10 recently discovered facts about how people lived in the Stone Age

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Today, very little is known about our ancestors who lived in the Stone Age. For a long time, there was an opinion that these people were cave dwellers who walked with a club. But modern scientists are sure that the Stone Age is a huge period of history, which began about 3.3 million years ago and lasted until 3300 AD. - it was not entirely true.

1. Homo Erectus Tool Factory

In the northeast of Tel Aviv, Israel, hundreds of ancient stone tools have been unearthed during excavations. The artifacts discovered in 2017 at a depth of 5 meters were made by human ancestors. Created about half a million years ago, the instruments told several facts about their creators - the human ancestor known as Homo erectus. It is believed that the area was a kind of stone age paradise - there were rivers, plants and abundant food - everything needed for existence.

The most interesting find of this primitive camp were the quarries. The masons chipped off the edges of the flint, making pear-shaped ax blades from them, which were probably used for digging up food and butchering animals. The discovery was unexpected due to the huge number of perfectly preserved instruments. This makes it possible to learn more about the lifestyle of Homo erectus.

2. The first wine

At the end of the Stone Age, the first wine began to be made on the territory of modern Georgia. In 2016 and 2017, archaeologists unearthed ceramic shards dating from 5400 - 5000 BC. Fragments of clay jugs found in two ancient settlements of the Neolithic period (Gadakhrili Gora and Shulaveri Gora) were analyzed, as a result of which tartaric acid was found in six vessels.

This chemical is always an undeniable indication that there was wine in the vessels. Scientists also found that grape juice fermented naturally in Georgia's warm climate. To find out whether red or white wine was preferred at the time, the researchers analyzed the color of the residues. They were yellowish, which suggests that the ancient Georgians produced white wine.

3. Dental procedures

In the mountains of northern Tuscany, dentists treated patients 13,000 to 12,740 years ago. Evidence of six such primitive patients has been found in an area called Riparo Fredian. On two teeth, traces of a procedure that any modern dentist would recognize - a cavity filled with filling in a tooth was found. It is difficult to say if any pain relievers were used, but the marks on the enamel were left by some kind of sharp instrument.

Most likely, it was made of stone, which was used to expand the cavity, scraping the decayed tooth tissue. A familiar technology was also found in the next tooth - the remains of the filling. It was made from bitumen mixed with plant fibers and hair. If the use of bitumen (a natural resin) is understandable, then why the hair and fibers were added is a mystery.

4. Long term home maintenance

Most children are taught in schools that Stone Age families lived only in caves. However, they also built clay houses. Recently, 150 Stone Age camps have been explored in Norway. Stone rings showed that the earliest dwellings were tents, probably made of animal skins held together by rings. In Norway, during the Mesolithic era, which began around 9500 BC, people began to build dug-out houses.

This change took place when the last ice of the Ice Age disappeared. Some "semi-dugouts" were large enough (about 40 square meters) that several families could live in them. The most incredible thing is the consistent attempts to preserve the structures. Some of them were abandoned for 50 years before the new owners stopped supporting the houses.

5. Massacre in Nataruk

Stone Age cultures created exciting examples of art and social relationships, but they also fought wars. In one case, it was just a senseless massacre. In 2012, in Nataruka in northern Kenya, a team of scientists discovered bones sticking out of the ground. It turned out that the skeleton had broken knees. Having cleared the bones from the sand, scientists discovered that they belonged to a pregnant woman of the Stone Age. Despite her condition, she was killed. About 10,000 years ago, someone tied her up and threw her into a lagoon.

Nearby, the remains of 27 other people were found, soon after which there were 6 children and several more women. Most of the remains bore traces of violence, including trauma, fractures, and even pieces of weapons stuck in the bones. It is impossible to say why the hunter-gatherer group was exterminated, but it could have been the result of a dispute over resources. During this time, Nataruk was a lush and fertile land with fresh water - an invaluable place for any tribe. Whatever happened that day, the Nataruk massacre remains the oldest evidence of human warfare.

6. Inbreeding

It is possible that early recognition of inbreeding saved humans as a species. In 2017, scientists discovered the first signs of this understanding in the bones of Stone Age people. In Sungir, east of Moscow, four skeletons of people who died 34,000 years ago were found. Genetic analysis showed that they behaved like modern hunter-gatherer communities when it comes to choosing life companions. They realized that having offspring with close relatives, such as siblings, was fraught with consequences. In Sungir, there were clearly almost no marriages within the same family.

If humans mated at random, the genetic consequences of inbreeding would be more obvious. Like later hunter-gatherers, they must have sought partnerships through social connections with other tribes. Sungir burials were accompanied by complex enough rituals to suggest that important milestones in life (for example, death and marriage) were accompanied by ceremonies. If so, then Stone Age weddings would be the earliest human marriages. The lack of understanding of the relationship with relatives may have doomed Neanderthals, whose DNA shows more inbreeding.

7. Women of other cultures

In 2017, researchers examined ancient dwellings in Lechtal, Germany. Their age was about 4000 years, when there were no large settlements in the area. When the remains of the inhabitants were examined, an amazing tradition was discovered. Most of the families were founded by women who left their villages to settle in Lehtal. This happened from the late Stone Age to the Early Bronze Age.

For eight centuries, women, probably from Bohemia or Central Germany, preferred the men of Lechtal. This movement of women was key to spreading cultural ideas and objects, which in turn helped shape new technologies. The discovery also showed that previous beliefs about mass migration need to be adjusted. Despite the fact that women moved to Lechtal many times, this happened on a purely individual basis.

8. Written language

Researchers may have discovered the oldest written language in the world. In fact, it could be code that represents certain concepts. Historians have long known about the symbols of the Stone Age, but for many years they have ignored them, despite the fact that the cave paintings are visited by countless visitors. Examples of some of the most incredible rock carvings in the world have been found in caves in Spain and France. Between ancient depictions of bison, horses, and lions, tiny symbols were hidden to represent something abstract.

Twenty-six signs are repeated on the walls of about 200 caves. If they serve to convey some information, this "pushes" the invention of writing back 30,000 years ago. However, the roots of ancient writing may be even older. Many symbols painted by Cro-Magnons in French caves have been found in ancient African art. In particular, it is an open corner sign engraved in Blombos Cave in South Africa that dates back 75,000 years.

9. Plague

By the time the bacterium Yersinia pestis made its way to Europe in the 14th century, 30-60 percent of the population was already dead. Ancient skeletons examined in 2017 showed that the plague appeared in Europe during the Stone Age. Six Late Neolithic and Bronze Age skeletons tested positive for plague. The disease covered a wide geographic area, from Lithuania, Estonia and Russia to Germany and Croatia. Given the different locations and the two eras, the researchers were surprised when the genomes of Yersinia pestis (the plague bacillus) were compared.

Further investigation showed that the bacterium probably came from the east, when people settled from the Caspian-Pontic steppe (Russia and Ukraine). Arriving about 4,800 years ago, they brought with them a unique genetic marker. This marker appeared in European remains at the same time as the earliest traces of the plague, which indicates that the steppe people brought the disease with them. It is not known how deadly the plague stick was in those days, but it is possible that the steppe migrants fled their homes due to the epidemic.

10. Musical evolution of the brain

It used to be thought that early Stone Age tools developed along with the language. But the revolutionary change - from simple to complex instruments - happened about 1.7 million years ago. Scientists are not sure if the language existed then. An experiment was carried out in 2017. The volunteers were shown to the volunteers how to make the simplest tools (from bark and pebbles), as well as the more "advanced" hand axes of the Acheulean culture. One group watched the video with sound, and the other without.

While the participants in the experiment were asleep, their brain activity was analyzed in real time. Scientists found that the "leap" in knowledge was not related to language. The language center of the brain was activated only in people who heard the instructions for the video, but both groups successfully made Acheulean instruments. This could solve the mystery of when and how the human species moved from ape-like thinking to cognition. Many believe that 1.75 million years ago, music first appeared, along with human intelligence.

The undoubted interest of all those involved in history will be aroused and 10 historical facts from life in the Middle Ages, which are not written about in textbooks.