The whole history of the primitive system is divided into 3 main periods, corresponding to the formation, flowering and decomposition of the clan organization: 1) the era of the primitive human herd; 2) the era of the tribal community; 3) the era of decomposition of the primitive formation. In addition, the whole of this huge period is customary to divide on the basis of various materials and techniques for manufacturing tools: the Stone, Bronze and Iron Ages.
Paleolithic (ancient stone) - 25 - 10 thousand BC
Mesolithic (Middle Stone) - 10 - 6 thousand BC
Neolithic (new-stone) - 6 - 2 thousand BC
Century of Bronze - 2 thousand BC
Iron Age - 1 millennium BC
Late Paleolithic (35 - 10 thousand BC) - the time of the appearance of pictorial activity; divided into periods named after the first finds: Moustier, Orignac – Saltre and Madeleine.
Primitive art - the art of the era of primitive society. It arose in the Late Paleolithic about 33 thousand years BC. e., reflected the views, conditions and lifestyle of primitive hunters. Primitive art is only a part of primitive culture, which, in addition to art, includes religious beliefs and cults, special traditions and rites. Anthropologists connect the true emergence of art with the appearance of the Cro-Magnon - the direct ancestor of modern man (in the place of the first find of the remains - the Cro-Magnon grotto in southern France).
The first steps in the field of fine art are connected with the appearance of a notch on bones and stones and the first decorations, round sculptures, images engraved and painted on stone plates, graphic and pictorial images on the walls of caves, petroglyphs in caves, decorative objects and ornaments on objects. Experts believe that the genres of primitive art arose in approximately the following order: stone sculpture, cave art and painting, decorative and applied art (pottery and jewelry).
The first works of primitive fine art belong to the Aurignac culture, named after the cave of Aurignac (France). Since then, female figures made of stone and bone have spread widely. The art of miniature sculpture reached a high level of about 25 thousand years. To this era belong the so-called “paleoletic venus” - figurines of women 10-15 cm tall, usually underlined by massive forms found in France, Italy, Austria, the Czech Republic, Russia and other parts of the world. In some caves, bas-reliefs carved in the rock were found, as well as freestanding sculptures of animals.
To perform cave paintings by the deep cut method, the artist had to use rough cutting tools. Massive stone incisors were found in the parking lots. The drawings of the Middle and Late Paleolithic are characterized by a more subtle elaboration of the contour, which is transmitted by several shallow lines. The same technique was used to make drawings with paintings, engravings on bones, tusks, horns, or stone tiles.
The primitive artist used mineral paints: yellow, red and tan ocher (manganese oxide), soot, marl (sedimentary rock) and primitive brushes (shred of wool, a tuft of grass) or directly by hand. The paint was rubbed on animal fat, mixed with honey or plant juice. The round sculpture was created from soft rocks of stone, horn, bone, clay and, in all likelihood, wood. Almost all the plots are devoted to animals that a man hunted (deer, mammoth, bull, bison, horse, bear, lion). There is an image of a man, mainly a woman. Movement in cave painting is transmitted through the position of the legs (crossing legs, it turns out, depicted an animal raiding), tilting the body or turning the head. There are almost no fixed figures.
Images suggested their ritual use. In other words, they performed a cult function. Thus, religion (reverence for those depicted by primitive people) and art (the aesthetic form of what was depicted) arose almost simultaneously.
Venus Willendorf. Limestone; 6 cm; Vein.
Female head from Brassempui. Bone; 3 cm; Paris.
Relief depicting a woman with a horn.
The head of a doe (cave of Castillo) - the era of Orignac-Solutre.
The head of a deer (Font de Gom cave) - the era of Orignac-Solutre.
Mammoth (p. Pesh-Merle) - the era of Orignac-Solutre.
Bison (p. Altamira) - Madeleine era.
Bison (n. Altamira) - Madeleine era.
Deer (von Font de Gomme) - Madeleine era.
Images of animals (Lasko).
Horse (Lasko) - Madeleine era.
Mesolithic characterizes the appearance of bow and arrows, wooden utensils, baskets and bags woven from bast and reeds, fabrics and fishing nets, boats. An important economic achievement was the spread of fisheries and their transformation in a number of regions and countries into a leading industry. Its importance in the emergence of the beginnings of new, producing forms of farming – cattle breeding and agriculture. Mesolithic - the time of the resettlement of mankind from south to north. Moving through the forests along the rivers, the Mesolithic man passed the entire space freed from the glacier, and reached the then northern edge of the continent of Eurasia, where he began to hunt a sea animal. It is also the time to search for new cultural foundations.
The art of the Mesolithic is significantly different from the Paleolithic: the leveling community began to weaken and the role of an individual hunter increased - in rock paintings we see not only animals, but also hunters of men with bows and women awaiting their return. The creation of dynamic multi-figure scenes (hunting, armed clashes, cattle, collecting honey, dancing, etc.) replaces the image of single animals. The dominant position begins to occupy a person, his actions. The human figure is depicted more schematically, more conventionally than the figure of the beast, but much more dynamic, more mobile.
Hunting scene (painting on a rock, Alpera).
Human figures (painting on a rock, Azerbaijan).
Ostrich hunting scene (rock painting, South Africa).
Hunting scene (painting on a rock, India).
Dancing women (painting on a rock, Kogul).
Neolithic. Culture develops even more after the so-called Neolithic revolution. The receipt of surplus food, the emergence of new types of tools and the construction of settled settlements made man relatively independent of the environment. The cultivation of wild plants and the domestication of animals are two of the most important economic achievements of the Neolithic revolution, and the emergence of urban civilization and writing are two of the most important cultural achievements. Hoe farming originated along the course of those rivers that periodically spilled, leaving significant deposits of fertile silt on their banks. Neolithic settlements were located primarily near the places where people live, near the rivers where they caught fish and hunted birds, near the fields where cereals were grown, if the tribes were already engaged in agriculture. But it was also noted that the density of the Neolithic population depended on sufficient reserves of stone necessary for the manufacture of tools.
During the Neolithic revolution, which lasted about seven millennia, the material and spiritual foundations of the cultures of Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, Japan, etc. were laid.
Deep changes in the Neolithic era affected not only the forms of management, but also religion, which, of course, was reflected in art. In pagan religion two fundamentally different types of beliefs formed. Nomadic shepherds worshiped the male principle - a god who embodied the strength of a male animal, most often in the form of a bull. Farmers, on the contrary, identified the house, the hearth, seeds and fertile soil with fertility in the image of a woman.
If until now it was possible to consider the course of the development of art as universal, having power for various areas of the globe, now in art we see pronounced local features that make it possible to distinguish the Neolithic of Egypt from the Neolithic of Mesopotamia, the Neolithic of Europe from the Neolithic of Siberia, etc.
Ceramics is considered the main sign of the Neolithic. It arose in many places at once, independently of each other. The main method of making clay vessels was tape, or tow. A long ribbon was rolled out of the prepared clay dough, put it in a spiral on a spiral in the shape of a future pot, then it was smoothed, dried in air and burned.
A number of new and very important phenomena that were absent in the previous time can be noted. These include the appearance of weaving. Some researchers believe that weaving was preceded by basket weaving.
There was a need to embody such images in art as sky, water, sun, earth, fire. In the Neolithic era, conditionally ornamental forms of images develop; custom has become especially common in decorating various objects that were at the disposal of man. The geometric ornament reaches its peak, turning into a real art of geometric abstractions, which hid a certain worldview and complex symbolism. Stylized abstract motifs appeared (cross, spiral, triangle, rhombus, swastika), stylized figures of animals, birds, humans; line-by-line placement of the ornament on the surface of the vessel, the use of various types of symmetry. A spiral or broken line denoted water. The triangle is fertility, the world was represented by a rhombus oriented to the cardinal points. Small plastic acquired great importance. Figures of a female deity no longer imply a real woman, but a generalized concept of fertility.
Tripoli culture. Clay female figures.
Teddy bear (sandstone, Western Siberia).
Ornamented jug (ceramics, Anatolia, 54 cm).
Ornamented vessel (ceramics of Anatolia, 34 cm).
Rock painting of Sahara (Tassili).
The image of a man.
Image of a man (Karakol, Altai).
The Stone Age between the Paleolithic and the Neolithic is sometimes called the Epipaleolithic, the Middle Stone Age, the Holocene Paleolithic, but most often the Mesolithic. Mesolithic archaeological cultures and monuments belong to the majority of researchers to the three climatic phases of the postglacial time: pre-rebala - from 8.3 to 7.5 / 7 thousand years BC, boreal - 7.5 / 7-6 thousand years BC .e. and the beginning of the Atlantic period (Atlanticum) - 6-5.5 thousand years BC Almost all researchers correlate the Mesolithic with a period from XX to VI, and in some areas up to the V millennium BC.
The history of the allocation of the Mesolithic is not easy. Scientists until the beginning of the XX century. It was believed that in Europe, between the Paleolithic and Neolithic eras, there were long unexplored territories of considerable area. Only in the last quarter of the XIX century. monuments were discovered, the cultural layers of which overlapped the Paleolithic, but were different from them in character and contained inventory. This prompted archaeologists to distinguish the Azil and Tardenouis cultures (the caves of Mas de Azil and Tardenouis in France), which after a while took their place in the general periodization of the Stone Age, for example, in the period of Mortille. For the territory of Europe, the Azilian and Tardenouois epochs stood out as the most recent stages of the ancient Stone Age, however, the discussion about their distinctive features continued.
In 1928, the Ukrainian scientist M.Ya. Rudinsky for the first time in Russian literature coined the term "Mesolithic" and suggested that there was a special Mesolithic, Stone Age period. In the 30s. famous English archaeologist D.G.D. Clark substantiated the allocation of the Mesolithic as a separate large period. A major domestic archaeologist M.V. Voevodsky was the first to single out and describe the diverse world of the Mesolithic cultures of Eastern Europe. Further research by domestic archaeologists expanded and deepened his propositions.
Natural conditions and human resettlement
The prerequisites for the transition from the Paleolithic to the Mesolithic were determined by global climatic changes. About 13 thousand years ago (11 thousand years BC), global postglacial warming begins. The Pleistocene era is replaced by the Holocene era. The territory of Europe was gradually freed from the ice sheets, the huge masses of water formed during the melting of the glacier changed the shape and nature of the ancient relief. The water level in the World Ocean, and especially in the Caspian, Black and Baltic Seas, has risen significantly, and by IX-VIII thousand BC reached the highest level in the history of these reservoirs. Gradually, the outlines of the seas and riverbeds, close to modern, were formed. This process, which began at the turn of the Pleistocene and Holocene, was very long and ended no earlier than the 5th millennium BC, in the Neolithic era.
In the postglacial period, serious changes took place in the entire natural complex. New natural zones formed on the areas previously occupied by the ice sheet: the northernmost regions were occupied by the tundra, a little to the south - large areas were covered with coniferous, and even further south - by deciduous forests. In the pre-rebala (7.5-7 thousand years BC), the warming was so stable that there was a reduction in the tundra and a move to the north of birch, pine and spruce forests, which almost everywhere reached the coast of the Arctic Ocean.
The cold steppe spaces in the south of the Russian Plain change their vegetation cover to more lush and thermophilic, areas later known as deserts were flooded and covered with rich vegetation.
Changes in vegetation directly affected the development of the animal world. Mammoth, woolly rhinoceros and musk ox began to die out at the end of the Paleolithic. Such cold-loving animals, such as reindeer and arctic foxes, retreated far to the north and multiplied widely in the tundra and taiga zones. The last representatives of the mammoth fauna lived out their lives in the circumpolar latitudes of Siberia. Findings of mammoth bones from the Berelekh locality near the river. Indigirki and on Novosibirsk
islands show a decrease in animal size, which is usually a sign of extinction of a population. Climate warming, which drove the mammoths to the north, and on the other hand, an increase in the level of sulfur seas, crowding the mammoths to the south, sharply reduced the area suitable for their life. By the beginning of the VI millennium BC one of the last mammoth populations survived only on the Wrangel Island in the Chukchi Sea, where, according to the latest information, they existed until the 4th millennium BC.
The place of extinct representatives of the Pleistocene fauna was taken by modern animal species: in the forests - red deer, elk, brown bear, wolf, wild boar, beaver; in the steppe zone - saiga, wild donkey, horse, khur. Significantly increased the number of birds, especially waterfowl, fish, sea animals and coastal edible mollusks.
In the late glacial period, a person settles a forest zone in the European part of Russia. In the territory freeing from the ice cover, people followed the representatives of the cold-loving fauna to the north. Within a relatively short period of time, people reached the shores of the then formed Baltic Sea, the upper reaches of the Dnieper and Volga. In this era, a person settles the Arctic coast of the Kola Peninsula, the Arctic and the Far East.
ECONOMY AND LIFE OF THE MESOLITHIC EPOCH
Changes in the natural environment led to a change in the lifestyle of the Mesolithic population. Over the course of just a few millennia, the primitive inhabitants of almost all of Europe, who for a long time lived in relatively cold conditions, turned into inhabitants of temperate or warm climatic zones, with a different flora and fauna. The same can be said of other regions, since at that time a person mastered all natural zones without exception. Due to the appearance of sharp natural differences between individual geographical regions and climatic zones, it is in the Mesolithic that specific features of the development of man of a particular region are formed, which can be traced throughout the subsequent history. So, in the southern zone - the zone of forest-steppes and vegetation-rich steppes - intensive gathering prevails from the very beginning, which quickly leads to the transition to productive forms of farming. In the regions of North Africa, in the Front East and in the north of the Iranian Highlands - on the territory of the so-called "fertile crescent lands" - the Mesolithic period was very short and the transition to the Neolithic took place quickly, within 2-3 thousand years. For a long time, the Near East became a “generator” of new ideas and a region from which the migrating population carried new cultural traditions to neighboring territories. On the contrary, the forest zone for a very long time remains the traditional world of hunter-fisherman-gatherer.
The spread of forest and steppe animal species, the emergence of a large number of waterfowl, fish and mollusks, the widespread distribution of more heat-loving species of vegetation - all this provided many new food resources for Mesolithic hunters, fishers, collectors and, accordingly, required the development of new forms of cultural and economic adaptation.
With the disappearance of large herd animals and open landscapes, driven hunting loses its significance. Smaller and more mobile species of animals living in the forest zone make a person change the way of hunting traditional for the Paleolithic. Small groups of hunters are now fishing, armed with a bow and arrows, which appeared already at the end of the Paleolithic era. Probably, the first domesticated animal, a dog, was also used in the hunt. Her bones are found in the Mesolithic sites of the Crimea and Siberia, the Front East.
Hunting could only be successful using throwing weapons. In the Paleolithic, these were spears and darts, which was very convenient in the open steppe and tundra landscapes. In the Mesolithic, a more effective weapon is spreading everywhere - a bow and arrow. It allowed to hunt both large and smaller single animals and birds. The proliferation of this weapon is indicated by the numerous finds of arrowheads of various shapes and made of various materials. The bows found in the Mesolithic burials of Siberia were about 1 m long; they give the impression of a powerful weapon. The fact that the bows were revered by their ancient masters is indicated by the fact that they were decorated with drilled fangs of animals.
Since there are a lot of water spaces in the surrounding nature, and herd ungulate animals are much smaller, the role of fishing sharply increases in the Mesolithic. This is confirmed by the finds of numerous fishing tools: hooks, harpoons, prison. At this time, a curved fishing hook appears (a straight line still existed in the Paleolithic). At the same time, tips for jails were widely distributed, which were flat bone products with small teeth on one side, thin, well pointed. Such products are known in the parking lot of Kund and many others. Ostrogs were made not only of bone - wood and stone were used, composite jails were also known, where the teeth were liner.
The most important achievement in fisheries was the use of nets. Neither the harpoon nor the fishing rod could provide a sufficient amount of prey. In the Baltic Mesolithic sites, the remains of fishing nets with floats from pine and birch bark and stone sinkers are not uncommon. In the peatlands of Scandinavia, there are findings of fragments of fishing nets longer than 25 m, which, as a rule, were woven from plant fibers. In addition, various traps such as peaks and fences were used, the remains of which were also found in the peat bogs of the Mesolithic time.
The development of water spaces caused the appearance of boats. These were whole-shaft dugout boats, as well as canoe-type framed boats (their frame was made of wood and covered with skins, leather, and birch bark). In winter, other means of transportation — sleighs and skis — were needed. Judging by the findings in the peat bogs, the sledges were reminiscent of modern ones, and the skis were very diverse: among them were common, as well as wide or round snowshoes (representing a rim with a net inside), known to all hunters of the forest zone to this day. It is clear that the manufacture of all these items required the use of a variety of tools for woodworking.
New ways of extracting the resources necessary for life caused a new way of life - for the Mesolithic time, as a rule, small parking areas with a thin cultural layer and traces of relatively short-term residential structures such as huts are typical. This reflects the emergence of small groups of hunters and fishers, who lived quite movably. Many such sites with similar equipment are found in certain areas, which allows you to highlight individual archaeological cultures.
As for housing construction, a significant warming of the climate was reflected in this area of \u200b\u200bhuman activity. On various Mesolithic sites, traces of rather large and sometimes in-depth structures made of wood or temporary structures such as huts were found. In the southern regions, people used caves, sheds, grottoes, and also built light ground dwellings.
Tools and techniques for their manufacture
Stone processing largely continued the Paleolithic tradition. First of all, the prismatic splitting technique is being developed. Obtaining and using thin microplates of the correct shape reaches its peak in the Mesolithic. The restructuring of the nature of hunting, caused by environmental changes, required the improvement of all types of throwing weapons, in particular bow and arrows. The tips of arrows, darts, knives and other weapons were equipped with blades consisting of inserts obtained by splitting a carefully prepared prismatic nucleus. The blanks for such inserts and arrowheads were regular plates, plates, most often long and narrow, and flakes. The shape of the blanks and their secondary processing, which determine the finished look of the product, are due to cultural traditions that existed in a particular region.
The basic set of Mesolithic tools is the same as in the Late Paleolithic. However, the natural originality of different regions determines the appearance and mass distribution of specific groups of products in each of them.
Numerous flint products of geometric shape are widely distributed in the southern regions, consisting of small segments, triangles, trapezoid, which were made of small regular plates using retouching - they are usually called geometric microliths. They have been well known since the Upper Paleolithic, but the most widespread occurrence in the Mesolithic as a result of the further development of prismatic splitting techniques. They served as arrowheads and liners in composite tools needed for intensive gathering, hunting and fishing. Equipped with such blades-inserts tools (harpoons, spear and dart tips, reaping knives) could have a working edge not only straight, but also any other necessary shape, including with spikes and teeth.
Mesolithic stone products:
1,2 - nuclei (prismatic, pencil-shaped); 3, 4 - scrapers; 5, 6 - incisors; 7 - point; 8, 9 - perforators (drill, puncture); 10-15 - non-geometrical microliths (plates with a retouched end, with a blunt edge, points); 16-25 - geometric microliths (segments, quadrangles, triangles, trapezoids); 26, 27 - chopping tools (axes);
28-33 - arrowheads
One of the characteristic features of the Mesolithic era was the widespread use of tools for processing wood. In forest and forest-steppe zones, the manufacture of chopping and moving tools - bits and axes, adzes, plows, is developing. Woodworking reaches a large volume: a man built houses, he needed boats and skis, sledges and various hunting traps, wooden dishes and many other wooden objects.
In addition, excavating tools - hoes and kyle, are quite common. All these tools, as a rule, are massive, they are often called macroliths, and their working blades acquire shapes that can subsequently be observed in metal products.
Mesolithic bone and wood products
Bone products: 1 - dagger; 3-6 - arrows; 11, 12 - harpoons; 13 - strug Wooden products: 2 - bow; 7 - harpoon; 8, 10 - arrowheads;
9 - ax with a pine root coupling
In the manufacture of these tools, in addition to retouching, drilling, sawing, grinding and polishing were used, which later became very widespread in the Neolithic. Thanks to grinding
it became possible to process material of any structure and hardness, as well as give it the desired shape. This was especially important for the manufacture of chopping tools. Only flint, obsidian, and quartzite axes could be unpolished axes, although their efficiency was much lower than polished ones. In addition, flint deposits are relatively rare in the northern part of the forest zone of Eastern Europe, and various rocks served as raw materials for the manufacture of tools. Grinding made it possible to turn them into axes, adzes, Kyle and knives.
In the Mesolithic, processing of bone, horn, and other organic materials (skin, birch bark) was widespread. As a rule, objects of hunting and fishing equipment, such as arrowheads, harpoons, harpoons, fishing hooks, as well as household items such as needles, awls, jewelry and small plastic, were made from bone and horn. In addition, digging tools were made from bone and horn - hoes and kyle. Clothes and shoes were sewn from leather and fur. For the manufacture of dishes and various household utensils, wood, birch bark and other plant materials were used.
SPIRITUAL LIFE. ART. Burials
Certain ideas about the spiritual world of man of the Mesolithic era give us diverse and quite numerous monuments of art and funeral practice.
Art
The art of the Mesolithic is represented in the same three main forms as in the Upper Paleolithic - these are rock paintings, i.e. monumental art, small plastic and applied art. Nevertheless, in the fine art of the Mesolithic, qualitative changes are taking place in comparison with the previous era. The vivid “paleolithic realism” is being replaced by a much more sketchy graphic style. The image of a person or an animal is increasingly becoming a sign or symbol, in addition, the ornament that decorates various decorative and everyday objects is widely distributed and complicated.
Cave paintings are arranged in large groups, their subjects are mainly devoted to the themes of hunting, sometimes - military clashes. Each such composition is a whole story about the event, emotionally colored, dynamic. The main innovation is the appearance of numerous images of people so rare in the Paleolithic: the most common figures of hunters armed with bows and spears.
The most widely cave paintings are represented in Spain and North Africa. Not all of them can be attributed only to the Mesolithic, since this tradition developed and persisted in these territories, probably
before the Eneolithic era. As a rule, images are not located in caves, but on rocky ledges and in shallow niches. On the southern and eastern coasts of the Iberian Peninsula, more than 40 such locations are known. Numerous images are made of black and red mineral paints. In North Africa, in the modern Sahara desert, remarkable frescoes are known in the Tassili area, which have some similarities with the Spanish.
Products from the Oleneostrovsky burial ground:
1-3 - human figures (tree); 4, 5 - pendants from the teeth of animals; 6, 7 - images of snakes (tree); 8 - tip of the spear with insert blades; 9 - product with a pommel in the form of an elk head (tree); 10, 12 - tops in the form of the head of an elk (tree); 11 - ornamented bone;
13 - arrows
Plots of cave paintings of the Mesolithic and Neolithic:
1 - a fragment of the fresco of Zaraut-Saya (Uzbekistan); 2 - scene of deer hunting (Spain);
3, 5 - petroglyphs (Lake Onega); 4, 6 - petroglyphs (White Sea)
In Central Asia, in the Caucasus and in the Northern Black Sea region, finds of rock paintings are also known, the earliest of which can be attributed to the Mesolithic. The Kobystan tract is most famous in Azerbaijan, on the western coast of the Caspian Sea, where numerous petroglyphs made using the contour and silhouette engraving techniques are discovered. Images dating back to the Mesolithic era include stylized fixtures of humans and bulls.
In the Zaraut-Kamar grotto in Central Ferghana, three compositions were found, made with red paint on a calcareous slick, which depicted hunting for bulls, gazelles and goat goats. In the grotto of the Mine, seven drawings were discovered, including the figures of hunters and a boar, a bear or a yak, struck by arrows.
A very interesting monument of ancient art - Kamennaya Mogila Hill - is located on the right bank of the river. Dairy, near the city of Melitopol, in the Sea of \u200b\u200bAzov. Between the stones and limestone slabs blocking the hill, caves and passages covered with sand were revealed, in which numerous groups of drawings and reliefs were located. In one of the caves, images of goats and horses knocked out on the ceiling were found. Researchers dated the images with epipaleolithic (9-7 thousand years BC). Currently, the Mesolithic age of the images of the Stone Grave is disputed, they are dated to the second half of the III millennium BC. However, the presence of a site near the hill, the material of the lower layer of which is characteristic of this particular era, speaks in favor of the Mesolithic dating of the early layer of images.
For small plastics, the same stylistic features are characteristic as for monumental art: simplification, schematism, sign. At the sites of the Mesolithic, mainly in the forest zone, there are quite numerous, but extremely simplified anthropomorphic and zoomorphic images. In addition, there are objects that cannot be accurately attributed - they are called pendants, plaques, images of fantastic creatures, etc. Materials for the manufacture of these figures were wood, bone, horn, fish tooth, amber.
To small plasticity can be attributed painted and engraved pebbles, which are well known in Western European cave sites. Pebble drawings most often have an ornamental character - these are oval spots, crosses, transverse stripes, zigzags, gratings, stars, sometimes stylized anthropomorphic and zoomorphic figures. These pebbles could be used for magical purposes and in this sense are analogues of Australian churing - receptacles of the human soul.
Applied art is widely represented by ornamented objects of hunting weapons and everyday life. The main elements and motifs of the ornament were lines, strokes, zigzags, mesh, etc. The ornament covered the handles of stone tools, which were made of bone, horns and wood, as well as the tools themselves made of the same materials. On Prionezhskaya parking lot Veretier 1 contains a rich collection of decorated items; similar products were found at other sites and in Mesolithic burials.
Burials
The funeral rites of the Mesolithic time are in many respects similar to the Late Paleolithic ones. There are still individual burials of people committed in or near parking lots.
Monuments of Ust-Gryaznaya, Chastny Pad, Khinsky Pad, Rytvinka 1 are known in the Baikal region. Bows decorated with pendants from drilled animal teeth were laid in a pair burial from the Khinsky Padi. In the Angara parking area of \u200b\u200bRytvinka 1, the pair burial of a woman and an infant was investigated, which was committed in a dirt pit lined with stone tiles. The backbone of the woman was slightly wrinkled and was located on its side, hugging the backbone of the child, both skeletons were painted with ocher. The woman’s skull was separated from the skeleton and placed in a separate depression in the corner of the grave pit, which resembles similar rites in the Mesolithic burials of Western Europe (see below). Funeral equipment was presented by a flint plate with retouching, inserts. In addition, two arrowheads were found in the sacral vertebrae of the woman and the chest of the child, which allows researchers to assume that their death was violent.
In Crimea, the pair burial of a man and a woman was investigated at the cave site of Murzak-Koba. Both bones are elongated and densely covered with ocher. During the life of a woman, the last phalanges on the little fingers of her hands were amputated. Such rites are known from ethnographic data and are reflected in cave paintings of the Paleolithic. In the Fatma-Koba cave, a man was buried in a dirt pit densely covered with ocher, the buried man lay on his side with strongly bent legs, and his hands were located behind his head. Such a pose is achieved, as a rule, by special binding of the deceased, which characterizes the presence of certain ideas about the rules of transition to the afterlife and the rituals that accompanied him.
New in the Mesolithic funerary practice is the appearance of burial grounds - the oldest tribal cemeteries located outside the settlements. Their appearance apparently reflects the strengthening of internal tribal ties and the development of the ancestral cult associated with this process.
The most striking complexes of this kind are open in Western Europe - in Portugal and Normandy. This is the Gross Ofnet grotto, burial grounds on the islands of Teviek and Gedik. Burial of 33 skulls, located in two pits and densely colored with bright red ocher, were found in the Offnet cave, belonging to the Azil culture. along with the skulls lay numerous jewelry from drilled shells and deer teeth. It is curious that male and children's skulls were placed together in one pit, and female skulls were laid in another. On the island of Teviek, about 20 bones were found buried in pits and buried in red ocher. The rich funerary inventory consisted of stone tools and ornaments from drilled shells; in addition, red deer horns were placed in grave pits. These pits were dug in large sink piles, which are considered the kitchen garbage of clam collector settlements and are usually located near their sites.
In Eastern Europe, burial grounds are known near the Dnieper rapids near the villages of Vasilyevskoye and Voloshskoye. In burial grounds Vasilievsky 1, 3, Chaplinsky and Voloshsky discovered dozens of burials. Burials were made in deep holes; most of the skeletons are heavily crouched and covered in ocher. The funerary inventory is extremely poor, but the arrowheads, stuck in the bones of the buried, made it possible to date the burial grounds with Mesolithic time.
The location of the burials reflects, according to some researchers, the system of social relations. So, on the cemeteries of the Dnieper in the central part are burials of women, children and older people, i.e. the most vulnerable members of the team, and along the perimeter - the burial of young male defenders.
In North-Eastern Europe, a number of Mesolithic funerary monuments are also known. Very interesting is the burial ground of Popovo (VII millennium BC), related to the culture of the spree in the Eastern Onega region. Those buried lay in clay graves, their heads to the east and were covered with red ocher and small pebbles. Stone axes, bone knives, spikes, necklaces and pendants from animal teeth were found in the burials. Not far from the burial of a child of 7–9 years old, a pit with animal bones and fragments of tools was discovered, covered by the skeletons of two dogs. According to the researchers, the burial rite reflected the ideas of ancient people about the transition to another world, accompanied by the necessary things and a dog.
The most famous Mesolithic monument in the forest zone of Eastern Europe is the Oleneostrovsky burial ground, which is located on the South Oleny Island of Lake Onega. This is a huge necropolis dating from the end of VI - the beginning of the V millennium BC. Burial materials abound with beautiful bone products, including small plastic, various utensils and hunting weapons (see fig. On page 100). Among stone products, arrowheads, knives and knife-like plates of flint, axes and tesla of slate are most widely represented. The closest analogues are presented on the near-coastal sites of Veretye \u200b\u200b1 and Kubenino, on the monuments of the Mesolithic of Lithuania. Findings in the burials of numerous zoomorphic plastics suggest the existence of an animal cult, among which bear and elk were especially revered.
ARCHAEOLOGICAL CULTURES OF MESOLITHIC TIME
Mesolithic archaeological cultures are distinguished everywhere, their distribution and interconnections make it possible to judge the ways of resettlement of Mesolithic tribes and the degree of development of a particular region.
Many of them developed on the basis of the Late Paleolithic cultures that existed earlier in these territories, this applies to a greater extent to the regions of Southern, Western and partly Central Europe, where the Late Glacial period was characterized by relatively mild natural conditions. Thus, the development of the Mesolithic Azilian and Tardenouis cultures (Pyrenees, France) was a consistent continuation of the Late Paleolithic traditions against the background of general climatic changes.
However, for those areas where environmental conditions changed quite sharply - and such areas were most of Eastern Europe, part of Central Asia and Kakhzakhstan, Siberia and the Far East - the influence of cultures of Southern, Central and Western Europe from the West and cultures of the Middle East, Middle and Southeast Asia from the south was decisive.
In the Middle East already in the IX-VIII millennia BC there was a transition to productive forms of economy. It was this region, being the cradle of the producing economy, that for most of the neighboring territories became a source of new cultural and economic influences. One of the most famous Middle Eastern cultures, an example of which shows the specifics and pace of development of the region, is the Natufi culture, named after the Wadi en Natuf monument in Palestine. The early stages of this culture (11-10 thousand years BC) are characterized by the fact that in the economic structure the leading sectors were hunting and intensive gathering. However, already in the IX-VIII millennia BC many Natufi communities moved to a sedentary lifestyle. So, in the settlement of Einan, there are about 50 round mud houses, there are grain pits, in the coating of which, as well as in the coating of houses, grains and straw of domesticated wheat and barley are found. At a settlement on Mount Carmel (Israel), several burials of Natufis were investigated. The ancient camp at the base of the Tell in Jericho (Israel) belongs to the early stage of the Natufi culture, but already in the 7th millennium BC. (see section "Neolithic") their descendants built a large village surrounded by high walls with towers. All internal buildings and defensive fortifications are built of mud brick and stone. Jericho is one of the oldest permanent settlements in the world.
Migrants from the Middle East could move north and east in three ways - through the Balkans, the Caucasus, and through the Caspian littoral and Central Asia. All these paths are reflected quite clearly in the kaleidoscope of archaeological material from the time of the Mesolithic - Early Neolithic. The influence of Middle Eastern cultures can be clearly seen in the forms of stone implements, especially in the forms of geometric microliths.
North-Western Europe was another large region, from where more and more populations went to land cleared by the glacier after commercial animals. A variety of migration processes are reflected in the differences in the stone industries of archaeological cultures of the forest zone of Eastern Europe. In the technologies for processing stone raw materials, a set of characteristic types of products and hunting equipment, one can trace more or less the influence of various cultural traditions of Western and Northern Europe.
Let us characterize the most revealing archaeological cultures of Northern Eurasia.
The southern zone is represented by the cultures of the Northern Black Sea region, the Caucasus and Central Asia, the Caspian region and partly the Urals, which in many respects were formed under the influence of the Middle East cultural impulses. Here, the transition from appropriating to producing economic activity, mainly related to the initial cattle breeding, was made relatively early.
Central Asia, the Caspian Sea, the Urals and the Urals. In Central Asia, Mesolithic monuments are known in the Ferghana Valley, in the high Pamirs, in the Caspian region.
In the southern and eastern Caspian littoral, numerous Mesolithic monuments are often confined to the banks of ancient reservoirs and riverbeds. The main occupation of the ancient population was the hunting and fishing of sturgeons, as well as the gathering of plants and mollusks. In the south of the Caspian Sea, multilayer cave-type sites were discovered. In the Mesolithic layers of the Jebel Grotto (8-7 thousand years BC), the bones of domesticated animals — goats and sheep — were first discovered, which makes this area one of the oldest centers of the producing economy.
The sites of the Eastern Caspian region (the 4th layer of the Dam Dam –Cheshme-1 grotto, the Mesolithic layers of the Kailu cave, etc.) are called the Caspian sites of the Zarzian type, or East Caspian culture.
Archaeological cultures and monuments of the Mesolithic:
1 - high-Crimean culture (sites of Shan-Koba, Murzak-Koba); 2 - monuments of the Eastern Caspian Sea (parking Dam-Dam-Cheite, Jebel); 3 - Kukrek culture (Kukrek site); 4 - Grebenik culture (parking Mirnoye, Girzhevo); 5 - Desninskaya culture (parking Sand Ditch); 6 - grenskoy culture (parking Grensk); 7 - Kudlaevskaya culture (Kudlaevka site); 8 - Kunda culture (Pulli parking); 9 - Neman culture (Salyaninkai parking); 10 - Resetin culture (Resset parking); 11 - Butovo culture; 12 - Yanislavitsky culture (Maksimonis parking lot); 13 - parking Lower Veretye \u200b\u200bI; 14th Yeni culture
The inventory of this culture has many analogies with archaeological materials found both to the south - for example, in Iraq (Zarzi site), and to the north - in the Southern Urals, in the Urals and Trans-Urals. This phenomenon reflects the migration paths of the ancient population.
In the southern Urals, the sites of the Yangelsk culture, which dates from the 9th to the second half of the 7th millennium BC, were studied. Its origin is associated with the Mesolithic of the southeastern Caspian region, the Near and Middle East, which reflects the direction of migration of the Mesolithic population from south to north, from areas of origin of the producing economy. The general appearance of the flint industry is microlithic. A characteristic feature is the use of jasper and jasper flint as a raw material. Since the Mesolithic of Western Siberia has not been sufficiently studied, it is not possible to trace the further movements of these tribes to the east.
A somewhat different way was the development of culture in the western Urals, where another branch of the migratory stream, moving from the south, from the eastern Caspian, got to. The oldest Mesolithic monuments in this area have not yet been found, and the famous ones date from the Middle and Late Mesolithic - VII-V millennia BC.
The most famous are the interfluve rivers Volga and Kama, which are combined into the Kama or Prikama culture (VII-VI millennium BC). The inventory of the eastern group of sites is characterized by plate blanks and a large number of microliths, which clearly indicates southern influences. On the contrary, in the inventory of the western group, the number of tools on the flakes increases, the plates become larger, chopping tools, symmetrical trapezoids and petiolate arrowheads are represented.
Apparently, here, in the Volga-Kama interfluve, the conditional border passed between the world of forest Mesolithic cultures and the southern microlithoid world.
The Mesolithic of the Caucasus (VIII-VII millennium BC) is characterized by complexes of lamellar microlithic industries, close analogues of which are known in Iraqi Kurdistan and in the south-west of the Iranian Highlands, which suggests the existence of a unified cultural community. In addition to contacts with the southern regions, there were constant contacts with the population of the steppe Northern Black Sea region.
The Mesolithic cultures of the Caucasus (Imereti, Trialet Mesolithic and Chokh) differ among themselves by the types of microliths, the specifics of the manufacture of hunting weapons and the use of horns and bones. In a three-century Mesolithic culture, a feature of the production of stone products is the use of obsidian - volcanic glass (Zurtaketi site). However, local differences between these cultures are less pronounced than their common features.
The parking lots were located both in the alpine gorges, and in the hills, and in the river valleys. The population hunted brown and cave bears, red deer, tur, mouflon, and also engaged in fishing.
Crimea. Parking lots of the Crimean culture are concentrated in the south-west of the Crimean peninsula, almost all of them are cave and multilayered, however, in the foothills and steppe regions, a number of short-term open parking sites dating back to the late Mesolithic time are known.
According to the researchers, the Crimean culture was monolithic, the inventory of simultaneous parking is similar in all details, between different times - there is an undoubted continuity. Flint inventory in the early stages preserves a number of Upper Paleolithic features, however, by the middle of the Mesolithic they disappear, the number of microlithic tools sharply increases, among which trapeziums and liners predominate.
Kukrek culture was widespread in the Crimea and the Northern Black Sea region during the Mesolithic period (Kukrek monuments near Simferopol, Stone Tomb in Azov, Igren-8 in the Dnieper). In the inventory of this culture, geometric microlites are single, but their place is taken by peculiar Kukrek-type inserts, which are very widespread and represented a trapezoidal plate processed by a kind of flat retouching.
Northern Black Sea Coast. One of the interesting cultures of the Northern Black Sea region of the late Mesolithic is the Grebenikovskaya culture, whose monuments are distributed on the left bank of the Dnieper and at the mouth of the Dniester; the most famous sites are Girzhevo and Mirnoe. The inventory of this culture indicates the presence of stable ties with the Late Paleolithic and Early Mesolithic traditions of the Lower Dnieper. In addition to tools on knife-shaped plates, trapeziums, incisors, there are a lot of scrapers in the inventory, which indicates the prevailing importance of hunting in the population’s activities. According to the researchers, the hunting practice of the Grebenik tribes was unusually successful, which was due to the development of the prismatic splitting technique, which made it possible to produce hunting weapons, mainly arrowheads. Probably, this circumstance led to a violation of the ecological balance, which, in turn, caused a crisis in the hunting economy and increased the role of gathering. Intensive gathering led to a relatively rapid transition to productive forms of farming in these territories (see the Neolithic section). The forest zone of Northern Eurasia in the Mesolithic was developed by groups of hunter-gatherers who reached remote areas of the north. On the outskirts of the oikumens, and especially in Siberia, significant areas were still uninhabited.
As mentioned above, in the formation of many Mesolithic cultures of Eastern Europe, the Late Paleolithic Sider culture played a decisive role, which arose, probably, in Poland and spread as a migration stream of its carriers or through cultural influence to the Urals and Crimea. In addition, the Marezolite of Eastern Europe was greatly influenced by the Arensburg culture, which was widespread in the finale of the Upper Paleolithic in Northern Germany.
One of the most striking cultures of the Upper Dnieper is the Grae culture, represented by sites also in Eastern Belarus. The origin of this culture is associated with the appearance of the Arensburg population here. At the second stage of its existence, a close relationship is traced with the Peschnorovsky culture on the Desna and the Yenevskaya in the Volga-Oksky interfluve, which may indicate further advancement of the carriers of the Arensburg traditions to the east.
To the north-west, in the basin of the Neman and the Western Dvina, in the west of Belarus, in Lithuania and in the north-east of Poland, sites of Neman culture were discovered. The inventory of this culture is characterized by the presence of both Sider's and Arensburg traditions (see. Fig. P. 107).
During excavations in Estonia, Latvia, Belarus and Russia, Kunda cultural monuments (named after the Kunda site in Estonia) were discovered, which developed for a very long time - from rebuilding to the beginning of the Atlantic. The implements are characterized by tools on large plates, petiolate arrowheads and numerous bone and horn tools - tesla, scrapers, spikes, awls, fishing hooks, biconical arrowheads, hoes, harpoons, and knitting tools. Tey, In the formation of this culture, the influence of the Late Sider tribes is traced. The developed fisheries, which were carried out by the carriers of the Kunda culture, created the prerequisites for the transition to settled. As a result of its development, the Mesolithic culture of Kunda, while retaining its main features, became the basis for the formation of a number of Neolithic cultures of the Karelian Isthmus and the north-eastern regions of the forest zone.
The entire Mesolithic of Ukrainian Polesie (Upper Dnieper) is closely connected with the Mesolithic of the Southern Baltic, Polish and Polesie lowlands and the Volga-Oka interfluve (see Fig. On page 94).
In this vast region, a number of expressive Mesolithic cultures, such as Yanislavitskaya, have been explored. Kudlaevskaya, Pesochnorovskaya, in the inventory of which to a greater or lesser extent reflects the influence of Western European neighbors - the heirs of Arensburg, widowed and more southern traditions.
The early Mesolithic in the Volga-Oksky interfluve is represented by the Resetinian culture, characterized by a certain continuity with the traditions of the previous Late Paleolithic cultures, but at the same time, later Western influences are quite strong. The Ressetino culture may have influenced the emergence of a later Butovo culture.
Butovo culture occupied a vast area in the Volga-Oksk interfluve. It dates from the middle of VIII to VI millennium BC. In the stone inventory tips of loosestrife and petiolate forms are widely represented. Some scholars associate the origin of the Butovo culture with the influence of the Swider-Arensburg traditions, while others believe that this culture developed on the basis of the Resetin culture with the participation of carriers of the Swider tradition.
In the western part of the Volga-Oka interfluve, the Yeni culture was widespread. Scrapers of various types are represented among the guns, axes with interception are found, among microliths there are trapeziums from plates and flakes, triangles, segments, rhombs. According to scientists, the Yenevskaya and Peschnorovskaya cultures were formed with the participation of carriers of Western European cultures, in particular Arensburg, and existed from 8300 to 7700 BC.
Further to the northeast, the number of open Mesolithic monuments is significantly reduced, their degree of study is much lower, however, a number of bright archaeological cultures are also known there.
On the shores of glacial lakes and rivers of the Eastern Onega region, a number of settlements and burial grounds of the spindle culture dating from the end of VIII - the first half of VII millennium BC were discovered. The main sites of this culture are Veretye \u200b\u200b1, Sukhoi, and the Popovo burial ground. The days of this culture are characterized by products from flint, slate and other materials: chopping tools, tops, scrapers, knives, cutters, etc. The main preparation was a flake. Discovered hoes, knives, daggers, arrowheads, harpoons, etc. made of bone and horn, as well as wooden bows, arrows, spears. The main occupations of the population are hunting for moose, beaver and other forest animals, fishing and, probably, gathering. By the nature of bone, horn and other large tools, the culture of the spindle has some similarities with the Baltic Kunda culture and even some related to it. The rite of the burial of cultural bearers is represented by materials from the Popovo burial ground (see the “Burials” section).
On the northern coast of Lake Onega, monuments of Onega culture were discovered (VII - beginning of the 5th millennium BC). Here the tools were made of quaria, lidite, slate, and flint. In the inventory there are a lot of tools for grinding and polishing, chopping tools from slate, scrapers, cutters, etc .; arrowheads and spears made of plates. The largest necropolis of Onega and possibly other neighboring cultures is the Oleneostrovsky burial ground.
On the Kola Peninsula, sites of Komsomol culture were discovered. Here, for the manufacture of tools, quartz, slate, rock crystal, and occasionally flint were used. Among the finds are chopping tools, chisel staples, scrapers, incisors, quartzite tips, knives, punctures. Researchers believe that the sites belonged to groups of hunters who penetrated the coast of the Barents Sea from the west, from Scandinavia.
Among the other Mesolithic cultures of the north of the European part of Russia, the materials of the peat bog site Vis-1 (second half of the 7th millennium BC) located in the river basin stand out for their cultural originality. Vycheda. Here, thanks to bedding in peat, many wooden products have been preserved: a series of bows, fragments of skis and sledges. In addition, shale axes and flint tools from flakes and plates were discovered; scrapers, incisors, brackets.
Siberia and the Far East. Western Siberia has so far been studied very little, and the available materials do not allow us to judge the processes that took place here in the Mesolithic.
In Eastern Siberia, the sites of the Mesolithic man are known on the Taimyr Peninsula, in the Baikal region, as well as in the river basin. Lena.
Several sites with flint inventory characteristic of the Mesolithic have been opened in Taimyr. On the site of Tagenar VI, a fire place, bones of reindeer and birds, as well as products from flint - nucleuses, incisors, knives from plates, scrapers were found. Radiocarbon and spore-pollen analyzes made it possible to date the monument to the 4th millennium BC, i.e. mid-atlantic period. The parking lot was located in the forest zone of the northern taiga type and was synchronous with the Middle Neolithic monuments in most territories of the north of Eastern Europe.
In the Baikal region, multilayered monuments are known, including the Mesolithic layers, which are called Badai, Verkholensk, Baikal and Kansk, the first two groups are studied in more detail. Badai (at the Badai site) parking is concentrated in the middle reaches of the Angara River. At the Ust-Belaya site, 16 cultural layers were studied, which are divided into three chronological stages - from the Paleolithic to the Neolithic. In the Mesolithic layers belonging to the middle stage of the existence of the monument, 46 bonfires were discovered. Burial open in one of the pits
dogs, on the remains of the collar 8 pendants from the teeth of a red deer were preserved. A set of flint tools includes scrapers, scrapers, knives, etc. Rarely encountered tips are oval. There are bone tools - harpoon tips, wreckage, fishing hooks. Among the ornaments there are pendants from drilled animal teeth and colored stone.
Verkholepsky parking are located in the upper river. Lena, on the rivers of the Angara and the Selenga. During the excavation of the Verkholenskaya Gora-1 site in the city of Irkutsk, three cultural horizons were identified, which the authors of the excavations date back to XI, IX and VII millennium BC. The remains of the fauna indicate that the main occupations of the population were hunting for red deer, roe deer, elk and catching large fish - taimen, sturgeon, whitefish. In addition to the usual set of guns, chopping forms occupied a significant place in the inventory of sites. The blanks were varied: flakes, plates and flint tiles.
In the middle reaches of the Lena, in the upper river. Aldan and on the coast of the Sea of \u200b\u200bOkhotsk are widespread sites of the Sumnagin culture (late VIII-IV millennium BC). In the inventory of multilayer parking on Aldan - Belkachi-1, there are prismatic and conical cores, plates, corner cutters, end scrapers. People hunted elk, reindeer, roe deer, and later - brown bear, bird, engaged in fishing. The origin of the Sumnagin population is associated with the carriers of the Kokorev culture of the Late Paleolithic on the Yenisei.
The Mesolithic period in Primorye, according to archaeologists, was short. The development of the Stone Age industries of the Far East took place under the influence of the Mesolithic of neighboring territories - China and the Japanese islands. Very peculiar Late Paleolithic cultures (Ustinovskaya and Osipovskaya), which not all researchers attribute to the Upper Paleolithic, were replaced by sites with microlithic equipment. About 15 sites were opened in the center and south of Primorye, located on the gentle slopes of river terraces and dating back to the 7th-6th millennium BC.
In the center of the Kamchatka Peninsula near Ushkovsky Lake, multilayer Mesolithic sites were discovered. Flint inventory contains conical and prismatic nuclei, plates, inserts, scrapers on flakes, products with double-sided processing (bifaces). Kamchatka sites are close to the monuments of Sumnagin culture and probably show the progress of these tribes further to the north-east.
The exploration by man of the Mesolithic era of the most remote lands with a harsh climate is evidenced by the Zhokhov site studied since the 1990s on one of the islands of the De Long archipelago in the northern group of the Novosibirsk islands. Ancient people came here from the northern regions of Eastern Siberia. They hunted reindeer, polar bears and other animals, used tamed harness dogs. In the inventory, arrowheads, tesla, chisels made of chalcedony, slate, and also from organic materials - bones, tusks, wood, plant fibers were found.
Summing up, it should be emphasized once again that the Mesolithic is a very important page in the history of mankind. In this era, the settlement of previously empty regions that have been freed from the ice sheet occurs, in this process various cultural traditions come into interaction. It is in the Mesolithic that environmental conditions are formed that determine the unevenness in the pace and nature of development of different regions, which is then traced throughout the history of mankind.
The Mesolithic, or Middle Stone Age, is the archaeological era following the Paleolithic. The chronological boundaries of the Mesolithic - 10-6 thousand years ago - are arbitrary, and since there was no sharp transition from the Old Stone Age (Paleolithic) to the Mesolithic, there is no border between the Mesolithic and Neolithic. The first Mesolithic monuments were discovered later than the Paleolithic and Neolithic - only at the end of the XIX century. In 1887, the Frenchman E. Piet discovered a site after the Paleolithic in the cave of Maz de Azil. By the name of this site, the early Mesolithic was called Azilian. The next, later period was called tardenois (in the parking lot in France). Mesolithic sites of Northern Europe later.
The Mesolithic is a transitional era in all respects, in nature and the living conditions of people, in inventory, in the economy. In the Mesolithic, the prerequisites for the emergence of agriculture and livestock breeding, selection of the most useful plants for humans, and domestication of animals — cattle and small cattle and pigs — developed. The dog became a pet much earlier, obviously, even in the Upper Paleolithic.
In the formation of a new era, a huge, largely decisive role was played by natural factors. The beginning of the Mesolithic coincides in the northern hemisphere with the transition from the Pleistocene to the Holocene, i.e., to the modern geological era. Other climatic conditions are created in comparison with the Paleolithic as a result of melting of the glacial massif. The transition from the Ice Age (Pleistocene) to the Holocene is one of the biggest mysteries in the history of the Earth, however, as well as the reasons for the beginning of the Ice Age. An increase in temperature led to the gradual melting of the ice sheet, its retreat to the north and the liberation of land. The glacier retreated north, leaving behind liberated soil, a mass of lakes, wetlands and moraines. The level of the oceans has risen, the Bering and Gibraltar straits have formed, the Japanese islands have separated, the channels of rivers flowing to the north have changed, the Baltic Sea and northern lakes have formed, the Black Sea has merged with the Mediterranean. Moreover, the climate in northern Europe has changed several times. At the beginning of the melting of the glacier (14-8.5 thousand years BC) it was subarctic, cold, wet. Later, about 8.5-5 thousand years BC. e., there came a period with a warmer and drier climate. As a result, the vastness of Europe was covered with forests of pine and broad-leaved trees. Climate change is associated with the formation of modern landscapes and plant zones. In the north - the tundra and forest-tundra, to the south - the taiga zone of coniferous forests, then the zone of deciduous forests, forest-steppe, steppe and desert landscapes. Modern climatic zones of the coastal continental, sharply continental, arid climate have developed. There was a change in the plant and animal world. In fact, it was a colossal in its consequences revolution in nature. The nature of southern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia has undergone less changes.
To understand these processes, the developmental scheme of Holocene nature, developed by M.I. Neustadt on the materials of Scandinavian peat bogs for Northern and Central Europe: ancient (14-10 thousand years ago), early (10-7.5 thousand), medium (7.5-3 thousand) and late (3-1 thousand . years ago). This division reflects cycles of moisture and relative aridity with periods of approximately 2 thousand years. The first warming on Earth took place 14-12 thousand years ago. However, a significant fracture occurred 9.5-7.4 thousand years ago (boreal). In 12-10 millennia BC e. there was a general rise in ocean level.
Far in the north, in the polar latitudes, the last mammoths lived out their lives, elk, brown bear, red deer, wild boar, beaver lived in the forests, numerous lakes had an abundance of waterfowl and fish.
Thus, the Mesolithic is an era of cardinal changes in the nature and conditions of human life, an era of the resettlement of people into new territories that have not been developed before. A large place in the economic life of man was occupied by hunting for forest animals, waterfowl, fishing and gathering. The Paleolithic culture, based on the collective methods of hunting mammoths developed in millennia in Eurasia and America, was replaced by a different type of culture.
New conditions required new hunting tools for animals. Such tools in the Mesolithic were bow and arrows. This invention was preceded by a number of propelling devices where hand power was used. The appearance of a bow and arrow made it possible to use fundamentally new kinetic forces. This invention played an important role over a long period of history - about 10 thousand years passed from the Mesolithic to the appearance of powder weapons.
Mesolithic technique: 1 - microliths; 2 - liner technique.
In the Mesolithic, a transition began from the appropriating economy to the producing one. In the areas of Front and Southeast Asia and Southern Europe, ancient Mesolithic agriculture arose. At this time, in the Crimea, Central Asia and, possibly, in the Southern Urals, a transition to a manufacturing economy was observed. The specialization of hunting and fishing in certain areas is planned. Hunting methods become more diverse: the role of individual hunting with a dog is growing, all kinds of traps, traps, snares are widely used. A significant place in the economy is fishing; fish were caught using one-sided and two-sided harpoons, nets appeared, compound hooks with a bone base and inserted stone sting, woven from the top of the rods. In the Mesolithic, a boat and oars were hollowed out of wood. The oldest remains of boats and oars, known in Europe, belong to the Mesolithic.
Mesolithic tools: 1 - methods for attaching stone arrowheads to a wooden one; 2 - types of stone arrowheads of a shaft: a - leaf-shaped, b, c - faces, d - with a notch, e - petiolate; 3 - bone harpoons, arrowheads; 4 - use of a spear thrower
In the Mesolithic industry, duality of forms and methods of stone processing is noted. The technique developed in the Paleolithic is developing: macroliths, the technique of cleaving and double cleaving, large retouching, the liner technique, when the base of an object, such as a knife, dagger, spear tip, was made of bone or wood. Longitudinal slots were made on it, into which individual blades from knife-shaped plates were inserted. So it turned out a knife, spear or dagger of great length. At the same time, in a number of places the so-called microliths become small, small in size and various in shape. Microlites were separated from pieces of flint or other well-split stone with the help of squeezers. In shape, they usually take the form of triangles, segments or trapezoids 2-3 cm in size. Retouched microlites served as arrowheads and were used as inserts in harpoons and fishing hooks. The question of microlithic technology is interesting in itself. Firstly, it was not widespread everywhere, and secondly, not always in classical forms. The earliest cultures of microlithic technology are associated with North Africa and the Mediterranean.
The man in the Mesolithic turned out to be actually in a different natural environment, a different world.
Mesolithic Crimea, Caucasus, Central Asia
The earliest Mesolithic monuments are known in the Near East, Crimea, the Caucasus and Central Asia. The Mesolithic formed here earlier than in northern Europe, where glaciers were still melting, and many Paleolithic traditions were preserved at an early stage. In Crimea, there are several dozen caves with a Mesolithic cultural layer: Shan-Koba, Zamil-Koba, Murzak-Koba. Other Crimean caves, for example, Syuren II and Fatma-Koba, also contain the Mesolithic cultural layer. Large, rather crude tools from massive plates and nuclei, very similar to the Paleolithic ones, were found in these caves. Along with them for the first time there are small plates of geometric shapes that are inserted into the base. In the Mesolithic era in the Crimea, there are signs of a transition to cattle breeding.
Based on the local Late Paleolithic culture, the Mesolithic of the Caucasus took shape. This is evidenced by the multi-layer settlements of Chokh in Dagestan, camps near the city of Sochi, single-layer Mesolithic camps in Ossetia, etc. There is a transition to microlithic technology: silicon inserts, which are now obtained from small pencil-shaped nuclei (become sharpened), become thinner and more elegant. end of pencil); found many microliths in the form of triangles and segments. Mesolithic monuments of certain territories are distinguished by a set of inventory. For example, in Abkhazia, along with microlithic tools, there are rough chopping products made of pebbles. According to the remains of bones in the settlements, it was found that their inhabitants hunted moose, deer, mountain goats, bears and wild boars. Despite some differences, the Mesolithic monuments of the Caucasus belong to one large ethnocultural community.
Among several dozens of Mesolithic settlements known in Central Asia, Jebel caves, Kailu in Turkmenistan; Osh Khan, Dangara in Tajikistan; Machai, Obishir in Uzbekistan. According to radiocarbon dating, this is the period of 7500-6000. Mesolithic monuments are characterized by a combination of plate technique with archaic tools of gross forms. The Mesolithic cultures of Central Asia developed in different ways and gave rise to the culture of steppe hunters and gatherers and the early agricultural culture of the foothills of Kopet-Dag.
During the excavation of the Mesolithic layers in the caves of Obishir I, V and Machai, numerous pebble items, large scrapers in combination with microlithic samples were found. The main forms of Mesolithic products in Central Asia are unilateral prismatic nuclei, plates with retouching along one edge, scrapers from flakes with an oval working edge. This region is characterized by a combination of plate technology with tools of very archaic forms. Hunting was the main occupation of the inhabitants. Dzheyranov bones, tools of hunting and skinning are present in large numbers in the parking lots. At the same time, already in the Mesolithic in North India, Iran, Afghanistan, and Central Asia, the transition to a producing type of economy begins. Traces of agriculture and cattle breeding have been preserved in some monuments of the Near East, in particular in the Natufi culture of the developed and late Mesolithic. Probably, the upper Mesolithic boundary for agricultural areas is the time of the appearance of settlements from mud houses, for example, in Jericho, Hajilar, Shanidar, Jebel (VII - beginning of the VI millennium BC). In Central Asia, the bones of sheep (goats) and cattle were found in the upper layers of the cave sites of Machai and Obishir V. In the Mesolithic culture of the lowlands and the foothills of Kopet-Dag (Balkhash), the microlithic technique of manufacturing tools was developed and the prerequisites of ancient agriculture arose. In the north of this territory, the Mesolithic inhabitants formed a culture of hunters and fishermen.
Mesolithic of Postglacial Eastern Europe
In Eastern Europe, one can distinguish the Mesolithic of the Dnieper-Donetsk interfluve, Upper Volga and Ural regions. Famous settlements on the Upper Volga belong to three chronological periods: the early Mesolithic is represented by the Gremyachei sites on the Oka, the middle - Borki, Sknyatino, the late - Sobolevo and Dmitrovskaya II. Stratigraphic columns are compiled based on the materials of multilayer settlements of Elin Bor (near the city of Murom on the Oka River), Zolotruchue III, Borshevo and Sknyatino. And the stratigraphy of the Zolotoyruche site has been studied from the Paleolithic to the Bronze Age.
In some settlements, the remains of rectangular half-dwellings of 7x5 m in size were found. Pits from the pillars supporting the roof are located along the walls. In the center of the room were foci arranged in oval depressions. Among the finds are many retouched arrowheads that resemble willow leaves in shape. The Mesolithic of this zone to a large extent continues the traditions of the Paleolithic culture of the Central Russian Plain.
On the Kama, in the Urals and even in the Far North, the Mesolithic sites of Nizhneodintsovskaya and Ogurdinskaya were studied on the river. Vychegda - Vie I, in Bashkiria - Ilmurzinskaya and Romanovka II, Mysovoe and others. The Mesolithic culture here is represented by microlithic inserts obtained from small pencil-shaped nuclei. Researchers note the absence in the local Mesolithic of a connection with the Paleolithic and, conversely, a cultural-genetic connection with the south, with Central Asia. Mesolithic settlements are known in the Middle Urals, on the Kama and Chusovaya, near Nizhny Tagil. Their archaeological inventory is diverse: there are bone harpoons, thin needle-shaped arrowheads from split bones and daggers with flint inserts.
After the retreat of the glacier, areas of the Baltic and Karelia were populated. The early Mesolithic sites here are often temporary settlements of hunter groups moving north. Only in the late Mesolithic do long-term settlements appear. The Mesolithic settlements of Eiguliai I, Yakshtonis are known in Lithuania. The Mesolithic sites include the sites of Pärnu-Pulli and Kunda in northeastern Estonia (mid-VIII –– beginning of the VII millennium BC). Kunda is a long-term settlement located on an island in the middle of a lake. The role of fishing here was extremely great; it created favorable conditions for the transition to a firm settled environment. This culture is characterized by bone harpoons, fishing hooks, awls, base plates for tools such as tips, knives, horn hoes, shuttles for weaving nets. In Kund, archaeologists found large chopping stone tools, the remains of wooden oars and ax handles. The lower layer of the Kunda settlement dates from 8340 BC. e.
In the north, in the Onega region, the sites of Lower Vereye, Pogostishche I, Kolunaevskaya, and Yasnopolyanskaya were examined. Traces of rectangular ground dwellings were discovered. The inventory is represented by incisors, arrowheads, scrapers, liners, tesla, axes, grinding stones are found.
Deer Island on Lake Onega served as a cemetery for the people of the Mesolithic and Neolithic. The dead were buried in narrow shallow pits. Together with those buried in the grave, they laid the tips of darts and arrows, insert daggers on a bone base, bone harpoons. Found remains in a crouched position and even standing. In one of the vertical burials, many objects of hunting life were found. On the chest of the deceased lay a dagger made of bone and thin sharp plates inserted into the grooves, on the side there was a quiver with many arrows. The clothes were hung with beaver teeth and bear fangs. The differences in the burial rite probably depended on the status of the person in the tribe; the property status of the tribe was the same.
In the Dnieper region, on the territory of Ukraine and in the Dnieper-Donetsk interfluve, the Mesolithic culture is known for the peat settlements Korma, Grensk, Latki, Pechenizh, etc. At an early stage of Mesolithic development in this region, chopping tools, side and corner incisors, large dart tips from the side appear notch, microlithic incisors, trapeziums, brackets and spikes are also characteristic. In the Mesolithic culture of Moldova rarely 102
geometric microliths are found, scrapers made of flakes, spikes, and brackets predominate here.
In the developed Mesolithic, a tendency toward a decrease in the size of stone products is noticeable, the number of small incisors, punctures, plates with a beveled edge is increasing. At the same time, massive staples and knives are saved.
The culture of the Late Mesolithic in the basin of the Desna and the Sejm, the Don region and the Upper Dnieper, where the sites in the Bryansk, Voronezh, and Lipetsk regions were studied, is represented by miniature plates taken from small nuclei and geometric microlites - these are trapeziums, rectangles, segments, punctures, miniature scrapers retouched arrowheads with a protruding handle.
On the Don in the Mesolithic, two cultural and historical traditions coexisted: the local one, which came from the Paleolithic, and the newcomer, with a characteristic microlithic technique.
A well-studied Mesolithic zone is represented by the Urals and the South Urals. Here, the earliest monument is the Ilmurzino parking lot. In the upper layers (3-5th), related to the beginning of the Holocene, knife-shaped plates and products from them prevail. In the third horizon, the number of finds increases, arrowheads made of plates, microcuts, tips, thin needle-shaped tips, pencil-shaped conical nuclei, i.e., a typical Mesolithic inventory, appear.
Parking Kholodny Klyuch and Romanovka II reflect the heyday of microlithic technology. Here there are incisors and microcuts, a series of plates with side recesses, truncated plates.
The settlements of Akbut, Mikhailovskaya, Cherkasovskaya and others belong to the late Mesolithic. The most characteristic feature of the late Mesolithic is the appearance of chisel-like tools made from nuclei.
Based on the materials of the Yangelka, Murat, Shikaevka sites, the Yangelsk archaeological culture with geometric microliths is distinguished in the Southern Urals and Trans-Urals. The Mesolithic of the Southern Urals has a lot of features in common with the Mesolithic of Central Asia and Iran. The shapes of geometric microliths, microcuts, drills reflect the presence of links between these regions. There is an opinion that the appearance of geometric shapes of tools in the Southern Urals, Trans-Caspian and Western Europe is associated with the arrival of their carriers from the territory of the Middle East. The distribution of the productive economy from the Front East followed the same paths.
Mesolithic of Siberia and the Far East
The Mesolithic era in Siberia developed in a peculiar way. There was no single archaeological culture. The Mesolithic of Siberia is known for such monuments as Biryusa on the Yenisei, Verkholenskaya Gora (2nd horizon) near Irkutsk, Ust-Belaya on the Angara, Fofanovo in Transbaikalia. Mesolithic monuments in the forest Trans-Urals in Tobol, Tour, Irtysh are more studied. These are the sites - Gray Stone, Yurino, Poludenka I, II, Source II, III and others on the Tour, Black Lake in the Irtysh basin. They are characterized by products from knife-like plates, microplates without retouching or with edge retouching, there are triangular and trapezoidal microplates. The western part of this culture merges with the Mesolithic of Prikamye, where products from knife-like plates and microliths of geometric shapes are also known.
In the rest of Siberia, there were no significant changes in the technique of manufacturing stone tools and the way of life of the Mesolithic population. Among the tools there are massive scrapers with a convex working edge, choppers made of whole or split pebbles in half, and tools made of large knife-shaped plates of the Paleolithic period. On most sites there are no geometric microliths - one of the features of the Mesolithic culture. Microlites were found only in Altai, partly in Transbaikalia and in the Far East.
The multi-layer settlement of Ust-Belaya at the mouth of the river. White dates from C14 8960 ± 60 years. It was located on the island, which only in the summer was connected by the isthmus to the coast. People lived on the shallows, near the water itself. Numerous bonfires, mass of garbage were found here. In winter and during floods, residents moved to a high terrace. In the Mesolithic cultural layers, pebble scrapes, prismatic nuclei, inserts on plates, bones of commercial animals (elk, red deer, roe deer, wolf), and many bones of large fish were found. This is a typical camp of hunters and fishermen of the Mesolithic era.
In the middle of the XX century. The study of Mesolithic settlements in the Far East near the village began. Installation, Osinovka, Oleniy, Firsanovka I, II and others. They were located on high terraces along the banks of rivers and lakes. Hanka. The material for the tools was volcanic tuff and obsidian. The stone processing technique was associated with the local Paleolithic: the same chopping tools made of pebbles, triangular plates in the section, nuclei-scrapers, and miniature plates are also found.
Mesolithic North European Russia:
1-49 - microplates; 50-55- Mesolytic pencil-shaped nuclei (according to S.V. Erroneous)
The traditional large scrapers of the so-called gobian type were made of nuclei. First, a wide platform was prepared, plates were removed, and then the nucleus was further processed and turned into a scraper or cutter. These combined tools were common in Central Asia, Transbaikalia, Amur Region, Kamchatka, Alaska and Northern Japan on about. Hokkaido According to some indications, the Mesolithic of Primorye coincides with the Mesolithic of Hokkaido, with preceramic monuments of the Shirataki type, in particular end scrapers made of knife-shaped plates with an oval working end and completely processed along the edge with squeezing retouching. Typical are semilunar knives, spear-headed blades dating from Japanese materials XII-VIII millennia BC. e. Some difficulties are associated with setting a date for the beginning of the Mesolithic in this zone and its transition to the Neolithic, since there are no clear defining signs, and many tools exist from the Late Paleolithic to the Neolithic. Inventory of the Mesolithic settlements of Imchin, Such II on about. Sakhalin is close to products from the banks of the Amur, from Primorye and is characterized by a combination of microplates and small tools with large, wedge-shaped nuclei and end scrapers.
It should be noted that in the Mesolithic settlement of Kamchatka, Sakhalin, Northern Japan and North America took place. On the shore of Lake Ushkovsky in Kamchatka, a multilayer site was excavated with a layer of Mesolithic culture, the age of which is determined by the radiocarbon method at about 10 thousand years.
Thus, everywhere in Eurasia, the Mesolithic period was a time of great historical changes associated with the breaking of millennia-old farming traditions and hunting techniques. Mesolithic is an era of new and fundamental changes in technology and living conditions of people.
Literature
Bader O.N. Mesolithic of the forest Urals and some general questions of the study of the Mesolithic // MIA. M., 1966. No. 126.
Gurina N.N. Oleneostrovsky burial ground // MIA. M .; L., 1956. No. 47.
Researches on the Mesolithic and Neolithic of the USSR. M., 1983.
Stone Age in the USSR. M., 1970.
Clark G.L. Prehistoric Europe. M., 1953.
Koltsov L.V. Final Paleolithic and Mesolithic of the Southern and Eastern Baltic. M., 1977.
Dating
The dating of the Mesolithic varies greatly depending on the region. In the Middle East, it started first of all, about 15 thousand liters. BC e., and already about 10 thousand liters. BC e. replaced by pre-ceramic Neolithic. In most of Europe, the Mesolithic was replaced by Neolithic about 6-5 thousand liters. BC e., the longest it remained in the Baltic Sea and the Gulf of Finland (Campinian culture). A number of Mesolithic-type cultures have disappeared relatively recently (the Indians of southern California, the pygmies before they were subjugated by the Bantu tribes) or continue to exist now (the Bushmen, the aborigines of Australia, a number of groups of the Indians of the Amazon).
In the archeology of pre-Columbian America, the term "Mesolithic" is not used to avoid chronological confusion, since phenomena like the European Mesolithic (cultivation of plants, local ceramics) arose in America much later, about 2000 BC. e. (late Archaic period of American chronology). One of the oldest examples of plant cultivation in America is the Edgewater Park monument, which dates from about 1800 BC. e. In most of the tribes of North and South America, hunting and gathering dominated agriculture until contact with Europeans.
Characteristic
The beginning of the Mesolithic is associated with the end of the last glaciation in Europe and the disappearance of megafauna, which caused a food crisis and affected most cultures of the European region. For regions not affected by this process, the chronologically identical term “epipaleolite” is used instead of the term “Mesolithic”; for epipaleolithic cultures, the border with the Paleolithic is not so sharp, sometimes it is very arbitrary.
The most important achievements of the Mesolithic were the invention of the bow and arrow and the taming of animals. Dogs were used for hunting and home guard. This epoch is characterized by small composite flint tools (microliths, the use of microcuts technique is typical). In some places, fishing nets, stone adzes and wooden objects such as canoes and rafts have also been preserved. Typical artifacts of Mesolithic cultures are microliths.
Society
The Mesolithic is marked by progress in the development of social factors: the formation of general norms and rules of conduct, prohibitions and prescriptions, which were fixed ideologically and became part of traditions, religion and taboos. Forms of violence are spreading, associated not with the problem of survival, but with a violation of social norms, when violators were subjected to various forms of coercion, and sometimes physical punishment.
New knowledge about the world is accumulating, skills that help to survive develop and improve. So, people needed to know the characteristics of the food area, the habits of animals, the properties of plants and natural minerals. The first experience of treating injuries sustained during hunting, dislocations, abscesses, snake bites, etc., appeared. The first surgical operations were performed: tooth extraction, amputation of limbs.
The formation of the first so-called “residential hills” (with an area of \u200b\u200babout 2-4 ha, sometimes about 10 ha) refers specifically to the Mesolithic period.
Art and Spiritual Life
According to the ideas of historians of the beginning of the 20th century, articulate speech was formed in the Mesolithic. This contradicts both the data on modern cultures of the Mesolithic level and modern ideas about the spiritual life of the preceding Paleolithic: in the Mesolithic, there was already a speech with developed phonetics and grammar, however, abstract terms, terms for large numbers, etc. were poorly developed.
Art is developing. Numerous drawings of people, animals, plants were found; sculpture, in contrast to the former so-called Paleolithic Venus with hypertrophic secondary sexual characteristics, is becoming more complex, there are even images of fantastic creatures (for example, “human-fish” from Lepensky Vir). The beginnings of pictography, the prototype of pictorial writing, appear. There is music and dances used during festivals and rituals. Pagan religious beliefs are deepening. Collections of small painted pebbles appear - apparently, symbols of deceased ancestors (similar symbolic objects are currently used by the natives of Australia).
In the Paleolithic, the ancient artist saw and, accordingly, depicted an object of hunting. And in the Mesolithic, the artist's attention was transferred to his fellow tribesmen. It was on the tribesmen - not on the image of one person, but on the group scenes of hunting, persecution, war. Each human figure is depicted very conditionally, the emphasis is on the action that it performs: shoots with a bow, stabs with a spear, rushes after the running prey.
Cave paintings of the Mesolithic are multi-figured. The artist realizes himself as part of a society in constant motion, in the center of a bustling life. Details are not important. The important thing is community, movement - and evidence of this is the cave paintings of the Mesolithic.
Household
In the forest regions of the world, the first signs of deforestation appeared, which became widespread during the Neolithic period, when large areas were needed for agriculture.
If the Paleolithic lifestyle was, as a rule, nomadic, then in the Mesolithic it becomes more and more settled, intensive development of the territory begins instead of extensive. Villages are usually of a seasonal nature. Crafts actively developing in the Paleolithic of a systematic nature (making baskets, items of clothing) are actively developing. However, hunting, fishing, and gathering still play a dominant role.
Burial from Teviec - Toulouse Museum
see also
References
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Synonyms:See what "Mesolithic" is in other dictionaries:
Mesolithic ... Spelling Dictionary
- (from Meso ... and ... Lit) the Middle Stone Age, the transition from the Paleolithic to the Neolithic (c. 10th 5th millennium BC). A bow and arrow appeared in the Mesolithic, microlithic tools, a dog was tamed. The Mesolithic is sometimes also called protoneolithic (from Greek. ... ... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary
Mineral consisting of a mixture of calcareous natrolite with sodium skolezite. Dictionary of foreign words included in the Russian language. Chudinov AN, 1910. Mesolithic (mez (o) ... gr. Lithos stone) transition from the ancient Stone Age ... ... Dictionary of foreign words of the Russian language
Epipaleolite, protoneolite Dictionary of Russian synonyms. Mesolithic noun., count of synonyms: 4 mineral (5627) period ... Synonym dictionary
- (from the Meso ... and ... Lit), the Middle Stone Age, the transition from Paleolithic to Neolithic (about 10 5th millennium BC). Bow and arrow, microlithic tools (on small stone flakes) appeared in the Mesolithic, a dog was widely used in hunting ... Modern Encyclopedia
1. The Middle Stone Age, the transitional stage between the Paleolithic and the Neolithic (13,000 to 7,000 years BC). Includes crops: azil and tardenouise. Syn .: epipaleolite. 2. M l, zeolite (intermediate composition between natrolite and scolecite), ... ... Geological Encyclopedia
- (from the Greek. mesos middle and lithos stone) English. mesolyth; him. Mesolith. The Middle Stone Age, the transitional era from the Paleolithic to the Neolithic. Antinazi. Encyclopedia of Sociology, 2009 ... Encyclopedia of Sociology