Stone Age

• Context (IE): New research indicates that the Stone Age — a long prehistoric period characterised by the use of stone tools by humans— might as accurately be described as the ‘Wood Age’.
• A recently published study of around 300,000-400,000-year-old wooden artefacts excavated from a coal mine in Schöningen, Germany, indicated that these were not simply “sharpened sticks” but “technologically advanced tools.”

Credit: IE

• The discovered spears strongly suggest that systematic hunting, involving foresight, planning and the use of appropriate technology, was part of the behavioural repertoire of pre-modern hominids.

• In the 19^th century, Danish archaeologists devised the first scientifically rigorous periodisation of human prehistory into the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, and finally, the Iron Age.

Stone Age

• The Stone Age is a period in prehistory that lasted from around 3.4 million to 12,000 years ago.

Credit: Art History

• It is called the Stone Age because it is characterised by when early humans started using stones, such as flint, for tools and weapons. They also used stones to light fires.

Credit: Walkagainsttraffick

• Stone Age sites across the world also show evidence of a number of other materials being used, from bones and antlers, to clay, and some (very limited) metalworking.
• It marks the transition from nomadic hunter-gatherers to the beginnings of agriculture, animal domestication and the use of tools.

Three Stages of the Stone Age

• The Stone Age, which lasted until about 6,000-4,000 BP (Before the Present), comprises 99% of human history.
• It is further divided into three periods: Palaeolithic (‘Old Stone Age’), Mesolithic (‘Middle Stone Age’), and Neolithic (‘New Stone Age’).

The Palaeolithic Period

• It lasted from the first use of stone until the end of the last Ice Age. This stage was roughly between 2.5 million and 10,000 years ago.
• Palaeolithic humans were hunters and gatherers and had a nomadic lifestyle, moving from one place to another.
• People lived in small groups and used caves or forests for shelter.
• They created simple tools out of stone and made cave paintings.

The Mesolithic Period

• The ‘Middle Stone Age’ lasted from the end of the last Ice Age until the beginning of farming.
• During the Mesolithic period, the climate started to warm up, early farming developed and people started to raise animals as livestock.
• Stone tools became more sophisticated. An important milestone was the invention of the prepared-core technique, which allowed early humans to create lots of similarly-shaped tools from the same stone.

The Neolithic Period

• The ‘New Stone Age’ lasted from the start of farming until the first use of metal (which was the beginning of the Bronze Age).
• It is marked by the domestication of animals, the advent of agriculture and people creating pottery/textiles.
• Humans shifted from a nomadic lifestyle to a sedentary lifestyle (staying in one place and creating a village or town).