What is the "Stone Age", everyone knows. These are skins, dirt, a toilet in the far corner of the cave, rock art instead of comics and no certainty: today you will have breakfast with a mammoth, and tomorrow a saber-toothed tiger will bite you with appetite. However, our life consists of nuances, and the little things of the daily life of our ancestors are known only to individual specialists. A primitive way of life does not at all mean a dull life: something, but ancient people did not have to be bored. They had to wrap themselves in skins to protect themselves from the cold. Today we decided to turn history upside down and visit the skins of our ancestors.
Last year, World of Science Fiction published several articles about medieval life. At the request of our readers, we decided to dig deeper into the terra incognita of human history - a period when (according to some experts) aliens performed genetic experiments on monkeys, citizens of Atlantis flew into space, and our ancestors looked at all this disgrace and bitten fleas in bewilderment.
A long time ago, far, far away...
There has never been a Stone Age. At least this follows directly from sacred books most religions. Bible scholars agree that our world was created between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago. It just so happened that after gastronomic experiments with apples, the first people immediately switched to settled agriculture, invented complex tools and writing, and then began to kill each other in the name of good.
In 1654, Irish Archbishop James Ussher calculated that man was created at exactly 9 am on October 23, 4004 BC. The Orthodox Church called a different date - 5508 BC. Scientists say that the formation of man began about 3 million years ago.
Unfortunately, none world religion does not contain a myth about how on April 1, some thousand years BC, the gods hid dinosaur skeletons and flint arrowheads in the ground, so that later they would laugh heartily at archaeologists. The Stone Age came independently and even contrary to the beliefs of billions of people.
It began about 100,000 years ago and (in some regions of the planet) lasted until the New Time. The active development of civilization coincided with the end of the last ice age approximately 10,000 years ago. The sea level rose, the climate changed, and humanity began to quickly adapt to new conditions - to create complex tools, establish permanent settlements, actively hunt.
The people of the late Stone Age were not much different from you and me. The volume of the brain, the structure of the skull, the proportions of the body, the degree of hairiness and other characteristics were the same as modern ones. If a child of that time got into modern times, he could grow up, get an education and become, for example, the author of articles in the World of Science Fiction.
Until comparatively recent times, most people could rightfully be considered ... Negroes. The mutation of the "white-skinned" gene SLC24F5 began in Europeans only 12 thousand years ago and ended 6 thousand years ago.
The darkness of the skin most likely varied from region to region. The most common hair color was black. Blondes and redheads began to appear later - with the increase in the number of mankind, mutations also diversified, which ultimately created various types of appearance. It is assumed that people of the Stone Age dyed their hair with grass juices, pollen from flowers and multi-colored clays not only for ritual, but also for aesthetic reasons.
| You can't argue with genetics |
Scientists claim that our set of DNA goes back to two common ancestors, conventionally called "Adam" and "Eve." By examining genetic drift, they found that Eve lived about 140,000 years ago, and Adam - 60,000 years ago. This does not mean that we are descended from two people. The common ancestors of many people can be traced back to about 1000 BC. From Eve, we received only mitochondrial DNA (transmitted through the maternal line), and from Adam - the Y chromosome. Both of our grandparents lived in Africa. The presence of common ancestors is played up by Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter in the novel "The Light of Other Days", the anime K.R.I.E.G., the book Parasite Eve and works based on it (film, game). |
Paradise in a hut
In almost all the images, people of the Stone Age are somewhere in nature (usually among the endless steppe) or sit by the fires. This view is true for the Paleolithic, but does not reflect the realities of the Neolithic (7000 BC) at all. Man began to build the first buildings - large stones that served as a support for a roof made of branches - almost 2 million years ago, and 4.5 thousand years ago he was already building giant pyramids. So by the end of the ice age, architectural knowledge was enough to create long-term settlements.
The culture of the early Stone Age was surprisingly uniform. All over the planet, people, without saying a word, used similar tools and did almost the same things with them. 25 thousand years ago, near the village of Dolni-Vestonice (Czech Republic), houses were built from clay bricks, in Siberia tents were made from skins and tusks of mammoths, and when it came to burials, our ancestors were not too lazy to move huge stone slabs, folding them into impressive megalithic graves .
In addition, massive boulders went to the signs limiting any territory, "monuments" in honor of any events, and in some cases they were turned into objects of worship.
Large cities began to be built about 5 thousand years ago. For example, Mohenjo-Daro (“The Hill of the Dead”) in modern Pakistan had several tens of thousands of inhabitants, and 5,000 people could gather in the Citadel alone at the same time. But the bulk of humanity lived in small settlements that could be abandoned in the event of depletion of soils or natural resources.
A typical "village" of the Stone Age was something like a tourist camp. For hunting societies, tents made of skins were characteristic, in agricultural settlements, houses were made of stone or reed. Nearby, rice fields were green (cultivated since 9000 BC) or a river flowed (the first fish bones began to appear at human sites 50,000 years ago, and by the Stone Age our ancestors were already excellent at fishing).
The first houses were round, one-room. Soon people began to build something resembling modern multi-room cottages, which served at the same time as tombs: the bones of deceased relatives were buried under the floor covered with skins or straw. Judging by the excavation data, the doors were made in the ceilings - people climbed into the houses and left them by stairs. Clay served as “wallpaper”, and the walls of houses could be painted from the inside (for example, the settlement of Chatal-Guyuk in Turkey).
Under blue skiesJericho in Israel is considered the oldest continuously inhabited city on the planet. It was founded 11 thousand years ago. By the standards of that time, the city was huge - 40,000 square meters, from 200 to 1,000 inhabitants, a stone tower and a stone wall (in the Bible it was destroyed by the sounds of trumpets and the cries of soldiers, but archaeologists blame the earthquake for everything). The streets had no planning, houses were built randomly. The dimensions of the rooms are approximately 7 by 4 meters. Sandstone or clay floors. Jewelry - skulls of ancestors with restored clay facial features and shell eyes. |
O times! Oh manners!
A normal day for a person of that time began shortly before sunrise and ended shortly after sunset. The rhythm of life by today's standards was very leisurely. The main work areas were within walking distance. Only hunters moved far away from the settlements, which had an extremely unfavorable effect on the duration of their lives.
It should be borne in mind that 10,000 years ago, all of humanity numbered only about 5 million people, and the population of the "villages" was estimated at dozens of inhabitants, most of whom were related to each other. Wild animals - not intimidated, as they are today, but angry, hungry and considering meeting a person something like a "happy hour" in an expensive restaurant - were sitting under almost every bush. There were tigers and lions in Europe. In some places, woolly rhinos and even mammoths were still found.
The Stone Age would be to the taste of fans of classic rock, professing the motto "live fast, die young." The fact is that the average life expectancy was 20-30 years. The dawn of civilization can hardly be called "paradise". It was a very harsh and dangerous time, when the main argument when meeting with an animal or a stranger was a stone ax.
Most of the daytime was spent on preparing food, replacing worn-out tools with new ones, repairing the home, religious ceremonies, and caring for children. The latter was in direct proportion to the low life expectancy - the age of marriage was low, and children were given much less care than now, which understandably affected child mortality. The shortage of men stimulated polygamy, so that 2-3 wives of 15 years old for one "old man" of 30 years old were not uncommon.
For the same reasons, matriarchy dominated Neolithic societies. Women lived longer than men, kept the family hearth and were actually responsible for the accumulation of cultural experience. The Neolithic was the age of women. There were many more of them on the "streets" of settlements than men.
In the south of Russia, burial places of the tribes of the "Amazons" who lived about 3000 years ago were discovered.
Little nothings of life
Contrary to some stereotypes, Stone Age people did not wear smelly skins on their naked bodies. The fashion of the Neolithic era was quite diverse and in some cases could compete with the medieval one. Seven thousand years ago, our ancestors began to make clothes from felt, around the same time linen fabric, woolen yarn appeared, and in the 30th century BC, the Chinese established silk production.
Throw in jewelry made of polished bone, feathers, colored stones - and a person born before the invention of writing will pass for his own in most modern third world countries. Moreover, if a Neolithic dandy wore bracelets or shell beads, this put him on the same level as today's watch owner Patek Phillipe. Settlements far from each other practiced barter, but 10,000 years ago, in some places there was already a developed market economy. Money - shells or stones - was often worn as jewelry. It was convenient for the ransom of the bride, the division of the inheritance or trade with neighboring tribes.
Gourmets in the Stone Age had nothing to do. The transition to settled agriculture meant a deterioration in the quality of food, because among hunters and gatherers it was more diverse. It is not easy for modern man to imagine the Neolithic diet. No tea or coffee. The main drink is unboiled water from the nearest reservoir. Herbal decoctions were made only for medical and religious purposes. Milk was considered a drink for children, and alcohol (or rather, fermented juice) was consumed much less frequently than now.
Cooking was in its infancy, so vegetables were eaten raw. There was quite a lot of meat and fish on the tables (pigs, goats and sheep were domesticated 9000 years ago), but the concepts of "salt" and "spices" were absent in the lexicon of cooks. Legumes and grains were consumed for some time without heat treatment - they were ground into a paste with water and eaten like porridge. One day, someone decided to heat this mixture over a fire for fun. This is how bread, one of the oldest and most important human foodstuffs, appeared.
Scientists suggest that, for all the isolation of the settlements, the Europeans of the Stone Age, if they could not freely understand each other, then they could almost certainly guess the meaning of most phrases. There is an opinion that in those days there was a certain Proto-Indo-European language with a uniform structure and universal word roots.
Artist - from the word "bad"
Venus from Tan-Tan. |
In conditions of general illiteracy of the population, the most important of the arts were painting, music and war. The oldest art artifact is the so-called "Venus from Tan-Tan" - a stone figurine found near the city of Tan-Tan in Morocco. It was carved 300,000 years ago, so by the beginning of the Stone Age, human culture was already in full swing.
The Upper Paleolithic entered the rock art textbooks. It is often considered the main form of art of the Stone Age, although vodka could just as well be considered the crowning achievement of Mendeleev's research. Oddly enough, the ancient Japanese began to promote material art to the masses. It is believed that they were the first on the planet to develop pottery (earlier than agriculture). 11,000 years ago, they already had clay figurines and utensils, on which, before firing, various patterns were applied using braided ropes or sticks.
In the fishing settlement of Lepenski Vir (7th millennium BC, modern Serbia), figurines of fish or, according to another version, magical fish-men were made of stone. In the 5th millennium BC people European culture Vinca carved something suspiciously resembling cuneiform on clay products. It is assumed that it was proto-writing - something between drawings and symbols.
Unfortunately, small works of art from that era are very poorly preserved. But many megaliths have come down to us, the most famous of which is Stonehenge. It should not be thought that the decoration of gravestones with spiral carvings was a favorite pastime of artists of that time. Stone tools gave little scope for creativity - even embroidering leather with bone needles was a problem. Lavishly decorated jewelry, weapons and armor appeared only in the Bronze Age.
With music, things were much better. It developed from the hunting imitation of animal sounds. In the beginning, the only musical instrument was the human throat. In the Stone Age, people took up the manufacture of musical instruments (22 years ago in China they found a flute made of heron bone 8,000 years old), which suggested that ancient people were familiar with at least notes. String instruments appeared only at the end of the Stone Age.
Probably learning musical game in the Stone Age it was mechanical, without any abstract system. The first musical notation on clay tablets dates back to the 14th century BC (Ugarit, modern Syria).
Near the Spanish city of Castellón, there are the cliffs de la Mola, which depict marching warriors. Anyone who has played Sid Meier's Civilization knows very well that if the map is small and there are many players, the first unit in the first city should be a warrior. The fact that stone walls were erected around cities speaks volumes. It was in the Stone Age that organized armies and professional warriors began to appear.
"Army" is, of course, loudly said. Letters from El-Amarna (Egyptian official correspondence, 1350 BC) say that detachments of 20 people terrorized entire cities - and this is already in bronze age! The Stone Age was shaken by the grandiose battles of several dozen people. True, some researchers believe that large settlements like Chatal-Guyuk could put up about a hundred soldiers. In this case, we can already talk about tactics, maneuvers, supplies and other delights of real wars.
The conflicts were incredibly bloody. The victors killed all the men and children, took the women and completely plundered the settlements. However, in some regions there could be tribes that lived in peace with each other and were practically unfamiliar with the concept of "murder" (a modern example would be the Bushmen from the Kalahari Desert).
The most terrible weapon of the ancient hunters was fire. They set fire to forests and grass, destroying the enemy's habitat. The scorched earth tactics were much more effective than hand-to-hand combat. In close combat, both hunting tools - primarily spears - and clubs were used.
According to the rock paintings, it is possible to reconstruct the average battle of the Stone Age: the warring "armies" lined up opposite each other in a line, the leaders came forward and gave the command to open archery (sling). Separate elements of the drawings suggest that the "infantry" at that time was trying to outflank the enemy.
Professor Lawrence Keely calculated that conflicts broke out between the tribes almost every year, and some of them fought constantly. Excavations of some settlements in Africa have shown that more than half of their inhabitants died a violent death. The wars of the Stone Age were many times bloodier than they are today. If we transfer the level of military losses to the realities of today, any local war would take two billion lives.
With the transition from hunting to farming, the number of wars dropped sharply. The population was still small enough to support idle warriors. The conflicts were fleeting, there were no siege devices, so the walls almost always guaranteed the invulnerability of the city.
* * *
The words "stone age" are usually used in a pejorative sense - to denote primitiveness, stupidity and savagery. Indeed, the early Neolithic was an era when skull-breaking was considered much more an interesting activity than trade. However, with the transition to agriculture, the world has changed beyond recognition.
Labor made a man out of a monkey. He also turned bloodthirsty maniacs into architects, sculptors, painters and musicians. The Stone Age was not such a bad time at all. A healthy lifestyle, good ecology, diet, constant physical activity and the tranquility of small villages, a sincere belief in gods and magical monsters... Isn't this the foundation for any fantasy?
Kazakhstan in antiquity
1. Stone Age: periodization, historical monuments. The transition to the metal age is the Eneolithic.
2. Bronze Age. Andronovo culture.
3. The era of early nomads. Saki.
4. State of the Xiongnu.
5. Usun and Kangyui.
2.1 Stone Age: periodization, historical monuments. The transition to the metal age is the Eneolithic.
Early man learned to make and use tools. The first tools were bone fragments, sharp sticks and roughly worked stones. From 2.5 million years ago to 5 millennium BC. stone dominated human technology. This period was called stone age. It was divided into 3 main periods - paleolith(ancient stone) Mesolithic(medium stone) and Neolithic(new stone). The Paleolithic, in turn, is divided into lower (2 million - 40 thousand years ago) and upper (40 - 12 thousand years ago). The last stage of the Stone Age, when the first metal tools already appear, is called the Eneolithic - the Copper Stone Age.
The first tools of the Old Stone Age were universal impact-chopping hand axes made of solid stones. At a later time there are axes of more careful finishing. The man began to make scrapers, stone knives, sharp-pointed ones. In addition to stone tools, upright man made tools from bone and wood. Through the use of fire, he was able to make wooden spears with a burnt end.
Monuments left by Homo erectus in the most ancient period were discovered in South Kazakhstan, in the region of the Karatau ridge. These are the sites Tanirkazgan, Borykazgan, Akkol.
Now two zones of Paleolithic cultures are known: in South Kazakhstan and Saryarka. They differ in the technique of stone processing and the material used for the manufacture of tools. In general, in Northern and Central Kazakhstan, the evolution of technology has gone faster than in the south, where archaic tools such as hand axes were used for a very long time.
A hundred thousand years ago, a new Paleolithic culture of stone processing appeared - the Mousterian, developed by the Neanderthal. It developed on the basis of the previous one, but the tools became more specialized, and the quality of stone processing improved.
Neanderthals heated their dwellings, caves, burning firewood and bones. If an erect man used the fire donated by nature (lightning strike, spontaneous combustion), then the Neanderthal learned to make fire by striking sparks. Homo sapiens began to make clothes from the skins of dead animals, using stone knives for cutting and stitching the skins with tendons.
With the advent modern people the Paleolithic entered a new stage of development - the Upper Paleolithic. The circle of stone tools became wider, people made knives, saws, spearheads, drills, hammers, cutters. The number of tools made of bones increased - fish hooks, harpoons, needles with ears. The length of the cutting edge and an equal amount of stone in modern man has increased 12 times compared to Neanderthal tools.
In the Upper Paleolithic, man populated the entire territory of Kazakhstan.
Mesolithic and Neolithic . The beginning of the Mesolithic dates back to about 12 thousand BC. The Neolithic era was experienced by different peoples at different times. In Kazakhstan, this epoch occupied the period of 5-3 thousand BC.
A particularly important period in human life was the Mesolithic, marked by two major events - the invention of the bow and arrow and the emergence of microlithic stone processing. Microliths - miniature plates - were inserted into the longitudinal grooves of bone and wooden tools and constituted the cutting edge. Such tools were easier to manufacture and of better quality than solid ones.
The Neolithic is the heyday of the stone industry. New technological methods of stone processing appear - sawing, drilling, grinding. The Neolithic Revolution is the process of transition from a consuming economy to a producing one - cattle breeding and agriculture. This contributed to a huge leap in the development of human culture, the further history of economic life is a process of improvement of these two areas of human production activity.
Ancestral community. Human society did not appear overnight. It was preceded by a long period of transformation from a herd of anthropoid apes - the era of pra-society. The main form of organization at that time was the ancestral community, also often called the "primitive human herd".
The ancestral community was a small group that had a certain fodder territory and was divided into several harem groups, consisting of one man and several women. Adult men and youths made up one group, children and women another. The fore-community included 50-60 individuals.
When a person appears modern type there is a complete displacement of all zoological relations in the ancestral community by social ones, early forms of marriage arise and, as a result, exogamy (a ban on marriages within a group) and a tribal community, which was a collective of blood relatives with common ownership of land (hunting grounds) and a social product and characterized by the absence of social inequality.
All the important affairs of the community were decided at a meeting of adult men, shamans specializing in the implementation of ritual and magical actions, leaders - leaders of warriors during clashes with neighboring communities, stood out from among the community members. All relations within the community were regulated by customs and a system of taboo prohibitions. Elders enjoyed the greatest authority.
Eneolithic of Kazakhstan. In the III - II millennium BC. in conditions of a humid and cold climate, the population of Kazakhstan begins to move to productive forms of economy, in particular, to cattle breeding. In Northern Kazakhstan, during this period, monuments of Botai culture appeared - Botai, Krasny Yar, Bestamak, Salt Lake. Unlike the previous era, the population lives in large settlements. A feature of the Botai culture was the complete absence of sheep, which was apparently explained by religious prohibitions.
The birth of spiritual culture . The emergence of spiritual culture as a specific field of activity is closely connected with the development of thinking and self-awareness. Burials, the beginnings of art indicate that the Neanderthal was already capable of abstract thinking, possessing self-awareness, individual and social. The burial of the dead was accompanied by a ritual: the body was buried in specially dug pits in the pose of a sleeping person, stone tools, meat, wild flowers were lowered into the grave. This indicates that the Neanderthal gave special meaning life and death, and probably thought about the afterlife.
The emergence of art and religion. Prehistoric art reached its true flowering with the advent of modern man. The range of works was wide: engravings of animals and people, clay and bone sculptures and reliefs, drawings with ocher and charcoal. When depicting animals, the ancient masters achieved amazing realism. At the same time runs schematization of drawings, up to the transformation into symbols.
The funeral ceremony has become more complicated. The dead were often sprinkled with red ocher, symbolizing blood and life. Tools, weapons, ritual food were placed in the grave.
In its ancient period of development, which lasted for several thousand centuries, man went through three stages. The first stage was the Stone Age. After him, humanity stepped into the bronze, and then into the first stage, which was the longest stage. Throughout it, people made various tools, the material for which were fragments of animal bones and sticks with a sharp end. But the stone proved to be the most durable. It was this material that dominated the devices of our ancestors. For this reason given period is called the Stone Age.
The longest era in the development of mankind is divided by archaeologists into three stages. The first of these is the ancient Stone Age (Paleolithic). The second is the Mesolithic. It is also called the Middle Stone Age. The third stage is the Neolithic. Scientists attribute it to the new stone age.
The period of the Stone Age of the Paleolithic era lasted from the beginning of the birth of the human community until the tenth millennium. According to scientists, they appeared in the tropics of Africa and from there they spread to other parts of the planet. At that time, man was an integral part of the world around him. He lived in caves, creating tribes, collecting edible plants and hunting small game. Fishing gear made of solid rocks(obsidan, quartzite and silicon) were not subjected to grinding and drilling. In the late Paleolithic period, fishing developed. Man learned to drill bone, on which he began to make the first engravings.
At the same time, the hunting technique became more complicated, housing construction was born, and a new way of life began to take shape. The maturation of the tribal system is a prerequisite for the strength of the primitive community. Its structure becomes more complex. A person begins to develop speech and thinking, which contributes to the expansion of his mental horizons and the enrichment of the spiritual world. It was in the Late Paleolithic that the art of the Stone Age arose and began to develop. Man has learned to use natural mineral paints with bright colors. He mastered new ways to process soft stone and bone. It was these methods that opened before him the possibility of conveying the world around him in carving and sculpture. The art of the Paleolithic is distinguished by its surprisingly truthful transmission of reality and fidelity to nature.
The Middle Stone Age, or Mesolithic, began in the tenth and ended in the sixth millennium BC. This is characteristic of the end of the Ice Age. The world looked like a modern one. Man and his way of life has undergone strong changes. The tribes broke up. They were replaced by the older and most experienced members. Man began to build his dwelling using wood and stone material, leaving the caves. The nascent sense of beauty was reflected in the original jewelry, which served as gold nuggets.
Great changes also affected the methods of making stone tools. Sharp knives appeared, as well as sharpened arrows and spears. In the Mesolithic period, the beginnings of handicraft, cattle breeding and agriculture arose. Art has also undergone fundamental changes. Images applied to open areas of rocks began to represent various scenes of hunting or ritual ceremonies. The man, who occupies a central place in the drawings of the Mesolithic era, was depicted in a simplified way, sometimes even in the form of a sign. The images were colored in black and red.
The last third of the Stone Age - the Neolithic lasted from the sixth to the third millennium BC. Man learned to polish and grind tools made of stone materials, took up cattle breeding and agriculture. Pottery appeared. Various utensils and dishes were made from clay. The growth and unification of several clans was a prerequisite for the emergence of tribes.
STONE AGE (GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS)
The Stone Age is the oldest and longest period in the history of mankind, characterized by the use of stone as the main material for the manufacture of tools.
For the manufacture of various tools and other necessary products, man used not only stone, but other solid materials: volcanic glass, bone, wood, animal skins and skins, and plant fibers. In the final period of the Stone Age, in the Neolithic, the first artificial material created by man, ceramics, became widespread. In the Stone Age, the formation of a modern type of man takes place. This period of history includes major achievements humanity, as the emergence of the first social institutions and certain economic structures.
The chronological framework of the Stone Age is very wide - it begins about 2.6 million years ago and before the use of metal by man. In the territory ancient east this happens in the 7th-6th millennium BC, in Europe - in the 4th-3rd millennium BC.
In archaeological science, the Stone Age is traditionally divided into three main stages:
- Paleolithic or ancient stone age (2.6 million years BC - 10 thousand years BC);
- Mesolithic or Middle Stone Age (X / IX thousand - VII thousand years BC);
- Neolithic or New Stone Age (VI / V thousand - III thousand years BC)
Archaeological periodization of the Stone Age is associated with changes in the stone industry: each period is characterized by peculiar methods of stone processing and, as a result, a certain set of various types of stone tools.
The Stone Age correlates with geological periods:
- Pleistocene (also called: glacial, Quaternary or Anthropogenic) - dates from 2.5-2 million years to 10 thousand years BC.
- Holocene - which began in 10 thousand years BC. and continues to this day.
The natural conditions of these periods played essential role in the formation and development of ancient human societies.
Paleolithic (2.6 million years ago - 10 thousand years ago)
The Paleolithic is divided into three main periods:
- the early Paleolithic (2.6 million - 150/100 thousand years ago), which is divided into the Olduvai (2.6 - 700 thousand years ago) and Acheulean (700 - 150/100 thousand years ago) eras;
- Middle Paleolithic or Mousterian era (150/100 - 35/30 thousand years ago);
- late Paleolithic (35/30 - 10 thousand years ago).
Only Middle and Late Paleolithic sites have been recorded in Crimea. At the same time, flint tools were repeatedly found on the peninsula, the manufacturing technique of which is similar to the Acheulean ones. However, all these finds are accidental and do not belong to any Paleolithic site. This circumstance does not make it possible to confidently attribute them to the Acheulean era.
Mousterian era (150/100 - 35/30 thousand years ago)
The beginning of the era fell at the end of the Riess-Wurm interglacial, which is characterized by a relatively warm climate close to the modern one. The main part of the period coincided with the Valdai glaciation, which is characterized by a strong drop in temperatures.
It is believed that the Crimea during the interglacial period was an island. Whereas during the glaciation the level of the Black Sea decreased significantly, during the period of maximum advance of the glacier it was a lake.
About 150 - 100 thousand years ago, Neanderthals appeared in the Crimea. Their camps were located in grottoes and under rock canopies. They lived in groups of 20-30 individuals. The main occupation was driven hunting, perhaps they were engaged in gathering. They existed on the peninsula until the Late Paleolithic, and disappeared about 30 thousand years ago.
In terms of the concentration of Mousterian monuments, not many places on Earth can compare with Crimea. Let's name some of the best-studied sites: Zaskalnaya I - IX, Ak-Kaya I - V, Krasnaya Balka, Prolom, Kiik-Koba, Volchiy Grotto, Chokurcha, Kabazi, Shaitan-Koba, Kholodnaya Balka, Starosele, Adzhi-Koba, Bakhchisarai, Sarah Kaya. The remains of bonfires, animal bones, flint tools and their products are found at the sites. In the Mousterian era, Neanderthals begin to build primitive dwellings. They were round in plan, like plagues. They were built from bones, stones and animal skins. In Crimea, such dwellings are not recorded. In front of the entrance to the Wolf Grotto parking lot, there may have been a wind barrier. It was a shaft of stones, reinforced with branches vertically stuck into it. At the Kiik-Koba site, the main part of the cultural layer was concentrated on a small rectangular area, 7X8 m in size. Apparently, some kind of structure was made inside the grotto.
The most common types of flint tools of the Mousterian era were pointed and side-scrapers. These tools were 
and themselves relatively flat fragments of flint, during the processing of which they tried to betray a triangular shape. At the scraper, one side was processed, which was the working one. At the points, two edges were processed, trying to sharpen the top as much as possible. Pointed and side-scrapers were used in butchering animal carcasses and processing skins. In the Mousterian era, primitive flint spearheads appear. Flint "knives" and "Chokurchin triangles" are typical for the Crimea. In addition to flint, bone was used from which piercings were made (small animal bones pointed at one end) and wringers (they were used to retouch flint tools).
The basis for future tools was the so-called cores - pieces of flint, which were given a rounded shape. Long and thin flakes were chipped from the cores, which were blanks for future tools. Next, the edges of the flakes were processed using the squeezing retouching technique. It looked like this: small flakes of flint were chipped from the flake with the help of a squeezer bone, sharpening its edges and giving the tool the desired shape. In addition to wringers, stone chippers were used for retouching.
Neanderthals were the first to bury their dead in the ground. In the Crimea, such a burial was discovered at the Kiik-Koba site. For burial, a recess in the stone floor of the grotto was used. A woman was buried in it. Only the bones of the left leg and both feet have been preserved. According to their position, it was determined that the buried woman was lying on her right side with her legs bent at the knees. This posture is typical of all Neanderthal burials. Poorly preserved bones of a 5-7 year old child were found near the grave. In addition to Kiik-Koba, the remains of Neanderthals were found at the Zaskalnaya VI site. Incomplete skeletons of children were found there, which were in the cultural layers.
Late Paleolithic (35/30 - 10 thousand years ago)
The Late Paleolithic occurred in the second half of the Wurm glaciation. This is a period of very cold, extreme weather. By the beginning of the period, a person of the modern type is being formed - Homo sapiens(Cro-Magnon). By the same time, the formation of three large races - Caucasoid, Negroid and Mongoloid. People inhabit almost all inhabited land, with the exception of the territories occupied by the glacier. Cro-Magnons everywhere begin to use artificial dwellings. Bone products are widely used, from which not only tools are now made, but also jewelry.
The Cro-Magnons have formed a new truly human way of organizing society - tribal. The main occupation, like that of the Neanderthals, was driven hunting.
Cro-Magnons appeared in the Crimea about 35 thousand years ago, while coexisting with Neanderthals for about 5 thousand years. There is an assumption that they penetrate the peninsula in two waves: from the west, from the area of the Danube basin; and from the east - from the territory of the Russian Plain.
Crimean Late Paleolithic sites: Syuren I, Kachinsky canopy, Aji-Koba, Buran-Kaya III, the lower layers of the Mesolithic sites of Shan-Koba, Fatma-Koba, Syuren II.
In the Late Paleolithic, a completely new industry of flint tools was formed. Nucleus begin to make a prismatic shape. In addition to flakes, they begin to make plates - long blanks with parallel edges.
Tools were made both on flakes and on plates. Incisors and scrapers are most characteristic of the Late Paleolithic. At the incisors, the short edges of the plate were retouched. The scrapers were made of two types: end scrapers, where the narrow edge of the plate was retouched; lateral - where the long edges of the plate were retouched. Scrapers and chisels were used to process hides, bones, and wood. At the site of Suregne I, many small narrow pointed flint items (“points”) and blades with sharpened retouched edges were found. They could serve as spearheads. It should be noted that in the lower layers of the Paleolithic sites, tools of the Mousterian era are found (pointed, side-scrapers, etc.). In the upper layers of the Suren I and Buran-Kaya III sites, microliths are found - trapezoid flint plates with 2-3 retouched edges (these products are typical of the Mesolithic).
Few bone tools have been found in the Crimea. These are spearheads, awls, pins and pendants. At the site of Suregne I, mollusk shells with holes were found, which were used as decorations.
MESOLITHIC (10 - 8 thousand years ago / VIII - VI thousand BC)
At the end of the Paleolithic, global climatic changes occur. Warming leads to the melting of glaciers. The level of the world ocean rises, rivers become full-flowing, many new lakes appear. The Crimean peninsula takes shape close to modern. In connection with the increase in temperature and humidity, the place of cold steppes is occupied by forests. The fauna is changing. Large mammals characteristic of the ice age (for example, mammoths) go north and gradually die out. The number of herd animals is decreasing. In this regard, collective driven hunting is being replaced by individual hunting, in which each member of the tribe could feed himself. This happens because when hunting for a large animal, for example, for the same mammoth, the efforts of the entire team were required. And this justified itself, since as a result of success the tribe received a significant amount of food. The same method of hunting in the new conditions was not productive. It made no sense for the whole tribe to drive one deer, it would be a waste of effort and would lead to the death of the team.
In the Mesolithic, a whole complex of new tools appears. The individualization of hunting led to the invention of the bow and arrow. Bone hooks and harpoons for catching fish appear. They begin to make primitive boats, they were cut down from a tree trunk. Microliths are widespread. With their help, composite tools were made. The base of the tool was made of bone or wood; grooves were cut into it, into which microliths were fastened with resin (small flint products made from plates, less often from flakes, and served as inserts for composite tools and arrowheads). Their sharp edges served as the working surface of the tool.
Continue to use flint tools. These were scrapers and incisors. Silicon was also used to make segmented, trapezoidal, and triangular microliths. The shape of the nuclei changes, they become cone-shaped and prismatic. Tools were mainly made on blades, much less often on flakes.
The tips of darts, awls, needles, hooks, harpoons and pendants were made from bone. From the shoulder blades of large animals, knives or daggers were made. They had a smooth surface and pointed edges.
In the Mesolithic, people tamed the dog, which became the first domestic animal in history.
At least 30 Mesolithic sites have been discovered in Crimea. Of these, such as Shan-Koba, Fatma-Koba and Murzak-Koba are considered classical Mesolithic. These sites appeared in the Late Paleolithic. They are located in the grottoes. They were protected from the wind by barriers made of branches, reinforced with stones. The hearths were dug into the ground and lined with stones. At the sites, cultural strata were found, represented by flint tools, waste products from their production, bones of animals, birds and fish, and edible snail shells. 
Mesolithic burials have been discovered at the Fatma-Koba and Murzak-Koba sites. A man was buried in Fatma-Kobe. The burial was made in a small pit on the right side, the hands were placed under the head, the legs were strongly pressed. A paired burial was opened in Murzak-Kobe. A man and a woman were buried in an extended position on their backs. Right hand the man went under the left arm of the woman. The woman was missing the last two phalanges of both little fingers. This is associated with the rite of initiation. It is noteworthy that the burial was not made in the grave. The dead were simply covered with stones.
According to the social structure, the Mesolithic society was tribal. There was a very stable social organization, in which each member of society was aware of his attitude to a particular genus. Marriages were carried out only between members of different clans. Economic specialization arose within the genus. Women were engaged in gathering, men hunting and fishing. Apparently, an initiation rite took place - a rite of transferring a member of society from one gender and age group to another (transferring children to a group of adults). The initiate was subjected to severe trials: complete or partial isolation, starvation, scourging, wounding, etc.
NEOLITHIC (VI - V millennium BC)
In the Neolithic era, there is a transition from appropriating types of economy (hunting and gathering) to reproducing - agriculture and cattle breeding. People have learned to grow crops and breed certain types of animals. In science, this unconditional breakthrough in the history of mankind has been called the "Neolithic Revolution".
Another achievement of the Neolithic is the appearance and wide distribution of ceramics - vessels made of baked clay. The first ceramic vessels were made using the rope method. Several bundles were rolled out of clay and connected to each other, giving the shape of a vessel. The seams between the strips were smoothed with a bunch of grass. Then the vessel was burned in a fire. The dishes turned out to be thick-walled, not quite symmetrical, with an uneven surface and slightly burnt. The bottom was rounded or pointed. Sometimes the vessels were ornamented. They did this with the help of paint, a sharp stick, a wooden stamp, a rope, which they wrapped around the pot and burned it in the oven. The ornament on the vessels reflected the symbolism of a particular tribe or group of tribes.
In the Neolithic, new methods of stone processing were invented: grinding, sharpening and drilling. Grinding and sharpening of tools were done on a flat stone with the addition of wet sand. Drilling took place with the help of a tubular bone, which had to be rotated at a certain speed (for example, with a bowstring). As a consequence of the invention of drilling, stone axes appeared. They had a wedge-shaped shape, in the middle they made a hole into which a wooden handle was inserted.
Neolithic sites are open throughout the Crimea. People settled in grottoes and under rocky canopies (Tash-Air, Zamil-Koba II, Alimovsky canopy) and on yayla (At-Bash, Beshtekne, Balin-Kosh, Dzhaylyau-Bash). Open campsites (Frontovoye, Lugovoe, Martynovka) were found in the steppe. Flint tools are found on them, especially many microliths in the form of segments and trapezoids. Ceramics are found, although finds of Neolithic ceramics are rare for the Crimea. The exception is the Tash-Air site, where more than 300 fragments were found. The pots had thick walls, a rounded or pointed bottom. The upper part of the vessels was sometimes decorated with notches, grooves, pits or stamp imprints. At the Tash-Air site, a deer antler hoe and the bone base of a sickle were found. A horny hoe was also found at the Zamil-Koba II site. The remains of dwellings in the Crimea were not found.
On the territory of the peninsula, the only burial ground of the Neolithic period was discovered near the village. Dolinka. 50 people were buried in four tiers in a shallow, wide pit. All of them lay in an extended position on their backs. Sometimes the bones of the previously buried were moved to the side to make room for a new burial. The dead were sprinkled with red ocher, this is due to the burial rite. Flint tools, many drilled animal teeth and bone beads were found in the burial. Similar burial structures were discovered in the Dnieper and Azov regions.
The Neolithic population of the Crimea can be divided into two groups: 1) the descendants of the local Mesolithic population who inhabited the mountains; 2) the population that came from the Dnieper and Azov regions, populated the steppe.
In general, the "Neolithic revolution" in the Crimea never ended. There are much more bones of wild animals in the parking lots than of domestic ones. Agricultural implements are extremely rare. This indicates that the people who lived on the peninsula at that time still, as in previous eras, gave priority to hunting and gathering. Farming and gathering were in their infancy.