Paleolithic Age

1. Paleolithic Age

2. Introduction • Human origin – 2.5 million years ago • Homo sapiens – 250,000 years ago • Homo sapiens sapiens (subspecies) – 200,000 years ago • Paleolithic (Old Stone) Age – 2.5 million to 12000 BCE • Simple tools – increase in size, brain capacity

4. Introduction continued • Human negatives and positives • Aggressiveness, infant dependency, back problems, death fears • Grip, high/regular sex drive, omnivores, facial expressions, speech

5. Migration Patterns • Archeological evidence indicates that during the Paleolithic era, hunter-foraging bands of humans gradually migrated from their origin in East Africa to Eurasia, Australia and the Americas, adapting their technology and cultures to new climate regions. • Map

6. Developments • Humans used fire in new ways: • Aid hunting and foraging (cook) • Protect against predators • Adapt to cold environments

7. Developments continued • Humans developed a wider range of tools specially adapted to different environments from tropics to tundra • Sharpen and shape stone for weapons and cutting edges • Animal skin for clothing, needles, fish hooks, nets, bow and arrow, rafts • Domesticated animals • Dogs – for the purpose of hunting

8. Developments continued • Religion was most likely animistic • Belief in the existence of individual spirits that inhabit objects and phenomena. • Rituals for death • Explain environment • Created figurines - venus, bear, lion, mammoth, horse

11. Developments continued • Economic structures focused on small kinship groups of hunting-foraging bands that could make what they needed to survive. • Not all groups were self-sufficient; exchanged people, ideas, and goods. • Society • Rules for social behavior • Mostly egalitarian – men and women both contributed, but women worked harder • Conflict with other groups