Indeed, the early Neolithic was an era when breaking skulls was considered a much more interesting activity than trading. However, with the transition to agriculture, the world has changed beyond recognition.

Labor made a man out of a monkey. He also turned bloodthirsty maniacs into architects, sculptors, painters and musicians. The Stone Age was not such a bad time at all. A healthy lifestyle, good ecology, diet, constant physical activity and the tranquility of small villages, a sincere belief in gods and magical monsters... Isn't this the foundation for any fantasy?

Stone Age

a cultural and historical period in the development of mankind, when the main tools and weapons were made mainly of stone and there was still no metal processing, wood and bone were also used; at a late stage To. the processing of clay, from which dishes were made, also spread. Through the transitional era - the Eneolithic K. c. is replaced by the Bronze Age (See Bronze Age). K. v. coincides with most of the era of the primitive communal system and covers the time from the separation of man from the animal state (about 1 million 800 thousand years ago) and ending with the era of the spread of the first metals (about 8 thousand years ago in the Ancient East and about 6-7 thousand years ago in Europe).

K. v. It is divided into the ancient K. v., or Paleolithic, and the new K. v., or Neolithic. The Paleolithic is the era of the existence of fossil man and belongs to that distant time when the climate of the earth and its flora and fauna were quite different from modern ones. Paleolithic people used only chipped stone tools, not knowing polished stone tools and earthenware (ceramics). Paleolithic people were engaged in hunting and gathering food (plants, mollusks, etc.). Fishing was just beginning to emerge, while agriculture and cattle breeding were not known. Neolithic people already lived in modern climatic conditions and surrounded by modern flora and fauna. In the Neolithic, along with chipped, polished and drilled stone tools, as well as pottery, spread. Neolithic people, along with hunting, gathering, fishing, began to engage in primitive hoe farming and breed domestic animals. Between the Paleolithic and the Neolithic, a transitional era is distinguished - the Mesolithic.

The Paleolithic is divided into ancient (lower, early) (1 million 800 thousand - 35 thousand years ago) and late (upper) (35-10 thousand years ago). The ancient Paleolithic is divided into archaeological epochs (cultures): pre-Chellenic (see. Galek culture), Shellic culture (see. Shellic culture), Acheulean culture (see. Acheulean culture), and Mousterian culture (see. Mousterian culture). Many archaeologists single out the Mousterian era (100-35 thousand years ago) as a special period - the Middle Paleolithic.

The oldest, pre-Shellian stone tools were pebbles chipped at one end, and flakes chipped from such pebbles. The tools of the Shellic and Acheulean eras were hand axes, pieces of stone chipped on both surfaces, thickened at one end and pointed at the other, coarse chopping tools (choppers and choppings), which had less regular outlines than axes, as well as rectangular ax-shaped tools (jibs) and massive flakes that broke off from Nucleus ov (cores). The people who made pre-Chellian-Acheulean tools belonged to the type of archanthropes (See Archanthropes) (Pithecanthropus, Sinanthropus, Heidelberg man), and, possibly, to an even more primitive type (Homo habilis, Prezinjanthropus). People lived in a warm climate, mostly south of 50° north latitude (most of Africa, southern Europe, and southern Asia). In the Mousterian era, stone flakes became thinner, because. they broke off from specially prepared disk-shaped or tortoiseshell nuclei - nuclei (the so-called Levallois technique); flakes were turned into a variety of side-scrapers, pointed points, knives, drills, hems, etc. The use of bone (anvils, retouchers, points), as well as the use of fire, spread; in view of the beginning of a cold snap, people more often began to settle in caves and mastered wider territories. Burials testify to the origin of primitive religious beliefs. The people of the Mousterian era belonged to the paleoanthropes (See Paleoanthropes) (Neanderthals).

In Europe, they lived mainly in the harsh climatic conditions of the beginning of the Würm glaciation (see the Würm era), they were contemporaries of mammoths, woolly rhinos, and cave bears. For the ancient Paleolithic, local differences have been established in different cultures, determined by the nature of the tools produced.

In the era of the late Paleolithic, a person of the modern physical type developed (neoanthrope (See Neoanthropes), Homo sapiens - Cro-Magnons, a man from Grimaldi, etc.). Late Paleolithic people settled much more widely than the Neanderthals, settled in Siberia, America, Australia.

The Late Paleolithic technique is characterized by prismatic cores, from which elongated plates were broken off, turning into scrapers, points, tips, incisors, piercings, scrapers, etc. Awls, needles with an eye, spatulas, picks, and other items made of bone, horn, and mammoth tusk appeared. People began to move to a settled way of life; along with the cave camps, long-term dwellings spread - dugouts and ground dwellings, both large communal ones with several hearths, and small ones (Gagarino, Kostenki (See Kostenki), Pushkari, Buret, Malta, Dolni-Vestonice, Pensevan, etc.). In the construction of dwellings, skulls, large bones and mammoth tusks, reindeer horns, wood and skins were used. Dwellings often formed entire villages. The hunting industry has reached a higher level of development. Fine art appeared, characterized in many cases by striking realism: sculptural images of animals and naked women made of mammoth tusk, stone, sometimes clay (Kostenki I, Avdeevskaya site, Gagarino, Dolni-Vestonice, Willendorf, Brassanpuy, etc.), engraved on bones and stone images of animals and fish, engraved and painted conditional geometric ornament - zigzag, rhombuses, meander, wavy lines (Mezinskaya site, Prshedmosti, etc.), engraved and painted (monochrome and polychrome) images of animals, sometimes people and conventional signs on the walls and ceilings of caves (Altamira, Lasko, etc.). Paleolithic art, apparently, is partly connected with the female cults of the maternal era, with hunting Magic and Totemism. There were various burials: crouched, sitting, painted, with grave goods.

There were several large cultural areas in the Late Paleolithic, as well as a significant number of smaller cultures. For Western Europe, these are the Perigord, Aurignacian, Solutrean, Madeleine and other cultures; for Central Europe - Selet culture, etc.

The transition from the Late Paleolithic to the Mesolithic coincided with the final extinction of the glaciation and with the establishment of the modern climate in general. Radiocarbon dating of the European Mesolithic 10-7 thousand years ago (in the northern regions of Europe, the Mesolithic lasted until 6-5 thousand years ago); Mesolithic of the Near East - 12-9 thousand years ago. Mesolithic cultures - Azil culture, Tardenois culture, Maglemose culture, Ertbölle culture, Hoabin culture, etc. The Mesolithic technique of many territories is characterized by the use of microliths - miniature stone tools of geometric outlines (in the form of a trapezoid, segment, triangle), used as inserts in wooden and bone frames, as well as chipped chopping tools: axes, adzes, picks. Bows and arrows spread. The dog, which was tamed, perhaps already in the late Paleolithic, was widely used by people in the Mesolithic.

The most important feature of the Neolithic is the transition from the appropriation of finished products of nature (hunting, fishing, gathering) to the production of vital products, although appropriation continued to occupy a large place in the economic activity of people. People began to cultivate plants, cattle breeding arose. The decisive changes in the economy that occurred with the transition to pastoralism and agriculture are called by some researchers the "Neolithic Revolution". The defining elements of the Neolithic culture were earthenware (ceramics), molded by hand, without a potter's wheel, stone axes, hammers, adzes, chisels, hoes (their production used sawing, grinding and drilling of stone), flint daggers, knives, arrowheads and spears, sickles (made by pressing retouching), microliths and chopping tools that arose back in the Mesolithic, all kinds of products made of bone and horn (fish hooks, harpoons, hoe tips, chisels), and wood (hollowed canoes, oars, skis, sledges , handles of various kinds). Flint workshops spread, and at the end of the Neolithic - even mines for the extraction of flint and, in connection with this, intertribal exchange of raw materials. Primitive spinning and weaving arose. Characteristic manifestations of Neolithic art are a variety of indented and painted ornaments on ceramics, clay, bone, stone figurines of people and animals, monumental painted, incised and hollowed out rock carvings (petroglyphs, petroglyphs). The funeral rite becomes more complex; cemeteries are being built. The uneven development of culture and its local originality in different territories intensified even more in the Neolithic. There is a large number of different Neolithic cultures. The tribes of different countries at different times passed the stage of the Neolithic. Most of the Neolithic monuments of Europe and Asia date back to the 6th-3rd millennium BC. e.

Neolithic culture developed most rapidly in the countries of the Middle East, where agriculture and livestock rearing first arose. People who widely practiced the collection of wild cereals and, possibly, made attempts to grow them artificially, belong to the Natufian culture of Palestine, dating back to the Mesolithic (9-8th millennium BC). Along with microliths, sickles with flint inserts and stone mortars are found here. In the 9th-8th millennium BC. e. primitive agriculture and cattle breeding also originated in the North. Iraq. By the 7th-6th millennium BC. e. include the settled agricultural settlements of Jericho in Jordan, Jarmo in northern Iraq, and Chatal Huyuk in southern Turkey. They are characterized by the appearance of sanctuaries, fortifications and often of considerable size. In the 6th-5th millennium BC. e. in Iraq and Iran, more developed Neolithic agricultural cultures with adobe houses, painted pottery, and female figurines are common. In the 5th-4th millennium BC. e. agricultural tribes of the advanced Neolithic inhabited Egypt.

The progress of Neolithic culture in Europe proceeded on a local basis, but under the strong influence of the cultures of the Mediterranean and the Near East, from which, probably, the most important cultivated plants and some species of domestic animals penetrated into Europe. On the territory of England and France in the Neolithic and the early Bronze Age, agricultural pastoral tribes lived, constructing megalithic buildings (see Megalithic cultures, Megaliths) from huge blocks of stone. The Neolithic and Early Bronze Age of Switzerland and the adjacent territories are characterized by a wide distribution of piled buildings (see Pile Buildings), whose inhabitants were mainly engaged in cattle breeding and agriculture, as well as hunting and fishing. In Central Europe, in the Neolithic, the Danubian agricultural cultures took shape with characteristic ceramics, decorated with ribbon ornaments. In northern Scandinavia at the same time and later, up to the 2nd millennium BC. e., lived tribes of Neolithic hunters and fishermen.

K. v. on the territory of the USSR. The oldest reliable monuments of the K. century. belong to the Acheulean time and date back to the era preceding the Rissky (Dnieper) glaciation (see Rissky Age). They are found in the Caucasus, in the Azov region, Transnistria, Central Asia and Kazakhstan; flakes, hand axes, choppers (rough chopping tools) were found in them. In the caves of Kudaro, Tsonskaya and Azikhskaya in the Caucasus, the remains of hunting camps of the Acheulian era were discovered. The sites of the Mousterian era are spread further to the north. In the grotto of Kiik-Koba in the Crimea and in the grotto of Teshik-Tash in Uzbekistan, burials of Neanderthals were discovered, and in the grotto of Staroselye in the Crimea - a burial of a neoanthrope. In the site of Molodova I on the Dniester, the remains of a long-term Mousterian dwelling were discovered.

The Late Paleolithic population on the territory of the USSR was even more widespread. Successive stages of development of the Late Paleolithic in different parts of the USSR, as well as Late Paleolithic cultures are traced: Kostenkovo-Sungir, Kostenkovo-Avdeevskaya, Mezinskaya, etc. on the Russian Plain, Maltese, Afontovskaya, etc. in Siberia, etc. A large number of multi-layer Late Paleolithic settlements have been excavated on the Dniester (Babin, Voronovitsa, Molodova V, etc.). Another area where many Late Paleolithic settlements are known with the remains of dwellings of various types and examples of art is the Desna and Sudost basin (Mezin, Pushkari, Eliseevichi, Yudinovo, etc.). The third such area is the villages of Kostenki and Borshevo on the Don, where more than 20 Late Paleolithic sites have been found, including a number of multi-layer sites, with the remains of dwellings, many works of art and 4 burials. The Sungir site on the Klyazma is located separately, where several burials were found. The northernmost Paleolithic sites in the world include the Bear Cave and the Byzovaya site. R. Pechora (Komi ASSR). Kapova Cave in the Southern Urals contains painted images of mammoths on the walls. The caves of Georgia and Azerbaijan allow us to trace the development of the Late Paleolithic culture, different from that on the Russian Plain, through a number of stages - from the sites of the beginning of the Late Paleolithic, where Mousterian points are still present in a significant number, to the sites of the late Late Paleolithic, where many microliths are found. The most important Late Paleolithic settlement in Central Asia is the Samarkand site. In Siberia, a large number of Late Paleolithic sites are known on the Yenisei (Afontova Gora, Kokorevo), in the Angara and Belaya basins (Malta, Buret), in Transbaikalia, in Altai. The Late Paleolithic was discovered in the Lena, Aldan and Kamchatka basins.

The Neolithic is represented by numerous cultures. Some of them belong to ancient agricultural tribes, and some belong to primitive fishermen-hunters. The agricultural Neolithic includes monuments of the Bug and other cultures of the Right-Bank Ukraine and Moldavia (5th-3rd millennium BC), settlements of Transcaucasia (Shulaveri, Odishi, Kistrik, etc.), as well as settlements of the Jeytun type in South Turkmenistan, reminiscent of the settlements of the Neolithic farmers of Iran. Cultures of Neolithic hunters and fishermen of the 5th-3rd millennium BC. e. also existed in the south, in the Sea of ​​Azov, in the North Caucasus, and in Central Asia (the Kelteminar culture); but they were especially widespread in the 4th-2nd millennium BC. e. in the north, in the forest belt from the Baltic to the Pacific Ocean. Numerous Neolithic hunting and fishing cultures, most of which are characterized by certain types of pottery decorated with pit-comb and comb-pricked patterns, are represented along the shores of Lake Ladoga and Onega and the White Sea (here, in some places, rock art related to these cultures is also found). images, petroglyphs), on the upper Volga and in the Volga-Oka interfluve. In the Kama region, in the forest-steppe Ukraine, in Western and Eastern Siberia, ceramics with comb-pricked and comb patterns were common among the Neolithic tribes. Other types of Neolithic pottery were common in Primorye and Sakhalin.

History of studying K. in. The conjecture that the era of the use of metals was preceded by a time when stones served as weapons was expressed by Lucretius Car in the 1st century. BC e. In 1836 dates. archaeologist K. Yu. Thomsen singled out 3 cultural-historical epochs on the basis of archaeological material (K. century, Bronze Age, Iron Age). The existence of a Paleolithic fossil man proved in the 40-50s. 19th century in the struggle against reactionary clerical science, the French archaeologist Boucher de Perth. In the 60s. the English scientist J. Lubbock dismembered the C. v. to the Paleolithic and Neolithic, and the French archaeologist G. de Mortillet created generalizing works on the K. century. and developed a more fractional periodization (the eras of the Shellic, Mousterian, etc.). By the 2nd half of the 19th century. include studies of Mesolithic kitchen piles in Denmark, Neolithic piled settlements in Switzerland, and numerous Paleolithic and Neolithic caves and sites in Europe and Asia. At the end of the 19th century and at the beginning of the 20th century. Paleolithic painted images were discovered in the caves of southern France and northern Spain.

In the 2nd half of the 19th century. studying To. was closely associated with Darwinian ideas (see Darwinism), with progressive, albeit historically limited, evolutionism. At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. and in the first half of the 20th century. in the bourgeois science of k. (primitive archeology, prehistory, and paleoethnology), the methodology of archaeological work has been substantially improved; vast new factual material has been accumulated that does not fit into the framework of the old simplified schemes; At the same time, anti-historical constructions connected with the theory of cultural circles, with the theory of migrations, and sometimes directly with reactionary racism, became widespread. Progressive bourgeois scientists, who sought to trace the development of primitive mankind and its economy as a natural process, opposed these reactionary concepts. A serious achievement of foreign researchers of the 1st half and the middle of the 20th century. is the creation of a number of generalizing guides, reference books and encyclopedias on K. century. Europe, Asia, Africa and America (French scientist J. Dechelet, German - M. Ebert, English - J. Clark, G. Child, R. Vofrey, H. M. Warmington, etc.), the elimination of extensive white spots on archaeological maps, the discovery and study of numerous monuments of K. v. in European countries (Czech. scientists K. Absolon, B. Klima, F. Proshek, I. Neusstupni, Hungarian - L. Vertes, Romanian - K. Nikolaescu-Plopshor, Yugoslav - S. Brodar, A. Benac, Polish - L Savitsky, S. Krukovsky, German - A. Rust, Spanish - L. Perikot-Garcia, etc.), in Africa (English scientist L. Leakey, French - K. Arambur, etc.), in the Middle East (English scientists D. Garrod, J. Mellart, C. Kenyon, American scientists - R. Braidwood, R. Soletsky, etc.), in India (H. D. Sankalia, B. B. Lal, etc.), in China (Jia Lan-po, Pei Wen-chung, and others), in Southeast Asia (the French scientist A. Manxui, the Dutch - H. van Heckeren, and others), in America (the American scientists A. Kroeber, F. Rainey, and others .). The technique of excavations has improved significantly, the publication of archaeological sites has increased, and a comprehensive study of ancient settlements by archaeologists, geologists, paleozoologists, and paleobotanists has spread. The radiocarbon dating method and the statistical method of studying stone tools began to be widely used; (French scientists A, Breuil, A. Leroy-Gourhan, Italian - P. Graziosi and others).

In Russia, a number of Paleolithic and Neolithic sites were studied in the 70-90s. 19th century A. S. Uvarov, I. S. Polyakov, K. S. Merezhkovsky, V. B. Antonovich, V. V. Khvoyka, and others. The first two decades of the 20th century. The excavations of Paleolithic and Neolithic settlements by V. A. Gorodtsov, A. A. Spitsyn, F. K. Volkov, and P. P. Efimenko and others.

After the October Socialist Revolution, research by K. v. gained wide scope in the USSR. By 1917, 12 Paleolithic sites were known in the country, in the early 1970s. their number exceeded 1000. Paleolithic sites were first discovered in Belarus (K. M. Polikarpovich), in Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia (G. K. Nioradze, S. N. Zamyatnin, M. Z. Panichkina, M. M. Huseynov, L. N. Solovyov and others), in Central Asia (A. P. Okladnikov, D. N. Lev, V. A. Ranov, Kh. A. Alpysbaev and others), in the Urals (M. V. Talitsky and etc.). Numerous new Paleolithic sites have been discovered and explored in the Crimea, on the Russian Plain, and in Siberia (P. P. Efimenko, M. V. Voevodsky, G. A. Bonch-Osmolovsky, M. Ya. Rudinsky, G. P. Sosnovsky, A. P. Okladnikov, M. M. Gerasimov, S. N. Bibikov, A. P. Chernysh, A. N. Rogachev, O. N. Bader, A. A. Formozov, I. G. Shovkoplyas, P. I . Boriskovsky and others), in Georgia (N. Z. Berdzenishvili, A. N. Kalandadze, D. M. Tushabramishvili, V. P. Lyubin and others). The most sowing are open. Paleolithic sites in the world: on the Pechora, Lena, in the Aldan basin and on Kamchatka (V. I. Kanivets, N. N. Dikov, and others). A methodology for excavating Paleolithic settlements was created, which made it possible to establish the existence of settled and permanent dwellings in the Paleolithic. A method for restoring the functions of primitive tools based on the traces of their use, traceology (S. A. Semenov) was developed. The historical changes that took place in the Paleolithic were covered - the development of the primitive herd and the maternal tribal system. Late Paleolithic and Mesolithic cultures and their relationships are revealed. Numerous monuments of Paleolithic art have been discovered and generalizing works dedicated to them have been created (S. N. Zamyatnin, Z. A. Abramova, and others). Generalizing works have been created on the chronology, periodization and historical coverage of Neolithic monuments in a number of territories, the identification of Neolithic cultures and their relationships, the development of Neolithic technology (V. A. Gorodtsov, B. S. Zhukov, M. V. Voevodsky, A. Ya. Bryusov , M. E. Foss, A. P. Okladnikov, V. N. Chernetsov, N. N. Gurina, O. N. Bader, D. A. Krainev, V. N. Danilenko, D. Ya. Telegin, V M. Masson and others). The monuments of Neolithic monumental art - rock carvings of S.-Z. USSR, Sea of ​​Azov and Siberia (V. I. Ravdonikas, M. Ya. Rudinsky and others).

Soviet researchers K. century. Much work has been done to expose the anti-historical concepts of reactionary bourgeois scientists, to illuminate and decipher the monuments of the Paleolithic and Neolithic. Armed with the methodology of dialectical and historical materialism, they criticized the attempts of many bourgeois scholars (especially in France) to attribute the study of calisthenics to to the field of natural sciences, to consider the development of the culture of K. in. like a biological process, or to design for the study of K. century. a special science of "paleoethnology", which occupies an intermediate position between the biological and social sciences. At the same time, owls researchers oppose the empiricism of those bourgeois archaeologists who reduce the tasks of studying Paleolithic and Neolithic monuments only to a thorough description and definition of things and their groups, and also ignore the conditionality of the historical process, the natural connection between material culture and social relations, their consistent natural development. For owls. researchers monuments to. - not an end in itself, but a source of study of the early stages of the history of the primitive communal system. They are particularly uncompromising in their struggle against the bourgeois idealistic and racist theories that are widespread among specialists in classical art. in the USA, Great Britain, and a number of other capitalist countries. These theories erroneously interpret and sometimes even falsify the data of the archeology of the K. v. for statements about the division of peoples into elected and unelected, about the inevitable eternal backwardness of certain countries and peoples, about the beneficence in human history of conquests and wars. Soviet researchers K. v. showed that the early stages of world history and the history of primitive culture were a process in which all peoples, large and small, participated and contributed.

Lit.: Engels F., Origin of the family, private property and the state, M., 1965; his, The role of labor in the process of turning a monkey into a man, M., 1969; Abramova Z. A., Paleolithic art on the territory of the USSR, M. - L., 1962; Aliman A., Prehistoric Africa, trans. from French, Moscow, 1960; Coastal N. A., Paleolithic locations of the USSR, M. - L., 1960; Bonch-Osmolovsky G. A., Paleolithic of the Crimea, c. 1-3, M. - L., 1940-54; Boriskovsky P. I., Paleolithic of Ukraine, M. - L., 1953; his, Ancient Stone Age of South and Southeast Asia, L., 1971; Bryusov A. Ya., Essays on the history of the tribes of the European part of the USSR in the Neolithic era, M., 1952; Gurina N. N., Ancient history of the north-west of the European part of the USSR, M. - L., 1961; Danilenko V.N., Neolit ​​of Ukraine, K., 1969; Efimenko P. P., Primitive Society, 3rd ed., K., 1953; Zamyatnin S. N., Essays on the Paleolithic, M. - L., 1961; Clark, J. G. D., Prehistoric Europe, [trans. from English], M., 1953; Masson V. M., Central Asia and the Ancient East, M. - L., 1964; Okladnikov A.P., Neolithic and Bronze Age of the Baikal region, part 1-2, M. - L., 1950; his, Distant Past of Primorye, Vladivostok, 1959; his own, Morning of Art, L., 1967; Panichkina M. Z., Paleolith of Armenia, L., 1950; Ranov V.A., Stone Age of Tajikistan, c. 1, Dush., 1965; Semenov S. A., Development of technology in the Stone Age, L., 1968; Titov V.S., Neolit ​​of Greece, M., 1969; Formozov A. A., Ethnocultural regions in the territory of the European part of the USSR in the Stone Age, M., 1,959; his own, Essays on primitive art, M., 1969 (MIA, No. 165); Foss M.E., The most ancient history of the north of the European part of the USSR, M., 1952; Child G., At the origins of European civilization, trans. from English, M., 1952; Bordes F., Le paleolithique dans ie monde, P., 1968; Breuil N., Quatre cents siècles d "art pariétal, Montignac, 1952; Clark J. D., The prehistory of Africa, L., 1970: Clark G., World L., prehistory, 2 ed., Camb., 1969; L" Europe à la fin de l "âge de la pierre, Praha, 1961; Graziosi P., Palaeolithic art, L., 1960; Leroi-Gourhan A., Préhistoire de l" art occidental, P., 1965; La prehistory. P., 1966; La prehistoire. Problems et tendances, P., 1968; Man the hunter, Chi., 1968; Müller-Karpe H., Handbuch der Vorgeschichte, Bd 1-2, Münch., 1966-68; Oakley, K. P., Frameworks for dating fossil man. 3 ed., L., 1969.

P. I. Boriskovsky.

Mousterian era: 1 - Levallois core; 2 - leaf-shaped point; 3 - teyak point; 4 - discoid nucleus; 5, 6 - points; 7 - two-pointed tip; 8 - toothed tool; 9 - scraper; 10 - chopped; 11 - a knife with a butt; 12 - a tool with a notch; 13 - puncture; 14 - scraper type kina; 15 - double scraper; 16, 17 - longitudinal scrapers.

Paleolithic sites and finds of bone remains of fossil man in Europe.