The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to prehistoric technology.
Prehistoric technology – technology that predates recorded history. History is the study of the past using written records; it is also the record itself. Anything prior to the first written accounts of history is prehistoric (meaning "before history"), including earlier technologies. About 2.5 million years before writing was developed, technology began with the earliest hominids who used stone tools, which they may have used to start fires, hunt, cut food, and bury their dead.
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Transcription
Hello, learned and astonishingly attractive pupils. My name is John Green and I want to welcome you to Crash Course World History. Over the next forty weeks together, we will learn how in a mere fifteen thousand years humans went from hunting and gathering... Mr. Green, Mr. Green! Is this gonna be on the test? Yeah, about the test: The test will measure whether you are an informed, engaged, and productive citizen of the world, and it will take place in schools and bars and hospitals and dorm-rooms and in places of worship. You will be tested on first dates; in job interviews; while watching football; and while scrolling through your Twitter feed. The test will judge your ability to think about things other than celebrity marriages; whether you'll be easily persuaded by empty political rhetoric; and whether you'll be able to place your life and your community in a broader context. The test will last your entire life, and it will be comprised of the millions of decisions that, when taken together, make your life yours. And everything — everything — will be on it. I know, right? So pay attention. [Intro] In a mere fifteen thousand years, humans went from hunting and gathering to creating such improbabilities as the airplane, the Internet, and the ninety-nine cent double cheeseburger. It's an extraordinary journey, one that I will now symbolize by embarking upon a journey of my own ... over to camera two. Hi there, camera two ... it's me, John Green. Let's start with that double cheeseburger. Ooh, food photography! So this hot hunk of meat contains four-hundred and ninety calories. To get this cheeseburger, you have to feed, raise, and slaughter cows, then grind their meat, then freeze it and ship it to its destination; you also gotta grow some wheat and then process the living crap out of it until it's whiter than Queen Elizabeth the First; then you gotta milk some cows and turn their milk into cheese. And that's not even to mention the growing and pickling of cucumbers or the sweetening of tomatoes or the grinding of mustard seeds, etc. How in the sweet name of everything holy did we ever come to live in a world in which such a thing can even be created? And HOW is it possible that those four-hundred and ninety calories can be served to me for an amount of money that, if I make the minimum wage here in the U.S., I can earn in ELEVEN MINUTES? And most importantly: should I be delighted or alarmed to live in this strange world of relative abundance? Well, to answer that question we're not going to be able to look strictly at history, because there isn't a written record about a lot of these things. But thanks to archaeology and paleobiology, we CAN look deep into the past. Let's go to the Thought Bubble. So fifteen thousand years ago, humans were foragers and hunters. Foraging meant gathering fruits, nuts, also wild grains and grasses; hunting allowed for a more protein-rich diet ... so long as you could find something with meat to kill. By far the best hunting gig in the pre-historic world incidentally was fishing, which is one of the reasons that if you look at history of people populating the planet, we tended to run for the shore and then stay there. Marine life was: A) abundant, and B) relatively unlikely to eat you. While we tend to think that the life of foragers were nasty, brutish and short, fossil evidence suggests that they actually had it pretty good: their bones and teeth are healthier than those of agriculturalists. And anthropologists who have studied the remaining forager peoples have noted that they actually spend a lot fewer hours working than the rest of us and they spend more time on art, music, and storytelling. Also if you believe the classic of anthropology, NISA, they also have a lot more time for skoodilypooping. What? I call it skoodilypooping. I'm not gonna apologize. It's worth noting that cultivation of crops seems to have risen independently over the course of milennia in a number of places ... from Africa to China to the Americas ... using crops that naturally grew nearby: rice in Southeast Asia, maize in in Mexico, potatoes in the Andes, wheat in the Fertile Crescent, yams in West Africa. People around the world began to abandon their foraging for agriculture. And since so many communities made this choice independently, it must have been a good choice ... right? Even though it meant less music and skoodilypooping. Thanks, Thought Bubble. All right, to answer that question, let's take a look at the advantages and disadvantages of agriculture. Advantage: Controllable food supply. You might have droughts or floods, but if you're growing the crops and breeding them to be hardier, you have a better chance of not starving. Disadvantage: In order to keep feeding people as the population grows you have to radically change the environment of the planet. Advantage: Especially if you grow grain, you can create a food surplus, which makes cities possible and also the specialization of labor. Like, in the days before agriculture, EVERYBODY'S job was foraging, and it took about a thousand calories of work to create a thousand calories of food ... and it was impossible to create large population centers. But, if you have a surplus agriculture can support people not directly involved in the production of food. Like, for instance, tradespeople, who can devote their lives to better farming equipment which in turn makes it easier to produce more food more efficiently which in time makes it possible for a corporation to turn a profit on this ninety-nine cent double cheeseburger. Which is delicious, by the way. It's actually terrible. And it's very cold. And I wish I had not eaten it. I mean, can we just compare what I was promised to what I was delivered? Yeah, thank you. Yeah, this is not that. Some would say that large and complex agricultural communities that can support cities and eventually inexpensive meat sandwiches are not necessarily beneficial to the planet or even to its human inhabitants. Although that's a bit of a tough argument to make, coming to you as I am in a series of ones and zeros. ADVANTAGE: Agriculture can be practiced all over the world, although in some cases it takes extensive manipulation of the environment, like y'know irrigation, controlled flooding, terracing, that kind of thing. DISADVANTAGE: Farming is hard. So hard in fact that one is tempted to claim ownership over other humans and then have them till the land on your behalf, which is the kind of non-ideal social order that tends to be associated with agricultural communities. So why did agriculture happen? Wait, I haven't talked about herders. Herders, man! Always getting the short end of the stick. Herding is a really good and interesting alternative to foraging and agriculture. You domesticate some animals and then you take them on the road with you. The advantages of herding are obvious. First, you get to be a cowboy. Also, animals provide meat and milk, but they also help out with shelter because they can provide wool and leather. The downside is that you have to move around a lot because your herd always needs new grass, which makes it hard to build cities, unless you are the Mongols. [music, horse hooves] By the way, over the next forty weeks you will frequently hear generalizations, followed by "unless you are the Mongols" [music, hooves]. But anyway one of the main reasons herding only caught on in certain parts of the world is that there aren't that many animals that lend themselves to domestication. Like, you have sheep, goats, cattle, pigs, horses, camels, donkeys, reindeer, water buffalo, yaks, all of which have something in common. They aren't native to the Americas. The only halfway useful herding animal native to the Americas is the llama. No, not that Lama, two l's. Yes, that llama. Most animals just don't work for domestication. Like hippos are large, which means they provide lots of meat, but unfortunately, they like to eat people. Zebras are too ornery. Grizzlies have wild hearts that can't be broken. Elephants are awesome, but they take way too long to breed. Which reminds me! It's time for the Open Letter. Elegant. But first, let's see what the Secret Compartment has for me today. Oh! It's another double cheeseburger. Thanks, Secret Compartment. Just kidding, I don't thank you for this. An Open Letter to elephants. Hey elephants, You're so cute and smart and awesome. Why you gotta be pregnant for 22 months? That's crazy! And then you only have one kid. If you were more like cows, you might have taken us over by now. Little did you know, but the greatest evolutionary advantage: being useful to humans. Like here is a graph of cow population, and here is a graph of elephant population. Elephants, if you had just inserted yourself into human life the way cows did, you could have used your power and intelligence to form secret elephant societies, conspiring against the humans! And then you could have risen up, and destroyed us, and made an awesome elephant world with elephant cars, and elephant planes! It would have been so great! But noooo! You gotta be pregnant for 22 months and then have just one kid. It's so annoying! Best wishes, John Green. Right, but back to the agricultural revolution and why it occurred. Historians don't know for sure, of course, because there are no written records. But, they love to make guesses. Maybe population pressure necessitated agriculture even though it was more work, or abundance gave people leisure to experiment with domestication or planting originated as a fertility rite - or as some historians have argued - people needed to domesticate grains in order to produce more alcohol. Charles Darwin, like most 19th century scientists, believed agriculture was an accident, saying, "a wild and unusually good variety of native plant might attract the attention of some wise old savage." Off topic, but you will note in the coming weeks that the definition of "savage" tends to be be "not me." Maybe the best theory is that there wasn't really an agricultural revolution at all, but that agriculture came out of an evolutionary desire to eat more. Like early hunter gatherers knew that seeds germinate when planted. And, when you find something that makes food, you want to do more of it. Unless it's this food. Then you want to do less of it. I kinda want to spit it out. Eww. Ah, that's much better. So early farmers would find the most accessible forms of wheat and plant them and experiment with them not because they were trying to start an agricultural revolution, because they were like, you know what would be awesome: MORE food! Like on this topic, we have evidence that more than 13,000 years ago humans in southern Greece were domesticating snails. In the Franchthi Cave, there's a huge pile of snail shells, most of them are larger than current snails, suggesting that the people who ate them were selectively breeding them to be bigger and more nutritious. Snails make excellent domesticated food sources, by the way because A) surprisingly caloric B) they're easy to carry since they come with their own suitcases, and C) to imprison them you just have to scratch a ditch around their living quarters. That's not really a revolution, that's just people trying to increase available calories. But one non-revolution leads to another, and pretty soon you have this, as far as the eye can see. Many historians also argue that without agriculture we wouldn't have all the bad things that come with complex civilizations like patriarchy, inequality, war, and unfortunately, famine. And, as far as the planet is concerned, agriculture has been a big loser. Without it, humans never would have changed the environment so much, building dams, and clearing forests, and more recently, drilling for oil that we can turn into fertilizer. Many people made the choice for agriculture independently, but does that mean it was the right choice? Maybe so, and maybe not, but, regardless, we can't unmake that choice. And that's one of the reasons I think it's so important to study history. History reminds us that revolutions are not events so much as they are processes; that for tens of thousands of years people have been making decisions that irrevocably shaped the world that we live in today. Just as today we are making subtle, irrevocable decisions that people of the future will remember as revolutions. Next week we're going to journey to the Indus River Valley - whoa - very fragile, our globe, like the real globe. We're going to travel to the Indus River Valley. I'll see you then. Crash Course is produced and directed by Stan Muller. Our script supervisor is Danica Johnson. The show is written by my high school history teacher, Raoul Meyer, and myself, and our graphics team is Thought Bubble. If you want to guess at the phrase of the week, you can do so in comments. You can also suggest future phrases of the week. And if you have a question about today's video, please leave it comments where our team of semi-professional quasi-historians will aim to answer it. Thanks for watching, and as we say in my hometown, Don't Forget To Be Awesome.
Nature of prehistoric technology
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Prehistoric technology can be described as:
- Prehistoric – "before we had written records," from the Latin word for "before," præ. Prehistory is the span of time before recorded history, that is, before the invention of writing systems.
- Technology – making, modification, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems, and methods of organization, in order to solve a problem, improve a preexisting solution to a problem, achieve a goal, handle an applied input/output relation or perform a specific function.
Old World prehistoric technology
- Three-age system – in archaeology and physical anthropology, the periodization of human prehistory into three consecutive time periods, each named after the main material used in its respective tool-making technologies: the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age.
- Beginning of prehistoric technology – the earliest technology began (2.5 million years) before recorded history, that is, at the beginning of the Stone Age.
- Latest prehistoric technology – the level of technology reached before true writing was introduced differed by region (and usually included proto-writing)...
- Latest prehistoric technology in the Near East – cultures in the Near East achieved the development of writing first, during their Bronze Age.
- Latest prehistoric technology in the rest of the Old World: Europe, India, and China reached Iron Age technological development before the introduction of writing there.
Stone Age technology in the Old World
- Stone Age – broad prehistoric period, lasting roughly 2.5 million years, during which stone was widely used in the manufacture of implements with a sharp edge, a point, or a percussion surface. The period began with hominids and ended between 6000 and 2000 BCE with the advent of metalworking.
Paleolithic technology
- Paleolithic – prehistoric period of human history distinguished by the development of the most primitive stone tools discovered (Grahame Clark's Modes I and II), and covers roughly 99% of human technological prehistory.
Lower Paleolithic technology
- Lower Paleolithic – earliest subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age. It spans the time from around 2.5 million years ago when the first evidence of craft and use of stone tools by hominids appears in the current archaeological record, until around 300,000 years ago, spanning the Oldowan ("mode 1") and Acheulean ("mode 2") lithic technology.
- Stone tool use – early human (hominid) use of stone tool technology, such as the hand axe, was similar to that of primates, which is found to be limited to the intelligence levels of modern children aged 3 to 5 years. Ancestors of homo sapiens (modern man) used stone tools as follows:
- Homo habilis ("handy man") – first "homo" species. It lived from approximately 2.3 to 1.4 million years ago in Africa and created stone tools called Oldowan tools.[1][2][3]
- Homo ergaster – in eastern and southern Africa about 2.5 to 1.7 million years ago, it refined Oldowan tools and developed the first Acheulean bifacial axes.[4]
- Homo erectus ("upright man") – lived about 1.8 to 1.3 million years ago in West Asia and Africa and is thought to be the first hominid to hunt in coordinated groups, use complex tools, and care for infirm or weaker companions.[5][6]
- Homo antecessor – earliest hominid in Northern Europe. It lived from 1.2 million to 800,000 years ago and used stone tools.[7][8]
- Homo heidelbergensis – lived between 600,000 and 400,000 years ago and used stone tool technology similar to the Acheulean tools used by Homo erectus.[9]
- Control of fire by early humans – European and Asian sites dating back 1.5 million years ago seem to indicate controlled use of fire by H. erectus. A northern Israel site from about 690,000 to 790,000 years ago suggests controlled use of fire in a hearth from pre-existing natural fires or embers.[10]
- Burial – the act of placing a deceased person into the ground.
- Homo heidelbergensis – may have been the first species to bury their dead about 500,000 years ago.[11]
- Stone tool use – early human (hominid) use of stone tool technology, such as the hand axe, was similar to that of primates, which is found to be limited to the intelligence levels of modern children aged 3 to 5 years. Ancestors of homo sapiens (modern man) used stone tools as follows:
Middle Paleolithic technology
- Middle Paleolithic period – in Europe and the Near East during which the Neanderthals lived (c. 300,000–28,000 years ago). Their technology is mainly the Mousterian. The earliest evidence (Mungo Man) of settlement in Australia dates to around 55,000 years ago when modern humans likely crossed from Asia by island-hopping. The Bhimbetka rock shelters exhibit the earliest traces of human life in India, some of which are approximately 30,000 years old.
- Homo neanderthalensis
- Stone tools – homo neanderthalensis used Mousterian stone tools that date back to around 300,000 years ago[12] and include smaller, knife-like and scraper tools.
- Burials – homo neanderthalensis buried their dead, doing so in shallow graves along with stone tools and animal bones, although the reasons and significance of the burials are disputed.[13][14]
- Homo sapiens – the only living species in the genus Homo originated in Africa about 200,000 years ago. Greater mental capability and ability to walk erect provided freed hands for manipulating objects, which allowed for far greater use of tools.[15]
- Art of the Middle Paleolithic
- Burial – intentional burial, particularly with grave goods, may be one of the earliest detectable forms of religious practice since it may signify a "concern for the dead that transcends daily life."[16] The earliest undisputed human burial so far dates back 130,000 years. Human skeletal remains stained with red ochre were discovered in the Skhul cave at Qafzeh, Israel with a variety of grave goods.[17]
- Homo neanderthalensis
Upper Paleolithic Revolution
- Upper Paleolithic Revolution – theoretical occurrence between 60,000 and 30,000 years ago, possibly the origin of language, resulting in modern human behavior, accompanied radical advancements in technology made possible by it.[18]
- Behavioral modernity – a set of traits that distinguish Homo sapiens from extinct hominid lineages. Homo sapiens reached full behavior modernity around 50,000 years ago due to a highly developed brain capable of abstract reasoning, language, introspection, and problem solving.[15][19]
- Tools – included Aurignacian tools, such as stone bladed tools, tools made of antlers, and tools made of bones.[20]
- Clothing – evidence, such as possible sewing needles from around 40,000 years ago and[21] dyed flax fibers dated 36,000 BP found in a prehistoric cave in the Republic of Georgia suggest that people were wearing clothes at this time.[22][23] Human beings may have begun wearing clothing as far back as 190,000 years ago.[24]
- Art of the Upper Paleolithic – included cave painting, sculpture such as the Venus figurines, carvings and engravings of bone and ivory, and musical instruments such as flutes. The most common subject matter was large animals that were hunted by the people of the time.
Mesolithic technology
- Mesolithic – the transitional period between the Paleolithic hunter-gatherers, beginning with the Holocene warm period around 11,660 BP and ending with the Neolithic introduction of farming, the date of which varied in each geographical region. Adaptation was required during this period due to climate changes that affected environment and the types of available food.
- Stone tool changes – small stone tools called Microliths, including small bladelets and microburins, emerged during this period.[25]
- Weapons – spears or arrows were found at the earliest known Mesolithic battle site at Cemetery 117 in the Sudan.[26] Holmegaard bows were found in the bogs of Northern Europe dating from the Mesolithic period.[27]
Neolithic Revolution
- Neolithic Revolution – first agricultural revolution, representing a transition from hunting and gathering nomadic life to an agriculture existence. It evolved independently in six separate locations worldwide circa 10,000–7000 years BP (8,000–5,000 BC). The earliest known evidence exists in the tropical and subtropical areas of southwestern/southern Asia, northern/central Africa and Central America.[28]
- Defining characteristics
- Introduction of agriculture – a defining characteristic of Neolithic societies, which resulted in a swing from a nomadic lifestyle to one that was more sedentary,[29] and the use of agricultural tools such as the plough, digging stick and hoe (tool).
- Domestication – of animals, including dogs[28][29]
- Pottery – emerged as a defining characteristic of the Neolithic period.[29]
- Other
- Architecture – included houses and villages built of mud-brick and wattle and daub and the construction of storage facilities, tombs and monuments.[30]
- Metalworking – copper use began as early as 9000 BC in the Middle East;[31] and a copper pendant found in northern Iraq dated to 8700 BCE.[32]
- Numeric counting – record keeping evolved from a system of counting using small clay tokens that began in Sumer about 8000 BCE.[33]
- Proto-writing – ideographic and/or early mnemonic symbols used to convey information, probably devoid of direct linguistic content. These systems emerged in the early Neolithic period, as early as the 7th millennium BCE.
- Neolithic signs in Europe
- Vinča signs (Tărtăria tablets), ca. 5300 BCE[34]
- Neolithic signs in China – at a range of Neolithic sites in China, small numbers of symbols of either pictorial or simple geometric nature have been unearthed which were incised into or drawn or painted on artifacts, mostly on pottery but in some instances on turtle shells, animal bones or artifacts made from bone or jade.
- Jiahu symbols, carved on tortoise shells in Jiahu, ca. 6600 BC
- Neolithic signs in Europe
- Stone tools – ground and polished tools were created during the Neolithic period.[29]
- Religious structures – such as the Göbekli Tepe built about 12,000 years ago.
- Wheel – in the late Neolithic period, the wheel was introduced for making pottery.[35]
- Defining characteristics
Prehistoric Bronze Age technology in the Old World
- Bronze Age – stage of development characterized by the use of copper and its alloy bronze as the chief hard materials in the manufacture of some implements and weapons and of developing trade networks.
- Bronze Age China
- Bronze Age India
- Early Indus script, ca. 3500 BC
- Bronze Age Europe
Prehistoric Iron Age technology in the Old World
- Iron Age – age characterized by the widespread use of iron or steel, which coincided with other changes in society, including differing agricultural practices, religious beliefs and artistic styles.
- Tools – best tools and weapons were made from steel.[citation needed]
End of prehistory and the beginning of history
- Development of true writing systems – in the Old World, true writing systems developed from neolithic writing in the Early Bronze Age (4th millennium BC). The Sumerian archaic (proto-cuneiform) writing and the Egyptian hieroglyphs are generally considered the earliest true writing systems, both emerging out of their ancestral proto-literate symbol systems from 3400–3200 BC with earliest coherent texts from about 2600 BC.
Transition from proto-writing to true writing
- General developmental stages leading from proto-writing to true writing:
- Picture writing system: glyphs directly represent objects and ideas or objective and ideational situations. In connection with this the following substages may be distinguished:
- The mnemonic: glyphs primarily a reminder;
- The pictographic (pictography): glyphs represent directly an object or an objective situation such as (A) chronological, (B) notices, (C) communications, (D) totems, titles, and names, (E) religious, (F) customs, (G) historical, and (H) biographical;
- The ideographic (ideography): glyphs represent directly an idea or an ideational situation.
- Transitional system: glyphs refer not only to the object or idea which it represents but to its name as well.
- Phonetic system: glyphs refer to sounds or spoken symbols irrespective of their meanings. This resolves itself into the following substages:
- The verbal: glyph (logogram) represents a whole word;
- The syllabic: glyph represent a syllable;
- The alphabetic: glyph represent an elementary sound.
- Picture writing system: glyphs directly represent objects and ideas or objective and ideational situations. In connection with this the following substages may be distinguished:
Prehistoric technology of the Americas
The New World periods began with the crossing of the Paleo-Indians, Athabaskan, Aleuts, Inuit, and Yupik peoples along the Bering Land Bridge onto the North American continent.[36] In their book, Method and Theory in American Archaeology, Gordon Willey and Philip Phillips defined five cultural stages for the Americas, including the three prehistoric Lithic, Archaic and Formative stages. The historic stages are the Classic and Post-Classic stages.[37][38]
- Paleo-Indian period – the first people who entered, and subsequently inhabited, the Americas during the final glacial episodes of the late Pleistocene period. Evidence suggests big-game hunters crossed the Bering Strait from Asia into North America over a land and ice bridge (Beringia), that existed between 45,000 BCE – 12,000 BCE,[39] following herds of large herbivores far into Alaska.[40]
- Athabaskan-speakers
- Aleuts
- Inuit
- Yup'ik[41]
Lithic technology
- Lithic technology – occurred from 12,000 to 6,000 years before present and included the Clovis culture, Folsom tradition and Plano culture.[38] Clovis culture was once considered the first culture to use projectile points to hunt on the North American continent. Since then, a pre-Clovis site was found in Manis, Washington that found use of projectile points to hunt mastodons.[42]
Archaic period technology
- Archaic – was dated from 8,000 to 2,000 years before present.[38] People were hunters of small game, such as deer, antelope and rabbits, and gatherers of wild plants, moving seasonally to hunting and gathering sites. Late in the Archaic period, about 200-500 CE, corn was introduced into the diet and pottery-making became an occupation for storing and carrying food.[43]
Formative stage technology
- Formative stage – followed the Archaic period and continued until the point of contact by European people. Cultures from that period include that of the Ancient Pueblo People, Mississippian culture and Olmec cultures.[38]
Prehistoric technologies by type
Primitive skills
Prehistoric art
- Prehistoric art – art produced in preliterate, prehistorical cultures beginning somewhere in very late geological history, and generally continuing until that culture either develops writing or other methods of record-keeping, or makes significant contact with another culture that has, and that makes some record of major historical events.
- List of Stone Age art
- Types of prehistoric art
- Prehistoric art by region
Domestication of animals
Language / numbers
Prehistoric fishing
Prehistoric hunting
Prehistoric mining
Prehistoric medicine
Prehistoric tools
- Timeline of historic inventions#Prehistoric
- History of materials science#Prehistory
- Archaeological industry
Prehistoric clothing
Stone Age tools
- Biface
- Hand axe
- Control of fire by early humans
- Bone tool
- Spear#Prehistory
- Prepared-core technique
- Blade (archaeology)
- Chopper (archaeology)
- Cleaver (tool)
- Tool stone
- Lithic flake
- Lithic core
- Lithic reduction
- Tranchet flake
- Langdale axe industry
- Bow and arrow#History
- Chopping tool
- Cupstone
- Bann flake
- Bare Island projectile point, just a few of many kinds of projectile points
- Canaanean blade
- Celt (tool)
- Adze#Europe
- Anvil#History
- Arrow#History
- Sewing needle#Needles in archaeology
- Basket#History
- Pigment#History
- Glue#History
- Rope#History
- Bow drill#History
- Woodworking#History
Prehistoric weapons
Gallery
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Reconstruction of how homo erectus may have looked
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Fire started using a bow drill
-
Selection of prehistoric tools
-
See also
- Aboriginal stone arrangement
- Paleolithic diet
- Prehistoric Autopsy (2012 BBC documentary)
- Timeline of human prehistory
Sites
References
- ^ Leakey, Richard (1981). The Making of Mankind. Dutton Adult. pp. 65-66. ISBN 0-525-15055-2.
- ^ Wilford, John Noble. (August 9, 2007). Fossils in Kenya Challenge Linear Evolution New York Times. Retrieved December 16, 2011.
- ^ Dalling, Robert. (2006). The Story of Us Humans, From Atoms to Today's Civilization. Lincoln: iUniverse. ISBN 0-595-391176.
- ^ Beck, Roger B.; Black, Linda; Krieger, Larry S.; Naylor, Phillip C.; Shabaka, Dahia Ibo. (1999). World History: Patterns of Interaction. Evanston, IL: McDougal Littell. ISBN 0-395-87274-X.
- ^ Boehm, Christopher. (1999). Hierarchy in the forest: the evolution of egalitarian behavior. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. p. 198. ISBN 0-674-39031-8.
- ^ New discovery suggests Homo erectus originated from Asia Daily News & Analysis. June 8, 2011. Retrieved December 17, 2011.
- ^ Moore, Matthew. (July 8, 2010). "Norfolk earliest known settlement in northern Europe." London: The Daily Telegraph Retrieved July 8, 2010.
- ^ Ghosh, Pallab. (July 7, 2010). "Humans' early arrival in Britain." BBC Retrieved July 8, 2010.
- ^ Rightmire, G. P. (1998). "Human Evolution in the Middle Pleistocene: The Role of Homo heidelbergensis." Archived 2012-03-23 at the Wayback Machine Evolutionary Anthropology. 6(6):218–227. doi:10.1002/(SICI)1520-6505(1998)6:6<218::AID-EVAN4>3.0.CO;2-6.
- ^ Fire out of Africa: a key to the migration of prehistoric man. The Hebrew Museum of Jerusalem. October 27, 2008. Retrieved December 20, 2011.
- ^ The Mystery of the Pit of Bones, Atapuerca, Spain: Species Homo heidelbergensis. Smithsonian Institution. Retrieved December 15, 2011.
- ^ Skinner, A.; Blackwell, B.; Long, R.; Seronie-Vivien, M.R.; Tillier, A.-M.; Blickstein, J. (March 28, 2007). "New ESR dates for a new bone-bearing layer at Pradayrol, Lot, France". Paleoanthropology Society.
- ^ Scarre, Chris. (2009). The Human Past: World Prehistory and the Development of Human Societies. (2nd edition). Thames & Hudson. ISBN 0-500-28781-3.
- ^ "Evolving in their graves: early burials hold clues to human origins - research of burial rituals of Neanderthals." Findarticles.com December 15, 2001. Retrieved March 25, 2011.
- ^ a b Sternberg, Robert J.; Kaufman, Scott Barry. (editors). (2011). The Cambridge Handbook of Intelligence. Cambridge University Press. p. 335. ISBN 978-0-521-51806-2.
- ^ Lieberman, Philip. (1991). Uniquely Human. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. p. 162. ISBN 0-674-92183-6.
- ^ Lieberman, Philip Uniquely Human. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. p. 163. ISBN 0-674-92183-6.
- ^ Gabora, Liane; Russon, Anne. "The Evolution of Intelligence." chapter in Sternberg, Robert J.; Kaufman, Scott Barry. (editors). (2011). The Cambridge Handbook of Intelligence. Cambridge University Press. p. 335. ISBN 978-0-521-51806-2.
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Further reading
- Fagan, Brian; Shermer, Michael; Wrangham, Richard. (2010). Science & Humanity: From Past to the Future. Los Angeles Times Festival of Books.
- Karlin, C.; Julien, M. Prehistoric technology: a cognitive science? University of Washington.
- Klein, Richard. (2009). The Human Career: Human Biological and Cultural Origins, Third Edition.
- Palmer, Douglas. (1999). Atlas of the Prehistoric World. Discovery Channel Books.
- Schick, Kathy Diane. (1994). Making Silent Stones Speak: Human Evolution and the Dawn of Technology.
- Tudge, Colin. (1997). The Time Before History: 5 Million Years of Human Impact. Touchstone.
- Wescott, David. (2001). Primitive Technology:A Book of Earth Skills.
- Wescott, David. (2001). Primitive Technology II: Ancestral Skill - From the Society of Primitive Technology.
- Wrangham, Richard. (2010). Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human. Basic Books; First Trade Paper Edition.
- Zimmer, Carl. (2007). Smithsonian Intimate Guide to Human Origins. Harper Perennial.
External links
- Ancient human occupation of Britain
- Department of Prehistory of Europe, British Museum
- Index of Ancient Sites and Monuments, Ancient Wisdom
- Online Exhibits, University of California Museum of Paleontology
- Prehistoric Science and Technology, Ancient Wisdom
- Prehistoric Technology, Ancient Arts
- Prehistoric Technology, Access Science
- Prehistoric Technology, Royal Alberta Museum, Canada
- Prehistory for Kids Archived 2013-07-01 at the Wayback Machine
- Show me: Prehistory, Interactive, educational site
- Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Natural History
- Timeline: 2,500,000 BCE to 8,000 BCE, Jeremy Norman
- Quinson's Museum of Prehistory, France