Cultural Advances

Anthropology

Culture

• Human Culture: Any learned behaviour, including technology

Paleolithic Era

• The cultures of pre-historic humans are known mostly through stone tools and other imperishable artifacts

• Early tools (simplest technologies) were thought to be from Paleolithic (“Old Stone Age”)

Paleolithic Era

• Lower: 2.5mya-100,000ya

• Middle: 250,000ya – 30,000ya

• Upper: 50,000ya – 10,000ya

• These are approximations and obviously overlap

Lower Paleolithic

• Acheulian tool tradition used and made until roughly 100,00ya when Neanderthals and others achieved a major leap forward in tool making with the development of the Mousterian tool tradition

Mid-Paleolithic technologies

• Changes in tool making (100,00ya)• Sophistication with dealing with environment

(especially with obtaining food)

• Local groups had differences and therefore variations of tools began

• Most variation was through the “Mousterian” tool tradition

Mid - Paleo

• This technology was part of their successful adaptation to hunting and gathering, especially in cooler climates like Europe during the last ice age (75,000ya)

Mousterian (mid-Paleo)

• Reduction of large core tools (hand axes)• Specialized Flake Tools became more common• Levallois Flake

Levallois Flake

Uses

• Think of possible uses for the Levallois Flake over the Acheulian tradition…

• Animal Skin prep** (why most important?)• Butchering animals• Cutting small pieces of wood

• This was the first time that stone tips were affixed to spears

• This provided more effective killing

• Neanderthals were pioneers which is another argument against the idea that they were brutish, apelike, dull-witted creatures

Neanderthal Culture

• Cooler climates require protection• Evidence of clothing manufacturing?

• Stone Awls were found in sites belonging to Neanderthals

• Wear on incisor teeth similar to Inuit women