GROUP 3

THE CULTURAL
LESSON
TAKE 2
OFF:
PALEOLITIC,
MESOLITIC AND
NEOLITIC
PERIODS
Based on studies, tools are made and used
not just to make life easier but also to share
one’s experiences to another individual or
group. The use of it became more important
as time goes by which resulted into a more
enhanced and better versions of these tools
produced by brainy people to make life even
easier. This also helped in forming greater
reliance on enculturation as a source of
appropriate behaviour and in turn, led to still
brainier varieties of homonids.
Thus, for several million years, the evolution
of these tools were associated with the
evolution of human culture and human brain
in which, the simple stone tools associated
with the ape-sized brains of the earlier
homonids became more complex and more
skilfully made as Homo Habilis was
succeeded by Homo Erectus and now,
Homo Sapiens.
change is known as gene-culture
evolution (Lumsden and Wilson, 1983).
It is the characteristic of the
earliest phases of cultural evolution
which is proceeding at a far more rapid
rate than genetic evolution.
CULTURAL TAKEOFF:
With the appearance of H. sapiens, the
relationship between cultural and biological
evolution underwent a profound change. For
the last 100,000 years, human brain’s size has
decreased yet its complexity and rate of
change of human sociocultural systems have
increased by many orders of magnitude. This
just means that the process of the evolution of
culture relies on the distinctiveness of culture.
Natural selection and organic evolution lie at
the base of the culture; but once the
capacity for culture became fully developed,
a vast number of cultural differences and
similarities could arise and disappear
entirely independent of changes in
genotypes.
PRE-HISTORIC
PERIODS
The strongest evidence of the earliest
phases of cultural evolution is found in the
stone implementations. Hence,
archaeologists divided the entire period of
pre-history into lithic “stone” ages. Three
ages were recognized In the cultural
evolution of Europe: (1) Paleolithic “old
stone age”, (2) Mesolithic “middle
stone age”, and (3) Neolithic “new
stone age”.
PALEOLITHIC PERIOD
It is also known as “old stone stage”
which lasted for over 2 million years but is
longer in Asia and Africa. People in this
period hunts, fishes, and gathers rather
than farming or stock raising. To make
efficient use of available plants and animal
resources, they usually move at one
place to another; staying in a cave for
more than few weeks or months at a time.
Three subdivisions are generally
recognized:
(1) Long Lower
Paleolithic –
dominated by simple
Oldowan tools, core
briface tools and
simple flake tools.
(2) Brief Middle
Paleolithic –
characterized by an
enlarged and refined
repertory of core
tools, flake points,
and other flake tools.
(3) Still briefer
Upper Paleolithic –
characterized by an
enlarged and refined
repertory of blade
tools and by many
special ivory, bone
and antler
implements and
artifacts.
MESOLITHIC PERIOD
In this period, the basic mode of essential
subsistence remained from the Paleolithic Period
such as the hunting, gathering and fishing as
their mode of living. Unfortunately,
environmental changes started to appear in this
period wherein neither of the environment
opportunities nor the technological inventory
had remained constant. These changes are
drastic and have affected the succession of
plants and animals. Mesolithic was a time of
NEOLITHIC PERIOD
Neolitic literally means “new stone age”. The
term was first introduced in the nineteenth
century where the appearance of stone
implements are recognized. Today, the term is
used not to designate new stone-working
methods but new methods of food production. In
this period, farming and stock raising was
developed which provided material basis for
high-density, sedentary settlements and for rapid
population increase.
Population grew rapidly. Hence, H. sapiens
who were rare became abundant species.
Farming and stock raising set the stage for
the profound alterations in domestic and
political economy. Without agriculture, the
development of cities, states and empires
could have not occurred which just means
that all riches starts from land and animal
cultivation.
THE ORIGINS OF
CULTURE
Pre-agricultural villages were adaptations to the
need to store the wild grain, process it into flour
and covert into flat cakes or porridge. The
construction of houses, walls, roasters, grinders,
and storage pits may be viewed as capital
investment in grain futures. In order for their
system to remain viable for any length of time,
selective harvesting and hunting-collecting
activities are practiced by contemporary hunting-
and-gathering people to ensure future harvests
from the same wild stands. Thus, this became the
permanent and common livelihood of the early
THE DOMESTICATION
OF ANIMALS
Domestication involves a complex symbolic
relationship between human populations
(domesticators), and the certain favoured plants
and animals (domesticates). Domestication
usually involves genetic changes. In the process,
domesticators could destroy domesticates’
habitats as they remove them from their natural
habitat to an area that is markedly different.
Domesticators also interferes with their
domesticates’ activities in which these
domesticates are transformed and (could be)
produced unnaturally as a product of cultivation.
The Old World animal and plant
domesticates and the people who depended
on them were interrelated parts of a unitary
process. As permanent villages more and
more often came to be located in the
middle of fields of grain, they become
closer and closer with the herds of wild
sheep and goats. These herds were later on
being controlled by the people, allowing
them to eat some stubbles but keeping
Therefore, it is likely that the domestication
of plants and animals occurred
synchronously as part of a general region-
wide process of cultural and ecological
change.