Stone Age

I

Introduction

Stone Age, period of human technological development characterized by the use of stone as the principal raw material for tools. In a given geographic region, the Stone Age normally predated the invention or spread of metalworking technology. Human groups in different parts of the world began using stone tools at different times and abandoned stone for metal tools at different times. Broadly speaking, however, the Stone Age began roughly 2.5 million years ago, ended in some parts of the world 5,000 years ago, and ended in other regions much more recently. Today only a few isolated human populations rely largely on stone for their technologies, and that reliance is rapidly vanishing with the introduction of tools from the modern industrialized world.

Human ancestors living before the Stone Age likely used objects as tools, a behavior that scientists find today among chimpanzees. Wild chimpanzees in Africa exhibit a range of tool-using behaviors. For example, they use bent twigs to fish for termites, chewed wads of leaves to soak up liquid, and branches and stones as hammers, anvils, missiles, or clubs. However, when prehistoric humans began to make stone tools they became dramatically distinct from the rest of the animal world. Although other animals may use stone objects as simple tools, the intentional modification of stone into tools, as well as using tools to make other tools, appear to be behaviors unique to humans. This stone toolmaking and tool-using behavior became central to the way early humans adapted to their environment and almost certainly had a profound effect on human evolution.

Archaeologists believe the Stone Age began about 2.5 million years ago because that marks the age of the earliest stone tool remnants ever discovered. The earliest recognizable stone artifacts mark the beginnings of the archaeological record—that is, the sum total of material remnants of ancient human activities. As recently as 5,000 years ago all human societies on the face of the earth were essentially still living in the Stone Age. Therefore, over 99.8 percent of humans’ time as toolmakers—from 2.5 million years ago to 5,000 years ago—took place during the Stone Age. During the Stone Age our ancestors went through many different stages of biological and cultural evolution. It was long after our lineage became anatomically modern that we began to experiment with new innovations such as metallurgy, heralding the end of the Stone Age.

II

Study of the Stone Age

The term Stone Age has been used since the early 1800s as a designation for an earlier, prehistoric stage of human culture, one in which stone rather than metal tools were used. By the early 1800s various archaeological sites had been found in Europe that contained mysterious items from evidently earlier, prehistoric times. Christian Thomsen, curator of the National Museum in Copenhagen, Denmark, developed a classification scheme to organize the museum’s growing collections into three successive technological stages in the human past: Stone Age, Bronze Age, and Iron Age. This three-age classification was quickly adopted and spread not only among museums in Europe but also among excavators, who were able to identify Stone Age remnants that were found below Bronze Age remnants, which were in turn found below Iron Age remnants as they dug down through layers of deposits at their sites. The fact that Stone Age remnants were found at the bottom layers indicated that they were the oldest.

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A

General Concepts

The study of the Stone Age falls under the fields of anthropology, which is the study of human life and culture from the origins of human life up to the present, and archaeology, which is the study of the material remains of humans and human ancestors. Archaeologists seek out, explore, and study archaeological sites, locations around the world where historic or prehistoric people left behind traces of their activities. Archaeologists use the data collected to make theories about how human ancestors lived.

Archaeologists normally use the term artifact to refer to objects that have been modified by human action, either intentionally or unintentionally. The term tool is used to refer to something that has been used by a human or a human ancestor for some purpose and may be modified or not. For instance, a thrown rock is a tool, even if it was not modified. It is usually difficult to demonstrate that a particular stone artifact was used as a tool prehistorically, so in practice, archaeologists prefer to use the term artifact instead, especially in relation to the earlier stages of the Stone Age. Unused debris or waste from the manufacture of stone tools is also considered artifactual.

Stone artifacts are of great importance to archaeologists who study prehistoric humans, because they can yield a wide range of information about ancient peoples and their activities. Stone artifacts are, in fact, often the principal archaeological remnants that persist after the passage of time and as such can give important clues as to the presence or absence of ancient human populations in any given region or environment. Careful analysis of Stone Age sites can yield crucial information regarding the technology of prehistoric toolmakers, which in turn gives anthropologists insight into the levels of cognitive (thinking) ability at different stages of human evolution.

A

1

Human Evolution

Before the Stone Age, early human ancestors—called hominids—had already become bipedal, meaning that they walked upright on two legs. At the dawn of the Stone Age, there were two types of hominids: those who belonged to genus Homo and those who belonged to genus Australopithecus (called australopithecines). Over the course of the Stone Age, both evolved into new and different species. Early Homos evolved into forms such as Homo habilis, Homo rudolfensis, Homo erectus, Homo neanderthalensis (also called Neandertals), and, finally, Homo sapiens—modern humans (see Human Evolution).

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