Cultural Evolution | Anthropology Optional for UPSC PDF Download

Introduction

• Prehistory is a branch of Anthropology that focuses on the remnants of past human cultures. This field is based on the idea that all human societies have unintentionally left concrete records of not only their material possessions but also their behavior, beliefs, and social institutions.
• A crucial milestone in prehistoric studies was the publication of Sir John Lubbock's Prehistoric Times in 1865. The term "prehistory" was first introduced in the English language by Daniel Wilson in 1851. Lubbock initially used the word to describe primitive culture, and other scholars like Tylore (1871) and Gladstone (1878) applied the term similarly. However, the term was actually in use 20 years before Wilson. Piggot (1959) was the first to make a significant distinction between primary prehistory and secondary marginal prehistory.
• In his book Primitive Culture, Lubbock made substantial contributions by covering human culture from the Paleolithic to the Iron Age. The study of prehistoric culture in Europe formally started with Boucher-de-Perthes' discovery of the Chellean and Acheulian industries. Edward Lartet began systematic work in the Dordogne region of France in 1860, discovering the Cro-Magnon Man fossil (prehistoric man) and the materials of Aurignacian culture. Similar developments occurred in America, South Africa, East Africa, and India. In Southeast Africa, Mr. and Mrs. Leakey discovered the earliest human fossil and its material culture. In India, Robert Bruce Foote excavated the Paleolithic culture, also known as the culture of preliterate society.
• The ecology of humans, unlike other living beings, is significantly influenced by technology and its material products. As Beals and Hoijer (1971) note, technology encompasses the entire set of techniques possessed by members of a society, including their ways of obtaining raw materials from the environment and processing them to create tools, containers, food, clothing, and shelters. Material culture, on the other hand, refers to the artifacts resulting from technology. While most animals simply use the natural environment for food and shelter, humans alter and transform their environment by making tools from wood, stone, shell, bone, and metal to improve their ability to control and utilize their surroundings.
• Artifacts are the primary physical remnants of prehistoric human culture, created and used by humans. They provide insights into the lifestyles, food habits, evolutionary developments, and environmental adaptations of early humans. Artifacts can be classified based on the material they are made from, such as stone, bone, shell, clay, or wood. For example, stone artifacts can be categorized as flint objects, steatite objects, and so on, while bone objects can be grouped according to the specific bone and species they come from, like a deer's shoulder blade or a turkey's upper leg bone.
• Similarly, shell artifacts can be classified based on their origin, either from an ocean or freshwater environment, and further grouped by the location where they were found, such as a lake, riverbed, or specific locality. Artifacts can also be categorized by their function, with stone artifacts divided into groups like axes, knives, scrapers, points, and borers, while bone artifacts could be separated into categories like awls, hoes, pendants, or beads. This method can be applied to various artifact materials, including stone, bone, shell, pottery, metal, ivory, and wood.
• Stone was the first material used by humans to create tools, implements, and other everyday objects during prehistoric times.

Cultural Evolution

• Prehistoric cultures have traditionally been divided into four stages: Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic, and Metal ages. However, these terms are often considered inadequate today because they are based on the tool-making sequence found in Western Europe and do not necessarily apply to other areas or aspects of cultural evolution. Despite the limitations, we will use these terms as a rough guide to understand cultural stages.
• The term "Paleolithic" was originally used to describe the stage in which humans made chipped stone tools, but now it refers to the cultural development period that began during the late Pliocene epoch. Due to its long time span, the Paleolithic stage is often divided into thirds: Lower, Middle, and Upper Paleolithic. These divisions are not related to the geological subdivisions of the Pleistocene epoch; instead, the Lower Paleolithic encompasses everything that preceded the Middle Paleolithic stage. The Middle Paleolithic refers to the state of human culture in Western Europe during Neanderthal times, and the Upper Paleolithic is defined by the use of blades and burins, tools used to cut and shape wood and bone. It is challenging to date these stages as cultural evolution proceeded at different rates in different areas, so the dates provided will be specific to certain regions.
• The Mesolithic stage, or the Middle Stone Age, represents the gap between the Paleolithic and Neolithic periods in Europe. This term is less frequently used today, as it is a transitional period between the last Upper Paleolithic cultures and the first agricultural cultures. In Europe and the Near East, it is a short period just before the emergence of agriculture. The Mesolithic stage began around 8,000 to 10,000 years ago in Europe and the New World, while it started earlier in the Near East. A similar sequence may not be found elsewhere, except for the archaic period in North America.
• During the Neolithic stage, or the New Stone Age, humans began making tools by grinding and polishing, rather than by chipping. A more modern definition of this cultural stage is the period from the invention of agriculture to the invention of metalworking. Stages similar to the Neolithic period have been identified in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas.
• The Neolithic period, which followed the Paleolithic period, was marked by the development of agriculture and the domestication of animals. This period eventually transitioned into the Bronze Age and Iron Age in Western Europe, where metallurgy became a prominent skill, and the use of bronze and iron became widespread. As the Iron Age came to an end, written records started to emerge, concluding the prehistoric era.
• There are different frameworks for analyzing prehistory, one of which is based on food procurement methods. This framework divides prehistory into two main stages: the food-gathering stage and the food-producing stage. During the food-gathering stage, human societies were organized to efficiently collect plants and hunt animals. In the food-producing stage, humans began to exert more control over resources by domesticating plants and animals, leading to a larger population and the development of complex political structures.
• The best system for analyzing cultural stages is a topic of debate among archaeologists, who often switch between different frameworks depending on the time and archaeological culture they are examining. Regardless of the system used, it is important to clearly identify the types of cultures being discussed.
• In this context, we use traditional terminology. The term "Paleolithic" refers to the period during which humans primarily hunted and gathered, spreading from their tropical origins to all parts of the world. The term "Neolithic" denotes the period during which agriculture emerged, and "Mesolithic" refers to the transitional period between the Paleolithic and Neolithic periods.

Paleolithic Culture

The Paleolithic period, spanning from around 2.6 million to 10,000 years ago in the Near East, is the longest of the major tool-working stages. Its history is marked by a gradual diversification of stone tool assemblages that were initially quite similar across Africa, Europe, and the Near East. Over time, these assemblages diversified into two major tool-making traditions, followed by an even greater variety of specialized local cultural traditions in the late Middle Paleolithic and the Upper Paleolithic.

The Oldowan Culture

• One of the earliest signs of hominids actively shaping their environment through learned patterns of behavior is the presence of crude stone tools at ancient sites, which are now known as the Oldowan culture. These tools are difficult to distinguish from ordinary rocks and may have been used primarily for food gathering. It is believed that these early hominids discovered that sharp stones could make certain tasks, such as cutting up carcasses or digging, easier and more efficient.
• In addition to stones, early hominids likely used sticks and bones as tools. However, wooden tools rarely survive over time, and crude bone tools are often difficult to identify as such. The surviving wooden and bone tools indicate that they were generally more rudimentary than stone tools until relatively recent times. Oldowan tools, named after the Olduvai Gorge where they were first discovered, were created by striking one pebble against another to chip off flakes and form a single, rough edge.

The range of Oldowan Culture

• The earliest known Oldowan tools were not discovered in Olduvai, but rather in another part of the East African Rift Valley system. This area has preserved 10 to 12 million years of prehistory within natural basins due to sedimentary deposits. Tectonic plate shifts have since exposed these deposits.
  Anthropologist Glynn Isaac found stone tools that could be 2.6 million years old at the Koobi Fora formation, a peninsula on Lake Turkana in northeastern Kenya. These tools are similar to those discovered in sediments at Olduvai Gorge, dating from 1.89 million to about 400,000 years ago. It's believed that early stone tool traditions spread from East Africa to southern and northern Africa, and then to the tropical and subtropical regions of Asia as hominids migrated out of Africa. Later, these tools were used by early inhabitants of temperate zones in Europe, appearing in Vallonet Cave on the Mediterranean coast of southern France around 700,000 years ago.
  The identity of the toolmakers remains unclear, as there may have been several species of bipedal hominids present in Africa when these early tools appeared. Many anthropologists believe that the stone tool users and makers were likely the East African gracile hominids, who may have been meat-eaters. The unspecialized dental patterns of the graciles support the idea that tools took over some dental functions, like preparing food before consumption. Tools may have also allowed for a broader range of food to be consumed.
  In contrast, the less advanced Robustus hominids were likely specialized vegetarians and therefore less likely to have made tools. Their specialization indicates that they were part of a separate evolutionary lineage that did not contribute to later hominid evolution. The presence of dental specialization in the Robustus suggests limited or no cultural adaptations to their environment.
  Although graciles are believed to have been stone tool makers, there is ongoing debate over the number of gracile species and their classifications. As a result, it is not possible to definitively say whether the tool makers were gracile australopithecines or early members of the Homo genus. 

Technology of the Oldowan Culture

• It is believed that early hominids carried stones suitable for making tools, rather than collecting them on-site. Many of these stones have been found in locations where naturally occurring stones are no larger than peas. Early hominids seemed to prefer water-worn pebbles about the size of a tennis ball. They would create a sharp cutting edge on these pebbles by striking off a few flakes from one part of the rock using another rock, known as a hammer stone.
• There were two methods for this process, known as percussion flaking. In one method, the stone being flaked was struck against a hammer stone, while in the other method, it was struck against another rock called an anvil. Both techniques involved using one stone to remove flakes from one or both sides of the other stone.
• The small flakes produced in this process could be used as effective cutting or scraping tools when held between the thumb and fingers. The remaining part of the pebble, after the flakes were removed, is referred to as a chopper. Although their exact use is uncertain, modern researchers who have experimented with choppers find them effective for cutting up game animals.
• As time went on, tools made of quartzite, such as hide scrapers and burins, became increasingly common in the Oldowan tool assemblage.

The Eco niche of the Early Hominids

• The Oldowan culture hominids seemed to have adapted well to the savannah ecosystem. While they hunted animals found in the fringes of savannah forests and near water sources, their diet also consisted of a significant amount of grassland plants and animals. These hominids typically set up camps near bodies of water such as lakes, rivers, or streams.
• There may have been multiple reasons for their preference for such locations. Firstly, these sites provided a constant supply of water before any water-carrying inventions came into existence. Secondly, the presence of water attracted various animals, which then became prey for the hominids. Lastly, the trees surrounding these water sources offered shade, fruits, and an escape route from predators.
• Isaac proposed that early hominids chose to camp near tree-lined streams to maintain a sense of security from their arboreal ancestors while simultaneously taking advantage of the diverse resources available in the open grasslands.

Food Resources

• Our earliest ancestors were mainly vegetarians. They lacked the large flash ripping canines of other carnivores animals. It was a cultural solution – tool -making rather than a biological change that allowed them to tear through the fur and skin of the animals to get at the meat inside. The gradual switch from a diet of vegetation to one that included a variety of animals probably added to their success in making use of the food resources of the tropical areas.
• It may also have made possible their later move to colder climates, where plant foods were only available in certain seasons. Meat probably became the part of early hominid diet in a gradual way. When hominid first began to eat meat, they ate mostly small, easy to catch animals. The bones of creatures such as rodents, birds, bats, lizards turtles and fish are most common at their living sites. Judging from the diet of modern hunting and gathering tribes vegetation probably continued to provide about two third of what they ate. But occasionally they seemed to have fed on big games, such as hippopotamus. Some of the remains suggests that they chased large animals in to swamps and then clubbed or stoned them to death. They may also have taken meat from carcasses killed by animals, a practice still present in some primitive tribes.

Social Pattern

• Artifacts from the beginning of hominid culture revealed very little about social behaviors. To help reconstruct such behaviors, archeologist also draw on an awareness of the behaviors of modern primates and hunting and gathering groups. The evidence has convinced archeologist that late Pliocene and early Pleistocene hominids must already have been diverging from non-human primates in social and biological ways.
• Like some modern primate’s early hominids probably lived in small bands. The members of the bands were probably fairly young for the probability of surviving until adulthood was low. Food sharing and the co-operative behavior in food getting may have been the forces most responsible for group cohesion. There are growing signs in the fossils records that systematic hunting was an important part of this behavior. Thus the hunting hypothesis put forth by S. Washburn and C. S. Lancaster seems more relevant than ever. According to this hypothesis hunting may have given rise to division of labour, a behavioral trait that is unique in the animal world; males left base camp to hunt in bands while females gathers plants and shellfish, eggs and the like. Care of the young while probably was still mainly a female activity, may also have been performed part time by males. This is the case among many non-human primates and human societies.
  It is true that open country primates such as Baboons do have a highly evolved division of labour for defense and social control. But the cooperation involved in splitting up together different kinds of food and then bring them back to the base camp to share would be something new. Food sharing is almost unknown among the other primates, for they forage as individuals and eat as they go. Only chimpanzees share food and they do so rarely. When they have meat they allow scrounging by other members of the troop.
• The hypothesis that hominid hunters and gatherers brought food back to camps and share with one another is supported by sites that have piles of the remains of many different animals. According to Isaac, it is unlikely that they were all killed and eaten at the same spot. Instead they were probably killed here and then carried to a butchering or camping site for group to eat. Some camps may have been built at near lakes and rivers during the dry season when water elsewhere was scarce. While their hunters killed large numbers of turtles and grazing animals, the same kind of animals hunted by modern bushmen during the dry season. During the rainy season Oldowan hominids moved on to other areas about which we know little.
• Hominids may have evolved permanent pair bonds between males and females to reduce aggression between males and to allow their integration into a co bonding presumably would have lessened sexual jealousies by limiting promiscuity. Males would also help to protect and get food for mothers and their off springs.
• Finally, to make all this cooperative behavior possible, hominids may have developed a communication system that was more advance than that of the other primates. Although we have no way of knowing that when language may have appeared, it seems logical that group planning called for some way of talking about objects, times and places. By contrast primate communication is largely limited to responses to the object in the immediate environment. Nonhuman primates cannot express abstraction well enough to communicate about the future or make plans.

Forces for Change

• Although the cultural achievements these early hominids made were limited they represent a landmark in the evolutionary history. At these time hominids begin to assert conscious control over their environment. They could begin to change the environment with their behavior or if this was impossible change their behavior to suite the conditions.
• Culture in effect created a new niche for hominids, in which natural selection begin to favor the best in culture users. Smart hunters and the tool users were the fit because of their better survival strategies. These strategies in turn probably began to select for a more complex brain. Hunting depends for its success on the ability to remember the nature and location of the environmental features, as well as the habits of the animals. Refinement in the co-ordination of hand and eye facilitated the making and use of the tool and perhaps simple language was necessary for teaching the young the basics of culture or to plan the hunt. All these ac5tivities required the culture bearer to process sensory data, to remember it, and to integrate new perception with those stored in the memory.
• Hominids with the best brains were probably also the most adopt at using culture and therefore more likely to pass on their genes. Eventually these selective pressures produced extremely complexed brains of the members of the genus homo.

Early Migration from Africa

• As we noted earlier Oldowan tools have been found not only in Africa but in other tropical and subtropical areas of the old world as well. It is possible that they were invented separately at each location. But since the tools found that koobifor and Oldowan gorge are older than any found elsewhere, most archeologists believe that the earliest hominid tool makers originated in east Africa.
  The earlier hominids to exploits the plants and animals of grasslands outside Africa were probably homo erectus. It is not yet clear that what kind of pressure lead to this expansion. 
• One theory is that early hunters followed herds of savannah herbivores in their migrations to these new territories. Both in Africa and elsewhere this movement was accompanied by increase in technological sophistication. These in turn allowed hominids to move into colder regions. Probably during the Gunz and Mindel glaciation of the middle Pleistocene (from about six lacs to four lac year B.P.) Some lived in the temperate environments in Europe. And during the Riss glaciation (220000 to 150000 B.P.) Some population seem to have lived in perpetually cold areas of Europe.
• During this time, the carriers of the Oldowan culture split into two different cultural and geographical groups. The two tradition were more or less separated by a mount barrier made up of the Himalayas in the east and the Caucasus and zagros mountains in the south west Asia and the Carpathians in south east Europe. To the east and the north of this mountain barrier as an elaboration of the Oldowan tradion called chopper tool culture. People to the west and the south of this string of mountain ranges evolved the life style and way of making tools, especially hand axes, known as acheulean culture.

The Acheulean Tradition

• The Acheulean tool making tradition first appeared about 1.2 million years B.P. at Olduwai gorge long before Oldowan technologies died out. It is also found throughout much of Africa, persisting until about 60000 years B.P. at one Rhodesian site, Kalambo falls. Acheulean tools have also been found in the Middle East, India, and Java. They were common in southern Europe as well, but were replaced thereabout one lac to 70000 years B.P. by the beginning of the Next cultural tradition, the Mousterian.

Acheulean technology

• The foremost characteristics of acheulean assemblages is the hand axe. It is considered a logical improvement over the Oldowan chopping tool, for instead of one sharpened edge it has two. These edges meet to form a point that added to the usefulness of the tool. The base or butt is broad for easy gripping. We are not sure how Homo erectus used the hand axe. Recent experiments show that these tools may have had a number of functions such as skinning, butchering and digging.
• A variation on the hand axe the cleaver is also by facially worked, but instead of a point there is a third cutting edge. The cleaver could have been helpful in chopping, hacking, and prying apart carcasses. Retouched flake tools made from stone flakes chipped from a core, commonly appear in acheulean assemblages.
• The transition from Oldowan to acheulean stone working technology seems to have happened in several stages. Some of the early Oldowan choppers had been worked on both sides. Gradually however early hominids flaked more and more of the surface of the stone, making the tool slenderer and symmetrical. By the end of the acheulean tradition the whole tool including the butt was shaped of then to the point that the original shape of the stone is unrecognizable.
• At first this flaking was done with a hammer stone, as in the Oldowan industries. But eventually acheulean tool makers discovered that they could control the size and shape of the flake better by using of bone or a stick as hammer. This method is called the soft hammer technique. In this technique a bone, antler or piece of wood was used to strike off shallow flakes from the side of core tools. The use of this technique is marked by thinner access from which many more flakes have been removed to create a sharper edge.
• The increasing sophistication in production of flakes in the Acheulean culture was its one of the specialities. As in Olduwan Industries the flakes were only useful by products of the main tool.
  Acheulean used bone and Woods as well for making tools other than stone, bones and woods were also used. These were trimmed and shaped for specific purposes to be used as picks, axe and cleavers. Woods are also preserved in the shape of spear or Acheulean may also be using woods as clubs are throwing sticks and other tools to dig.

Eco niche

• Main Acheulean sites seems to have been located within grassland environment. Because these grasslands provided an optimal environment for animals that they regarded as food. Acheulean groups avoided Tropical rainforest and as well as barren deserts. So for most of this time they live in tropical or subtropical latitudes.
• Fire was also used at a chopper tool site vertesszollos. It can also be seen in the bits of charcoal and charred bone at Torralba. Shelter, too was an important another cultural adaptation to the cold weather. But some sites seem to have no shelter at all, it suggests that people did not build them unless the weather was bad or a long stay was expected. There are many remains of dismembered carcasses and smashed animal bones, this suggests that acheulean bands were also becoming increasingly systematic Hunters.

The Chopper tool culture

• Another cultural tradition existing during roughly the same time as of Acheulean culture. Dates are not very well determined for this Chopper tool culture. However these Chopper tool assemblages lack hand axes and are found over a different geographical and environmental range than Acheulean. Chopper tools culture sites are concentrated north and east of the Acheuleans in East Asia, south Asia and in India East of Indus river.

Technology of the chopper tool culture 

• These toolkit lacks hand axe. Hand axes were so typical of Acheulean assemblages. Some of these assemblages consist mostly of flakes removed by striking a stone against an anvil. This was a bipolar working because percussion effects at both ends of the flake. Chopper and chopping tools were also present.
• The Origins of this tool making traditions are not very well known but French archaeologist Francois Bordes suggests that it may have appeared first in Southeast Asia 475000 to 425000 years B. P.

Food resources

• Though their tools were crude they killed and butchered a great variety of animals. The bones of following animals were found deer, elephant, Rhino, bison, water buffalo and many other animals. Some evidences of cannibalism were also found. Some of the bones of these hominids found were split probably so that the marrow could be reached. Similarly, skull seem to have been cracked open so that the brains could be removed.

Eco niche

• The sites are found on Northern edge of Euro- Asiatic mountain chain. If we compare them with Acheulean sites these were located in wooded and colder areas, far from ocean.

Conclusion

• Acheulean and Chopper tool sites were separated for most of the part, but in Northern Europe they overlap. It could be explained as if the sites attributed to the two different cultures were representing different activities and therefore different types of tools of the same population was found.
• But if we look closely to the environmental range and tool making Technology of these cultures then it shows that there were two different cultures. For example, the chopper tool complex was organized to exploit wooded terrain. Whereas Acheulean word specialized in game herds which were living in more open grassland environment.

Broad Outlines of Prehistoric cultures

• Prehistory is one of the branches of Anthropology that deals with the remains of past human culture. It raised upon the fact that all human societies unconsciously left some concrete records not only of their material possessions but also of their behaviour, believes and social institution.
• A significant landmark in prehistoric studies was the publication of Prehistoric times by Sir John Lubbock in 1865. According to Daniel Wilson the term prehistory was first introduced in English language in 1851. Lubbock first used the word in the sense of primitive culture. Similarly, Tylore(1871), Gladstone(1878) and others applied the term prehistory in an almost identical connotation but in reality the terminology was in use 20 years before Wilson. Piggot (1959) was the first man who made a major division of prehistory into primary prehistory and secondary marginal prehistory.
• In the book Primitive Culture Lubbock made notable contributions particularly for its inclusion of human culture starting from palaeolithic to iron age. In Europe the studies of prehistoric culture formally began with the work of Boucher-de-Perthes discovery of Chellean and Acheulian industries of Europe. Edward Lartet began a systematic work in the Dordogne region of France in 1860. He discovered the Cro-magnon Man fossil (prehistoric man) and the materials of Aurignacian culture in Europe. Similar developments also took place in America, South Africa, East Africa and India. In South East Africa Mr. and Mrs. Leakey were able to trace out the earliest human fossil and his material culture. In India, Robert Bruce Foote was responsible for excavating the palaeolithic culture or culture of preliterate society.
• The Ecology of man, in contrast to that of other living beings is heavily influenced by technology and its material products. As Beals and Hoijer (1971) rightly point out that technology is the sum total of the techniques possessed by members of a society; that is the totality of their ways of behaving in respect to collecting raw materials from the environments and processing these to make tools, containers, foods, clothing, shelters, etc.
• What is usually called material culture, on the other hand, refers to the sum of the artifacts resulting from technology. Whereas most other animals simply utilize the natural environment as such for food and shelter, changing it relatively little in the process, man alters or transforms his environment. He makes tools of wood, stone, shell, bone and metal to increase his efficiency in using and controlling environment.
• Artifacts are the main material remains of prehistoric culture, conceived and made by human beings. These are used to make inferences on the life style and food habit of early man, to note the evolutionary development and adaptations of man to the environment. According to the nature of the material on which the artifacts were manufactured such as stone, bone, shell, clay, wood etc. for example, stone artifacts may be classified as flint-objects, steatite objects etc. And bone objects may be categorized as coming from a particular bone of a particular species e.g. the shouldered blade of a deer or the upper leg-bone of a turkey (peru bird), etc. Similarly shell artifacts can be grouped as per the scope of their availability.
• A shell from an ocean is distinguished from a shell belonging to fresh water environment. These can again be classified according to their place of occurrence, which is generally lake, a riverbed or a specific locality. Categorization of the artifacts may also take place on the basis of their function. For instance, the stone artifacts may make the groups of axes, knives, scrapers, points, borers and so on. In the same way bone artifacts may be differentiated into the groups of awls, hoes, pendent or beads. In this way, the different item like stone bone, shell, pottery, metal, ivory, wood etc. can be separated.

Stone

• Stone is the first material that was used by man for making tools, implements and some other objects of daily use in prehistoric time.

Clay and Pottery

• Clay vessels and other utensils, beads, toys, figurines etc. have been excavated from many sites of prehistoric period, in different parts of the world. Clay was certainly an important discovery among man’s earliest discoveries of natural materials. Like the stone implements, pottery is also an artifact. It is another important indicator of cultural life because making of pottery is related to the higher accomplishment of primitive people.

Wood 

• Wood being an organic material is specially susceptible to deterioration. Man used hard wood since the early days of stone age. He relied on it in the same scale as he did upon the stone. Normally he made various kinds of weapons, objects of daily use as well as materials for art and decoration. The oldest wooden implement so far as recovered, is a wooden spear-point about 200,000 years old.

Ivory and Bone

• The use of ivory and bone were recognized since the Upper Palaeolithic period. They have been making implements, ornaments, handles for weapons, beads etc. Ivory was the most common raw material for such works. Both ivory and bone can be easily stained because they are porous in nature.

Metals

• Apart from gold and silver, much work on copper, bronze and iron objects have been discovered as exhibits of Bronze and Iron Ages. The prehistoric people made many items from copper and bronze during that period.
• The first or the oldest prehistoric culture is known as Paleolithic or the Old Stone Age. The term comes from the Greek word Palaios means old and lithos means stone. Therefore, palaios + lithos = Paleolithic. Still Paleolithic period or Old Stone Age is very important as it provides a clear cut sequence of cultural development throughout the entire Pleistocene time, all over the world. In this time, stone is used as tool or material in the way of life of prehistoric people, because all the peoples of this time are hunters and gatherers. It is considered as a crucial period for all round human evolution. Development of cultures can be traced out distinctively in this period. Paleolithic can be further divided into three cultural phases – Lower Paleolithic, Middle Palaeolithic and Upper Paleolithic.
• The time span of Lower Palaeolithic was the maximum, covering the whole of Lower Pleistocene and bulk of the Middle Pleistocene epoch. The stratigraphic sequences of entire Pleistocene epoch containing Lower Palaeolithic artifacts have been discovered from the Somme Valley in the North France and Thames Valley in the south England. The tool making traditions of Lower Palaeolithic in western Europe can be divided into two groups, such as core and Flake industries. Basically, the core industry contained the core tools while the flake industry consisted of the flake tools. The stone is the only material of this two industries of prehistoric period.

Core Industry 

• Elementary feature of the core industry is the bifacial tool that means more or less pointed tool made on core where both the upper and lower surfaces are worked. This industry is sub-divided into two sub-types/traditions, such as Abbevillian and Acheulean. Typologically, very crude type of hand adzes, hand axes, choppers, chopping tools, discs, scrapers etc., are included in this group. The primary flaking has been worked out only at the working end.
• During the first glacial period (Gunz) this industry flourished in western Europe and Africa. A group of Australopithecine might be responsible for this industry. At Olduvai Gorge of Africa Mr. and Mrs. Leakey discovered two fossil man Zinjanthropus boisei in 1951 and Homo-habilis in 1960.

Flake Industry

• The flake industry of Lower Palaeolithic culture has two traditions. They are: (i) the Clactonian tradition and (ii) Levalloisian.

The Clactonian Tradition

• The Clactonian flakes are rough and struck out unsystematically from the prepared core. It is suggested that most of these flakes are produced by striking the lump on the edge of an anvil. The Clactonian flakes generally exhibited large, massive, unfacetted striking platforms and prominent positive bulbs of percussion.

Levalloisian tradition

• It is predominantly represented by a flake tools which were produced by using the Levalloisian tool making technique. It requires a careful preparation of the core. The core is prepared to look like the back of tortoise. The flakes are detached from these specially prepared cores. The facetted striking platform makes an angle of 900 with the flake surface. The flake tradition is found well distributed in western Europe, Africa and India (specially in Madrasian industries). The Middle Palaeolithic cultural phase is differentiated mainly from the typological point of view where the core tool industry has totally been transferred to the flake industry in this level. Both Levalloisian and Mousterian traditions were developed on the flake industry involving a higher technology. It is marked by the large number of side scrapers, backed knives, points, nosed flakes, burins, and end scrapers have appeared. The geological age of this culture is middle Pleistocene and Neanderthal people were definitely responsible for the creation of this cultural phase.
• The last part of the Palaeolithic culture gave rise to the Upper Palaeolithic phase. During this short span of time, the prehistoric man made his greatest cultural progress. This phase of Palaeolithic culture shows diversified and specialized tools made on blades by the replacement of the core and flake tools of earlier phases. It is also notable that, not only flint and similar rocks were used as tools, bone was also taken as a material for making tools. The culture has been referred as the Osteodontokeratic culture for the utilization of bone, teeth and horn at a time. Early man of primitive types disappeared at this cultural stage and the man of modern type came into existence. The cultural stage also shows the beginning and flowering of the Palaeolithic art.

Blade and burin Industry

The blade and burin industry of Upper Palaeolithic comprises of three traditions mainly (1) Aurignacian (2) Solutrean and (3) Magdalenian. The characteristic tools are blades of flint with one adge straight (razor like). The hunters possibly used these blades as knife in this period. This culture is represented by the blade, burin, tanged points, Gravette points, multi-angle gravers etc.

Aurignacian Tradition

• This tradition is named after the type – site, a rock shelter known as Aurignac in South France. The leading tool types of this stage include the steep-ended scrapers, nosed scrapers, blade artefacts with split-based bone lance points, batton- de- commandment, chisels, pierced teeth and shells, decorated bits of bone, ivory and stone. The Aurgnacian people were artistic. They are expert in engraving, sculpture and painters. Main responsible representatives of this cultural phase is the Cro-magnon group of man. The Cro-magnon people have been placed as the men of Late Pleistocene and they are the first runners of Neanthropic race, the homo sapiens.

Solutrean Tradition

This cultural phase is named after the type site located at La-Solutre near central France. This cultural phase is notable for the finest development of flint workmanship in the Palaeolithic period.
The Solutrean tradition is recognized by three fold division-

• Proto Solutrean
• Typical Solutrean
• Upper Solutrean

Main cultural remains of the Solutrean peoples are willow leaf point, laurel-leaf points, tanged points, gravers, burins etc. The culture has limited distribution. An early form is found in the deposits of Hungary, Poland and elsewhere in central Europe. The Solutrean people are expert in making the beautiful but small laurel leaf points.

Magdalenian Traditions

• The last phase of Palaeolithic period is the Magdalenian phase which is noted for the wealth of bone and antler tools and specially remarkable for the works of art. The flint industry of the Magdalenian people bore a blade tool tradition. The main tools of Magdalenian tradition are the different types of harpoons (single row barbs, double row barbs, and lateral barbs), long and parallel sided blades etc.
• The Magdalenian phase is the richest stage of Palaeolithic. They use pigments of ochres, minerals, burnt bones etc., to get different colours. They converted these pigments into paint by mixing with some fatty medium. Human skeletal remains of modern type of man have been unearthed from several sites. They are undoubtedly the Neanthropic man and perhaps the representatives of Chancelade group of man of late Pleistocene.

Mesolithic

• Another important culture Mesolithic is a part of Holocene that began at the end of Pleistocene. A change primarily affected the people of advanced Palaeolithic culture occupying the regions to the late glacial. In that time climate was gradually changed. The weather in temperature latitude got warmer whereas it became drier in Mediterranean and sub-tropical zones. Man had to adapt themselves to quite novel conditions.
• The cultural development of Mesolithic has been observed in Europe. The people altered their food pattern and changed tool technology was evident at this time. Flints are turned to pygmy tools, called microliths. Microliths are the characteristic tools of Mesolithic people. These are extremely minutes some measures only 3/16 inch, or even less in size. The shapes vary greatly but the usual forms are more or less Geometrical. All are the tiny tools, which could be attached, joined or embedded to the wooden or bone handles. Such microliths used to be hafted in rows to act as knives.
• Mesolithic people invented a wonderful device for killing of the animals i.e., bow and arrow. The European Mesolithic culture may be divided into seven phases: (1) Azilian, (2) Tardenosian, (3)Asturian, (4) Larnean, (5) Maglemosean, (6) Kitchen-midden and (7) Campignion.
  The Mesolithic people in Europe mostly lived in caves or in rock-shelters. The most significant developments of Mesolithic people were the domestication of animal (dog), invention of pottery, and the bow and arrow. All these became more important in later period, i.e., Neolithic. As in Europe, Africa and several part of Asia, India also witnessed a great climatic change toward the end of the Palaeolithic period. A number of sites of this age that have been discovered from western and central India. The Jarwas tribes of Andaman island still practicing this prehistoric tradition. They use bow and arrow in gathering times. Till today they are purely in nomadic stage. Neolithic is also a Greek word. It means ‘New stone’.
• The period since the discovery of agriculture to the rise of urban civilization has been bracketed, as new stone or Neolithic period. During Neolithic period stone objects were manufactured by pecking, grinding, rubbing and polishing technique. They were far better in finishing as well as in its effectiveness. In this period man became a food-producer. Food collecting people completely rejected their nomadic life and started settled village life. Neolithic settlement was generally built close to the shores of lake.
• Neolithic people learnt the use of the trunks of trees. They used to tie several logs of wood together to make a raft and that was used as a means of water-transport. They developed new types of stone tools by using grinding and polishing techniques. Some of these tools were mainly used for pounding grains so that the husks of the corns could be easily removed and the tough kernels could be broken for easy digest. Neolithic people continued to use flake implements made on flint, they were fitted into wooden handles to be used as Awl, Celt, Graver, Saw, Sickle etc. Characteristically all Neolithic axes and adzes are used after hafting to a handle. A polished stone axe-head of Neolithic time is commonly known as Celt. The bows and arrows were widely used in hunting as well as for war too. The most remarkable finding of Neolithic deposits is the skillfully made arrowheads and Celts. The practice of fishing was improved during Neolithic period. As a consequence of food-production, population growth was accelerated during Neolithic period.

People had settled down in villages and tried to invent certain ways to make the life easier. These are:

• Invention of wheel,
• Invention of hand made and wheel made pottery,
• Invention of Weaving,
• Building of huts and dwelling complexes,
• Manufacturing of boats,
• Development of social organization,
• Domestication of plants and animals,
• Domesticating of plants and animals, all these made them possible to rise to the status of literate civilization V. Gordon Childe mentioned that Neolithic had opened an entire new way of life and he termed it as “Neolithic Revolution”.

Material Culture of Preliterate People: Man has always depended on three resources for his survival- Physical environment, culture and population. The purely hunting-gathering group depends totally on the merely and bounties of nature. Prehistoric man was totally food gatherer, hunter, fisherman, fowler and sore. Contemporary simple societies have been like this. Food gathering societies gather edible roots and fruits, marine products, do hunting of mammals, fishing and fowling as well as consume many insects and reptiles.

• Food gathering-hunting techniques vary from region to region and from society to society according to the local environmental conditions. The ecological adaptations provides basis for cultural variations. The custom, traditions and value systems of different society are not alike. During pre-historic times, man used to roam about in a definite territory in quest for food. This nomadism may still be observed in case of the surviving hunting gathering societies. Among the noteworthy food gatherers mention may be made of the Arunta and Arunda of Australia (the Australian aborigines), the Natuka of Columbia, the Blackfoot of north America, the Eskimo of Siberia, the Bushmen Hottentot of Kalahari desert, Africa, the Veddas of Shrilanka, and the Chenchus (Andhrapradesh), the Kadars (Kerela), the Birhor (Bihar) and some other tribes of Andaman and Nicobar Islands of India. Many of such tribes living in difficult terrain and geography face lot of problems in getting food.
• Besides the typically food gathering-hunting societies, one may come across several food producing societies resorting to gathering to supplement their food requirements. Among the Indian tribes the Bhil, the Oraon, the Munda, the Bhotia, the Nagas, the Tharu and a host of others despite being expert cultivators go for gathering edible roots, fruits, honey, and several other minor and major forest produces.
• Human societies living by food gathering and hunting did not posses, containers or utensils. Hence storing the surplus, if any for the winters always faced lots of problems. The tools and implements at the disposal of gatherers-hunters were so crude that the output in terms of quantity of food produced was usually too meager in proportion to the input involved. Gradually, man developed his technology; new tools and implements were developed. Thus the crude hand axes and choppers gave way to blade and flake tools and then microliths provided him an extra edge. But the digging stick always remained. Then he also evolved throwing weapons like throwing club, bow and arrow, spear, harpoons for fishing, noose and traps for hunting and so on. Gathering-hunting societies live in bands or small groups maintain consanguineous ties. Although they lead a nomadic existence but their range of mobility have territorial constraints.
• The existing gathering-hunting societies of the world use throwing weapons for hunting. Besides these, they also use nets, traps and pets like dogs and hawks etc. in hunting expeditions. Pet panthers and hawks are used in Rajputana region of India while several central Asia societies use pet hawks in hunting and fowling. The Kurgiz and Tungu tribes of central Asia keep ferocious dogs who help them in hunting expeditions.
• Nets of various types, nooses and traps are also used by different human groups. The nooses are laid on the ground and the target animals are forced to tread over them and thus the trodden animals were trapped. This technique is prevalent in East Africa and Egypt. The Dayak, tribes of Borneo use this technique while hunting for deer. The practice of catching birds has always been a part of many gathering-hunting economics of the world. One of the popular techniques of catching birds is to spread some adhesive material over a wooden sheet or other thing and broadcast food grains around it. Tempted by the food grains the birds come down and rest their feet over the adhesive and are trapped.
• The Santhals used this technique. Some other tribes and rural groups of Bengal use throny sticks to trap the birds. Among such traps, pit traps, noose traps, wheel traps, cage traps have been most popular. Among the Indian tribes the Naga, the Gond, the Santhal, the Oraon, the Baiga etc. are experts in these types of hunting. Fishing has also been an important aspects of gathering-hunting economy. Various types of harpoons and hook and rods bear testimony to this fact.