A-level Notes History - The Stone Age Period

The Stone Age Period

The Stone Age refers to the period during which man made tools and weapons out of materials like wood,  bones and stones. As Beach (1980) states, the Stone Age period ended by about 1   000 AD on the Zimbabwean  plateau. The Stone Age period  has been divided into three main periods;  Early,  Middle and Late Stone Age. The Stone Age period was basically characterised  by hunter-gatherer societies until the birth of agricultural societies. The Khoisan were the characters of this period  in Zimbabwe.

Major Characteristics of the Stone Age Period

The Stone Age was characterised  by the use of rudimentary stone and wooden tools and weapons. These tools and weapons were inefficient.  Consequently, the Late Stone Age communities survived  largely on very limited  cultivation,  and heavily depended on what nature provided which was acquired through hunting and gathering.  Due to this, communities were very sedentary. This also suggest that there were higher levels of food insecurity which was the key reason why these communities comprised  of very small numbers of people of 10-20.  Society was largely egalitarian. The people gathered and hunted together and then share.

The Early Stone Age

The Early Stone Age period is also called the Paleolithic or the Long-Hand-Axe  period.  It is a period  in human prehistory, distinguished  by the original  development of stone tools that covers 99 percent of human technological  prehistory.  During this period,  people lived together in very small societies such as bands and subsisted by gathering plants and fishing,  hunting  or scavenging wild animals. The period  is characterised  by the use of knapped stone tools, although at the time humans also used wood and bone tools.  Other organic commodities were adapted for use as tools,  including leather and vegetable fibres; however, due to their nature, these have not been preserved to any great degree.

According to Lieberman (1991) during the end of the Paleolithic,  specifically the Middle or Upper Paleolithic,  humans began to produce the earliest works of art and began to engage in  religious and spiritual  behaviour such as burial  and ritual. The climate during this period, fluctuated  between warm and cool temperatures. As Gavashelishvili and Tarknishvili  (2016) state,  archaeological  and genetic data suggest that the source populations of Paleolithic humans survived  in sparsely wooded areas and dispersed through areas of high primary productivity while avoiding dense forest cover.

Way of Life of the Early Stone Age

The economy of a typical Paleolithic society was a hunter-gatherer economy. The people of that period hunted wild animals for meat and gathered food, firewood and materials for their tools, clothes and shelters.  Human population was extremely low, around only one person per square mile (McClellan,  2006). There are many explanations for that low

population. According to Schultz et al, this was most likely due to low body fat,  infanticide, women regularly engaging in intense endurance exercise,  late weaning of infants, and a nomadic lifestyle.  It should also be noted that the people of this period  did not take sexual activity as funny or a daily business,  but they valued it as an activity that was carried out for the purpose of child bearing. They understood their menstrual cycles and as such they knew when it was safe to go for sexual actions.  In addition to that their nature of life which was nomadic did not give much room for sexual activities.

Paleolithic humans enjoyed an abundance of leisure time unparalleled in farming societies and modern industrial societies. At the end of this period,  humans began to produce works of art such as cave paintings,  rock art and jewellery and began to engage in  religious behaviour such as burial and ritual.  People of this period were hunters and food gatherers, knowing nothing of agriculture or the domestication  of animals.  Fire was discovered at the end of the early Stone Age period.  Fire served many purposes.  It could be used to harden digging sticks before they were sharpened.  Fire was also used for cooking, which changed man's food from raw food to much more delicious cooked food.

Tools

 Tools for this period  included  hand axes and choppers. Although hand axes were used,

but, there is debate as to their uses.  Interpretations range from cutting and chopping tools, to digging implements, to flaking cores, to use in traps, and as a purely ritual significance. Hand axes were also effective weapons for defense against predators. Choppers and scrappers were likely used for skinning and butchering scavenged animals.  Sharp-ended sticks were often obtained for digging up edible roots. Wooden spears were also very common,  used for hunting small animals.  Later,  stone tipped spears were created by hafting sharp,  pointy stone flakes onto wooden shafts.

 Social Organisation

 Scientist disagree on whether humans of this period were monogamous or polygamous. Middle Paleolithic Societies lived  in groups that ranged from 20-30 or 25-100 members and were usually nomadic (Boehm,  1999). These bands were formed by several families and sometimes the bands joined together into larger ones for activities such as acquiring mates and celebrations or where resources were abundant.

Society was egalitarian.  Production of basic needs was collectively done and produces were shared among members,  (communism). There was no private ownership of property. There was division of labour based on sex. Women did the gathering of vegetables, fruits, roots and looked after children as well as households, while men basically went hunting.

Political Organisation

The people lived without states and organised governments. There were no chiefs or kings, thus decisions were taken communally by agreement. Decisions were just but consensual. Most of the Middle and Upper Paleolithic societies were possibly fundamentally egalitarian and may have rarely or never engaged in organised violence  (wars) between groups. According to Raymond (2005) the relative peacefulness of the Middle and Upper Paleolithic societies resulted from a low population density,  cooperative relationships between groups such as reciprocal exchange of commodities and collaboration  of hunting expeditions, and because the invention of projectile weapons such as throwing spears provided  less incentive for war,  because they increased the damage done to the attacker and decreased the relative amount of territory attackers could gain.  However,  other sources present quite some different perspectives. They claim that most Paleolithic groups may have been larger,  more complex, sedentary and warlike than most contemporary  hunter-gatherer societies, due to occupying more resource-abundant  areas  than most modern hunter-gatherers who have been pushed into more marginal  habitats by agricultural  societies.

The Middle Stone Age

The Middle Stone or the Mesolithic Age is an archaeological term used to describe specific cultures that fall  between the Early Stone/Paleolithic Age and the Late Stone/Neolithic Age Periods. The use of small  chipped stone tools called microliths are the key factor to identify the Mesolithic as a prehistoric period. The stone tools became advanced and more specialised than before.  Man discovered new and better ways of shaping stone and produced a greater variety of implements each designed for a specified use. There were tools for shaping wood,  cutting meat, scraping skins and so forth. The Mesolithic people likely continued the art forms developed during the upper Paleolithic Period,  including cave paintings,  and engravings, small sculptural artefacts.  Much more advanced spears were made by hafting a stone tool to a wooden spear,  thus creating valuable hunting weapons. The greater variety of stone tools equipped the Mesolithic people with  adequate defence mechanism to migrate to new geographical environment and some groups with a preponderance of wood working tools moved into more forested regions instead  of remaining in the open Savanna country of the Paleolithic Age.

Due to continued food shortages,  Mesolithic populations were often forced to become migrating  hunters and settle in rock shelters and cave. The use of fire and the knowledge on how to make it was by this time so wide-spread  in Southern Africa,  opening doors to easier ways of clearing bushes,  improving hunting methods and the working of wood. The use of fire enabled people to move to higher lands and further south. These areas had been avoided because of cold climates.  Fire served many functions; scaring animals,  preparing glue,  paint and gave the people light to stay in  caves and rock shelters.  Glue was used for securing spear-heads and arrow-heads.

The use of pigments specifically for body ornaments were originated. Archaeological evidence also shows that the Homo Sapien was now appearing.  Burial ceremonies became more important and pronounced during this period. Various types of Homo Sapien emerged, for instance the San hunter-gatherers. According to archaeological evidence, during this period,  people changed physically. The massive jaw muscles and strong teeth gradually became smaller since by the introduction  of fire, food chewed was now soft.

The Late Stone Age

The Late Stone Age is also known as Neolithic Age and was traditionally the last part of the Stone Age. The period ends when metal tools became widespread  in the Copper Age, Bronze Age or Iron Age depending on geographical  region. The people of this period were relatively still very few. There has been however,  some variations in terms of duration  of this period. Tindall (1968) states that the Late Stone Age ranges from 5500 to 2500 BC. Samukange (1968) gives a totally different duration of, from 10 000 BC.

The Late Stone Age was also characterised by smaller tools known as microliths such as scrapers, wooden handled crescent shaped knives and arrows. The invention of the bow and arrow during this period increased the capacity of the people to obtain increased quantities of food from the immediate environment. The Late Stone Age people also began using poison tipped arrows which were of great importance in hunting bigger animals which they however,  had to track since they did not die instantly. The people stayed in caves which is evidenced  by art of painting on rocks and cave walls. Archaeological evidence in the form of microliths tools that were left in the caves also proves beyond any reasonable doubt that the Late Stone Age people resided in caves.  Fishing was also practiced using bone-fish-hooks and nets.  Pottery for various uses such as cooking and storing water is thought to have been developed during this period.

Towards the end of the Late Stone Age,  man had learnt to use dogs for hunting and assist in shepherding flocks, thus marking the beginning of pastoralism. Archaeologists  believe that livestock rearing among the hunter-gatherers  in the Zimbabwean Highveld began one or two thousand years before Iron Age Farming culture and technology came from the north.  Domesticated animals included  cattle,  goats, sheep, which thus,  improved  people's diet and increased food security as well adding nutritious value as the people could then get milk from cattle. 

Man of the Late Stone Age became so artistic.  Painting on walls became a way to preserve their history as outstanding events were recorded, for instance, successful  hunting expeditions.  Paint was made of mineral  pigments mixed with urine and animal fat. The mixture was then heated to produce paint. The people continued to do work together, and share produces. They did not have much private property to allow for easy mobility since the nomadic way of life persisted. There was division of labour.  Crop cultivation which was still at a very micro scale was done by women. The wood and stone tools of the period could not effectively carry-out crop cultivation. The Late Stone Age people began to make thick clay pottery with a painted bottom and handles.