We explain what the Stone Age was, its characteristics, stages, how it begins and how it ends. Also, the Age of Metals.
The Stone Age was the beginning of culture.What was the Stone Age?
The Stone Age or Lithic Stage is the first temporal division of the prehistory, that is, it is the period of time that goes from the moment in which the Humans began to use stone instruments, until they used bronze, thus beginning the Age of metals.
Its beginning was conventionally defined in the year 2,600,000 BC. C. and its end in 4,000 a. So the Stone Age is a really long period.
The term "Stone Age" was coined by the Danish scholar Christian J. Thomsen in the late 19th century. It is part of the conceptual framework that he proposed to study human prehistory, known as the System of the Three Ages, which would be the Stone Age, the Bronze Age and the Iron age, each one succeeding the other in technological complexity and civilizational development.
This system has been used for a long time, although it is not devoid of criticism: it is said to be too oriented towards technology and conceived from a perspective focused on the past of Europe, which is of little use when studying other regions.
For example, there is evidence of stone tools developed 3.4 million years ago by early hominids, or by primates other than our species. It should be remembered, then, that we are talking about a simplified conceptual framework.
Stone Age Features
Despite what its name suggests, the tools that humans used during the Stone Age were not made exclusively of stone, but also of bone, fibers, leather, wood, and clay. But in the archaeological record, stone tools are the best preserved, which is why they are the most abundant.
However, focusing too much on these tools could make us lose sight of the fact that the Stone Age witnessed a quantum leap in the technological and civilizational history of mankind, during which the culture (as evidenced by the paintings and the first figurines of Venus).
Another important change is that nomadism was abandoned in favor of agricultural life, the first farm animals were domesticated. On the other hand, ceramics and the baking of cereals were discovered, which laid the foundations for the later discovery of metallurgy.
Stone Age periods
In the Neolithic, the first populations appeared that became cities.
The Stone Age is subdivided into three distinct periods, which are:
- Paleolithic. The first part of the stone age extends from the creation of the first lithic tools, until the end of the Ice Age or Ice Age, that is, approximately from 2.5 million years to 9,600 years BC. C. It is the longest period of the three, and is characterized by the appearance of various lithic industries, which constituted a true technological revolution, allowing the humans primitives modify various materials for their protection, such as animal leather. The first rock art and the first ornaments also appear in this period.
- Mesolithic. This intermediate stage begins at the end of the Ice Age, around 9,600 BC. C., and culminates with the appearance of the farming, sometime between 7,000 and 4,000 BC. C., depending on the region of the planet that we consider. There are regions that simply did not have this period. The Mesolithic was the last stage of human life sustained by hunting and gathering, as the planet became warmer and warmer. Therefore, significant changes took place in the level of sea and in the geography.
- Neolithic. The last period of the Stone Age begins with the appearance of agriculture, in a diffuse time limit that oscillates between the years 9,000 and 4,000 a. C. It ends with the appearance of copper as a fundamental technological element, thus beginning the Age of Metals. During this stage, a true civilizing revolution took place, known as the Neolithic Revolution, in which the human being massified agriculture, domesticated animals and abandoned wandering life forever, settling to cultivate the I usually. Such a change started the first populations, which later became the first cities.
Age of metals
The use of metal made many stone tools obsolete.The Metal Age is how the later stage of the Stone Age has been known, encompassing both the so-called Bronze Age and the Iron Age in a single great historical period.
As its name suggests, its characteristic feature is the emergence of metallurgy and the handling of molten metal by mankind, which made most traditional stone tools obsolete by that time.
However, in some regions of the world this period includes other great cultural and civilizational advances, such as the invention of writing and math, or the rise of the first empires of mankind.