Philosophy of Society

Philosophy of Culture

The Stone Age

The Stone Age is the earliest and longest period of human existence, commencing approximately 2.5 to 2.6 million years ago and concluding around 11,000 to 8,000 years ago. This era is traditionally divided into three phases. The first is the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age, a term coined by British archaeologist and politician John Lubbock in 1865. During the Early Paleolithic, which began 2.6 million years ago and ended 200,000 years ago, humans established their first settlements in East Africa, spread across Africa, reached China, and began to explore Europe. At this time, stone was the primary material for creating tools, and the earliest evidence of religious practices is found in burial rites. The Middle Paleolithic, spanning from 200,000 to 35,000 years ago, saw the emergence of two human types: Neanderthals, who were not Homo sapiens, and Cro-Magnons, the first representatives of Homo sapiens. These species coexisted and competed, with Neanderthals eventually becoming extinct while Cro-Magnons continued to evolve into modern humanity. Despite being considered more primitive, Neanderthals had their own culture, including burial rites and veneration of elders. The Late Paleolithic, around 35,000 years ago, marked the end of the Ice Age, which had covered northern regions with ice and allowed human migration across the globe. Lower sea levels facilitated crossings between continents, enabling the first humans to reach the Americas via the Bering Land Bridge and migrate from Asia to Oceania and Australia through similar land connections.

The second period of the Stone Age is the Mesolithic or Middle Stone Age, beginning around 10,000 BCE and ending around 6,000 BCE. The end of the last Ice Age brought significant climate changes that required human adaptation. During the Mesolithic, people greatly refined their tools, developing microliths (small stone tools), representing a notable cultural advancement.

The third period is the Neolithic or New Stone Age, spanning from 10,000 to 3,000 BCE. This era saw the emergence of new cultural forms, such as pottery, and the significant transition from a nomadic to a settled way of life. Early city-building began, with Jericho in present-day Israel, founded around 10,000 BCE, and Çatalhöyük in modern-day Turkey, established around 7,500 BCE, being among the oldest discovered cities. Jericho still exists today as the oldest city on Earth. The advent of urbanization was so pivotal that scholars refer to it as the Neolithic Revolution. Following Jericho and Çatalhöyük, numerous cities arose in the Near East, India, and China. By the beginning of the third millennium BCE, the first states had formed. People mastered agriculture, large-scale irrigation, and the construction of monumental architecture, some of which remains intact today. The formation of states and large-scale projects led to the development of complex social hierarchies and role distributions within society. Unlike the egalitarian roles in Paleolithic and Mesolithic hunting, construction and state governance required specialized functions: project planners, builders, leaders, and various roles for administration, defense, religious rituals, and cultural activities. The greatest achievement of the Neolithic was the invention of writing. The era before writing is known as prehistory, as it lacked the means to record events. History, as the recording of events, began with the advent of writing, transforming humanity from barbarism to civilization.

In the fourth and third millennia BCE, copper began to be used alongside stone. However, unlike later bronze and iron, copper did not replace stone tools, as it was unsuitable for making certain tools like arrowheads. Consequently, stone and copper were used concurrently. This led scholars to designate this period as the Chalcolithic or Copper-Stone Age, a transitional phase between the Stone and Bronze Ages.