O Paleolithic it's a period of Prehistory which spanned approximately 2.5 million years ago to 12,000 years ago. In it, groups of hominids and humans lived in a nomadic way and were just hunters and gatherers. At that time, cave paintings were also recorded.
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Main characteristics of the Paleolithic
The Paleolithic is a period of Prehistory and stretched from 2.5 million years ago to 12 thousand years ago (10,000 a. C.), approximately. It is also known as Chipped Stone Age, in reference to the fact that hominids produced their tools by chipping one stone into another, until they obtained the desired shape in the stone.
During this period humans were considered hunter-gatherer nomads, since they did not dominate the agriculture and they lived only from hunting, fishing and gathering fruit. This meant that when these vital resources for survival began to run out, the human groups would pick up their stuff and move elsewhere.
During this period, human beings did not dominate architecture, therefore, they did not build their own houses. Thus, the Paleolithic human sought caves to take shelter. These caves served to protect him from the cold, but also from dangerous animals.
Its survival was also possible because hunting provided it with food, and, in addition, the animals' skin was used to make clothing that would protect it from the cold. This was fundamental for the human of that time because she witnessed the occurrence of different phases of glaciation, that is, periods in which the average temperature in the Earth it was greatly reduced.
The Paleolithic was also when something fundamental happened: the human being started to master the fire (event that happened 500,000 years ago), and this became vital to their culture, as they used this element to protect themselves from animals. In addition, the fire helped to improve their diet, giving them the possibility that the meat could be cooked, for example.
Some historians also say that fire was important in socialization process of the human being, because the bonfire building at mealtimes it became a time for meeting and socializing. Finally, fire was also important to warm humans, also protecting them from the cold.
The tools produced by humans in this period were made of bone and, mainly, stone. The highlight goes to flint, a very resistant stone. These tools were used by humans to hunt animals and ensure their protection. The game obtained was preserved through freezing, smoking or drying.
In the final part of the Paleolithic, historians identified that human beings had already developed their firstreligious experiences, in addition to already practicing ritualsfuneral parlors, like the sambaquis, very present on the Brazilian coast.
THE sedentarization of the human, which inaugurated the Neolithic and was only made possible by the warming of the Earth's average temperature, allowed that he settled in a specific place and could survive from agriculture and grazing of animals. However, this was not an easy change, as historian Paul Kriwaczek claims that it generated conflicts among humans|1|.
Kriwaczek claims that sedentarization radically changed the lifestyle of humans and contributed to the destruction of a range of abilities that only nomads had. Furthermore, survival through agriculture was much more difficult than through hunting, which meant that these groups had a much poorer diet.
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Periodization of History and Paleolithic
The Paleolithic is a period included in what we know as Prehistory, which also encompasses the Neolithic and the Age of Metals. This division has been established by historians of the XIX century and it was very much based on how the intellectuals of that century saw history.
They understood that human history began with the emergence of writing, around 3000 BC Ç. Therefore, everything prior to this was understood as prehistory. The nomenclature remained, but current historiography no longer understands that history only began when writing appeared.
It is important to point out that the Paleolithic is divided into subperiods that take into account the material and technological evolution of human beings. However, this evolution in the tools used by humans did not happen in a linear way across the planet. Each region developed at its own pace.
Thus, at a certain point in the Paleolithic, some regions already had much more sophisticated tools than those in other places. This periodization is, therefore, another didactic tool that allows us to better understand this period.
The periods existing in the Paleolithic are (approximately) the following:
PaleolithicBottom: 2.5 million years ago to 250,000 years ago;
PaleolithicAverage: 250,000 years ago to 30,000 years;
PaleolithicHigher: 30,000 years ago to 10,000 years ago.
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Art in the Paleolithic
Another important highlight about the Paleolithic is about the art that humans from that period produced, especially the paintingsrocks, that is, paintings produced on the walls of caves.
It is believed that the first cave paintings were made about 40 thousand years ago. Scholars of prehistoric art claim that Paleolithic humans did them for the purpose of getting what they wanted. Others propose the theory that these paintings may have been just an artistic manifestation, without specific goals.
Humans used various materials to make their paintings, among which were charcoal, earth and blood. Many of the cave paintings reproduced the human being in scenes that involved the hunting of animals. Here in Brazil, the main archaeological site with preserved cave paintings is located in smissgivescapybara, located in Piauí.
|1| KRIWACZEK, Paul. Babylon: Mesopotamia and the birth of civilization. Rio de Janeiro: Zahar, 2018. P. 36.
Image credits:
[1] Gulsahinko and Shutterstock
