Paleolithic, Meso and Neolithic Stage

2. PRE-HISTORY
• History tells the story of humankind.
• Historians mostly use written records to gather
information about the past.
• History is said to begin with the invention of writing
about 5,500 yrs. Ago.
• But the story of humankind really begins in the time
before people developed writing – the period called
pre-history.

3. PALEOLITHIC

5. PALEOLITHIC PERIOD
•Historians call the earliest period of human history the
old stone age, or the Paleolithic Period.
•They lived in small hunting and food-gathering bands
of about 20 to 30 people.
•Stone age people learned to adapt to their environment
for survival.
•Men and women made simple tools and weapon such
as digging sticks, spears and axes.
•They developed spoken languages , which let them
cooperate as they worked.

6. HUNTING and GATHERING
• Lived from hunting,
fishing and gathering
• Could not produce their
own food: predators
• Men: organized hunting
and fishing
• Women: Gathering
• Used meat for food, skins
for clothes and bones and
horns for tools

7. NOMADIC LIFE
• Nomads: they did not
live in a fixed place –
followed animals,
searched water, food
and shelter
• Lived outdoors – in
caves and huts
• Organized in small
tribes, made up of
members of the same
family

8. STONE AGE
•Tools and
objects of
stone
•Used to hunt,
cut animal’s
skin and
meat

9. TOOLS
• At first,
tools were
simple
sharpened
stones

10. TOOLS (II)
•Tools were
perfected
(using flint)
•Specialized
tools:
scrapers,
spear heads

11. TOOLS (III)
•And later,
new
materials
were used:
bone, horn

12. How were tools made?

13. Paleolithic bark canoes

14. • Home Erectus started to use
fire 500,000 years ago
• It was used to cook food,
heat and light caves and
huts, and drive wild
animals away
• Bonding

15. RITES and BELIEFS
• Believed in
supernatural forces
• Rites to ask
divinities for help
• Buried the dead….
But we don’t know
why.

16. PALEOLITHIC ART
• Around 30,000
years ago Homo
sapiens sapiens
began painting on
the walls of caves.
• It showed an
artistic sensibility

17. CHARACTERISTICS OF
PALEOLITHIC ART
• Animals were represented – deer, bison,
horses, mammoth
• the paintings were realistic – the rough
surface of the caves gave them a 3D effect
• Colours included red, brown, yellow &
black made from natural materials
• Animal hairs were used to make brushes

18. •At about the same time, theses early
humans also had learned how to make fire.
• Protected themselves from the weather
• Allow them to cook
• Enabled them to live in caves.

19. Why did they paint the cave? What do the paintings mean?

37. NEOLITHIC

38. NEOLITHIC
• It means “New Stone Age”
• Started around 8,000 BC
• New way of life: agriculture + sedentarism
• New technology: pottery, textiles, stone
polishing
• Neolithic centres: Fertile Crescent (Middle
East), Ganges river valley (India), SE Asia,
Mexico, Andes valleys

39. Where did agriculture start?

40. ‘Revolution’: a new way of life
FARMING SEDENTARY
LIFE VILLAGES
• Grow crops
like wheat,
barley, rye,
lentils, maize,
potatoes
• Domesticate
animals like
sheep, goats,
pigs
• When people
start to grown
their own food,
they don’t need
to move around
looking for food
• Look after crops
and animals
• Close to the
rivers (water to
irrigate crops
and drink)
• Protection
• Organization +
leader

41. A Neolithic Village

43. A Neolithic Activities

44. New Activities