Human Prehistory: From Stone Tools to the Holocene

Prehistory: The Dawn of Humanity

Prehistory is a term used to refer to the first and longest phase or age into which human history has been divided by Eurocentric/Western academic tradition. It covers most of the human past, around 2.8 million years, since the appearance of the first member of the hominid family: *Homo habilis*, the first to make and devise tools made of stone. At the beginning of the 19th century, a Danish archaeologist, Christian Jürgensen Thomsen, concluded that objects and tools made of stone tended to be older than those made of metal. He divided this remote human past into two main phases: the Stone Age and the Metal Age.

Subdivisions of the Stone Age

A few decades later, another archaeologist, John Lubbock, after studying different prehistoric finds throughout Europe, concluded that there were different ways of creating these objects and tools, especially two: through knapping (carved stone) and through polishing (polished stone). He further concluded that the former style tended to be older than the latter, proposing to divide Thomsen's Stone Age into two major periods: Paleolithic and Neolithic.

Human Evolution: A Story of Adaptation

Human evolution is the result of chance. It is not a determined, directed process, but the result of natural changes, catastrophes, and adaptations to those changes that might not have occurred. These adaptations need not necessarily be the most appropriate ones, but those that made it possible to survive. Like many other hominids, humans were born in Africa and left the African continent to populate other regions of the planet, becoming the only hominid to occupy the entire planet. On this journey, humans would come into contact with other hominids that had emerged before and during their appearance. All of them will gradually disappear until the human being is left alone.

Life in the Paleolithic Era

During the Paleolithic period, the human population was nomadic, moving in small groups to safe places or places with abundant natural resources. They exploited these resources until they were exhausted and then resumed their march to a new settlement, generally near a water point. It is likely that during the Paleolithic period there was not a sexual division of labor (activities such as hunting associated with men and gathering and domestic activities carried out by women).

It is likely that neither sex nor gender was established at this time, and all members of the population would be engaged in all productive activities (mainly hunting and gathering). Aware of the importance of raising newborns, it is possible that during the first years (a much longer period of time than other mammals), the mothers dedicated themselves almost exclusively to raising and caring for the newborns, while the rest of the population replaced them in the different jobs. Once weaned, the mother would return to productive work, while the care of the infants would probably fall to the older members of the population.

Mesolithic: The Epilogue of the Paleolithic

Mesolithic is a kind of extension of the Paleolithic. In fact, the term Mesolithic is not commonly used anymore, and another term is used instead: Epipaleolithic, "the epilogue of the Paleolithic". During this period, there are no major changes in the human habitat, but there are circumstances that make it a period with its own characteristics.

The Holocene Epoch

The final phase of the Paleolithic coincides with the last Ice Age. But at the end of this Paleolithic and the beginning of the Mesolithic, the end of this last ice age occurred, and the period known as the Holocene started, characterized by stable temperatures, allowing ecosystems to flourish.