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Prehistoric Peoples
Prehistoric Peoples
The Neanderthals:
The Neanderthals:
The first people on Earth are known as Homo habilis (ho mo huh bil’ uhs), or “skillful man.” Next came Homo erectus (ho’ mo e rekt’ uhs), or “man who walks upright.” Then, between about 300,000 and 200,000 years ago, came Homo sapiens (ho’ mo sap’ e uhnz), or “man who thinks.”
There are two kinds of Homo sapiens. The first is the Neanderthal (ne an’ der tahl), named after the Neander River in Germany, where their remains were first discovered in 1856. Since then, other Neanderthal remains have been found throughout Europe and in parts of Asia and Africa. Scientists estimate that about 1 million Neanderthals were living at any one time.
Neanderthal people were good hunters. They used traps to catch birds and small animals. They used pitfalls to catch large animals like the rhinoceros and the elephant. A pitfall was a large hole that was covered with branches, leaves, and earth. As an animal ran across this hole, it crashed through the covering and fell into the pit. The hunters would then kill the animal with spears.
Neanderthals were also builders. In northern areas, for example, they made houses by covering a framework of mammoth bones with animal skins. More bones piled on the bottoms of the skins prevented them from being blown away. As many as 30 people lived in such a house during the cold months of the year. They improved cave dwellings by digging drainage ditches in caves and designing rock protection for entrances.
According to experts, Neanderthals were also the first people to bury their dead. Archaeologists have found graves of people from this time in which they discovered the remains of flowers, tools, and food.
The Cro Magnons
The Cro Magnons
The second kind of Homo sapiens is the Cro-Magnon (kro mag’ nahn), named after a rock shelter in France where their remains were first discovered in 1868. Cro-Magnons appeared in North Africa, Asia, and Europe about 100,000 years ago. Archaeologists consider them the first modern human beings.
Cro-Magnons were artists as well as toolmakers. They carved statues out of ivory and bone or molded them out of clay. They covered the walls of some caves in western Europe, Africa, and South America with pictures painted brightly with paints made from minerals. The pictures show mostly animals, such as horses, bulls, and deer, but also show outlines and patterns of lines, dots, and curves.
Many anthropologists think cave paintings may have had religious significance. Cro-Magnons believed that animals had spirits. They thought that painting an animal’s picture gave people power over its spirit and would help them find and kill the animal. Anthropologists think the cave paintings may have been a kind of textbook about Cro-Magnon ceremonies, traditions, or history.
Cro-Magnons were very skillful toolmakers. They invented the burin, which resembles a chisel. By using the burin, people could make other tools and objects from antler, bone, ivory, and shell, as well as stone and wood.
Using new tools made Cro-Magnons better hunters, thus increasing their food supply. Points of antler or bone fastened to the end of wooden sticks could penetrate the hides of larger animals. People fashioned antler and bone into spear throwers, or devices that made spears fly through the air faster and farther. This allowed hunters to stay a greater distance from animals, making hunting less dangerous.
Another important tool that Cro-Magnons invented was the axe, which they used to cut down trees and hollow out the logs to make canoes. In southeastern Asia, they cut down stalks of bamboo and tied them together with vines to make rafts. Winds or ocean currents then carried the rafts to other lands. It is likely that this is how people reached Australia about 40,000 years ago.
Cro-Magnons also fashioned bone, ivory, and shell into body ornaments, such as necklaces and rings. They decorated their clothing with bone or ivory beads. They played music on flutes carved from long, hollow bones.
Cro-Magnon bands cooperated, often hunting large animals together. This required them to jointly agree on rules and the first true leaders. Every year or so, they held social gatherings where they exchanged information about the movement of animal herds. They also traded materials such as amber and shells.
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