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LOWER PALEOLITHIC
2,700,000- 200,000 BC
CHALCOLITHIC EARLY BRONZE
4500- 3300 BC 3300- 2200 BC
MIDDLE PALEOLITHIC
200,000- 30,000 BC
UPPER PALEOLITHIC
40,000- 12,000 BC
It was during the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic that hunting really came into its own, and
became more efficient, with more specialized tools and communal drives.
Hunters concentrated on herbivores such as the horse, bison, deer, goats, and antelopes,
depending on the climate which fluctuated through the Ice Ages.
insidethecosmiccube.blogspot.com
OLDOWAN TOOLS 2,580,000- 1,500,000 BC
The Acheulean Tradition gets its name from the site of St. Acheul, France. The Acheulean
tradition originated in Sub-saharan Africa, and early forms of Homo spread the
culture out of Africa into the near east, southern and western Europe. They continued
with large, medium and small game hunting, scavenging and gathering.
By 500,000 years ago the Acheulean methods had penetrated into Europe, primarily
associated with Homo heidelbergensis, where they continued until about 200,000 years
ago. The industry spread as far as the Near East and India, but apparently never reached
Asia, where Homo erectus continued to use Oldowan tools right up to the time that
species went extinct.
Bhimbetka, Auditorium Cave, Madhya Pradesh:
Acheulian Petroglyph Site, c. 200,000 - 500,000 BC.
www.originsnet.org
ACHEULEAN TOOLS 1,400,000-100,000
100,000BC
BC
They compare well with the early 1 Dina and Jalalpur, Pakistan 2 Didwana, Rajasthan
3 Adi Chadi Wao & Umrethi, Guj. 4 Pilkasaur, MP
Acheulian from other parts of the 5 Navasa, Maharashtra 6 Bori, Maharashtra
world. 7 Yudurwadi, Maharashtra 8 Isampur, Karnataka
9 Attaripakkam, Tamil Nadu
www.assemblage.group.shef.ac.uk
ACHEULEAN SITES :INDIA 1,200,000-100,000
69,000 BC
BC
(I)
The site consists of several identified 'living floors'
of concentrations of Acheulean tools such as
handaxes, picks, and bifaces, and pebble-core Core tools of the
Oldowan type
tools and flake-tools. were found in
'Ubeidiya, Israel
Homo erectus populations effortlessly shifted (I), as were
their stone tool technology between the Acheulian
bifaces (II)
production of large cutting tools (picks, www.uiowa.edu
handaxes, cleavers, etc.) and pebble-core (II)
reduction.
HOLON, ISRAEL 201,000-198,000 BC
Traces of human existence found in Anatolia date back to approximately 2 million years
ago. Many sites have remains of the Homo Neanderthal species along with tools and
implements.
Yarimburgaz
Dülük
Mağaracık
Turkey
www.google.com
ANATOLIA 600,000 – 10,000 BC
• Earth was covered with ice during this age. A totem is any supposed entity that
watches over or assists a group of
• Human beings were hunters and gatherers,and people, such as a family, clan, or
survived in small groups. tribe.
• Their style of living was nomadic. Totems support larger groups than
the individual person. In kinship and
• Control over fire was gained through the end of the age. descent, if the apical ancestor of a
clan is nonhuman, it is called a totem.
• Primitive religious believes called totemism were also Normally this belief is accompanied
seen in this age. [1] by a totemic myth. [2]
• Dülük (Gaziantep)
• Mağaracık (Antakya)
The Tabun Cave, located at Mount Carmel B: 40,000 years C: 150,000 years
was occupied intermittently during the D: 250,000 years E: 400,000 years
F: 500,000 years G: 1,000,000 years
Lower and Middle Paleolithic ages. It dottieandrichard.info
features one of the longest sequences of
human occupation in the Levant.
By this time the entire process had Replica stone tools of the Acheulean industry, used by Homo
standardized into explicit stages (basic erectus and early modern humans, and of the Mousterian
industry, used by Neanderthals.
core stone, rough blank, refined final
www.britannica.com
tool). Variations could be produced by
changes at any stage. A consistent goal
was to maximize the cutting area which
made the process more labour intensive
but also meant that the tools could be
reshaped or sharpened, so that they
lasted longer.
• The vast Eurasian and Iranian Steppes were an unbroken grassland stretching from the
Gulf of Aqaba to Mongolia, rich with big game like antelope and bovids.
•Upper Paleolithic era hunters soon began expanding along its length.
•Climate shifted and became colder, more arid and dry, as drought hit the region, turning it
into a desert, effectively closing the Saharan Gateway for the next 20, 000 years, and most
hunter gatherers remained in the Middle East.
• These semi-arid plains were a part of an
ancient superhighway stretching from
France to Korea.
Artist's impression of the Hunter gatherers of the Middle •They hunted in groups, and had
East. temporary shelters, and no organized
www.scienceblogs.com activities or social structures yet.
UPPER PALEOLITHIC 40,000- 12,000 BC
•The people also made pendants, bracelets and ivory beads, and
three-dimensional figurines to ornament themselves.
Increased food security during The first human colonization of the Ganga plains took
this period led to reduction in place during this period, as proved by the presence of
nomadism and to seasonally more than two hundred archaeological sites in
sedentary settlement. This is Allahabad, Pratapgarh, Jaunpur, Mirzapur and
reflected in the large size of Varanasi districts of Uttar Pradesh.
Mesolithic sites, the marked
growth in human population, Similarly, the effective colonization of the deltaic
and the presence of large region of West Bengal and West Coast, particularly
cemeteries. around Mumbai and in Kerala also took place during
this period.
The explanation for this dramatic
increase in human settlements
lies in the increased rainfall and
its effect on the growth of plant
and animal life.
•Natufians developed basic agricultural skills, such as the use of stone bladed sickles
•The focus shifted from hunting, but when they hunted, the did so in a more effective and co-
operative manner.
•The knowledgeable Natufians compensated for the drastic change in climate around 9000
B.C. by supplementing plants of their traditional food crops.
The Neolithic also saw the rise of the first These early farming tools date from about 6000 BC. The
true villages, with houses being built of axe, bottom, was used for clearing; flint sickles, left,
different materials, for example, mud-brick were used for harvesting cereal crops; a flat rock and
rounded stone, centre, were used for grinding flour; and
houses in the Levant
perforated clay slabs, upper right, were probably used to
ventilate bread ovens.
Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia
NEOLITHIC 9500- 3300 BC
The cultivation of cereals and Pottery excavated at Jericho, dating from the period
domestication of animals such as cattle, 3300-1550BC
www.bible-archaeology.info
sheep, goats, and pigs was adopted, not as
a brilliant discovery, but as a necessity
caused by the pressures of a rising
population.
NEOLITHIC :INDIA 9500- 3300 BC
• The hilltop mound, around 300 meters in diameter and some 15 meters high, contains a
series of circular structures or temples, carbon dated to a period between 9,500 and
7,500 B.C.
• Structures were made by first building an "artificial" mound of debris, then hollowing it
out to create a sunken chamber.
• Each contains a series of T-shaped limestone monoliths, the tallest of which are upto
five meters high.
•These freestanding stones are anthropomorphic, with the top of the T representing the
head of the figure. The stem of the T represents the body, with arms carved in light relief
on either side.
1. www.wikipedia.org
URFA, ANATOLIA 9500-7500BC
Burshaski is a “language isolate”, spoken till date by people in northwest Kashmir, but has
a history around 10,000 years old.
•Çatal Hüyük was a very large Neolithic and Chalcolithic settlement found
in Southern Anatolia, or present day Turkey.
On-site restoration of a typical interior •There are no houses with distinct features, which
www.wikipedia.org points to an absence of a social-class system.
ÇATAL HÜYÜK :ART 6300– 5500 BC
SITE Characteristics
Indo- •ochre-coloured pottery (OCP)
Gangetic Divide and •Rammed earth floors, post-holes, baked and
upper Ganga-Yamuna Unbaked bricks
Doab •Pottery with incised designs, graffiti, paintings in black pigment
•Cultivation of rice and barley
•Domestication of animals
Ahar, Mewar region, •Houses made of stone, mud-brick and mud,
Rajasthan Massive foundations more than a metre in width,
Walls of mud
•Wares made of well-levigated clay, slipped and burnished surface,
well baked and sturdy.
•technology based on Copper,
Copper objects
include flat axes, choppers etc
Narhan, Northern The houses were generally made of wattle-and-daub as
Vindhyas and the represented by postholes, burnt lumps of clay with
middle and bamboo and reed impressions, and compact mud floors.
lower Ganga valley They were usually of rectangular shape.
CHALCOLITHIC :INDIA 5500-2000 B.C.
SITE Characteristics
Kayatha, •The Kayatha culture people lived in small huts having
Madhya well-rammed floors
Pradesh • cultivated wheat, barley and domesticated animals, possibly even horses.
• typical ceramic, chocolate-slipped, sturdy, well baked wares
Malwa, •wattle-and-daub houses of rectangular and round shape, burnt wooden posts,
Malwa clay plaster with bamboo, reed impressions
region, •cultivated cereals, legumes, oil seeds and fruits
Madhya •painted designs are primarily geometric such as triangles and lozenges
Pradesh (diamond shaped)
HACILAR, TURKEY
Hacilar is an early human settlement in south western Turkey. It has been
dated back 7040 BC at its earliest stage of development. Archaeological
remains indicate that the site was abandoned and reoccupied on more
than one occasion in its history.
BEYCESULTAN, TURKEY
Beycesultan, an archaeological site in western Anatolia, was occupied during a
long sequence between Late Chalcolithic to Late Bronze Age (Hittite Empire)
and then also in the Byzantine period.
ALIŞAR HÖYÜK, TURKEY
The site was settled from the Chalcolithic period in the fourth millennium BC
until the Phrygian period in the first millennium BC. Alişar later developed
into a walled town. Eventually it became the most significant city in the
region. It was a center for trade attracting merchants from Assyria at the
beginning of the second millennium BC.
The agricultural way of life, established in the Neolithic period, continued. Ploughing
appears to have become widespread, as shown by remains of implements as well as
plough-marks under barrows, and depictions of ploughing in the rock art of the period.
As populations grew and expanded, pressure on land increased, and agriculture spread.
Soil erosion also increased.
Another trend towards the end of the Bronze Age was a growing emphasis on
fortifications. Bronze armour and helmets, and new types of weapons such as the very
effective slashing sword, suggest that warfare had come to the fore.
Ebla was part of a flourishing north Syrian civilization contemporaneous with early Egypt
and Mesopotamia.
Excavations unearthed Ebla's royal archives, a collection of more than 14,000 inscriptions
on clay tablets dating from 2500-2200 BC. They were written in the cuneiform script
developed by Sumerians, but were adapted to the language of Ebla's Semitic inhabitants
Ebla was an important commercial
centre ruled by a merchant oligarchy
that elected a monarch and entrusted
the city's defence to paid soldiers. It was
a polytheistic society.
•Readers‖ Digest Vanished Civilizations, The Readers‖ Digest Association Limited, 2002
•Prehistoric human colonization of India, V N MISRA
•en.wikipedia.org
•www.handprint.com
•www.originsnet.org
•www.britannica.com
•maps.nationalgeographic.com
•archaeology.about.com
•ancientneareast.tripod.com
•www.history-world.org