1.
Afro-Eurasia
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Afro-Eurasia, Afroeurasia, or Eurafrasia, nicknamed the World Island, is the combination of Africa and Eurasia which together form the largest contiguous landmass on Earth. The term is a portmanteau of the names of its constituent parts, Afro-Eurasia encompasses 84,980,532 square kilometers, a little over half the worlds land area, and has a population of approximately 6 billion people, roughly 86% of the world population. The Old World, a term from the Age of Discovery which, for European explorers, the World Island, a term coined by H. J. Mackinder and used in geopolitical contexts. Mackinder defines the World Island as the contiguous landmass, technically excluding islands such as Britain. Afro-Eurasia generally includes those islands usually considered part of Africa, Europe, although Afro-Eurasia is typically considered to comprise two or three separate continents, it is not a proper supercontinent. Instead, it is the largest present part of the supercontinent cycle and it has made up parts of every supercontinent since. This impacted southern Asia around 50 million years ago and began the formation of the Himalayas. The Arabian Plate broke off of Africa around 30 million years ago, after this initial connection of Afro-Eurasia, the Betic corridor along the Gibraltar Arc closed a little less than 6 million years ago, fusing Northwest Africa and Iberia together. This led to the nearly complete desiccation of the Mediterranean Basin, today, Africa is now joined to Asia only by a narrow land bridge and remains separated from Europe by the Straits of Gibraltar and Sicily. Paleogeologist Ronald Blakey has described the next 15 to 100 million years of development as fairly settled. In that time, Africa is expected to continue drifting northward and it will close the Strait of Gibraltar around 600,000 years from now, closing and quickly evaporating the Mediterranean Sea. No supercontinent will form within the time frame, however. Three possibilities are known as Novopangaea, Amasia, and Pangaea Ultima, normally Afro-Eurasia is divided at the Suez Canal into Africa and Eurasia, the latter of which can be subdivided into Europe and Asia. It has also divided into Eurasia-North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa for cultural and historical reasons. ² According to the International Date Line, Geography of Africa Geography of Asia Extreme points of Africa Extreme points of Europe Extreme points of Asia Extreme points of Eurasia Extreme points of Earth Intermediate Region
2.
Lower Paleolithic
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The Lower Paleolithic is the earliest subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age. It spans the time from around 3, the Middle Paleolithic followed the Lower Paleolithic and recorded the appearance of the more advanced prepared-core tool-making technologies such as the Mousterian. Whether the earliest control of fire by hominins dates to the Lower or to the Middle Paleolithic remains an open question. The Lower Paleolithic began with the appearance of the oldest stone tools in the world, roughly 3.3 million ago in eastern Africa, the Gelasian, some 2.5 million years ago, saw the appearance of the Homo genus, possibly developing from australopithecine forebears. Homo habilis is assumed to have lived primarily on scavenging, using tools to cleave meat off carrion or to break bones to extract the marrow, decreasing oceanic evaporation produced a drier climate and the expansion of the savannah at the expense of forests. Reduced availability of fruits stimulated some proto-australopithecines to search out new food sources found in the drier savannah ecology, Homo erectus appeared by about 1.8 million years ago, via the transitional variety Homo ergaster. Homo erectus moved from scavenging to hunting, developing the hunting-gathering lifestyle that would remain dominant throughout the Paleolithic into the Mesolithic, Homo erectus migrated out of Africa and dispersed throughout Eurasia. Stone tools in Malaysia have been dated to be 1.83 million years old, the Peking Man fossil, discovered in 1929, is roughly 700,000 years old. In Europe, the Olduwan tradition split into two parallel traditions, the Clactonian, a tradition, and the Acheulean, a hand-axe tradition. The Levallois technique for knapping flint developed during this time, the carrier species from Africa to Europe was undoubtedly Homo erectus. This type of human is more linked to the flake tradition. Many Mousterian finds in the Middle Paleolithic have been knapped using a Levallois technique, monte Poggiolo, near Forlì, Italy, is the location of an Acheulian littoral handaxe industry dating from 1.8 to 1.1 million years ago. The appearance of Homo heidelbergensis about 600,000 years ago heralds a number of new varieties, such as Homo rhodesiensis. Homo heidelbergensis is a candidate for first developing a form of symbolic language. Whether control of fire and earliest burials date to this period or only appear during the Middle Paleolithic is an open question, the hand-axe tradition originates in the same period. The intermediate may have been Homo heidelbergensis, held responsible for the manufacture of improved Mode 2 Acheulean tool types, in Africa, flakes and axes coexisted in Europe, sometimes at the same site. The axe tradition, however, spread to a different range in the east and it appears in Arabia and India, but more importantly, it does not appear in southeast Asia. Homo sapiens first appear about 200,000 years ago, control of fire by early humans Lomekwi, site of the oldest tools discovered The First People and Culture at Indiana University Bloomington
3.
Olduvai Gorge
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Olduvai Gorge, or Oldupai Gorge, in Tanzania is one of the most important paleoanthropological sites in the world, it has proven invaluable in furthering understanding of early human evolution. Homo sapiens is dated to have occupied the site 17,000 years ago, the site is significant in showing the increasing developmental and social complexities in the earliest humans, or hominins, largely as revealed in the production and use of stone tools. And prior to tools, the evidence of scavenging and hunting—highlighted by the presence of gnaw marks that predate cut marks—and of the ratio of meat versus plant material in the hominin diet. The collecting of tools and animal remains in an area is evidence of developing social interaction. All these factors indicate increase in cognitive capacities at the beginning of the period of transitioning to hominin—that is, to human—form. German neurologist Wilhelm Kattwinkel traveled to Olduvai Gorge in 1911, where he observed many fossil bones of an extinct three-toed horse, inspired by Kattwinkels discovery, German geologist Hans Reck led a team to Olduvai in 1913. There, he found remains, but the start of World War I halted his research. In 1929, Louis Leakey visited Reck and viewed the Olduvai fossils, he convinced that Olduvai Gorge held critical information on human origins. Louis and Mary Leakey are responsible for most of the excavations and their finds and research in East Africa and the prior work of Raymond Dart and Robert Broom in South Africa eventually convinced most paleoanthropologists that humans did indeed evolve in Africa. In addition to an abundance of remains the Leakeys found more than 2,000 stone tools and lithic flakes. In 1960, the Leakeys son Jonathan found a jaw fragment that proved to be the first fossil specimen of Homo habilis, researchers have dated Olduvai Gorge layers with radiometric dating of the embedded artifacts, using potassium-argon and argon-argon methodology. Hay studied the Olduvai Gorge and surrounding region between 1961 and 2002 and his findings revealed that the site once contained a large lake, with shores covered by deposits of volcanic ash. Around 500,000 years ago, seismic activity diverted a nearby stream which proceeded to cut down through the sediments, the name Olduvai is a misspelling of Oldupai Gorge, which was adopted as the official name in 2005. Oldupai is the Maasai word for the wild sisal plant Sansevieria ehrenbergii, Homo habilis occupied Olduvai from 1.9 mya. The australopithecine Paranthropus boisei was found to occupy the site from approximately 1.8 until 1.2 mya, remains of Homo erectus have been dated at the site from 1.2 mya until 700,000 years ago. Homo sapiens came to occupy the gorge some 17,000 years ago, in the 1930s, as Mary and Louis Leakey opted to search for stone tools in East Africa, many, if not most, scholars were skeptical that Africa was the place where humans evolved. The Leakeys soon turned the evidence that confirmed their intuition and they found stone tools in the lowest geological beds. These tools presented both shaped edges and sharp points, and lithic flakes—struck off the stone in the intentional shaping of those points
4.
Lomekwi
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Lomekwi 3 is the name of an archaeological site in Kenya where ancient stone tools have been discovered dating to 3.3 million years ago, which make them the oldest ever found. The group made a turn on the way and ended up at a previously unexplored region. They quickly found some stone artifacts on the site, which they named Lomekwi 3, a year later they returned to the site for a full excavation. Harmand presented her findings at the meeting of the Paleoanthropology Society on April 14,2015 and published the full announcement. Around 20 well preserved artifacts have been dug up at Lomekwi 3 including anvils, cores, an additional 130 artifacts were found on the surface. In one instance, Harmands team was able to match a flake to its core, suggesting a hominin had made, the tools were generally quite large – larger than the oldest known stone tools, recovered near Gona, in the Afar Region of Ethiopia, in 1992. According to Harmand, it appeared that the makers had purposely selected large, heavy blocks of strong stone. She ruled out the possibility that the tools were actually natural rock formations, saying The artifacts were clearly knapped, analysis suggested the cores had been rotated as flakes were struck off. The purpose of the tools found at Lomekwi 3 is unclear, based on the buried artifacts stratigraphic position relative to two layers of volcanic ash and known magnetic reversals, Harmand and her team dated the tools to 3.3 million years ago. The finds at Lomekwi therefore represent the oldest stone tools ever discovered, the date also predates the Homo genus by 500,000 years, suggesting tool making arose with Australopithecus or Kenyanthropus. Harmand said the Lomekwi 3 artifacts do not fit into the Oldowan tool making tradition and should be considered part of a distinct tradition and it has been hypothesized that tool making may have aided in the evolution of Homo into a distinct genus. However, it is whether the Lomekwian tools are related to those made by Homo species – it is possible the technology was forgotten. Independent researchers who have seen the tools are generally supportive of Harmands conclusions, george Washington University anthropologist Alison Brooks said the tools could not have been created by natural forces. The dating evidence is fairly solid, theres no doubt its purposeful toolmaking, he remarked. Paleoanthropologist Zeresenay Alemseged, who was responsible for the earlier research suggesting Australopithecus had made tools, University College London repository - Spoor, F, Leakey, L, Leakey, M, A comparative study of Pliocene hominin fossils from Lomekwi, west of Lake Turkana. In, AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY Stone tools may have used before our genus came on the scene, The Washington Post List of stone tools
5.
Acheulean
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Acheulean, from the French acheuléen, is an archaeological industry of stone tool manufacture characterized by distinctive oval and pear-shaped hand-axes associated with early humans. Acheulean tools were produced during the Lower Palaeolithic era across Africa and much of West Asia, South Asia, and Europe, and are typically found with Homo erectus remains. It is thought that Acheulean technologies first developed in Africa out of the more primitive Oldowan technology as long ago as 1.76 million years ago, Acheulean tools were the dominant technology for the vast majority of human history. The type site for the Acheulean is Saint-Acheul, a suburb of Amiens, the capital of the Somme department in Picardy, john Frere is generally credited as being the first to suggest a very ancient date for Acheulean hand-axes. In 1797, he sent two examples to the Royal Academy in London from Hoxne in Suffolk and his ideas were, however, ignored by his contemporaries, who subscribed to a pre-Darwinian view of human evolution. Following visits to both Abbeville and Saint Acheul by the geologist Joseph Prestwich, the age of the tools was finally accepted, in 1872, Louis Laurent Gabriel de Mortillet described the characteristic hand-axe tools as belonging to LEpoque de St Acheul. The industry was renamed as the Acheulean in 1925, from the Konso Formation of Ethiopia, Acheulean hand-axes are dated to about 1.5 million years ago using radiometric dating of deposits containing volcanic ashes. Acheulean tools in South Asia have also found to be dated as far as 1.5 million years ago. However, the earliest accepted examples of the Acheulean currently known come from the West Turkana region of Kenya and were first described by a French-led archaeology team. These particular Acheulean tools were dated through the method of magnetostratigraphy to about 1.76 million years ago, making them the oldest not only in Africa. The earliest user of Acheulean tools was Homo ergaster, who first appeared about 1.8 million years ago, not all researchers use this formal name, and instead prefer to call these users early Homo erectus. In individual regions, this dating can be refined, in Europe for example. However more recent research demonstrated that hand-axes from Spain were made more than 900,000 years ago, the enormous geographic spread of Acheulean techniques also makes the name unwieldy as it represents numerous regional variations on a similar theme. The term Acheulean does not represent a culture in the modern sense. The very earliest Acheulean assemblages often contain numerous Oldowan-style flakes and core forms and these industries are known as the Developed Oldowan and are almost certainly transitional between the Oldowan and Acheulean. The Mode 1 industries created rough flake tools by hitting a stone with a hammerstone. The resulting flake that broke off would have a sharp edge for cutting. These early toolmakers may also have worked the stone they took the flake from to create chopper cores although there is debate over whether these items were tools or just discarded cores
6.
Paleolithic
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The Paleolithic is a prehistoric period of human history distinguished by the development of the most primitive stone tools and covers roughly 95% of human technological prehistory. It extends from the earliest known use of tools, probably by Homo habilis initially,2.6 million years ago. The Paleolithic era is followed by the Mesolithic, the date of the Paleolithic–Mesolithic boundary may vary by locality as much as several thousand years. During the Paleolithic period, humans grouped together in small societies such as bands, the Paleolithic is characterized by the use of knapped stone tools, although at the time humans also used wood and bone tools. Other organic commodities were adapted for use as tools, including leather and vegetable fibers, however, due to their nature, surviving artifacts of the Paleolithic era are known as paleoliths. About 50,000 years ago, there was a increase in the diversity of artifacts. For the first time in Africa, bone artifacts and the first art appear in the archaeological record, the first evidence of human fishing is also noted, from artifacts in places such as Blombos cave in South Africa. The new technology generated an explosion of modern humans which is believed to have led to the extinction of the Neanderthals. Humankind gradually evolved from members of the genus Homo—such as Homo habilis. The climate during the Paleolithic consisted of a set of glacial and interglacial periods in which the climate periodically fluctuated between warm and cool temperatures, by c. 50,000 – c. 40,000 BP, the first humans set foot in Australia. By c. 45,000 BP, humans lived at 61°N latitude in Europe, by c. 30,000 BP, Japan was reached, and by c. 27,000 BP humans were present in Siberia, above the Arctic Circle. At the end of the Upper Paleolithic, a group of humans crossed Beringia, the term Paleolithic was coined by archaeologist John Lubbock in 1865. It derives from Greek, παλαιός, palaios, old, and λίθος, lithos, stone, human evolution is the part of biological evolution concerning the emergence of anatomically modern humans as a distinct species. The Paleolithic Period coincides almost exactly with the Pleistocene epoch of geologic time and this epoch experienced important geographic and climatic changes that affected human societies. During the preceding Pliocene, continents had continued to drift from possibly as far as 250 km from their present locations to positions only 70 km from their current location. South America became linked to North America through the Isthmus of Panama, most of Central America formed during the Pliocene to connect the continents of North and South America, allowing fauna from these continents to leave their native habitats and colonize new areas. Africas collision with Asia created the Mediterranean Sea, cutting off the remnants of the Tethys Ocean, climates during the Pliocene became cooler and drier, and seasonal, similar to modern climates. The formation of an Arctic ice cap around 3 million years ago is signaled by a shift in oxygen isotope ratios and ice-rafted cobbles in the North Atlantic
7.
Pliocene
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The Pliocene Epoch is the epoch in the geologic timescale that extends from 5.333 million to 2.58 million years BP. It is the second and youngest epoch of the Neogene Period in the Cenozoic Era, the Pliocene follows the Miocene Epoch and is followed by the Pleistocene Epoch.588 to 1.806 million years ago, and is now included in the Pleistocene. As with other geologic periods, the geological strata that define the start and end are well identified but the exact dates of the start. The boundaries defining the Pliocene are not set at an easily identified worldwide event, the upper boundary was set at the start of the Pleistocene glaciations. The Pliocene was named by Sir Charles Lyell, the name comes from the Greek words πλεῖον and καινός and means roughly continuation of the recent, referring to the essentially modern marine mollusc faunas. H. W. Fowler called the term a regrettable barbarism, in the official timescale of the ICS, the Pliocene is subdivided into two stages. From youngest to oldest they are, Piacenzian Zanclean The Piacenzian is sometimes referred to as the Late Pliocene, in the system of North American Land Mammal Ages include Hemphillian, and Blancan. The Blancan extends forward into the Pleistocene, South American Land Mammal Ages include Montehermosan, Chapadmalalan and Uquian. In the Paratethys area the Pliocene contains the Dacian and Romanian stages, as usual in stratigraphy, there are many other regional and local subdivisions in use. In Britain the Pliocene is divided into the stages, Gedgravian, Waltonian, Pre-Ludhamian, Ludhamian, Thurnian, Bramertonian or Antian, Pre-Pastonian or Baventian, Pastonian and Beestonian. The exact correlations between these stages and the ICS stages is still a matter of detail. The formation of an Arctic ice cap is signaled by a shift in oxygen isotope ratios and ice-rafted cobbles in the North Atlantic. Mid-latitude glaciation was probably underway before the end of the epoch, the global cooling that occurred during the Pliocene may have spurred on the disappearance of forests and the spread of grasslands and savannas. Continents continued to drift, moving from positions possibly as far as 250 km from their present locations to positions only 70 km from their current locations, africas collision with Europe formed the Mediterranean Sea, cutting off the remnants of the Tethys Ocean. The border between the Miocene and the Pliocene is also the time of the Messinian salinity crisis, Sea level changes exposed the land-bridge between Alaska and Asia. Pliocene marine rocks are exposed in the Mediterranean, India. Elsewhere, they are exposed largely near shores, the change to a cooler, dry, seasonal climate had considerable impacts on Pliocene vegetation, reducing tropical species worldwide. Deciduous forests proliferated, coniferous forests and tundra covered much of the north, tropical forests were limited to a tight band around the equator, and in addition to dry savannahs, deserts appeared in Asia and Africa
8.
Hominina
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The genus is between 2 and 3 million years old, taken to emerge with the appearance of Homo habilis. It is derived from the genus Australopithecus, which itself had previously split from the lineage of Pan, taxonomically, Homo is the only genus assigned to the subtribe Hominina which, with the subtribes Australopithecina and Panina, comprise the tribe Hominini. All species of the genus Homo plus those species of the australopithecines that arose after the split from Pan are called hominins, Homo erectus appeared about two million years ago in East Africa and, in several early migrations, it spread throughout Africa and Eurasia. It was likely the first hominin to live in a hunter-gatherer society, Homo sapiens sapiens, or anatomically modern humans, emerged about 200,000 years ago in East Africa. DNA analysis provides evidence of interbreeding between archaic and modern humans. See Hominidae for an overview of taxonomy, the Latin noun homō means human being or man in the generic sense of human being, mankind. The binomial name Homo sapiens was coined by Carl Linnaeus, names for other species of the genus were introduced beginning in the second half of the 19th century. Even today, the genus Homo has not been properly defined, since the early human fossil record began to slowly emerge from the earth, the boundaries and definitions of the genus Homo have been poorly defined and constantly in flux. Because there was no reason to think it would ever have any additional members, the discovery of Neanderthal brought the first addition. The genus Homo was given its name to suggest that its member species can be classified as human. Many such names are now dubbed as synonyms with Homo, including Pithecanthropus, Protanthropus, Sinanthropus, Cyphanthropus, Africanthropus, Telanthropus, Atlanthropus, classifying the genus Homo into species and subspecies is subject to incomplete information and remains poorly done. Some recently extinct species in the genus Homo are only recently discovered, john Edward Gray was an early advocate of classifying taxa by designating tribes and families. Several species, including Australopithecus garhi, Australopithecus sediba, Australopithecus africanus and these species have morphological features that align them with Homo, but there is no consensus as to which gave rise to Homo. The advent of Homo was traditionally taken to coincide with the first use of stone tools, the emergence of Homo also coincides roughly with the onset of Quaternary glaciation, the beginning of the current ice age. A fossil mandible fragment dated to 2.8 million years ago which may represent a stage between Australopithecus and Homo was discovered in 2015 in Afar, Ethiopia. Some authors would push the development of Homo past 3 Mya, the most salient physiological development between the earlier australopithecine species and Homo is the increase in cranial capacity, from about 450 cm3 in A. garhi to 600 cm3 in H. habilis. Within the genus Homo, cranial capacity again doubled from H. habilis through Homo ergaster or H. erectus to Homo heidelbergensis by 0.6 million years ago, the cranial capacity of H. heidelbergensis overlaps with the range found in modern humans. Homo erectus has often been assumed to have developed anagenetically from Homo habilis from about 2 million years ago
9.
Year
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A year is the orbital period of the Earth moving in its orbit around the Sun. Due to the Earths axial tilt, the course of a year sees the passing of the seasons, marked by changes in weather, the hours of daylight, and, consequently, vegetation and soil fertility. In temperate and subpolar regions around the globe, four seasons are recognized, spring, summer, autumn. In tropical and subtropical regions several geographical sectors do not present defined seasons, but in the seasonal tropics, a calendar year is an approximation of the number of days of the Earths orbital period as counted in a given calendar. The Gregorian, or modern, calendar, presents its calendar year to be either a common year of 365 days or a year of 366 days, as do the Julian calendars. For the Gregorian calendar the average length of the year across the complete leap cycle of 400 years is 365.2425 days. The ISO standard ISO 80000-3, Annex C, supports the symbol a to represent a year of either 365 or 366 days, in English, the abbreviations y and yr are commonly used. In astronomy, the Julian year is a unit of time, it is defined as 365.25 days of exactly 86400 seconds, totalling exactly 31557600 seconds in the Julian astronomical year. The word year is used for periods loosely associated with, but not identical to, the calendar or astronomical year, such as the seasonal year, the fiscal year. Similarly, year can mean the period of any planet, for example. The term can also be used in reference to any long period or cycle, west Saxon ġēar, Anglian ġēr continues Proto-Germanic *jǣran. Cognates are German Jahr, Old High German jār, Old Norse ár and Gothic jer, all the descendants of the Proto-Indo-European noun *yeh₁rom year, season. Cognates also descended from the same Proto-Indo-European noun are Avestan yārǝ year, Greek ὥρα year, season, period of time, Old Church Slavonic jarŭ, Latin annus is from a PIE noun *h₂et-no-, which also yielded Gothic aþn year. Both *yeh₁-ro- and *h₂et-no- are based on verbal roots expressing movement, *h₁ey- and *h₂et- respectively, the Greek word for year, ἔτος, is cognate with Latin vetus old, from the PIE word *wetos- year, also preserved in this meaning in Sanskrit vat-sa- yearling and vat-sa-ras year. Derived from Latin annus are a number of English words, such as annual, annuity, anniversary, etc. per annum means each year, anno Domini means in the year of the Lord. No astronomical year has an number of days or lunar months. Financial and scientific calculations often use a 365-day calendar to simplify daily rates, in the Julian calendar, the average length of a year is 365.25 days. In a non-leap year, there are 365 days, in a year there are 366 days
10.
Soanian
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The Soanian is an archaeological culture of the Lower Paleolithic in Pakistan. Contemporary to the Acheulean, it is named after the Soan Valley in Pakistan, Soanian sites are found along the Sivalik region in present-day India, Nepal and Pakistan. The term Soan Culture was first used by Hellmut De Terra in 1936, further archaeological research was conducted by Stephen Lycett in order to determine the morphometric assessment of the Soanian techno-complex. The result of this experiment concluded that the Soanian techno-complex contains a Mode 3 Levallois technique core component, on Adiyala and Khasala, about 16 km from Rawalpindi terrace on the bend of the river, hundreds of edged pebble tools were discovered. At Chauntra in Himachal Pradesh, hand axes and cleavers were found, tools up to two million years old have been recovered. In the Soan River Gorge, many fossil bearing rocks are exposed on the surface,14 million year old fossils of gazelle, rhinoceros, crocodile, giraffe and rodents have been found there. Some of these fossils are on display at the Pakistan Museum of Natural History in Islamabad, madrasian Culture Synoptic table of the principal old world prehistoric cultures V. A. Ranov, D. Dorj, Lu Zün-E. History of civilizations of Central Asia, early man, as depicted by leading authorities at the International symposium, the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, March 1937. Ayer Publishing, Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, the Middle Pleistocene Pebble Tool Site of Durkadi in Central India. The Emergence of the Handaxe Tradition in Asia, with Special Reference to India, in V. N. Misra, Peter S. Bellwood. Recent advances in Indo-Pacific prehistory, proceedings of the symposium held at Poona. A Decade of Prehistoric and Protohistoric Archaeology in India, 1951-1960
11.
Clactonian
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Clactonian tools were made by Homo erectus rather than modern humans. The term is applied to early, crude flint tools from other regions that were made using similar methods. It is named after 400, 000-year-old finds made by Hazzledine Warren in a palaeochannel at Clacton-on-Sea in the English county of Essex in 1911. The artefacts found there included flint chopping tools, flint flakes, the Clactonian industry involved striking thick, irregular flakes from a core of flint, which was then employed as a chopper. The flakes would have used as crude knives or scrapers. Unlike the Oldowan tools from which Clactonian ones derived, some were notched implying that they were attached to a handle or shaft, retouch is uncommon and the prominent bulb of percussion on the flakes indicates use of a hammerstone. Within the banks of the Nile River, at the 100 foot terrace, the Clactonian industry may have co-existed with the Acheulean industry, which used identical basic techniques but which also had handaxe technology, tools made by bifacially working a flint core. In the 1990s it was argued that the difference between Clactonian and Acheulean may be a false distinction, however, the 2004 excavation of a butchered Pleistocene elephant at the Southfleet Road site of High Speed 1 in Kent recovered numerous Clactonian flint tools but no handaxes. As a handaxe would have been more useful than a chopper in dismembering an elephant carcass it is considered evidence of the Clactonian being a separate industry. Flint of sufficient quality was available in the area and it is likely that the people who carved up the elephant did not possess the knowledge to make the more advanced bifacial handaxe. Proponents of the Clactonian as an independent industry point to the lack of evidence in favour of it being an anomalous Acheulean industry. The precise provenance of the few attributed bifacial Clactonian tools is in dispute, the traditional chronology of Clactonian being followed by Acheulean is also being increasingly challenged since finds of Acheulean tools were made at Boxgrove in Sussex and High Lodge in Suffolk. These finds came from deposits connected with the Anglian Stage, the glaciation that preceded the Hoxnian Stage, whether or not they are separate industries it would seem that the Clactonian and Acheulean stone tool makers would have had cultural contact with each other. Acheulean Synoptic table of the old world prehistoric cultures Butler, C, Prehistoric Flintwork, Tempus
12.
Middle Paleolithic
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The Middle Paleolithic is the second subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age as it is understood in Europe, Africa and Asia. The term Middle Stone Age is used as an equivalent or a synonym for the Middle Paleolithic in African archeology, the Middle Paleolithic broadly spanned from 300,000 to 30,000 years ago. There are considerable dating differences between regions, the Middle Paleolithic was succeeded by the Upper Paleolithic subdivision which first began between 50,000 and 40,000 years ago. Activities such as catching fish and hunting large game animals with specialized tools connote increased group-wide cooperation. Both Neandertal and modern human societies took care of the members of their societies during the Middle Paleolithic. Typically, it has assumed that women gathered plants and firewood. Anthropologists such as Tim D. Cannibalism in the Middle Paleolithic may have occurred because of food shortages, around 200,000 BP Middle Paleolithic Stone tool manufacturing spawned a tool-making technique known as the prepared-core technique, that was more elaborate than previous Acheulean techniques. Wallace and Shea split the core artifacts into two different types, formal cores and expedient cores, formal cores are designed to extract the maximum amount from the raw material while expedient cores are more based on function need. This method increased efficiency by permitting the creation of more controlled and this method allowed Middle Paleolithic humans correspondingly to create stone-tipped spears, which were the earliest composite tools, by hafting sharp, pointy stone flakes onto wooden shafts. The use of fire became widespread for the first time in human prehistory during the Middle Paleolithic, some scientists have hypothesized that hominids began cooking food to defrost frozen meat which would help ensure their survival in cold regions
13.
Mousterian
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Mousterian is a name given by archaeologists to a style of predominantly flint tools associated primarily with Neanderthals. They date to the Middle Paleolithic, the part of the European Old Stone Age. The culture was named after the site of Le Moustier. Similar flintwork has been all over unglaciated Europe and also the Near East. Handaxes, racloirs and points constitute the industry, sometimes a Levallois technique or another prepared-core technique was employed in making the flint flakes, Mousterian tools that have been found in Europe were made by Neanderthals and date from around 160,000 BP and 40,000 BP. In North Africa and the Near East, Mouseterian tools were produced by anatomically modern humans. In the Levant, for example, assemblages produced by Neanderthals are indistinguishable from those made by Qafzeh type modern humans, possible variants are Denticulate, Charentian named after the Charente region, Typical and the Acheulean Tradition - Type-A and Type-B. The industry continued alongside the new Châtelperronian industry during the 45, Mousterian artifacts have been found in Haua Fteah in Cyrenaica and other sites in Northwest Africa. Contained within a cave in the Syria region, along with a Neanderthaloid skeleton, located in the Haibak valley of Afghanistan. Zagros and Central Iran The archaeological site of Atapuerca, Spain, gorhams Cave in Gibraltar contains Mousterian objects. Uzbekistan has sites of Mousterian culture, including Teshik-Tash, siberia has many sites with Mousterian style implements, eg Denisova Cave. Neanderthal extinction hypotheses Synoptic table of the old world prehistoric cultures Levallois technique Neanderthals’ Last Stand Is Traced — New York Times article
14.
Micoquien
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The Micoquien is an early middle paleolithic industry, that is found in the Eemian and in an early episode of the Würm glaciation. The Micoquien is distinguished technologically by the appearance of distinctly asymmetrical bifaces and its discoverer and namer was the archeologist and art trader Otto Hauser. Hauser then sold a number of so-called Micoque-wedges that he found in excavations in La Micoque to museums. The specially formed handaxes from La Micoque exhibited an often a rounded base, the problem with the term Micoquien is that later excavations have revealed an older time placement for the La Micoque axes, which are now dated in the Riss glaciation. A wider artifact from the Micoquien is the Keilmesser, which has a clearer chronology in Central Europe, from this some archeologists have proposed substituting the term Keilmesser group for Micoquien. Micoquien artifacts are distributed all of Eastern Europe and Central Europe. In Germany they can be found at Balver Höhle and Lonetal, le gisement de La Micoque. - in, Rigaud, J. -Ph. Informa-tions archéologiques, circonscription dAquitaine, Gallia Préhist, La Micoque. - Gallia Informations Préhistoire et Histoire, 1991-1, CNRS, Paris, 21-25. La Micoque, die Kultur einer neuen Diluvialrasse, leur signification. - Bulletin de la Société Pré-historique Française 35, Paris,121, 257-288. La Micoque und das Micoquien in den altsteinzeitlichen Sammlungen des Reiss-Museums Mannheim. - Mannh, geschichtsblätter N. F.6, Ubstadt-Weiher, 315-351. Media related to Micoquien at Wikimedia Commons Geröllgeräte-Industrien Rosendahl, G. Die oberen Schichten von La Micoque
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Aterian
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The Aterian is a Middle Stone Age stone tool industry centered in the Maghreb, but also found in Oman and the Thar Desert. The earliest Aterian dates to c.145,000 years ago, however, most of the early dates cluster around the beginning of the Last Interglacial, around 130,000 years ago, when the environment of North Africa began to ameliorate. The Aterian disappeared around 30,000 years ago and it is not thought to have influenced subsequent archaeological cultures in the region. The Aterian is primarily distinguished through the presence of tanged or pedunculated tools, bifacially-worked, leaf-shaped tools are also a common artefact type, and so are racloirs and Levallois flakes and cores. Items of personal adornment are known from at least one Aterian site, the appropriateness of the term Mousterian is contested in a North African context, however. The technological character of the Aterian has been debated for almost a century, Levallois reduction is widespread across the whole of North Africa throughout the Middle Stone Age, and scrapers and denticulates are ubiquitous. Bifacial foliates moreover represent a huge taxonomic category and the form, there is also a significant variation of tanged tools themselves, with various forms representing both different tool types and the degree tool resharpening. For example, bifacial leaf points are found widely across North Africa in assemblages that lack tanged tools and this notwithstanding, the term still usefully denotes the presence of tanged tools in North African Middle Stone Age assemblages. Tanged tools persisted in North Africa until around 30,000 years ago, by this time, the Aterian lithic industry had long ceased to exist in the rest of North Africa due to the onset of the Ice Age, which in North Africa, resulted in hyperarid conditions. Assemblages with tanged tools, the Aterian, therefore have a significant temporal and spatial range, however, they have not yet been found east of the Nile and no Aterian sites are known from the Nile Valley. The Aterian is associated with early Homo sapiens at a number of sites in Morocco, the Aterian fossils also display similarities to the earliest modern humans found out of Africa at Skhul and Qafzeh in the Levant, and they are broadly contemporary to them. Such examples of shell beads have been found far inland, suggesting the presence of long distance social networks, such a subdivided population structure has also been inferred from the pattern of variation observed in early African fossils of Homo sapiens. Associated faunal studies suggest that the making the Aterian exploited coastal resources as well as engaging in hunting. It has so far been difficult to estimate whether Aterian populations further inland were exploiting freshwater resources as well, studies have suggested that hafting was widespread, perhaps to maintain flexibility in the face of strongly seasonal environment with a pronounced dry season. Scrapers, knives and points all seem to have been hafted and it is probably that plant resources were also exploited. Although there is no evidence from the Aterian yet, plant processing is evidenced in North Africa from as much as 182,000 years ago. Aterian lithic tools have also discovered in Middle Paleolithic deposits in Oman. Ifri nAmmar Contrebandiers Taforalt Rhafas Dar es Soltan I El Mnasra Kharga Oasis Uan Tabu Oued el Akarit Adrar Bous Oman Thar Desert Synoptic table of the old world prehistoric cultures
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Upper Paleolithic
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The Upper Paleolithic is the third and last subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age. Very broadly, it dates to between 50,000 and 10,000 years ago, roughly coinciding with the appearance of behavioral modernity, modern humans are believed to have emerged about 195,000 years ago in Africa. Although these humans were modern in anatomy, their lifestyle changed very little from their contemporaries, such as Homo erectus, about 50,000 years ago, there was a marked increase in the diversity of artifacts. In Africa, bone artifacts and the first art appear in the archeological record, between 45,000 and 43,000 years ago, this new tool technology spread with human migration to Europe. The new technology generated an explosion of modern humans which is believed to have contributed to the extinction of the Neanderthals. The Upper Paleolithic has the earliest known evidence of organized settlements, in the form of campsites, artistic work blossomed, with cave painting, petroglyphs, carvings and engravings on bone or ivory. The first evidence of fishing is also noted, from artifacts in places such as Blombos cave in South Africa. More complex social groupings emerged, supported by more varied and reliable food sources and this probably contributed to increasing group identification or ethnicity. By 50, 000–40,000 BP, the first humans set foot in Australia, by 45,000 BP, humans lived at 61° north latitude in Europe. By 30,000 BP, Japan was reached, and by 27,000 BP humans were present in Siberia above the Arctic Circle, at the end of the Upper Paleolithic, a group of humans crossed the Bering land bridge and quickly expanded throughout North and South America. Both Homo erectus and Neanderthals used the same crude stone tools, archaeologist Richard G. Klein, who has worked extensively on ancient stone tools, describes the stone tool kit of archaic hominids as impossible to categorize. It was as if the Neanderthals made stone tools, and were not much concerned about their final forms and he argues that almost everywhere, whether Asia, Africa or Europe, before 50,000 years ago all the stone tools are much alike and unsophisticated. These new stone-tool types have been described as being distinctly differentiated from each other, the invaders, commonly referred to as the Cro-Magnons, left many sophisticated stone tools, carved and engraved pieces on bone, ivory and antler, cave paintings and Venus figurines. The Neanderthals continued to use Mousterian stone tool technology and possibly Chatelperronian technology and these tools disappeared from the archeological record at around the same time the Neanderthals themselves disappeared from the fossil record, about 40,000 years ago. Settlements were often located in valley bottoms, possibly associated with hunting of passing herds of animals. Hunting was important, and caribou/wild reindeer may well be the species of single greatest importance in the anthropological literature on hunting. Technological advances included significant developments in flint tool manufacturing, with industries based on fine blades rather than simpler and shorter flakes, burins and racloirs were used to work bone, antler and hides. Advanced darts and harpoons also appear in period, along with the fish hook, the oil lamp, rope
17.
Aurignacian
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The Aurignacian culture is an archaeological culture of the Upper Palaeolithic. It is the earliest modern human culture in Europe, and is associated with the immigration of anatomically modern humans from the Near East and it first appeared in Eastern Europe around 43,000 BP, and in Western Europe between 40,000 and 36,000 years BP. It was replaced by the Gravettian culture around 28,000 to 26,000 years ago, the name originates from the type site of Aurignac, Haute-Garonne, which is a town in the south-west of France near Toulouse or Andorra. The oldest undisputed example of figurative art, the Venus of Hohle Fels. It was discovered in September 2008 in a cave at Schelklingen in Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany, the Bacho Kiro site is one of the earliest known Aurignacian burials. The Aurignacian tool industry is characterized by worked bone or antler points with grooves cut in the bottom. Their flint tools include blades and bladelets struck from prepared cores rather than using crude flakes. )The people of this culture also produced some of the earliest known cave art, such as the animal engravings at Trois Freres. They also made pendants, bracelets, and ivory beads, as well as three-dimensional figurines, perforated rods, thought to be spear throwers or shaft wrenches, also are found at their sites. The sophistication and self-awareness demonstrated in the work led archaeologists to consider the makers of Aurignacian artifacts the first modern humans in Europe, human remains and Late Aurignacian artifacts found in juxtaposition support this inference. Although finds of human remains in direct association with Proto-Aurignacian technologies are scarce in Europe. At least three robust, but typically anatomically-modern individuals from the Peștera cu Oase cave in Romania, were dated directly from the bones to ca, although not associated directly with archaeological material, these finds are within the chronological and geographical range of the Early Aurignacian in southeastern Europe. On genetic evidence it has argued that both Aurignacian and the Dabba culture of North Africa came from an earlier big game hunting Aurignacian culture of the Levant. Many 35, 000-year-old animal figurines were discovered in the Vogelherd Cave in Germany, one of the horses, amongst six tiny mammoth and horse ivory figures found previously at Vogelherd, was sculpted as skillfully as any piece found throughout the Upper Paleolithic. The production of ivory beads for body ornamentation was also important during the Aurignacian, there is a notable absence of painted caves, however, which begin to appear within the Solutrean. Typical statuettes consist of women that are called Venus figurines and they emphasize the hips, breasts, and other body parts associated with fertility. Feet and arms are lacking or minimized, one of the most ancient figurines was discovered in 2008 in the Hohle Fels cave in Germany. The figurine has been dated to 35,000 years ago, the oldest undisputed musical instrument was the Hohle Fels Flute discovered in the Hohle Fels cave in Germanys Swabian Alb in 2008. The flute is made from a wing bone perforated with five finger holes
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Gravettian
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The Gravettian was an archaeological industry of the European Upper Paleolithic that succeeded the Aurignacian c.31,000 BC. It is archaeologically the last unified European culture, and lasted until c.22,000 BC, at this point it developed into the Epigravettian in Italy, the Balkans, and Russia, and was replaced abruptly by the Solutrean in France and Spain. The origins of the Gravettian people are not clear, they seem to appear all over Europe. Like their Aurignacian predecessors, they are well-known for their Venus figurines, the culture was first identified at the site of La Gravette in Southwestern France. One typical artefact of the industry, once considered diagnostic, is a pointed blade with a straight blunt back. These were used to hunt big game including bison, horse, reindeer, Gravettians also used nets to hunt small game. Archaeologists usually describe two regional variants, the western Gravettian, known namely from cave sites in France, Spain and Britain, and the eastern Gravettian in Central Europe and Russia. The eastern Gravettians — they include the Pavlovian culture — were specialized mammoth hunters, whose remains are found not in caves. The Aurignacian and Gravettian cultures are featured in Earths children, a series of set in prehistory. In this piece of fiction, the Venus figurines play an important role at the center of a fertility rite
19.
Solutrean
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The Solutrean industry is a relatively advanced flint tool-making style of the Upper Palaeolithic, from around 22,000 to 17,000 BP. The term Solutrean comes from the type-site of Cros du Charnier, dating to around 21,000 years ago and located at Solutré, the Rock of Solutré site was discovered in 1866 by the French geologist and paleontologist Henry Testot-Ferry. It is now preserved as the Parc archéologique et botanique de Solutré, the eras finds include tools, ornamental beads, and bone pins as well as prehistoric art. Solutrean tool-making employed techniques not seen before and not rediscovered for millennia, the Solutrean has relatively finely worked, bifacial points made with lithic reduction percussion and pressure flaking rather than cruder flintknapping. Knapping was done using antler batons, hardwood batons and soft stone hammers and this method permitted the working of delicate slivers of flint to make light projectiles and even elaborate barbed and tanged arrowheads. Bone and antler were used as well, the Solutrean may be seen as a transitory stage between the flint implements of the Mousterian and the bone implements of the Magdalenian epochs. Faunal finds include horse, reindeer, mammoth, cave lion, rhinoceros, bear, Solutrean finds have been also made in the caves of Les Eyzies and Laugerie Haute, and in the Lower Beds of Creswell Crags in Derbyshire, England. The industry first appeared in what is now Spain, and disappears from the record around 17,000 BP. The migrants arrived in northeastern North America and served as the culture for what eventually developed into Clovis tool-making technology. The idea of a Clovis-Solutrean link remains controversial and does not enjoy wide acceptance, in 2014, the autosomal DNA of a male infant from a 12, 500-year-old deposit in Montana was sequenced. The DNA was taken from a referred to as Anzick-1. The skeleton was found in association with several Clovis artifacts. Comparisons showed strong affinities with DNA from Siberian sites, and virtually ruled out any close affinity of Anzick-1 with European sources, Clovis and Solutrean, Is There a Common Thread. by James M
20.
Epigravettian
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The Epigravettian was one of the last archaeological industries of the European Upper Paleolithic. It arose after the last glacial maximum around 21,000 cal and it succeeded the Gravettian, of which it is considered a continuation by some scholars. Its known range extends from southeast France to the shores of the Volga River
21.
Ahrensburg culture
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The most important prey was the wild reindeer. The earliest definite finds of arrow and bow date to this culture, the Ahrensburgian was preceded by the Hamburg and Federmesser cultures and superseded by the Maglemosian and Swiderian cultures. Ahrensburgian finds were made in southern and western Scandinavia, the North German plain, the Ahrensburgian area also included vast stretches of land now at the bottom of the North and Baltic Sea, since during the Younger Dryas the coastline took a much more northern course than today. Artefacts with tanged points are associated with both the Bromme and the Ahrensburg cultures. The extinction of mammoth and other megafauna provided for an incentive to exploit other forms of subsistence that included maritime resources, northward migrations coincided with the warm Bølling and Allerød events, but much of northern Eurasia remained inhabited during the Younger Dryas. The different technolithic complexes are chronologically associated with the climatic chronozones.700 BCE, palynological results demonstrate a close connection between the prominent temperature rise at the beginning of the Interstadial and the expansion of the hunter-gatherers into the northern Lowlands. The existence of a primary “pioneer phase” in the re-colonisation is contradicted by proof of e. g. an early Central European Magdalenian in Poland. Today it is accepted that the Hamburgian, featured by Shouldered Point lithics, is a techno-complex closely related to the Creswellian. Within the Hamburgian techno-complex, a younger dating is found for the Havelte phase, sometimes interpreted as a northwestern phenomenon, the Hamburgian culture existed during the warm Bølling period, the brief Dryas II glaciation and in the early warmer Allerød period. However, the distribution of the Hamburgian east of the Oder River has been confirmed, finds in Jutland indicates the expansion of early Hamburgian hunters and gatherers reached further north than previously expected. The Hamburgian sites with shouldered point lithics reach as far north as the Pomeranian ice margin, the younger Havelte phase has been proven for the area beyond the Pomeranian ice margin and on the Danish Isles after circa 12.300 BCE. The Backed Point lithics of Federmesser culture are dated in the Allerød Interstadial. Early Federmesser finds follows shortly or are contemporary to Havelte, the culture lasted approximately 1200 years from 11.900 to 10.700 BCE. and is located in Northern Germany and Poland to south Lithuania. Fish-hooks were discovered in Allerød layers and emphasize the importance of fishing in the Late Palaeolithic, Bromme culture sites are found in the entire southern and southeastern Baltic, and are dated to the second half of Allerød and the early cold Dryas III period. The classical Brommian complex is typified by simple and fast, but uneconomical, a new development noticed in Lithuania introduced both massive and smaller Tanged Points. In Bromme culture this technology is proposed to be a derived from tanged Havelte groups. Ahrensburg culture is associated with the Younger Dryas glacialization and the Pre-boreal period. Some recent finds, such as the Hintersee 24 site in southern Landkreis Vorpommern-Greifswald, would contribute to the argument of an early Ahrensburgian in northern Germany
22.
Swiderian culture
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Swiderian culture, also published in English literature as Sviderian and Swederian, is the name of Final Palaeolithic cultural complexes in Poland and the surrounding areas. The type-site is Świdry Wielkie, in Otwock near the Swider River, the Swiderian is recognized as a distinctive culture that developed on the sand dunes left behind by the retreating glaciers. The crude flint blades of Early Swiderian are found in the area of Nowy Mlyn in the Holy Cross Mountains region, late Swiderian is characterized by blades with a blunted back. The Swiderian culture plays a role in the Palaeolithic-Mesolithic transition. It has been accepted that most of the Swiderian population emigrated at the very end of the Pleistocene to the northeast following the retreating tundra. Recent radiocarbon dates prove that some groups of the Svidero-Ahrensburgian Complex persisted into the Preboreal, unlike western Europe, the Mesolithic groups now inhabiting the Polish Plain were newcomers. This has been attested by a 300-year-long gap between the youngest Palaeolithic and the oldest Mesolithic occupation, the oldest Mesolithic site is Chwalim, located in western Silesia, Poland, it outdates the Mesolithic sites situated to the east in central and northeastern Poland by about 150 years. Thus, the Mesolithic population progressed from the west after a 300-year-long settlement break, the Ukrainian archaeologist L. Zalizniak believes Kunda culture of Central Russia and the Baltic zone, and other so-called post-Swiderian cultures, derive from the Swiderian culture. The raw materials of the assemblage at Sujala originate in the Varanger Peninsula in northern Norway. Proposed parallels with the blade technology among the earliest Mesolithic finds in southern Norway would have placed the find closer or even before 10000 BP. However, a connection to early North Norwegian settlements is contradicted by the shape of the tanged points. There, counterparts of the Sujala cores can also be found, the Sujala assemblage is currently considered unquestionably post-Swiderian and is dated by radiocarbon to 9265-8930 BP, the true age being approximately 8300-8200 CalBC. Such an Early Mesolithic influence from Russia or the Baltic might imply an adjustment to previous thoughts on the colonization of the Barents Sea coast
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Mesolithic
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In archaeology, the Mesolithic is the culture between Paleolithic and Neolithic. The term Epipaleolithic is often used for areas outside northern Europe, Mesolithic has different time spans in different parts of Eurasia. It was originally post-Pleistocene, pre-agricultural material in northwest Europe about 10,000 to 5000 BC, in the archaeology of Northern Europe, for example for archaeological sites in Great Britain, Germany, Scandinavia, Ukraine, and Russia, the term Mesolithic is almost always used. In the archaeology of other areas, the term Epipaleolithic may be preferred by most authors, in the New World, neither term is used. Other authors use the term Mesolithic for a variety of Late Paleolithic cultures subsequent to the end of the last glacial period whether they are transitional towards agriculture or not, conversely, those that are in course of transition toward artificial food production are assigned to the Mesolithic. Therefore, care must be taken in translating Mesolithic as Middle Stone Age, subdivisions of earlier and later were added to the Stone Age by Thomsen and especially his junior colleague and employee Jens Jacob Asmussen Worsaae. John Lubbock kept these divisions in his work Pre-historic Times in 1865 and he saw no need for an intermediate category. When Hodder Westropp introduced the Mesolithic in 1866, as an intermediate between Paleolithic and Neolithic, a storm of controversy immediately arose around it. A British school led by John Evans denied any need for an intermediate, the ages blended together like the colors of a rainbow, he said. A European school led by Louis Laurent Gabriel de Mortillet asserted that there was a gap between the earlier and later, edouard Piette claimed to have filled the gap with his discovery of the Azilian Culture. Knut Stjerna offered an alternative in the Epipaleolithic, a continuation of the use of Paleolithic technology, the start and end dates of the Mesolithic vary by geographical region. Childes view prevails that the term covers the period between the end of the Pleistocene and the start of the Neolithic. If the Mesolithic is more similar to the Paleolithic it is called the Epipaleolithic, the Paleolithic was an age of purely hunting and gathering while in the Neolithic domestication of plants and animals had occurred. Some Mesolithic peoples continued with intensive hunting, others were practising the initial stages of domestication. The type of remains the diagnostic factor, The Mesolithic featured composite devices manufactured with Mode V chipped stone tools. The Paleolithic had utilized Modes I–IV and the Neolithic mainly abandoned the chipped microliths in favor of polished, not chipped, the first period, known as Mesolithic 1, followed the Aurignacian or Levantine Upper Paleolithic periods throughout the Levant. By the end of the Aurignacian, gradual changes took place in stone industries, small stone tools called microliths and retouched bladelets can be found for the first time. The microliths of this period differ greatly from the Aurignacian artifacts
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Stone Age
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The Stone Age was a broad prehistoric period during which stone was widely used to make implements with an edge, a point, or a percussion surface. The period lasted roughly 3.4 million years, and ended between 8700 BCE and 2000 BCE with the advent of metalworking, bone tools were used during this period as well but are rarely preserved in the archaeological record. The Stone Age is further subdivided by the types of tools in use. According to the age and location of the current evidence, the cradle of the genus is the East African Rift System, especially toward the north in Ethiopia, where it is bordered by grasslands. The closest relative among the living primates, the genus Pan, represents a branch that continued on in the deep forest. The rift served as a conduit for movement into southern Africa and also north down the Nile into North Africa and through the continuation of the rift in the Levant to the vast grasslands of Asia. The oldest indirect evidence found of stone tool use is fossilised animal bones with tool marks, the oldest stone tools were excavated from the site of Lomekwi 3 in West Turkana, northwestern Kenya, and date to 3.3 million years old. Prior to the discovery of these Lomekwian tools, the oldest known stone tools had been found at sites at Gona, Ethiopia, on the sediments of the paleo-Awash River. All the tools come from the Busidama Formation, which lies above a disconformity, or missing layer, the oldest sites containing tools are dated to 2. 6–2.55 mya. One of the most striking circumstances about these sites is that they are from the Late Pliocene, excavators at the locality point out that. the earliest stone tool makers were skilled flintknappers. The possible reasons behind this seeming abrupt transition from the absence of tools to the presence thereof include. The species who made the Pliocene tools remains unknown, fragments of Australopithecus garhi, Australopithecus aethiopicus and Homo, possibly Homo habilis, have been found in sites near the age of the Gona tools. Innovation of the technique of smelting ore ended the Stone Age, the first most significant metal manufactured was bronze, an alloy of copper and tin, each of which was smelted separately. The Chalcolithic by convention is the period of the Bronze Age. The Bronze Age was followed by the Iron Age, the transition out of the Stone Age occurred between 6000 BCE and 2500 BCE for much of humanity living in North Africa and Eurasia. Note the Rudna Glava mine in Serbia, Ötzi the Iceman, a mummy from about 3300 BCE carried with him a copper axe and a flint knife. In regions such as Sub-Saharan Africa, the Stone Age was followed directly by the Iron Age, the Middle East and southeastern Asian regions progressed past Stone Age technology around 6000 BCE. Europe, and the rest of Asia became post–Stone Age societies by about 4000 BCE, the proto-Inca cultures of South America continued at a Stone Age level until around 2000 BCE, when gold, copper and silver made their entrance
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Stone tool
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A stone tool is, in the most general sense, any tool made either partially or entirely out of stone. Although stone tool-dependent societies and cultures still exist today, most stone tools are associated with prehistoric, archaeologists often study such prehistoric societies, and refer to the study of stone tools as lithic analysis. Ethnoarchaeology has been a research field in order to further the understanding and cultural implications of stone tool use. Stone has been used to make a variety of different tools throughout history, including arrow heads, spearpoints. Stone tools may be made of ground stone or chipped stone. Chipped stone tools are made from materials such as chert or flint, radiolarite, chalcedony, obsidian, basalt. One simple form of reduction is to strike stone flakes from a nucleus of material using a hammerstone or similar hard hammer fabricator, if the goal of the reduction strategy is to produce flakes, the remnant lithic core may be discarded once it has become too small to use. In some strategies, however, a flintknapper reduces the core to a rough unifacial or bifacial preform, more complex forms of reduction include the production of highly standardized blades, which can then be fashioned into a variety of tools such as scrapers, knives, sickles and microliths. Archaeologists classify stone tools into industries that share distinctive technological or morphological characteristics and he assigned to them relative dates, Modes 1 and 2 to the Lower Palaeolithic,3 to the Middle Palaeolithic,4 to the Advanced and 5 to the Mesolithic. They were not to be conceived, however, as either universal—that is, they did not account for all lithic technology, Mode 1, for example, was in use in Europe long after it had been replaced by Mode 2 in Africa. Clarkes scheme was adopted enthusiastically by the archaeological community, one of its advantages was the simplicity of terminology, for example, the Mode 1 / Mode 2 Transition. The transitions are currently of greatest interest, Kenya Stone tools found from 2011 to 2014 at Lake Turkana in Kenya, are dated to be 3.3 million years old, and predate the genus Homo by half million years. The oldest known Homo fossil is 2.8 million years old compared to the 3.3 million year old stone tools. Dating of the tools was by dating volcanic ash layers in which the tools were found, Oldowan tools were characterised by their simple construction, predominantly using core forms. The blunt end is the surface, the sharp, the distal. Grasping the proximal surface, the hominid brought the surface down hard on an object he wished to detach or shatter. The earliest known Oldowan tools yet found date from 2.6 million years ago, during the Lower Palaeolithic period, and have been uncovered at Gona in Ethiopia. Homo habilis was the hominin who used the tools for most of the Oldowan in Africa, eventually, more complex, Mode 2 tools began to be developed through the Acheulean Industry, named after the site of Saint-Acheul in France
26.
Prehistory
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Prehistory means literally before history, from the Latin word for before, præ, and Greek ιστορία. Neighbouring civilisations were the first to follow, most other civilisations reached the end of prehistory during the Iron Age. The period when a culture is written about by others, but has not developed its own writing is known as the protohistory of the culture. By definition, there are no records from human prehistory. Clear techniques for dating were not well-developed until the 19th century and this article is concerned with human prehistory as defined here above. There are separate articles for the history of the Earth. However, for the race as a whole, prehistory ends when recorded history begins with the accounts of the ancient world around the 4th millennium BC. For example, in Egypt it is accepted that prehistory ended around 3200 BC, whereas in New Guinea the end of the prehistoric era is set much more recently. The three-age system is the periodization of prehistory into three consecutive time periods, named for their respective predominant tool-making technologies, Stone Age Bronze Age Iron Age. The notion of prehistory began to surface during the Enlightenment in the work of antiquarians who used the word primitive to describe societies that existed before written records, the first use of the word prehistory in English, however, occurred in the Foreign Quarterly Review in 1836. The main source for prehistory is archaeology, but some scholars are beginning to more use of evidence from the natural and social sciences. This view has been articulated by advocates of deep history, human population geneticists and historical linguists are also providing valuable insight for these questions. Human prehistory differs from history not only in terms of its chronology, restricted to material processes, remains and artifacts rather than written records, prehistory is anonymous. Because of this, reference terms that use, such as Neanderthal or Iron Age are modern labels with definitions sometimes subject to debate. Palaeolithic means Old Stone Age, and begins with the first use of stone tools, the Paleolithic is the earliest period of the Stone Age. The early part of the Palaeolithic is called the Lower Palaeolithic, evidence of control of fire by early humans during the Lower Palaeolithic Era is uncertain and has at best limited scholarly support. The most widely accepted claim is that H. erectus or H. ergaster made fires between 790,000 and 690,000 BP in a site at Bnot Yaakov Bridge, Israel. The use of fire enabled early humans to cook food, provide warmth, Early Homo sapiens originated some 200,000 years ago, ushering in the Middle Palaeolithic
27.
Hominini
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Members of the human clade, that is, the Hominina, including Homo and those species of the australopithecines that arose after the split from the chimpanzees, are called homininans. Not all homininans are directly related to the emergence of early Homo and this is a modern cladogram, For each clade, the cladogram above shows approximately when newer extant clades emerged. Some texts refer to Homonini as the Hominina branch, the subtribe Hominina is the human branch, that is, it contains only the genus Homo. Researchers proposed the taxon Hominini on the basis that the least similar species of a trichotomy should be separated from the other two. The common chimpanzee and the bonobo of the genus Pan are the closest living relatives to humans. All the extinct genera listed to the right are ancestral to, or offshoots of, however, both Orrorin and Sahelanthropus existed around the time of the split, and so may be ancestral to both Pan and Homo. In the proposal of Mann and Weiss, the tribe Hominini includes Pan as well as Homo, Homo and all bipedal apes are referred to the subtribe Hominina, while Pan is assigned to the subtribe Panina. Wood discusses the different views of this taxonomy, the assumption of late hybridization was in particular based on the similarity of the X chromosome in humans and chimpanzees, suggesting a divergence as late as some 4 million years ago. Sahelanthropus tchadensis is an extinct species that lived seven million years ago. Human Timeline – Smithsonian, National Museum of Natural History
28.
Middle East
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The Middle East is a transcontinental region centered on Western Asia and Egypt. The corresponding adjective is Middle-Eastern and the noun is Middle-Easterner. The term has come into usage as a replacement of the term Near East beginning in the early 20th century. Arabs, Turks, Persians, Kurds, and Azeris constitute the largest ethnic groups in the region by population. Indigenous minorities of the Middle East include Jews, Assyrians and other Arameans, Baloch, Berbers, Copts, Druze, Lurs, Mandaeans, Samaritans, Shabaks, Tats, in the Middle East, there is also a Romani community. European ethnic groups form a diaspora in the region include Albanians, Bosniaks, Circassians, Crimean Tatars, Franco-Levantines. Among other migrant populations are Bengalis as well as other Indians, Chinese, Filipinos, Indonesians, Pakistanis, the history of the Middle East dates back to ancient times, with the importance of the region being recognized for millennia. Most of the countries border the Persian Gulf have vast reserves of crude oil. The term Middle East may have originated in the 1850s in the British India Office, however, it became more widely known when American naval strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan used the term in 1902 to designate the area between Arabia and India. During this time the British and Russian Empires were vying for influence in Central Asia, Mahan realized not only the strategic importance of the region, but also of its center, the Persian Gulf. Mahan first used the term in his article The Persian Gulf and International Relations, published in September 1902 in the National Review, a British journal. The Middle East, if I may adopt a term which I have not seen, will some day need its Malta, as well as its Gibraltar, it does not follow that either will be in the Persian Gulf. The British Navy should have the facility to concentrate in force if occasion arise, about Aden, India, mahans article was reprinted in The Times and followed in October by a 20-article series entitled The Middle Eastern Question, written by Sir Ignatius Valentine Chirol. During this series, Sir Ignatius expanded the definition of Middle East to include regions of Asia which extend to the borders of India or command the approaches to India. After the series ended in 1903, The Times removed quotation marks from subsequent uses of the term, in the late 1930s, the British established the Middle East Command, which was based in Cairo, for its military forces in the region. After that time, the term Middle East gained broader usage in Europe, the description Middle has also led to some confusion over changing definitions. Before the First World War, Near East was used in English to refer to the Balkans and the Ottoman Empire, while Middle East referred to Iran, the Caucasus, Afghanistan, Central Asia, and Turkestan. The first official use of the term Middle East by the United States government was in the 1957 Eisenhower Doctrine, the Associated Press Stylebook says that Near East formerly referred to the farther west countries while Middle East referred to the eastern ones, but that now they are synonymous
29.
Tanzania
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Tanzania /ˌtænzəˈniːə/, officially the United Republic of Tanzania, is a country in Eastern Africa within the African Great Lakes region. Parts of the country are in Southern Africa, Mount Kilimanjaro, Africas highest mountain, is in northeastern Tanzania. Tanzanias population of 51.82 million is diverse, composed of ethnic, linguistic. Dar es Salaam, the capital, retains most government offices and is the countrys largest city, principal port. Tanzania is a one party dominant state with the Chama Cha Mapinduzi party in power, from its formation until 1992, it was the only legally permitted party in the country. Elections for president and all National Assembly seats were last held in October 2015, the CCM holds approximately 75% of the seats in the assembly. Prehistoric population migrations include Southern Cushitic speakers, who are ancestral to the Iraqw, Gorowa, and Burunge and who moved south from Ethiopia into Tanzania. Based on linguistic evidence, there may also have two movements into Tanzania of Eastern Cushitic people at about 4,000 and 2,000 years ago. These movements took place at about the time as the settlement of the iron-making Mashariki Bantu from West Africa in the Lake Victoria. They brought with them the west African planting tradition and the staple of yams. They subsequently migrated out of these regions across the rest of Tanzania, European colonialism began in mainland Tanzania during the late 19th century when Germany formed German East Africa, which gave way to British rule following World War I. The mainland was governed as Tanganyika, with the Zanzibar Archipelago remaining a separate colonial jurisdiction, following their respective independence in 1961 and 1963, the two entities merged in April 1964 to form the United Republic of Tanzania. Tanzania is mountainous and densely forested in the northeast, where Mount Kilimanjaro is located, three of Africas Great Lakes are partly within Tanzania. To the north and west lie Lake Victoria, Africas largest lake, and Lake Tanganyika, the eastern shore is hot and humid, with the Zanzibar Archipelago just offshore. The Menai Bay Conservation Area is Zanzibars largest marine protected area, over 100 different languages are spoken in Tanzania, making it the most linguistically diverse country in East Africa. Among the languages spoken in Tanzania are all four of Africas language families, Bantu, Cushitic, Nilotic, Swahili and English are Tanzanias official languages. In connection with his Ujamaa social policies, President Nyerere encouraged the use of Swahili, approximately 10% of Tanzanians speak Swahili as a first language, and up to 90% speak it as a second language. Most Tanzanians thus speak both Swahili and a language, many educated Tanzanians are trilingual, also speaking English
30.
Louis Leakey
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Louis Seymour Bazett Leakey, also known as L. S. B. Having established a program of inquiry in eastern Africa, he also motivated many future generations to continue this scholarly work. Several members of Leakeys family became prominent scholars themselves, another of Leakeys legacies stems from his role in fostering field research of primates in their natural habitats, which he saw as key to understanding human evolution. He personally chose three female researchers, Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, and Birutė Galdikas, calling them The Trimates, each went on to become an important scholar in the field of primatology. Leakey also encouraged and supported many other Ph. D. candidates, Leakey also played a major role in creating organizations for future research in Africa and for protecting wildlife there. Louiss parents, Harry and Mary Bazett Leakey, were Church of England missionaries in British East Africa, Harry was the son of James Shirley Leakey, one of the eleven children of the portrait painter James Leakey. Harry Leakey was assigned to an established post of the Church Mission Society among the Kikuyu at Kabete, the station was at that time a hut and two tents. Louiss earliest home had a floor, a leaky thatched roof, rodents and insects. The facilities slowly improved over time, the mission, a center of activity, set up a clinic in one of the tents, and later a girls school. Harry was working on a translation of the Bible into the Gikuyu language and he had a distinguished career in the CMS, becoming canon of the station. Louis had a brother, Douglas, and two older sisters, Gladys and Julia. The Leakey household came to contain Miss Oakes, Miss Higgenbotham, Louis grew up, played, and learned to hunt with Africans. He also learned to walk with the gait of the Kikuyu and speak their language fluently. He was initiated into the Kikuyu ethnic group, an event of which he never spoke, Louis requested and was given permission to build and move into a hut, Kikuyu style, at the end of the garden. It was home to his collection of natural objects, such as birds eggs. All the children developed a keen interest in and appreciation of the natural surroundings in which they found themselves. They raised baby animals, later turning them over to zoos, Louis read a gift book, Days Before History, by H. R. Hall, a juvenile fictional work illustrating the prehistory of Britain. He began to collect tools and was encouraged in this activity by a role model, Arthur Loveridge, first curator of the Natural History Museum in Nairobi
31.
Palaeoanthropology
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Hominoids are a primate superfamily, the hominid family is currently considered to comprise both the great ape lineages and human lineages within the hominoid superfamily. The Homininae comprise both the human lineages and the African ape lineages, the term African apes refers only to chimpanzees and gorillas. The terminology of the biological family is currently in flux. The term hominin refers to any genus in the human tribe, since, the great apes were considered the closest relatives of human beings, based on morphological similarity. The science arguably began in the late 19th century when important discoveries occurred that led to the study of human evolution. The discovery of the Neanderthal in Germany, Thomas Huxleys Evidence as to Mans Place in Nature, the modern field of paleoanthropology began in the 19th century with the discovery of Neanderthal man, and with evidence of so-called cave men. Debates between Thomas Huxley and Richard Owen focused on the idea of human evolution, Huxley convincingly illustrated many of the similarities and differences between humans and apes in his 1863 book Evidence as to Mans Place in Nature. By the time Darwin published his own book on the subject, Descent of Man, even many of Darwins original supporters balked at the idea that human beings could have evolved their apparently boundless mental capacities and moral sensibilities through natural selection. Prior to todays general acceptance of Africa as the root of genus Homo, although Schlosser was very cautious, identifying the tooth only as “. Anthropoide g. et sp. indet. ”He was hopeful that future work would discover a new anthropoid in China. Eleven years later, the Swedish geologist Johan Gunnar Andersson was sent to China as a mining advisor and it was he who, in 1918, discovered the sites around Zhoukoudian, a village about 50 kilometers southwest of Beijing. However, because of the nature of the initial finds. Work did not resume until 1921, when the Austrian paleontologist, Otto Zdansky, fresh with his degree from Vienna. Zdansky conducted short-term excavations at Locality 1 in 1921 and 1923, with that done, Zdansky returned to Austria and suspended all fieldwork. News of the fossil hominin teeth delighted the scientific community in Beijing, at the epicenter of excitement was Davidson Black, a Canadian-born anatomist working at Peking Union Medical College. Black shared Andersson’s interest, as well as his view that central Asia was a home for early humankind. The Zhoukoudian Project came into existence in the spring of 1927, being the first institution of its kind, the Cenozoic Laboratory opened up new avenues for the study of paleogeology and paleontology in China. The Laboratory was the precursor of the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy of Science, the first of the major project finds are attributed to the young Swedish paleontologist, Anders Birger Bohlin, then serving as the field advisor at Zhoukoudian. He recovered a left lower molar that Black identified as unmistakably human, the news was at first met with skepticism, and many scholars had reservations that a single tooth was sufficient to justify the naming of a new type of early hominin
32.
Prepared-core technique
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The prepared-core technique is means of producing stone tools by first preparing common stone cores that can then be shaped into the desired implement. Although there had different types of tools created prior to this technique, mostly that of handaxes and cleavers. Believed roughly to have been first used 200,000 years ago this technique involved a removal of flakes from a piece of stone to achieve desired shape and thickness. The technique is defined by the direction of percussion from the perimeter of the core towards the centre. The perimeter of the circular to oval-shaped core served as a platform for striking off flakes, blades and points, several technological criteria characterise the definition of the centripetal cores. The primary reduction surface is shaped such that the morphology of the product is a function of the lateral and distal convexities of the surface, which serve to guide the shock wave of each flake. Centripetally worked cores may possess one or two faces of detachment and striking platforms can vary from unprepared, cortical to faceted chapeau de gendarme shapes. Centripetally-reduced cores were made via hard hammer percussion, which was necessary when attempting to work steep platform angles. Centripetal core reduction techniques are found in most Middle Paleolithic assemblages known from Africa, there are a number of different methods of technological actions involving centripetal core reduction, the most extensively documented of which is the so-called Levallois technology. The recognition of Levallois as a distinct core reduction strategy dates to the late 19th Century, the term was used to describe specific flakes with certain surface attributes that were recovered during that period in northern France. These early descriptions were purely typological and based on the morphology of the products themselves. However, there was never a deal of consensus among scholars. Gradually, more and more emphasis was put on the idea that Levallois flakes were the products of a method or process of production. Indeed, F. Bordes emphasised that Levallois was essentially a method, however, the shape and character of a Levallois blank is also thought to be predetermined by the elaborate Levallois core preparation process. While a shape control system undoubtedly exists for the Levallois cores, indeed, how applied force will propagate through a specific core is determined by a number of variables and not only by the will or the desire of the Middle Palaeolithic flintknapper. Given the imprecision of hand-eye co-ordination, a high probability for only partial core reduction success is very real. Furthermore, it has also demonstrated that very different core reduction strategies can produce seemingly diagnostic Levallois blanks. The fact of the matter is that the Levallois Method is a term, the lineal or preferential Levallois method corresponds best to the classic definition of Levallois
33.
Mary Leakey
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Mary Leakey was a British paleoanthropologist who discovered the first fossilised Proconsul skull, an extinct ape which is now believed to be ancestral to humans. She also discovered the robust Zinjanthropus skull at Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania, Mary Leakey developed a system for classifying the stone tools found at Olduvai. She discovered the Laetoli footprints, and at the Laetoli site she discovered hominin fossils that were more than 3.75 million years old, during her career, Leakey discovered fifteen new species of animal. She also brought about the naming of a new genus, in 1972, after the death of her husband, Leakey became director of excavations at Olduvai. She maintained the Leakey family tradition of palaeoanthropology by training her son, Richard, Mary Leakey was born Mary Douglas Nicol on 6 February 1913, in London, England to Erskine Edward Nicol and Cecilia Marion Nicol. The Nicol family moved to locations in the United States, Italy. Mary began to developed an enthusiasm for Egyptology during these travels, on her mothers side, Mary was a 3rd great-granddaughter of antiquarian John Frere. The Frere family had been active abolitionists in the British colonial empire during the 19th century, three of these communities were still in existence when Leakey published her 1984 autobiography, Freretown, Kenya, Freretown, South Africa, and Freretown, India. The Nicols spent much of their time in southern France where young Mary became fluent in French. In 1925, when Mary was 12, the Nicols stayed at the commune, Les Eyzies, at a time when Elie Peyrony, Peyrony was not excavating scientifically during that early stage of archaeology and did not understand the significance of much of what he found. Mary received permission to go through the remnants of his dig and she started a collection of points, scrapers, and blades from the dump and developed her first system of classification. The family then moved to Cabrerets, a village of Lot, there she met Abbé Lemozi, the village priest, who befriended her and became her mentor for a time. The two toured Pech Merle cave to view the paintings of bison and horses. In the spring of 1926, when Mary was thirteen years old, her father died of cancer and Mary, Mary was placed in a local Catholic convent to be educated, and she later boasted of never passing an examination there. Although she spoke fluent French, Mary did not excel at French language studies and she was expelled for refusing to recite poetry, and was later expelled from a second convent school for causing an explosion in a chemistry laboratory. After the second expulsion, her mother hired two tutors, who were no more successful than the nuns, after the unsuccessful tutors, her mother hired a nanny. Marys particular interests centered on illustration and archaeology, but formal university admission was impossible with her academic record and her mother contacted a professor at Oxford University about possible admission, and was encouraged not to apply, as it would be a waste of her time. Mary had no contact with the university until it awarded her an honorary doctoral degree in 1951
34.
Chopper (archaeology)
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Archaeologists define a chopper as a pebble tool with an irregular cutting edge formed through the removal of flakes from one side of a stone. Choppers are crude forms of tool and are found in industries as early as the Lower Palaeolithic from around 2.5 million years ago. These earliest known specimens were found in the Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania by Louis Leakey in the 1930s, the name Oldowan was given to the tools after the site in which they were excavated. These types of tools were used a time range of 2.5 to 1.2 million years ago. To create this tool, one would have to use a hammerstone to chip away flakes on the stone to create a side of the stone with a sharp edge. This is a type of lithic reduction due to only a single side of the stone being retouched to produce the cutting surface of the stone. The side that does not do the cutting is left unscathed and these old instruments were made from specific materials. Initially, they were composed of quartz, quartzite, basalt, in the later years of the oldowan age, two other materials were used, flint and chert. These materials could hold an edge while fairly easy to craft into the shape desired, the tool is designed to fit in the palm of the hand, and it is not attached to any other mount that could possibly be used. Known as one of the earliest tools, its design is a simple piece of technology. Seeing the history of objects and how many cultures used them. A potential stone mass found today could be classified as a chopper if a worn edge showing signs of evidence of use is present. Choppers are not solely limited to an area on Earth, As mentioned earlier, Africa is known to have supplied the earliest known choppers. Many countries have given sites containing many of these tools, including Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania. In North America, similar stone tools have been found in south and southwestern states, Europe also has been the home to choppers, with assemblages of stone tools having been found in Europe. Many countries have had oldowans found within them, including Sweden, Portugal, Georgia, Bulgaria, Russia, Spain, Italy, France, Germany, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and the United Kingdom. Stone tools, including choppers, dating back to 1.66 million years ago, have found in Asia. These countries include China, Pakistan, Israel, and Iran, a large assemblage of stone lithics were found in Northern Thailand, the Sao Din excavation
35.
Scraper (archaeology)
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In archaeology, scrapers are unifacial tools that were used either for hideworking or woodworking purposes. e. Scrapers are typically formed by chipping the end of a flake of stone in order to one sharp side. Most scrapers are either circle or blade-like in shape, the working edges of scrapers tend to be convex, and many have trimmed and dulled lateral edges to facilitate hafting. One important variety of scraper is the scraper, a scraper shaped much like its namesake. This scraper type is common at Paleo-Indian sites in North America, Scrapers are one of the most varied lithic tools found at archaeological sites. The edge of the scraper that is extremely angled is the working edge and this edge is often used to soften hides or cleaning the meat off of the hides, in addition to being used for wood work. As the term suggests, this tool was scraped at the hide or wood in order to reach the end goal. Scrapers tended to be enough to fit comfortably in the hand. However, it is likely that scrapers were mounted on short handles even though it is very rare to find mounted scrapers. As scrapers are used they have to be resharpened in order to stay effective and this causes them to get progressively smaller as they are used, resharpened, used, resharpend, and used again. Consequently, the majority of the scrapers that are found on sites are ones that have been resharpened and used to the point of being no longer functional, the two main classifications of scrapers are either end scrapers or side scrapers. End scrapers have working edges on one or both ends of a blade or flake, whereas side scrapers have an edge along one of the long sides. There are a couple of types of scrapers based on their use when it comes to wood and hide or based on the shape. The grattoir is a type of scraper made usually made of flint and its uses were to work wood. This type of scraper has its working edge along the axis of the blade. The nose scraper typically has a working edge either at both ends or just one end. This type of scraper is made from a blade and is used in more fine tuning work. The hollow scraper is a type of scraper that has a notch worked into the side or end of the scraper, tool size, This can be determined by either weight or dimensions and typically divided into either large or small scrapers
36.
Australopithecus garhi
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The hominin remains are believed to be a human ancestor species and possibly the direct ancestor to the human genus, Homo. Tim White was the scientist to find the first of the key A. garhi fossils in 1996 in the Bouri Formation, the species was confirmed and established as A. garhi on November 20,1997 by the Ethiopian paleoanthropologist Yohannes Haile-Selassie. The species epithet garhi means surprise in the local Afar language, the traits of A. garhi fossils such as BOU-VP-12/130 are somewhat distinctive from traits typically seen in Australopithecus afarensis and Australopithecus africanus. An example of the distinction can be seen comparing the Hadar maxilla to the Bouri specimen of A. garhi. The cranial capacity of A. garhi measures 450cc, the size as other australopithecines. Studies made on the premolars and molar teeth have a few similarities with those of Paranthropus boisei since they are larger than any other form of australopithecine. It has been suggested that if A. garhi is ancestral to Homo the maxillary morphology would have undergone a rapid change in roughly 200,000 and 300,000 years. Few primitive shaped stone tool artifacts closely resembling Olduwan technology were discovered with the A. garhi fossils, the tools are suggested to be older than those acquired by Homo habilis, which is thought to be a possible direct ancestor of more modern hominins. For a long time assumed that only members of early genus Homo had the ability to produce sophisticated tools. However, the ancient tools lack several techniques that are generally seen in later forms Olduwan and Acheulean such as strong rock-outcroppings. In another site in Bouri, Ethiopia, roughly 3,000 stone artifacts had been found to be an estimated 2.5 million years old in age, List of fossil sites List of human evolution fossils Australopithecus garhi. The Smithsonian Institutions Human Origins Program, the Earliest Human Ancestors, New Finds, New Interpretations. Archived from the original on December 23,2010, Australopithecus garhi, A New Species of Early Hominid from Ethiopia. Archived from the original on June 7,2011, Human Timeline – Smithsonian, National Museum of Natural History
37.
Homo
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On January 1,2009, it was merged with other ombudsman officers into the new Discrimination Ombudsman. HomO was the most recently instituted Swedish ombudsman, in the sense of a government official who addresses the complaints of individual citizens, HomO had the status of a government agency. In 2005 it received around 8 million SEK in government funding, HomO was the officially mandated short form, but is not a true acronym or abbreviation. Instead the word alludes to both homo = homosexual and to traditional Swedish ombudsman abbreviations which do expand into descriptive terms, the HomO office also took a number of initiatives of its own and submitted parliamentary proposals, most recently for a gender neutral marriage act. LGBT rights in Sweden List of LGBT rights organisations Swedish Federation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights, RFSL Official site for HomO
38.
Homo habilis
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Homo habilis is a species of the tribe Hominini, during the Gelasian and early Calabrian stages of the Pleistocene period, which lived between roughly 2.1 and 1.5 million years ago. LD 350-1 is a fossil jawbone fragment discovered in 2013 which has dated to 2.8 million years ago. There has been debate regarding its placement in the genus Homo rather than the genus Australopithecus. The small size and rather primitive attributes have led experts to propose excluding H. habilis from the genus Homo. These were later classified as milk teeth, and therefore considered difficult to link to taxa unlike permanent teeth, however, in 1959, Mary Leakey recovered the cranium of a young adult which had a small brain, large face, tiny canines and massive chewing teeth. H. habilis was short and had long arms compared to modern humans, however. H. habilis had a capacity slightly less than half of the size of modern humans. Despite the ape-like morphology of the bodies, H. habilis remains are accompanied by primitive stone tools. Homo habilis has often thought to be the ancestor of the more gracile and sophisticated Homo ergaster. New findings in 2007 seemed to confirm the view that H. habilis and H. erectus coexisted, an alternative explanation would be that any ancestral relationship from H. habilis to H. erectus would have to have been cladogenetic rather than anagenetic. Its brain size has been shown to range from 550 cm3 to 687 cm3, a virtual reconstruction published in 2015 estimated the endocranial volume at between 729 and 824 ml, larger than any previously published value. H. habilis brain capacity of around 640 cm³ was on average 50% larger than australopithecines and these hominins were smaller than modern humans, on average standing no more than 1.3 m tall. A fragment of fossilized jawbone, dated to around 2.8 million years ago, was discovered in the Ledi-Geraru research area in Afar Regional State in 2013. The fossil is considered the earliest evidence of the Homo genus known to date, the individual in question lived just after a major climate shift in the region, when forests and waterways were rapidly replaced by arid savannah. One set of remains, discovered by Donald Johanson and Tim White in Olduvai Gorge in 1986, included the important upper and lower limbs, specifically the humerus. Their finding stimulated some debate at the time, locomotor affinities of OH62 have been assessed primarily on the basis of its forelimb to hind limb proportions, which are known to be associated with locomotor behavior among living primates. Initial analyses concentrated on comparisons to the Australopithecus afarensis A. L. 288-1, in most dimensions—measured or estimated—the OH62 upper limb remains equaled or exceeded those of A. L. 288-1, while its lower limb remains appeared to be smaller. In this sense, it was more ‘‘primitive than A. L. 288-1, KNM ER1813 is a relatively complete cranium which dates to 1.9 million years old, discovered at Koobi Fora, Kenya by Kamoya Kimeu in 1973
39.
Homo ergaster
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It is one of the earliest hominins, which are those hominids that comprise the original members and species of the human clade after splitting from the line of the chimpanzees. Homo ergaster is thought to be ancestral to, or as sharing a common ancestor with, or as being the same species as. Some palaeoanthropologists consider H. ergaster to be a variety of H. erectus, that is, others call H. ergaster the direct ancestor of H. erectus, which then emigrated out of Africa into Eurasia and branched into a distinct species. Still others dispense with the specific epithet ergaster and make no distinctions among fossils assigned to erectus. The latest discoveries at Dmanisi, Georgia, suggest that all the groups of early Homo in Africa, including Homo ergaster, are of the same species. The binomial name was published in 1975 by Groves and Mazák, South African palaeontologist John T. Robinson discovered in 1949 a mandible of a new hominin in southern Africa, which he named Telanthropus capensis and which today is classified as Homo ergaster. That taxon was first applied to a mandible found near Lake Rudolf, Kenya, by Colin Groves and Vratislav Mazák in 1975, dubbed KNM-ER992, it became the type-specimen of the species. A near-complete skeleton of H. ergaster, KNM-WT15000, or Turkana Boy, was discovered in 1984 at Lake Turkana by Kamoya Kimeu and it is dated to 1.6 million years ago and is one of the most complete early hominin fossils found to date. Paleoanthropologists debate the defining of H. ergaster and H. erectus as separate species, thus, although Homo ergaster has gained some acceptance as a valid taxon, ergaster and erectus are often identified as separate populations of the larger species H. erectus. Sura et al declared that Homo erectus was a source of multiple events of gene flow to the Eurasian continent. The major implication of the analyses of the Dmanisi skull and the finds at Dmanisi is that all the earliest varieties of Homo are of one species. This implies that H. ergaster is subsumed under the taxon H. erectus, derived features separating it from earlier non-Homo species include reduced sexual dimorphism, a smaller, more orthognathous face, a smaller dental arcade, and a larger cranial capacity. Remains have been found in Tanzania, Ethiopia, Kenya, there are broad divisions in the scientific community re interpreting the development of the earliest species of genus Homo. H. habilis is generally accepted as the ancestor of Homo. However, habiliss status as a species within Homo is particularly contentious. It is unclear what genetic influence H. ergaster had on later hominins, recent genetic analysis has generally supported the recent-Out-of-Africa hypothesis, and that same kind of analysis may in time designate H. ergaster as the ancestor to all later hominins. H. ergaster is believed to have diverged from the lineage of H. habilis by 1.8 million years ago and these early descendants of H. habilis may have been discovered at Dmanisi, Georgia as Homo erectus georgicus. In 2013, a fragment of fossilized jawbone was discovered in the Ledi-Geraru research area in the Afar depression, Ethiopia
40.
Homo erectus
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Homo erectus is an extinct species of hominid that lived throughout most of the Pleistocene geological epoch. Its earliest fossil evidence dates to 1.9 million years ago and extends to 70,000 years ago, or, possibly, as recently as 35,000 years ago. It is generally thought that H. erectus originated in Africa and spread from there, migrating throughout Eurasia as far as Georgia, India, Sri Lanka, China, a new debate appeared in 2013, with the documentation of the Dmanisi skulls.58 million years ago. From there it migrated, in part, by 2, the fossil record shows that its development from about 1.8 mya to one mya was widely distributed, in Africa, the Transcaucasus, Indonesia, and in Vietnam, China, and India. The second hypothesis is that H. erectus evolved in Eurasia and they occupied the Dmanisi site from 1.85 million to 1.77 million years ago, which was about the same time or slightly before their earliest evidence in Africa. There are several proposed explanations of the dispersal of H. erectus georgicus—including whether or not Africa is the source), the Dutch anatomist Eugène Dubois was fascinated by Darwins theory of evolution especially as it applied to humankind. In 1886, he set out for Asia—which then was the region accepted as the cradle of evolution despite Darwins theory of African origin. In 1891, his team discovered a human fossil on the island of Java, the Java fossil from Indonesia aroused much public interest. It was dubbed by the press as Java Man, but few scientists accepted Dubois argument that his fossil was the transitional form—the so-called missing link—between apes. Java Man is now classified as Homo erectus, most of the spectacular discoveries of H. erectus next took place at the Zhoukoudian Project, now known as the Peking Man Site, in Zhoukoudian, China. This site was first discovered by Johan Gunnar Andersson in 1921 and was first excavated in 1921, canadian anatomist Davidson Blacks initial description of a lower molar as belonging to a previously unknown species prompted widely publicized interest. Extensive excavations followed, which altogether uncovered 200 human fossils from more than 40 individuals including five nearly complete skullcaps, german anatomist Franz Weidenreich provided much of the detailed description of this material in several monographs published in the journal Palaeontologica Sinica. Throughout much of the 20th century, anthropologists debated the role of H. erectus in human evolution, early in the century, due in part to the discoveries at Java and Zhoukoudian, it was widely accepted that modern humans first evolved in Asia. From the 1950s forward, numerous finds in East Africa confirmed the hypothesis of an African genesis and it is now generally accepted that H. erectus descended from either, 1) the earliest hominin genera, or 2) the earliest Homo-species. East Africa provided sympatric coexistence for H. erectus and H, in the 1950s, archaeologists John T. Robinson and Robert Broom named Telanthropus capensis, Robinson had discovered a jaw fragment in 1949 in Swartkrans, South Africa. Later, Simonetta proposed to re-designate it to Homo erectus, in 1961, Yves Coppens discovered a skull of Tchadanthropus uxoris, then the earliest fossil human discovered in north Africa. It was reported that the fossil had been so eroded by sand that it mimicked the appearance of an australopith. Although at first considered to be a specimen of H. habilis, T. uxoris is no longer considered a valid taxon, and has been subsumed into H. erectus
41.
Ethiopia
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Ethiopia, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the north and northeast, Djibouti and Somalia to the east, Sudan and South Sudan to the west, and Kenya to the south. With nearly 100 million inhabitants, Ethiopia is the most populous landlocked country in the world and it occupies a total area of 1,100,000 square kilometres, and its capital and largest city is Addis Ababa. Some of the oldest evidence for modern humans has been found in Ethiopia. It is widely considered as the region from modern humans first set out for the Middle East. According to linguists, the first Afroasiatic-speaking populations settled in the Horn region during the ensuing Neolithic era, tracing its roots to the 2nd millennium BC, Ethiopia was a monarchy for most of its history. During the first centuries AD, the Kingdom of Aksum maintained a unified civilization in the region, subsequently, many African nations adopted the colors of Ethiopias flag following their independence. It was the first independent African member of the 20th-century League of Nations, Ethiopias ancient Geez script, also known as Ethiopic, is one of the oldest alphabets still in use in the world. The Ethiopian calendar, which is seven years and three months behind the Gregorian calendar, co-exists alongside the Borana calendar. A slight majority of the population adheres to Christianity, while around a third follows Islam, the country is the site of the Migration to Abyssinia and the oldest Muslim settlement in Africa at Negash. A substantial population of Ethiopian Jews, known as Bete Israel, resided in Ethiopia until the 1980s, Ethiopia is a multilingual nation with around 80 ethnolinguistic groups, the four largest of which are the Oromiffa, Amhara, Somali, and Tigrayans. Most people in the country speak Afroasiatic languages of the Cushitic or Semitic branches, additionally, Omotic languages are spoken by ethnic minority groups inhabiting the southern regions. Nilo-Saharan languages are spoken by the nations Nilotic ethnic minorities. Ethiopia is the place of origin for the coffee bean which originated from the place called Kefa and it is a land of natural contrasts, with its vast fertile West, jungles, and numerous rivers, and the worlds hottest settlement of Dallol in its north. The Ethiopian Highlands are Africas largest continuous mountain ranges, and Sof Omar Caves contain Africas largest cave, Ethiopia has the most UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Africa. Ethiopia is one of the members of the UN, the Group of 24, the Non-Aligned Movement, G-77. In the 1970s and 1980s, Ethiopia suffered from civil wars, the country has begun to recover recently however, and now has the largest economy in East Africa and Central Africa. According to Global Fire Power, Ethiopia has the 42nd most powerful military in the world, the origin of the word Ethiopia is uncertain
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Chimpanzee
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Chimpanzees are one of the two species of the genus Pan, the other being the bonobo. Together with gorillas, they are the only exclusively African species of ape that are currently extant. Native to sub-Saharan Africa, both chimpanzees and bonobos are found in the Congo jungle. In addition, P. troglodytes is divided into four subspecies, based on genome sequencing, the two extant Pan species diverged around one million years ago. The most obvious differences are that chimpanzees are somewhat larger, more aggressive and male-dominated, while the bonobos are more gracile, peaceful and their hair is typically black or brown. Males and females differ in size and appearance, both chimps and bonobos are some of the most social great apes, with social bonds occurring among individuals in large communities. Fruit is the most important component of a diet, however, they will also eat vegetation, bark, honey, insects. They can live over 30 years in both the wild and captivity, Chimpanzees and bonobos are equally humanitys closest living relatives. As such, they are among the largest-brained, and most intelligent of primates, they use a variety of sophisticated tools and construct elaborate sleeping nests each night from branches and they have both been extensively studied for their learning abilities. There may even be distinctive cultures within populations, field studies of Pan troglodytes were pioneered by primatologist Jane Goodall. Both Pan species are considered to be endangered as human activities have caused declines in the populations. Threats to wild populations include poaching, habitat destruction. Several conservation and rehabilitation organisations are dedicated to the survival of Pan species in the wild, the first use of the name chimpanze is recorded in The London Magazine in 1738, glossed as meaning mockman in a language of the Angolans. The spelling chimpanzee is found in a 1758 supplement to Chambers Cyclopædia, the colloquialism chimp was most likely coined some time in the late 1870s. The common chimpanzee was named Simia troglodytes by Johann Friedrich Blumenbach in 1776, the species name troglodytes is a reference to the Troglodytae, an African people described by Greco-Roman geographers. Blumenbach first used it in his De generis humani varietate nativa liber in 1776, the genus name Pan was first introduced by Lorenz Oken in 1816. An alternative Theranthropus was suggested by Brookes 1828 and Chimpansee by Voigt 1831, troglodytes was not available, as it had been given as the name of a genus of wren in 1809. The International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature adopted Pan as the official name of the genus in 1895
. PMID 10973485. doi:10.1073/pnas.180319797.
