Primitive era of mankind.

Story human race has more than one thousand years, and the very first stage in the development of mankind is a primitive society. This is a huge historical layer, which originates from the appearance of the most ancient people and ends with the emergence of states and civilizations.

General characteristics of primitive society

The time of primitive society is not only the initial, but also the longest period in the history of the evolution of mankind, which covers more than two million years. During this time, primitive society went through a long way of development, during which the economic structure, social ties, norms of behavior, organization of power, and the ancient man's idea of ​​the world changed.

During this period, the formation of a physical type took place. modern man, various tools of labor were created, technologies for their manufacture were invented and improved. Through hard physical labor and gradual discoveries, primitive people managed to create a unique culture bit by bit, significantly enriching their spiritual life.

Rice. 1. Primitive man.

The main features of a primitive society include:

• collective work;
• tribal organization;
• lack of personal property;
• equal distribution of food and goods;
• primitive tools.

All the peoples of the world passed through the primitive system. There is no such civilization on the planet that would “jump” over this period of development. Despite the fact that primitive society has long sunk into summer, there are still small tribes on Earth that lead a characteristic way of life and retain remnants of the distant past.

Stages of primitive society

There are several types of chronicles of primitive society, among which are periodization by type of production, archaeological periodization, and some others.

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Very indicative is the division of the era of primitive society according to the type of organization of the social system. There are three stages, each of which has its own distinctive features:

• Primitive human herd. The initial stage of primitive society, during which the foundations of behavior and social relationships were laid. The main occupation of the members of the primitive herd is hunting and gathering, and they were led by the strongest and most successful hunter.
• It was a group of people united by blood relationship and running a joint household. Several communities living in the neighborhood made up a tribe. At this stage, ancient people began to expand their spheres of activity, mastering, in addition to the usual hunting and gathering, fishing, cattle breeding, and agriculture. New ways of processing natural materials and, accordingly, new types of tools and weapons. The management of the tribal community was in the hands of the oldest representative of the clan.

Rice. 2. Tribal community.

• Primitive neighborhood community. It was characterized by a more complex social structure, with an appropriating and producing economy, labor distribution, growing needs, the beginnings of individual property and social inequality. At the head of such a community was an elected leader.

Culture of primitive society

The primitive culture is characterized by stability and extremely slow pace of development. During this period, mankind managed to accumulate a huge amount of knowledge about the world around us: animals, plants, natural phenomena, properties of various materials.

Thanks to the knowledge gained, ancient people were successfully engaged in medicine, agriculture, they were well oriented in space in an unfamiliar area, they could predict changes in the weather.

The most important achievement of primitive culture was the emergence of primitive writing. At first, these were only primitive signs-symbols that were necessary to establish property and conduct business. Later, with the advent of the most ancient civilizations, they developed into a full-fledged written language.

The art of primitive society played a big role in the education of the younger generation and the transmission important information descendants. Of particular importance were petroglyphs - rock carvings that were carved on the surface of rocks or made using paints. The most popular were images of magical rites, hunting scenes, people and mythological creatures.

Rice. 3. Petroglyphs.

The most important type of primitive art was ornament - various lines, geometric shapes, primitive images of animals and plants, which were repeated in a certain sequence. The ornament served not only as an ornament: it was a sign of belonging to a particular tribe, protecting the owner from evil forces.

What have we learned?

When studying the topic “Primitive Society” under the program of the 6th grade of history, we learned briefly about the features of the era of primitive society: what characteristic features it possessed what time period it covered and into what periods it was divided. We also found out what achievements in the field of culture and art corresponded to this period in the development of human society.

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The primitive communal system is the first stage in the history of mankind, which began with the separation of man from the animal world and ended with the emergence of early states.

Chronology. The lower chronological limit, that is, the time of the beginning of the history of primitive society, is not exactly defined, is mobile, and, as we study early history humanity, recedes into the depths of millennia.

At present, some scientists believe that the most ancient man (and thus the primitive society) arose 1.5 - 1 million years ago, others attribute his appearance to the time of 2.6 million years ago. The upper chronological boundary, that is, the time of the end of the history of primitive society in different regions is different. In Asia and North East Africa the first early states formed at the end IV-beginning III millennium BC, in Europe - in the I millennium BC.

Periodization. The history of primitive society is divided into periods. Researchers use several periodizations, but the most common of them is considered to be archaeological. It is based on differences in the material and technique of making tools.

According to archaeological periodization The history of mankind is divided into stone, bronze and iron ages. The history of primitive society falls on stone Age. The Stone Age is divided into Paleolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic.

The Paleolithic (Old Stone Age) is subdivided into the Early Paleolithic (ends 100 thousand years ago), Middle Paleolithic (ends 40 thousand years ago) and Late Paleolithic (ends in the 10th millennium BC). The Mesolithic (Middle Stone Age) begins in the 9th millennium BC. and ends in the 7th millennium BC. The Neolithic (New Stone Age) begins in the 6th millennium BC. and ends at the end of the 3rd millennium BC, when in some regions of Western Asia people learned how to get bronze. The Bronze Age lasted until the beginning of the 1st millennium BC, when the Iron Age began.

The place of man in the animal world. Modern man belongs to the order of primates (as well as living apes), the family of hominids (or anthropomorphic), the genus Homo and the species sapiens. Homo habilis (handy man), Homo erectus (upright man), and Homo neanderthalensis (Neanderthal man) are the main fossil human species today.

Distinguishing humans from other primates. Man, as a biological species, is distinguished from other primates by upright walking, free upper limbs with a movable hand capable of fine manipulation, and a developed brain (in a modern person, it ranges on average from 1000 to 1800 cm.kb.). The main social difference of a person is his ability to work. Consequently, the basic criterion for identifying human remains among the skeletons of other primates is the tools found nearby.

The driving forces of anthropogenesis. Anthropogenesis is the process of the emergence of man and his development as a biological species. It is in this section of the science of primitive society that discussions have not ceased for two hundred years and fierce disputes have been going on. In particular, it is not completely clear how our distant ancestors developed "human" signs, that is, what are the driving forces of the process of anthropogenesis. Charles Darwin attached the greatest importance to sexual selection. According to his theory, the peculiar physical organization of a person was formed as a result of the selection by women of individuals who differed in certain advantages. As a result, in the process of reproduction, such men left the most numerous offspring, exerting a decisive influence on the development of the human race. However, it was not already clear to Darwin why exactly those and not other signs were affected. natural selection why the volume of the brain, hand, body proportions and so on change.

Friedrich Engels formulated the labor theory of anthropogenesis. Labor activity, according to F. Engels, was a powerful stimulus that transformed the appearance of a person: it led to upright posture and developed a hand; joint work gave rise to speech. However, as it turned out at the end of the 20th century, these factors are strongly separated in time: primates began to move on their hind limbs more than 5 million years ago, that is, when their brain was very primitive and there was no speech at all.

At the end of the 20th century, the “mutation theory” gained great popularity. The change in the physical organization of human ancestors is explained by the influence of ionizing radiation and the intense geomagnetic field of the Earth. The conditions for this arose in eastern Africa, where the East African Rift formed 20-10 million years ago, uranium mines were exposed, and mountain ranges isolated local primates.

At the same time, a cooling and desiccation of the climate occurred in East Africa, which led to a reduction in the area of ​​tropical forests and the spread of savannahs. Part of the large higher primates, being pushed into open areas, was forced to stand on their hind limbs and use their forelimbs to carry food, cubs, and also to protect themselves from predators.

It is possible that the change in the hereditary properties of a person was caused by the influence of inversion - a change in the magnetic poles of the Earth. In any case, researchers notice a certain correlation between the next inversion and a certain stage in the biological evolution of man. Despite the variety of theories, none of them can be considered the only correct one, explaining the complex process of anthropogenesis in the Early and Middle Paleolithic.

Stages of anthropogenesis. Primates evolved from mammals about 60 million years ago. Approximately 30 million years ago, higher primates appeared.

It is possible that Australopithecus monkeys were distant ancestors of modern man. The first Australopithecus (translated as "southern monkey") was discovered in 1924 in southern Africa in a lime quarry by the Australian explorer Raymond Dart. The main Australopithecus finds are still being made in Tanzania, in the Olduvai Gorge, which, in turn, is a section of the Great African Rift. They had a flat face, massive jaws, strongly pronounced brow ridges and a sloping forehead. The Australopithecus man is associated with upright posture and the absence of a diastema - the gap between the fangs and incisors. Australopithecus lived from 4 to 1 million years ago.

Australopithecus traditionally include Homo habilis (“handy man”), who lived 2.4-1.7 million years ago and had a brain volume of 600-680 cm3. The bones of the first "handy man" were found in 1960 in the Olduvai Gorge. When he was discovered, the first tools made from pieces of lava and quartz pebbles and dated back to 2 million 600 thousand years. For this reason, many paleoanthropologists consider Homo habilis to be the first human. Their opponents are sure that the found artifacts cannot be considered tools, since sharp working parts were obtained in the simplest way: by breaking a stone against a rock, or by splitting it with another stone. The activity of Homo habilis, they continue, was based not on the will and consciousness (as in humans), but on innate instincts. For this reason, the activity of a “handy man” can be considered not labor, but only pro-tool, and he himself cannot be considered a man in our understanding.

Australopithecus was replaced by archanthropes (the oldest people), represented by Pithecanthropes and Sinanthropes. At the International Conference in 1962, they were assigned to Homo erectus ("upright man").

Pithecanthropus is the first creature that accurately made tools, which means that it can be confidently ranked among people. The first Pithecanthropus was found in late XIX on about. Java by the Dutch physician Eugene Dubois. Pithecanthropes lived in the time interval from 1 million 800 thousand years to 1 million years ago. Compared with Australopithecus, the volume of the Pithecanthropus brain increased significantly and averaged 900 cm3. Pithecanthropus had a sloping forehead with prominent brow ridges and an angular nape. But sweat glands are already appearing on his body and the hairline is disappearing.

Sinanthropus was discovered in 1929 in China by the English anatomist Davidson Black. In a cave, 50 km from Beijing, the Black expedition unearthed the bones of more than 40 individuals - a whole camp of ancient hunters. Sinanthropus lived 350-400 thousand years ago, his brain volume was, on average, 1000 kb. see Sinanthropus had permanent places habitat and, judging by the bones found, collectively hunted large animals - deer, gazelles, wild horses, buffaloes and rhinos. It is possible that Sinanthropus spoke articulately and, importantly, widely used fire: a layer of compressed ash up to 7 meters thick was preserved in the cave.

The parking lot of archanthropes was also found in Altai - in the valley of the river. Anui, Ust-Kansky district (Karama site).

Archanthropes widely used stone tools - hand axes, pointed and side-scrapers. They led an appropriating economy: they were engaged in gathering and collective hunting. They lived in caves, and in open areas - in light dwellings made of tree branches.

Neanderthal. Neanderthals (paleoanthropes, Homo neanderthalensis) appear about 130 thousand years ago. The first Neanderthal man was discovered in 1856 in the Neandertal Valley in West Germany. The Neanderthal man lived during the Wurm glaciation and many of his physical features formed under the influence of the most difficult living conditions. The morphology of the Neanderthal is characterized by power adaptation: a massive skeleton and skull were supplemented by a large muscle mass. Along with this, he had a completely modern brain with an average volume of 1200-1600 kb. see with developed frontal lobes responsible for logical thinking. Without a doubt, the Neanderthal also possessed articulate speech. Thanks to this, Homo neanderthalensis spread over a vast territory. Its sites have been found in tropical Africa and Japan, China, India, Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran, Turkey and Western Europe, the Caucasus, Central Asia, Mongolia and southern Siberia. In Altai, Neanderthals lived in the Ust-Kanskaya and Denisova caves, traces of his activity were found on Ulalinka.

Economic activity of Neanderthals. Neanderthals were still engaged in an appropriating economy: gathering, driven hunting and, to a limited extent, fishing. The main object of hunting becomes any one type of animal. They make extensive use of flint, with flint blades being chipped off disc-shaped cores. Nucleus - a specially prepared piece of stone of a certain shape, from which plates were chipped or pressed to make tools. Neanderthals also use composite tools - throwing spears with inserted flint tips. In addition to stone and wood, Neanderthals used a new material - bone. They lived in caves and in artificial structures. The caves are now being improved: the floor was covered with pebbles that protected from dampness, and a windproof wall was being built inside the cave. It has been fully proven that in a cold climate, Neanderthals learned how to make fire and make clothes from animal skins. Burials with traces of ritual suggest that Neanderthals had primitive religious ideas.

Neanderthal problem. It is difficult to say whether modern man is a descendant of the Neanderthal, or whether he arose through the hybridization of various species: Neanderthal, Yunxiang, Sinanthropus, and so on.

Until the beginning of the 80s. 20th century it was generally accepted that a modern-looking man (Cro-Magnon) appeared 40-35 thousand years ago. But since the end of the 20th century paleoanthropologists began to make sensational discoveries in Africa. It turned out that people morphologically close to modern sapiens appeared south of the Sahara at least 100 thousand years ago. The penetration of small groups of modern humans (Homo sapiens) outside Africa into Southwest Asia begins 60-50 thousand years ago. This first group of sapiens interbred with Neanderthals, and for this reason, modern humans have 2.5% of Neanderthal genes (2011 research data). In Asia, Homo sapiens appeared massively about 45 thousand years ago, and 35-40 thousand years ago it began to populate Europe. With the advent of modern man, anthropogenesis ended.

Denisovans. Paleoanthropological finds in Denisova Cave Gorny Altai allow us to distinguish, in addition to sapiens and Neanderthals, another human population - the "Denisovites". DNA analysis done in 2010 shows that Denisovans were a little closer to Neanderthals than we are and are the ancestors of modern Melanesians (inhabitants of New Guinea and the islands to its east).

Sociogenesis. Communal tribal system. Sociogenesis implies the formation and development of primitive society. Archanthropes and paleoanthropes united in ancestral communities - primitive human herds. The period of the fore-community was the longest in the history of mankind. The emergence of ancestral communities is explained by the conditions of life under which the single existence of an individual was ruled out in principle. Indeed, gathering provided low-calorie food and took a lot of time, and battue hunting for large game or fast herd animals was possible only as part of a relatively large and close-knit team. This team consisted of about 20 people. Separately, the ancestral community of the Neanderthal man is singled out - more united and numerous.

With the advent of modern man (the time of the late Paleolithic), the era of the communal-tribal system begins. It is divided into periods of the early primitive community (Late Paleolithic-Mesolithic) and the late primitive community (Neolithic), and ends with the decomposition of primitive society and the emergence of early states. The reasons for the emergence of a communal-tribal system are usually considered all the same battue hunting, as well as new conditions for economic life. In particular, the emergence of complex tools and the accumulation of rich experience required not episodic, as before, but constant communication between different generations of relatives. The emergence of a more sociable Homo sapiens, as well as its transition to a relatively settled way of life, became the prerequisites for the formation of a communal-clan system.

The communal-tribal system implies the existence of a clan - a collective of blood relatives who have realized their kinship along one line - male or female. The clan was considered the owner of the fishing area - hunting grounds and the river, later - arable land and pastures. A tribal community is understood as an economic organization consisting of one or more clans and aliens. Husbands who settled in the family of the spouse, or third-party people more often became strangers.

The clan was governed on the basis of the principles of tribal democracy. supreme body management was a meeting of all adult relatives. At the meeting, the main issues of economic and religious life were decided, leaders were elected from authoritative and experienced people.

There was no division of power into economic, military, judicial, and there was no apparatus of coercion: if necessary, the offender was punished by the collective itself.

In the period of the late primitive community, tribes arise. A tribe is a large social-territorial unit that unites several communities. It is characterized by a common territory, language, cultural and sacred life.

Maternal tribal community. The early primitive communities of the late Paleolithic-Mesolithic were, as a rule, maternal tribal communities and had a maternal kinship account.

The causes of matriarchy lie in the peculiarities of economic life and marital relations. In the economy of the early tribal community, the labor of a woman was of great importance. She was engaged in gathering, giving (as opposed to hunting) guaranteed food, looked after housing, hearth and children, stored and processed food. At the stage of early farming, the position of a woman in the community was further strengthened: being engaged in hoe farming, she became the main supplier of grain - a staple product.

Family and marriage relations in the early primitive community. The priority of women in family and marriage relations was even more convincing. With the emergence of the communal-tribal system, exogamous group marriage spread. It implies the prohibition of marriage relations within the genus (agamiya) and the permission to enter into marriage relations with representatives of another specific genus. Two clans, united by marriage relations at the beginning, formed a tribe. At the same time, economic activity even within the tribe was carried out by such clans separately. Marriage relations at the stage of exogamous group marriage, as a rule, were episodic, and the born child remained with the mother. For this reason, group marriage implied group kinship: fathers were called all men of a neighboring clan of a certain age, and mothers - all women of their own clan, belonging to the age class of the biological mother.

With the transition to pair marriage, families arise. Since the property of the clan was essentially female, the husband passed to the tribal community to his wife. The paired family was fragile: the spouses often worked separately, did not have family property (each used the property of his family), the children belonged to the maternal family and were brought up by all her relatives. Exogamous group and pair marriages strengthened the dominance of women in the early primitive community.

Collectivism was inherent in the early primitive tribal community. It manifested itself in the form of ownership (land, hunting grounds, fishing dams, dwellings, boats, etc. belonged to women of the clan), in production activities (compulsory collective labor was practiced) and in collective consumption. A reciprocal exchange was practiced: each community member contributed as much as he could to the “common pot”, and received as much as he was supposed to. The difference between what was contributed and what was received was compensated by an increase or decrease in personal prestige.

The development of productive forces in the early primitive community. During the Late Paleolithic period, the technique of stone processing becomes more complicated: flint plates are now chipped off from prismatic cores. Composite tools are widespread - a spear with a flint tip and a knife with a handle. Specialized tools appear: a harpoon and fishhooks made of bone, a sling and a boomerang. Man learned to sew clothes and make shoes. Hunting, especially battling, has become highly effective. At the sites of this time, archaeologists find huge accumulations of bones of large animals: at the Amvrosievskaya site alone, about 1 thousand bison were found, driven into a ravine and destroyed there. The growth of labor productivity contributed to the growth of the population, and the extermination of game animals caused its migration to the north of Eurasia, to America, to the Japanese islands.

At the beginning of the Mesolithic in the Northern Hemisphere, ice Age and the modern climate is established. The flora and fauna are changing, hunting resources are depleted: instead of large animals, vast territories began to be inhabited by relatively small and non-herd animals - elks, wild boars, roe deer and others. In these conditions essential had the invention of a bow - the first mechanical tool. A quick-firing and long-range bow made it possible to hunt small fast animals, as well as birds, and increased the chances of a person to survive.

Knife-like plates are now chipped from pencil-shaped cores, the size and shape of which are similar to a pencil. The edges of such plates, surprisingly even, were from 0.5 to 1.5 cm wide. Microliths are widespread - processed flint chips 1-2 cm long, which are used as parts of composite tools - liners for knives and sickles. Macroliths are widely used - stone axe, adze and chisel. During the Mesolithic period, a person learned to make one-tree boats, nets with floats, sledges, skis and baubles.

late primitive community. During the Neolithic period, man learned to drill, polish and grind stone. He invents ceramic production, spinning and weaving, discovers the smelting of copper. New means of transportation appear - wheeled transport and a sailboat.

Transition to a manufacturing economy. At this time, there is a transition of a person to a productive economy - to agriculture and animal husbandry (domestication). The reasons for domestication are usually seen in the desire of a person to provide himself with a guaranteed product, reducing his dependence on blind chance and the vagaries of nature. The transition to animal husbandry in a number of regions is explained by the decline in the number of wild animals due to the high efficiency of the appropriating economy, or the drying up of the climate.

Stages of formation and development of agriculture.

First stage. Highly organized collection. At this stage, a person only helped nature, caring for wild plants: watered wild cereals, transplanted fruit plants closer to housing and cut dry branches, cut down bushes that interfered, and so on.

Second phase. Hoe farming. The main tool at this stage is a hoe, later equipped with a metal working part. Hoe farming, as a rule, was carried out by a woman who was traditionally associated with plants and knew them well. For this reason, the position of women in the tribal community at the stage of hoe farming was significantly strengthened.

Third stage. Arable (plough) agriculture. The main tool of labor at this stage is a plow drawn by draft cattle. Plow farming was practiced everywhere by men who have long associated life with animals.

The peoples of Western Asia began to switch to agriculture from the 8th millennium BC, Mesoamerica and the Peruvian Andes - from the 4th millennium BC.

Human domestication of animals. The first domestic bulls, apparently, appeared on the territory of modern Iran and Iraq in the 4th millennium BC, goats and sheep - in Western Asia in the 6th millennium BC. The domestication of a horse (descended from a wild tarpan) took place on the territory from the Dnieper to the Urals in the 4th millennium BC. - much earlier than in Western Europe. However, some researchers (P.A. Lazarev and others) suggest the existence of an independent center of horse breeding in Yakutia.

Consequences of the transition of man to a productive economy. Thanks to the transition of mankind to agriculture and animal husbandry, food production has stabilized, and this has increased life expectancy and the population of the Earth. Farmers finally switched to a settled way of life, began to build cities and create the first civilizations. The productive economy made it possible to obtain a regular surplus, and then a surplus product, and this, in turn, led to the formation of early states.

Family and marriage relations in the late primitive community. Domestication caused fateful changes for mankind in family and marriage relations. With the development of arable farming and animal husbandry in the Late Neolithic, the role of male labor increased. Moreover, all the main means of production (cattle, pastures, arable land, agricultural and handicraft tools) are used exclusively by men, become men's property and could be transferred within the tribal community only through the male line. Since the tribal community was interested in preserving their men, there is a transition from the matrilocal to the patrilocal settlement of the spouses: now not the husband, but the wife is forever sent to the spouse's community. The process of transition to a patrilocal settlement was lengthy and gave rise to intermediate compromise forms. With the emergence of family property (and it was originally the property of men), there is a transition from pair marriage to an incomparably stronger monogamous marriage. Monogamous marriage in a primitive society excluded extramarital affairs for a woman and provided for divorce at the initiative of a woman only in exceptional cases.

A large patriarchal family arises, which included several generations of male relatives, their wives and children. At the head of the patriarchal family was the eldest man (patriarch), who had the widest power over the household. Later, slaves began to be included in the patriarchal family, occupying the position of the younger members of the family there.

The development of the productive economy (agriculture and animal husbandry) led to the first and second social divisions of labor.

The first social division of labor. It consists in separating pastoral and agricultural tribes from complex farms.

The reasons for the first social division of labor are usually seen in population growth (demographic theory) or in the drying up of the climate (climatic theory). In the first case, the surplus population, forced out into natural areas unsuitable for farming, switched to cattle breeding. In the second case, the tribes that had previously been engaged in complex farming were forced to become pastoralists. The emergence of cattle breeding was also facilitated by technical achievements, first of all - a lifting wheeled cart with a metal axle and a collapsible dwelling (yurt).

Second social division of labor. It consists in the separation of crafts from agriculture, that is, in the emergence of professional artisans.

The reason for the second social division of labor was the complication technological process in metalworking, pottery, leather and weaving. Now the occupation of the craft required a lot of time, money and great experience from the community member and did not allow him to provide himself with food in full. The first professional artisans, apparently, were gunsmiths and jewelers.

Consequences of the first and second social division of labor. There is a regular economic exchange between communities (a consequence of the first division of labor) and within communities (a consequence of the second division of labor). Economic exchange led to the emergence of the first measures of value and to the improvement of means of communication - roads, wheeled and water transport. The deepening of professional specialization caused an increase in labor productivity and product quality. And, finally, regular economic exchange caused the growth of wealth inequality and contributed to the beginning of the process of politogenesis.

Politogenesis in the late primitive community. In the late primitive community, a conflict arose between the growth of labor productivity and traditional community psychology. The fact is that the excess product, the ability and desire to receive it caused discontent and persecution of relatives. The community, seeking to maintain property equality, introduced a number of restrictions. In particular, a maximum of personal property was set, and the resulting excess product was periodically destroyed or donated to neighbors. This is how a prestigious economy arises - prestigious feasts and gift exchanges between relatives and friendly communities. In this way, the contradiction between the growth of productive forces and the primitive mentality was resolved within the framework of the traditional worldview.

In the late primitive community, a significant part of the surplus product began to be concentrated in the hands of leaders and tribal nobility. The tribal nobility kept the surplus product, accumulating it for prestigious feasts and disposing of it in the interests of their relatives. For the performance of judicial, priestly and peacekeeping affairs, she received voluntary offerings of food and handicrafts.

The surplus product in the late primitive society was obtained in the course of intercommunal and intracommunal exploitation. Chronologically, the earliest, inter-communal exploitation, was carried out in the form of predatory wars, the collection of tribute and indemnity. At the same time, not only the excess product was confiscated from weak tribes, but also part of the product they needed.

The predatory wars intensified the property stratification within the tribe, accelerated the process of the formation of private property and made significant changes in psychology. War and military robbery began to be considered worthy men occupation, a kind of labor that brought a fair income. In the warring tribes, groups of professional warriors are distinguished, headed by military leaders. Using great authority in the tribe, they influence the decision of the people's assembly and oppose the traditional tribal nobility in the struggle for power. At the same time, the power of the military leader is based not so much on the authority of traditions, but on the strength of the squad, on personal wealth and on the dependence of community members on it. This is a military version of politogenesis - the formation of a new type of power and control, culminating in the emergence of an early state. The struggle between the new aristocracy and the tribal traditional nobility usually ended in the victory of the new aristocracy, headed by a military leader, or in a compromise favorable to it. The military version of politogenesis provides, first of all, intercommunal exploitation.

The aristocratic version of politogenesis is based on the strengthening of the positions of the traditional tribal nobility (elders and priests), which removes ordinary community members from power. Since the power of the traditional aristocracy is sanctified by religion and tradition, they receive the right to life and death of their kindred. Military leaders were chosen only if necessary from the tribal nobility and did not have a significant impact on the life of the tribal community. The aristocratic version of politogenesis provides for the spread of intracommunal exploitation.

The forms of intra-communal exploitation during the period of decomposition of primitive society are debt slavery, working off and sharecropping. Debt slavery was at first non-hereditary and temporary, until the debt was paid off. The debtor, bound by working off, worked off his debt in the economy of the lender. Sharecropping provides for the work of the debtor in his economy and the payment of part of the product received to the lender on account of the debt.

The process of politogenesis stretched for hundreds of years and ended with the formation of early states in the ancient East.

Introduction

There are two periods in the history of mankind - the primitive and the period of the existence of complexly organized class societies. The first of them lasted many hundreds of thousands of years, the second - not for long. In primitive times, man became a man in the full sense of the word, his culture arose. Collectives of people were relatively small and simply organized, with a primitive way of life, which is why they are called primary - primitive. At first, people, in order to get their own food, were engaged in gathering and hunting, using stone tools. Then they began to grow the plants they needed for themselves, breed domestic animals, build dwellings, and create settlements.

People in primitive communities were equal in their position, with the same rights and obligations, among them there were no rich and poor. Relations between families and individuals were determined by kinship, and the norm in this society was help and mutual support.

According to the materials from which people made tools, archaeologists divide history into three "ages": stone, bronze and iron. The Stone Age was the longest - about 2.5 million years ago, and ended 3 thousand years BC. The Bronze Age lasted more than 2.5 thousand years, and approximately in the middle II thousand BC The Iron Age is upon us, and we are living in it. These ages, especially the Bronze and Iron Ages, did not come at the same time in different regions of the Earth, somewhere earlier, somewhere later.

Now it is hard to believe it, but a little over a hundred years ago, people believed that their appearance had remained unchanged since the appearance of man. They were considered the descendants of the first man and the first woman who were created by the gods, regardless of whether they were the gods of Christians, Muslims or followers of the teachings of the Buddha. When human bones were found during excavations that differed from modern ones, they were considered the remains of especially strong people or, conversely, sick. In the 40s. of the last century, the bones of one of the ancestors of modern man, a Neanderthal man, were found in Germany, who were mistaken for the remains of a Russian Cossack, a participant Napoleonic Wars, and one respected scientist said that these were the bones of a sick old man, who, moreover, was hit several times on the head.

ATIn 1859, Charles Darwin's book "The Origin of Species" was published, which did not talk about the origin of man, but suggested that man, like other living beings, could also change, develop from simpler to more complex forms. From that moment on, a struggle began between those who considered it possible for a human to originate from an ape, and their opponents. Of course, it was not about the gorillas, chimpanzees or orangutans known to us, but about some extinct species, ancestors common to humans and monkeys.

Primitive

1.1. Primitive.

In XIX in. very few remains of the skeletons of the most ancient people were known. Now many of them have been discovered. The oldest ones were found in Africa, therefore it is believed that it was on this continent that the evolution of great apes, which lasted many millions of years, led to the appearance of man. 3.5-1.8 million years ago, the steppes of Africa were already roaming creatures, which were named Australopithecus-mi- southern monkeys. They had a small brain and massive jaws, but they could already move in an upright position and hold a stick or stone in their hands.

Scientists believe that the first stone tools appeared about 2.5 million years ago. These were stones with sharp edges and flakes from them. Such tools could cut a branch, skin a dead animal, split a bone, or dig a root out of the ground. The one who made them got the name "skillful man" ( homo habilis ). Now he is considered the first representative of the human race.

The “handy man” moved on his feet, and his hands were adapted to not only hold a stick or stone, but also to make tools. These ancient people did not yet know how to speak; like monkeys, they gave each other signals with cries, gestures, grimaces. In addition to plant foods, they ate the meat of animals that they probably hunted. Their groups were small and consisted of several males, females with cubs and adolescents.

Appeared about 1 million years ago the new kind - "straight man" ( Homo erectus ), Pithecan Trope, those. ape-man. This creature still resembled its animal ancestors. It was covered with hair, had a low forehead and strongly protruding brow ridges. But the size of his brain was already quite large, approaching the size of the brain of a modern person. The “straightened man” learned to make various stone tools - large regular-shaped axes, scrapers, chisels (See Appendix 1.2). With such tools it was possible to chop, cut, plan, dig, kill animals, remove skins from them, butcher carcasses.

The development of labor skills, the ability to think, to plan their activities allowed these people to adapt to life in different climatic conditions. They lived in cold areas North China and Europe, in the tropics of the island of Java, the steppes of Africa. During the existence of the “rectified man”, the Ice Age began. Due to the formation of glaciers, the level of the World Ocean dropped, land “bridges” arose between the previously separated water areas, over which people could penetrate, for example, to the island of Java, where the first bones of Pithecanthropus were found .

The camps were located along the banks of rivers and lakes, in places where large herds of animals lived. Pithekan-trops sometimes lived in caves, but not in the depths, where it was dangerous, but at the exit. Bold hunters, whose prey was large and strong animals, drove herds of deer, bulls, elephants to cliffs, ravines or gorges, where they killed them with spears and stones. The bull was divided among everyone. primitive people they began to use fire, which warmed them, protected them from animals and helped them hunt. On the fire they began to cook food that was previously eaten raw.

O hota on large animals, protection from dangers, relocation to new territories - all this required the combined efforts of many people. Their teams had to be sufficiently numerous and cohesive. The complication of the way of life led to the fact that the elders began to teach the younger ones, and teenagers stayed longer than before with their parents and relatives. These people already knew how to speak. And yet, both their physical development and the development of culture went very slowly: Pithecanthropes, like the tools they created, almost unchanged, existed for about 1 million years.

1.2. Neanderthals.

The impact of the natural environment and the complication of human activities led to the appearance of an ancient variety about 250 thousand years ago "reasonable man" - Neanderthal(by the name of the German valley Neandertal, where his remains were first discovered). He already differed little from modern man, although he was roughly built, had a low forehead and a sloping chin. According to one scientist, he would not want to meet such a creature at night in a city park. But these people had a more lively mind and adapted better to the difficult conditions of the ice age than their predecessors, the Pithecan Tropes, who eventually died out.

Neanderthals began to populate the previously deserted areas of southern Europe, Asia, and Africa. They climbed into the caves, where huge cave bears went to hibernate in the winter. The height of these animals reached 2.5 m, length -

3 m, and such large animals were killed by people armed with spears, stones, clubs. Huge accumulations of bear bones have been found in caves in Germany, Switzerland, Austria and other countries.

The Neanderthals improved the tools invented by the Pithecanthropes. Their form has become more regular and varied. Neanderthals wore clothes made of skins and knew how to build simple dwellings, and about 60 thousand years ago they learned how to make fire. The pace of development is accelerating: the technique of stone processing is now being improved much faster than before. Let's remember how long the tools of the Pithecanthropes existed, and the tools made by the Neanderthals were in use for 70 thousand years, after which they were replaced by more advanced ones.

The rather high level of development of the Neanderthals and their culture can be judged by the fact that the tools in different areas of the Earth inhabited by them were no longer as identical as before. At this time, one of the features of human culture begins to take shape - its diversity. At the same time, some signs of physical differences between the inhabitants of different regions appear, and races are formed.

Relationships between people in the groups that Neanderthals lived in are becoming stronger. Realizing that they belong to a chain of successive generations, people began to bury their dead. Some animals also do not abandon their dead relatives: for example, elephants throw branches at them. Perhaps the ancestors of the Neanderthals also hid their dead. People specially dug pits where they put the dead. Often burials, and numerous ones, were made in caves. Everyone was buried - women, children, old hunters. Often such burials were surrounded by stones, weapons were left in them, the skull of some small animal, even flowers. The remains were sprinkled with red ocher or pieces of this mineral were placed next to the deceased. Probably, red color was already perceived as the color of life.

People not only realized the need to take care of the weak and sick, they got the opportunity to do so. In order for a seriously wounded person to recover, it was necessary to take care of him, to share food with him. Skeletons of obviously seriously ill people are found in the burials, and in one of them the remains of a man without an arm were found. This means that people could already get enough food to feed not only growing children, but also weak, sick, old people. Probably, in such conditions, ideas about good and bad in relation to people began to form, i.e. moral standards.

Neanderthals were the first people about whom we can say that they performed some kind of rites. In the caves they find specially collected and even arranged in a certain order the skulls of bears. Around them, apparently, there were some rituals. It is noteworthy that human skulls were also treated in a special way: separate burials of skulls were found in special pits.

1.3. "Reasonable Man".

Problematic are the questions of which of the oldest hominids should be attributed to the earliest forms of Homo sapiens and when they appeared. There is an opinion that the time of their occurrence is not 40 thousand years ago, as is commonly believed, but 100 thousand years or even more. As many researchers believe, between homo sapiens and Neanderthals lack biological and cultural barriers.

It is also not entirely clear how the Neanderthal was replaced by modern humans. It is known that he appeared as if suddenly in Europe, Southeast Asia and Africa. Skeletons of Neanderthals were found in Palestine, more developed than their other relatives, already possessing the signs of a person who was formerly called Cro-Magnon, and now they prefer a more general name - "modern man type". (He is called in Latin homo sapiens sapiens - as if "a man twice intelligent" in comparison with the Neanderthal, which is only ho-mo sapiens neandertalensis - “reasonable non-Anderthal man.”) People who replaced the Neanderthals 40-30 thousand years ago (100 thousand years ago) no longer had the features that gave their predecessors a somewhat animal-like appearance: their hands became less powerful, the forehead is higher, they have a chin protrusion.

The emergence of modern man coincides with the beginning last period the ancient Stone Age - about 35 thousand years ago. In this era, which did not last long compared to the previous ones - only 23-25 ​​thousand years, people settled on all continents, except, of course, Antarctica. Through the "bridges" that arose due to glaciation, they penetrated into Australia. This happened, as is believed, about 20 thousand years ago. Probably, America was settled 40-10 thousand years ago: one of the ways people penetrated there was the bottom of the Bering Strait, which was land.

At that time, the technique of making stone tools reached a very high level of development. Many of them were now made from regular-shaped plates, which were separated, "squeezed out" from the prismatic-shaped cores. Plates of different sizes were subjected to additional processing, blunting the edges or removing thin scales from the surface using a bone or wooden tool. The most suitable stone for making tools was flint, which is often found in nature. Other minerals were also used, which easily split, were quite hard and fine-grained. Some knife-like plates were so sharp that they could be shaved. The technique of making tools and weapons became virtuoso. It was at this time that the forms of many things were formed, which later began to be made of metal: spearheads, daggers, knives.

Bone tools - awls, needles - began to be widely used. A device was made from bone and horn, which made it possible to increase the flight range of a spear - a spear thrower. Bone products were decorated with carvings - ornaments or images of animals, which, it was believed, gave them a special power.

In this era, onions appeared in some places. In total, about 150 types of stone and 20 types of bone tools of the Late Old Stone Age are known.

It was the time of the last glaciation. Herds of mammoths, woolly horns, and bison grazed where the cities of France, Spain, and southern Russia are now located. Following the herds of animals, communities consisting of small families moved - father, mother, children. Hunting for animals provided not only meat, but also material for making tools and ornaments. Our ancestors were especially fond of necklaces made of animal teeth. They were also engaged in catching fish, which was abundant in rivers and lakes.

People now lived not only in caves or grottoes, but also in parking lots, in solid dwellings. The material for the buildings, probably, was often wood and skins, but the ruins of semi-dugouts made of mammoth bones have come down to us. Huge bones and tusks were used to build or frame a dwelling, which was then covered with skins, branches, and partially covered with earth. The ruins of such large dwellings, which belonged to several families, were found during excavations near Voronezh and in Ukraine.

Chapter 2. The emergence of human society.

2.1.Pracommunity (primitive human herd).

The historical reconstruction of the original human society is perhaps the most difficult problem of primitive history. In the absence of any direct parallels, it can only be judged on the basis of indirect data. This, on the one hand, is our information about herd relationships among monkeys, on the other hand, some facts of archeology and anthropology, as well as those facts of ethnology that, with a greater or lesser degree of probability, can be considered as remnants of the most ancient, before the sapiens state. humanity. Comparison and analysis of all these data make it possible to draw up a general, although in many respects hypothetical, idea of public life of that time, but, of course, and leave room for numerous ambiguities, purely logical conjectures, controversial assumptions.

As already mentioned, initial form the organization of society in domestic science is often called the “primitive human herd”, At the same time, some scientists believe that the use of this term is unlawful, since it combines incompatible concepts - the herd nature of relationships is attributed to primitive human groups, therefore, it is allowed vulgarization, biologization of the processes of social development. But this objection is hardly sound. The term "primitive human herd" just well conveys the dialectical originality of the organization of the most ancient and ancient people, its transitional state from the pre-human herd of animals to the "ready", formed society. Therefore, using here, like many other specialists, the term "primordial community", we are guided only by the fact that it is shorter and more convenient.

What chronological boundaries dates from the era of the fore-community? Its beginning, obviously, coincides with the separation of man from the animal world and the formation of society. There is no doubt that the emergence of goal-setting labor activity was associated not only with a change in man's attitude to nature, but also with a change in relations between members of the original human collective. Thus, the beginning of the era of the fore-community coincides with the appearance of quite consciously manufactured and used tools. The final frontier of the era of the fore-community was the emergence of a “ready-made” human society to replace it - the communal system. Back in the early 1930s, archaeologists P.P. Efimenko and P.I. Boriskovsky suggested that the transition to the communal system occurred at the turn of the Late Paleolithic. New archaeological finds do not refute this assumption, but allow us to assume that the transition from the fore-community to the community could have occurred earlier. Consequently, the end of the epoch of the proto-community coincides with the transition from the Early to the Middle or Late Paleolithic. New data still needs to be comprehended, and here we will adhere to the previous synchronization of the era of the fore-community.

The progressive development of stone tools, the change in the physical type of man himself, and, finally, the fact that the communal system could not arise immediately, in finished form - all this shows that the ancestral community was not a uniform form frozen in time. Therefore, one often distinguishes between the early protocommunity of the most ancient people and the more developed protocommunity of the Neanderthals. Some scholars even call this later ancestral community of Neanderthals special terms (“primitive community”, etc.).

The ancestral community was, apparently, a small group of people. It is unlikely that a large group could feed themselves with the weak technical equipment of the Early Paleolithic man and the difficulty of obtaining food. Gathering requires a lot of time, and provides relatively little food, moreover, most often low-calorie; as for the hunting of large animals, already known to primitive man, it was associated with great difficulties, was accompanied by many victims and was not always successful. Thus, it is difficult to imagine that the original community consisted of more than a few dozen, most likely 20-30 adult members. It is possible that such ancestral communities sometimes united into larger ones, but this association could only be accidental.

The life of the fore-community, most likely, was not the life of gatherers and hunters randomly moving from place to place. Excavations at Zhoukoudian paint a picture of settled life for many generations. Many cave camps of the Early Paleolithic period, excavated in different parts of Eurasia over the past 60 years, also speak of relative settledness. This is all the more likely that the wealth of the Quaternary fauna made it possible to use the fodder territory for a long time and, consequently, made it possible to occupy well-located and convenient sheds and caves for permanent housing. Probably, these natural dwellings in some cases were used for several years, in others - for the life of several or even many generations. The development of hunting undoubtedly played an important role in establishing such a way of life.

2.2. Role hunting in the development of the fore-community.

It is difficult to say which of the two branches of the economy of ancient and ancient people - gathering or hunting - was the basis of their life. Probably, their ratio was not the same in different historical epochs, in different seasons, in different geographical conditions. However, there is no doubt that it was hunting that was the more progressive branch of the economy, which largely determined the development of primitive human groups.

The objects of hunting, depending on the fauna of a particular region, were various animals. In the tropical zone, these were hippos, tapirs, antelopes, wild bulls, etc. Sometimes, among the animal bones found at the Acheulean sites, bones of even such large animals as elephants come across. In the more northern regions, they hunted horses, deer, wild boars, bison, and sometimes killed predators - cave bears and lions, whose meat was also eaten. In the high-mountain zone, hunting of mountain goats played a predominant role in hunting, for example, among the Neanderthals, as can be seen from the finds in the Teshik-Tash cave. To some extent, the size of the hunt can be judged on the basis of counting the bones found at the sites. The cultural layer of many of them contains the remains of hundreds, a sometimes even thousands of animals. In addition to the location in Zhoukoudian, such large camps of the Acheulean period were discovered at the site of Torralba in Spain and in the grotto of the Observatory in Italy. In the first of them, for example, the bones of more than 30 elephants were found, not counting other animals. True, these sites were inhabited for a long time, but, nevertheless, it is obvious that hunting was of considerable importance in the life of their inhabitants.

Hunting for large animals, especially those that live in herds, is difficult to imagine, as already mentioned, without a driven method. The armament of the Acheulean hunter was too weak for him to kill a large animal directly. There have been such cases, but they cannot but be regarded as an exception, and even then mainly when hunting sick and weak animals that have lagged behind the herd. As a rule, the most ancient people could dare to kill large mammals only during driven hunting. Probably, the animals were frightened by noise, fire, stones, and, as the location of many sites shows, they were driven to a deep gorge or a large cliff. Animals fell and broke, and the man had only to finish them off. That is why it was hunting, and above all the hunting of large animals, that was the form of labor activity that stimulated the organization of the fore-community most of all, forced its members to unite more and more closely in the labor process and demonstrated to them the power of collectivism.

At the same time, hunting was the most effective source of meat food. Of course, primitive people received animal food not only from hunting mammals: just as it was practiced later in much more developed human societies, they caught insects, killed amphibians, reptiles, and small rodents. But the extraction of large animals gave much greater opportunities in this regard. Meanwhile, meat, containing the most important substances for the human body - proteins, fats and carbohydrates, was not only a satisfying food, especially after processing it on fire, but also accelerated the growth and increased the vital activity of primitive man.

2.3. The development of primitive collectivism.

The separation of man from the animal world became possible only thanks to labor, which in itself represented a collective form of man's influence on nature. The transition to even the simplest labor operations could only take place in a team, under the conditions of social forms of behavior. This circumstance allows us to assert that already at the earliest stages of anthropogenesis and the history of primitive society, there was regulation in the procurement and distribution of food, in sexual life. This process was intensified by the action of natural selection, which contributed to the preservation of precisely those collectives in which social communication and mutual assistance were more pronounced and which opposed enemies and natural disasters as monolithic associations.

The already noted development of driven hunting, joint protection from predatory animals, maintaining fire - all this contributed to the consolidation of the fore-community, the development of first instinctive, and then conscious forms of mutual assistance. The improvement of the language, which will be discussed below, also acted in the same direction of team building. But especially great progress has been made in The final stage the existence of the fore-community - the Mousterian time. It was to this time that the first clear evidence of concern for the members of the team dates back - Neanderthal burials.

Conclusion.

The way of life of people of the Stone Age, the level of their development partly resembles some aspects of the life of peoples who in the recent past, before the arrival of Europeans, lived in Australia, certain regions of South Asia, South America and Africa. Of course, it is impossible to directly compare them: over the past thousands of years, even people as cut off from civilization as the natives of Australia have accumulated a lot of observational experience, their thinking abilities have developed, and their perception of the world has expanded. And yet, the life of these tribes and peoples allows us to understand to some extent how people lived 30-20 thousand years ago.

The most ancient tools of labor are both monuments of both material and spiritual culture, as they testify to the conscious activity of the creatures who created them, to their even primitive and minimal knowledge and skills, transmitted from one individual to another. With the advent of human consciousness and conscious activity with its results, the first cultural and historical era begins - the primitive one, within which there was only one type of culture of the same name. The named era is the longest of all experienced by mankind, it makes up more than 90% of world history. In turn, most of the primitive era coincides with the process of formation of man, society and culture. People then slowly but surely created the basis, the foundation of culture, prepared the conditions for its later successes.

Literature

1. Alekseev V.T. History of primitive society / V.P. Alekseev, F.I. Pershits - 6th ed. - M .: AST Publishing House LLC: Astrel Publishing House LLC, 2004. - 350 p.: ill. - (Graduate School).

2. Vishnyatsky L.B. Origin Homo sapiens . New facts and some traditional ideas - M: Soviet archeology, 1990, No. 2.

3. Zubov A.A. Controversial issues of the theory of anthropogenesis - Ethnographic Review, 1994, No. 6. Alekseev V.T. History of primitive society / V.P. Alekseev, F.I. Pershits - 6th ed. - M .: AST Publishing House LLC: Astrel Publishing House LLC, 2004. - 350 p.: ill. – (higher school), p. 129.

). As sources of prehistoric times of cultures, until recently devoid of writing, there may be oral traditions passed down from generation to generation.

Since data on prehistoric times rarely concern individuals and do not even always say anything about ethnic groups, the main social unit prehistoric era humanity is an archaeological culture. All terms and periodization of this era, such as Neanderthal or Iron Age, are retrospective and largely arbitrary, and their precise definition is subject to debate.

Terminology

A synonym for "prehistory" is the term " prehistory”, which is used less frequently in Russian-language literature than similar terms in foreign literature (eng. prehistory, German Urgeschichte).

To denote the final stage of the prehistoric era of any culture, when it itself has not yet created its own written language, but is already mentioned in the written monuments of other peoples, the term “protohistory” (eng. protohistory, German Fruhgeschichte). To replace the term primitive society characterizing the social structure before the emergence of power, some historians use the terms "savagery", "anarchy", "primitive communism", "pre-civilization period" and more. In Russian literature, this term has not taken root.

Non-classical historians deny the very existence of communities and primitive communal system, interconnection, identity of power and violence.

From the following stages of social development primitive society distinguished by the absence of private property, classes and the state. Modern studies of primitive society, according to neo-historians who deny the traditional periodization of the development of human society, refute the existence of such a social structure and the existence of communities, communal property under the primitive communal system, and in the future, as a natural result of the non-existence of the primitive communal system - the non-existence of communal agricultural land tenure until the end XVIII century in most countries of the world, including Russia, at least since the Neolithic.

Periods of development of primitive society

AT different times different periodization of the development of human society was proposed. So, A. Ferguson and then Morgan used the periodization of history, which included three stages: savagery, barbarism and civilization, and the first two stages were broken by Morgan into three stages (lower, middle and higher) each. At the stage of savagery, hunting, fishing and gathering dominated human activity, there was no private property, there was equality. At the stage of barbarism, agriculture and cattle breeding appear, private property and social hierarchy arise. The third stage - civilization - is associated with the emergence of the state, class society, cities, writing, etc.

Morgan considered the lowest stage of savagery, which began with the formation of articulate speech, to be the earliest stage in the development of human society, the middle stage of savagery, according to his classification, begins with the use of fire and the appearance of fish food in the diet, and the highest stage of savagery - with the invention of onions. The lowest stage of barbarism, according to his classification, begins with the advent of pottery, the middle stage of barbarism - with the transition to agriculture and cattle breeding, and the highest stage of barbarism - with the beginning of the use of iron.

The most developed periodization is archaeological, which is based on a comparison of man-made tools, their materials, forms of dwellings, burials, etc. According to this principle, the history of mankind is mainly divided into stone age, bronze age and iron age.

Stone Age

The Stone Age is the oldest period in the history of mankind, when the main tools and weapons were made mainly of stone, but wood and bone were also used. At the end of the Stone Age, the use of clay (dishes, brick buildings, sculpture) spread.

Periodization of the Stone Age:

• Paleolithic:
  • Lower Paleolithic - the period of the appearance of the most ancient types of people and wide distribution Homo erectus .
  • The Middle Paleolithic is a period of displacement of erectus by evolutionarily more advanced human species, including modern humans. Neanderthals dominated Europe during the entire Middle Paleolithic.
  • The Upper Paleolithic is the period of domination of the modern type of people throughout the globe in the era of the last glaciation.
• Mesolithic and Epipaleolithic; the terminology depends on how much the region has been affected by the loss of megafauna as a result of the melting of the glacier. The period is characterized by the development of technology for the production of stone tools and common culture person. Ceramic is missing.
• Neolithic - the era of the emergence of agriculture. Tools and weapons are still stone, but their production is brought to perfection, and ceramics are widely distributed.

copper age

Copper Age, Copper-Stone Age, Chalcolith (Greek. χαλκός "copper" + Greek. λίθος "stone") or Eneolithic (lat. aeneus"copper" + Greek. λίθος "stone")) - a period in the history of primitive society, a transitional period from the Stone Age to the Bronze Age. Approximately covers the period 4-3 thousand BC. e., but in some areas it exists longer, and in some it is absent altogether. Most often, the Eneolithic is included in the Bronze Age, but sometimes it is also considered a separate period. During the Eneolithic were common copper tools, but stone ones still prevailed.

Bronze Age

The Bronze Age is a period in the history of primitive society, characterized by the leading role of bronze products, which was associated with an improvement in the processing of metals such as copper and tin obtained from ore deposits, and the subsequent production of bronze from them. The Bronze Age is the second, late phase of the Early Metal Age, succeeding the Copper Age and preceding the Iron Age. In general, the chronological framework of the Bronze Age: 35/33 - 13/11 centuries. BC e., but different cultures are different. In the Eastern Mediterranean, the end of the Bronze Age is associated with the almost simultaneous destruction of all local civilizations at the turn of the 13th-12th centuries. BC e., known as the bronze collapse, while in the west of Europe the transition from the bronze to the iron age drags on for several more centuries and ends with the appearance of the first cultures of antiquity - ancient Greece and Ancient Rome.

Bronze Age periods:

1. Early Bronze Age
2. Middle Bronze Age
3. Late Bronze Age

iron age

Treasure of Iron Age coins

The Iron Age is a period in the history of primitive society, characterized by the spread of iron metallurgy and the manufacture of iron tools. For civilizations of the Bronze Age, it goes beyond the history of primitive society, for other peoples, civilization develops in the era of the Iron Age.

The term "Iron Age" is usually applied to the "barbarian" cultures of Europe, which existed simultaneously with the great civilizations of antiquity (Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, Parthia). From ancient cultures The “barbarians” were distinguished by the absence or rare use of writing, in connection with which information about them has come down to us either according to archeology or from references in ancient sources. On the territory of Europe in the era of the Iron Age, M. B. Schukin identified six "barbarian worlds":

• proto-Germans (mainly Jastorf culture + southern Scandinavia);
• mostly Proto-Baltic cultures of the forest zone (possibly including Proto-Slavs);
• Proto-Finno-Ugric and Proto-Sami cultures of the northern forest zone (mainly along rivers and lakes);
• steppe Iranian-speaking cultures (Scythians, Sarmatians, etc.);
• pastoral-agricultural cultures of the Thracians, Dacians and Getae.

History of the development of public relations

The first tools of human labor were a chipped stone and a stick. People obtained their livelihood by hunting, which they conducted jointly, and by gathering. Communities of people were small, they led nomadic image life, moving in search of food. But some communities of people who lived in the most favorable conditions began to move towards partial settlement.

The most important stage in human development was the emergence of language. Instead of the signal language of animals, which contributes to their coordination in hunting, people got the opportunity to express in language the abstract concepts of “stone in general”, “animal in general”. This use of language has led to the ability to teach offspring with words, and not just by example, to plan actions before the hunt, and not during it, etc.

Any booty was shared among the whole team of people. Tools of labor, household utensils, decorations were in the use of individual people, but the owner of the thing was obliged to share it, and in addition, anyone could take someone else's thing and use it without asking (remnants of this are still found among individual peoples).

The natural breadwinner of a person was his mother - at first she fed him with her milk, then she generally took upon herself the responsibility of providing him with food and everything necessary for life. This food was supposed to be hunted by men - the mother's brothers, who belonged to her family. Thus, cells began to form, consisting of several brothers, several sisters and the children of the latter. They lived in communal dwellings.

Specialists now generally believe that during the Paleolithic and Neolithic times - 50-20 thousand years ago - social status women and men were equal, although it was previously believed that at first matriarchy dominated.

At first, neighboring clans and tribes exchanged what nature gave them: salt, rare stones, etc. Both whole communities and individuals exchanged gifts; This phenomenon is called gift exchange. One of its varieties was "silent exchange". Then the tribes of farmers, pastoralists and those who led the agricultural and pastoral economy stood out, and between the tribes with different economic orientations, and subsequently within the tribes, the exchange of products of their labor developed.

Some researchers believe that the tribes of hunters, who did not adopt an agrarian lifestyle, began to “hunt” the peasant communities, taking away food and property. This is how a dual system of producing rural communities and former hunters who plundered them formed. The leaders - the leaders of the hunters gradually moved from raiding robbery of peasants to regular regulated requisitions (tributes). Fortified cities were built for self-defense and protection of subjects from the raids of competitors. The last stage in the pre-state development of society was the so-called military democracy.

Power and social norms in primitive society

The emergence of religion

The primitive tribes did not have special clergymen; religious and magical rites were performed mainly by the heads of tribal groups on behalf of the whole clan or by people who, by personal qualities, gained a reputation for knowing the methods of influencing the world of spirits and gods (healers, shamans, etc.). With the development of social differentiation, professional priests stand out, arrogating to themselves the exclusive right to communicate with spirits and gods.

see also

• Early history (protohistory)

Notes

Links

• Alekseev V.P., Pershits A.I. History of primitive society: Proc. for universities on special "Story". - M .: Higher. school, 1990

• "The transition from primitive to class society: ways and options for development." Part I

1. Approachesto the periodization of the prehistoric period.

2.

3. Neolithic revolution.

4. The formation of nations.

Approaches to the periodization of the prehistoric period.

The entire period of the past of mankind is usually divided into two uneven periods. The first - the largest - is called prehistoric(or prehistory), the second - historical (civilization).

The oldest form of organizing people's lives was the primitive communal system (about 2.5 million - 6 thousand years BC). It was the longest era in the history of mankind, the reason for which was the slow pace of development of society in its early stages. All stages of the primitive communal system are united by the collective nature of people's lives, which is apparently due to the great difficulties of survival.

It is generally accepted to divide primitive society into periods according to the main materials that were used to make tools (Fig. 1):

This periodization, of course, does not mean that tools were not made from wood and bone in the Stone Age, and from stone in the Bronze Age. We are talking about the predominance of one or another material. In the Stone Age, which is usually identified with the primitive communal system, there are three eras:

- paleolith(Greek - paleolit ​​- ancient stone) - up to 12 thousand years ago;

- Mesolithic(Greek - mesolit middle stone) - up to 9 thousand years ago;

- Neolithic(Greek - neolit ​​new stone) - up to 6 thousand years ago.

Epochs are divided into periods - early (lower), middle and late (upper), as well as into cultures characterized by a uniform complex of life objects.

The creator of the cultures of the Lower Paleolithic was a man of the type Pithecanthropus Middle Paleolithic - Neanderthal, Upper Paleolithic - Cro-Magnon. This definition is based on archaeological research in Western Europe and cannot be fully extended to other regions. About 70 sites of the Lower and Middle Paleolithic and about 300 sites of the Upper Paleolithic have been studied on the territory of Russia.

In the Paleolithic period, people initially made rough hand axes from flint, which were unified tools. Then the manufacture of specialized tools begins - these are knives, piercers, scrapers, composite tools, such as a stone ax

In the Mesolithic, microliths predominate - tools made of thin stone plates, which were inserted into a bone or wooden frame. At the same time, the bow and arrows were invented.

The Neolithic is characterized by the manufacture of tools from soft rocks of stone - jade, slate, slate. A more advanced and complex technique of sawing and drilling holes in stone, polishing stone is being mastered.

The stone age is being replaced short period Eneolithic, i.e., the existence of cultures with copper-stone implements. Respectively. First, the technology for manufacturing copper tools is based on such a processing method as cold forging, and then casting.

The Bronze Age began in Europe in the 30th century. BC e. At this time, in many regions of the planet, the first states arise, civilizations develop - Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Mediterranean, Mexican in America. The first iron products appear on the territory of Russia around the 7th century. BC e.

Another periodization system based on complex characteristics of material and spiritual cultures, suggested to an American scientist Lewis Morgan. According to this system, primitive society is divided into three periods:

Civilization.

Period wildness- this is the time of the early tribal system (Paleolithic and Mesolithic), it ends with the invention of the bow and arrows. During the period barbarism ceramic products appear, agriculture and animal husbandry appear. For civilization characterized by the emergence of bronze metallurgy, writing and states.

Finally, in the 20th century scientists proposed systems of periodization of primitive society, the criterion of which were evolution of forms of ownership. In a generalized form, such a periodization can be represented as follows:

The era of the primitive herd;

The era of the tribal system;

The era of the decomposition of the communal-tribal system (the emergence of cattle breeding, plow farming and metal processing, the emergence of elements of exploitation and private property).

Anthropogenesis and features of the transition to the tribal system.

Early Paleolithic - the time of the formation of man (anthropogenesis). This process is extremely lengthy and complex. It has not yet been fully studied; science has accumulated more questions than answers on this problem. The first human ancestors who embarked on the path of anthropogenesis were australopithecines(about 2.5 million years ago), already walking on their hind limbs, which released the front ones and thereby created the prerequisites for labor activity.

ancient people(archanthropes) were traditionally considered Pithecanthropus(monkey-man) and Sinanthropus(a variety of Pithecanthropus found in China) that appeared about 1 year ago. In science, this human ancestor was called homo habilis - skillful person.

Early Paleolithic- the time of the primitive human herd. During the early Paleolithic, there are several major glacier advances - glaciations, accompanied by a sharp cooling. For the archanthropes, existence was possible only in a warm climate that did not require clothing or housing. Neanderthals spread much more widely. At the end of the early Paleolithic, primitive dwellings and skin clothing appeared. The Paleolithic economy was consuming (appropriating). The basis of it was hunting for large animals. Plant food was obtained by collecting edible plants and digging roots out of the ground. Already the archanthropes used ready-made fire and maintained the fires. Fire gave people protection from the cold and wild animals, and reduced their dependence on the climate. A hearth appeared - a symbol of human habitation. People got the opportunity to use fried foods, which are better absorbed by the body. Still greater were the long-term consequences of mastering fire: neither ceramics nor metallurgy would be possible without it.

At the end of the early Paleolithic, about 100 thousand years ago, a Neanderthal man arose, or Neanderthal . Neanderthals are already considered to be the next stage in the development of man - to ancient people(paleoanthropists). They are much closer to modern humans than the archanthropes. Neanderthals probably already learned how to make fire. The Neanderthals apparently already had the first rudiments of religion.

The transition from the early Paleolithic to the late (40-35 thousand years ago) was marked by the appearance of a modern type of man - homo sapiens - reasonable person. With its appearance, the biological evolution of man ended, it was the second major leap in anthropogenesis: from "prehumans", archanthropes and paleoanthropes to people.

AT Late Paleolithic arises tribal structure. The tribal community with common ownership of the main means of production has become the basic unit of human society. The products of hunting, fishing and gathering were distributed equally among all members of the clan. The authority of the elders of the clan was based not on coercion, but on tradition, respect for experience and skills.

Late Paleolithic people significantly improved the technique of making stone tools: they became more diverse, sometimes miniature. A throwing spear and a predecessor of the bow, the spear thrower, appeared, which greatly increased the efficiency of hunting. Fishing arose: harpoons and remains of fish were repeatedly found at the sites of this era. Bone products, including needles, are spreading, which indicates the appearance of embroidered clothing. If at the end of the early Paleolithic the first primitive dwellings appeared, now people were already building dugouts, and sometimes entire villages from several dwellings. Man has learned to adapt to nature not biologically, but socially, to protect himself from the cold with the help of housing and clothing. These achievements have allowed people to significantly expand the limits of the habitable part of the globe. This was also facilitated by the warming caused by the retreat of the glacier.

Late Paleolithic- time of occurrence art. In many sites, female figurines are found. They testify to the cult of a woman-mother, the progenitor of the clan. In the Late Paleolithic already, undoubtedly, there is religion, there is a distinct burial rite. Some things that the deceased used during his lifetime were sometimes placed in the grave. This is evidence of the emergence of the idea of ​​an afterlife.

Thus, by the end of the Paleolithic, man learned not only to make fire and eat thermally processed food, to make complex stone and bone tools, to sew clothes, to build dwellings, to hunt and fish, but also to live in a social system with social consciousness and its important forms - art. and religion. However, man did not yet know either ceramics, or metal, or wheels, or agriculture, or cattle breeding.

The most important achievement of the next stage of the Stone Age - the Mesolithic was the invention of the bow and arrows, which dramatically increased the productivity of hunting. Now, along with battue hunting, individual hunting has also arisen, not only for large herd animals, but also for small ones. There was an opportunity to create stocks of food.

In the Mesolithic era, man took the first steps in the direction of cattle breeding. The domestication, and possibly domestication, of animals began. So, in the Mesolithic, dogs, the first domestic animals, already appeared. It is possible that at the end of the Mesolithic, pigs, goats, and sheep were tamed in some areas.

The transition to the Neolithic and its duration in different regions of Eurasia differed significantly from each other. First of all, it began in Central Asia (about 6 - 4 thousand years BC). In the forest zone of Russia, the Neolithic lasted for about another two thousand years, up to 2 thousand years BC. e. This was affected by the uneven development of different regions, associated primarily with natural conditions: a warm climate and fertile soil created favorable conditions for the development of the economy.

During the Neolithic period, the transition to manufacturing economy. It was then that pastoralism and agriculture were born, although hunting and gathering were still the main sources of subsistence in most Neolithic communities.

Neolithic revolution.

Changes that occurred at the end of the Stone Age (Neolithic) (about 8-6 thousand) are usually called neolithic revolution. Its main content is a radical transition from a primitive economy of hunters and gatherers to a productive agriculture based on agriculture and animal husbandry.

Major changes are taking place in the area technology the production of tools and the study of the properties of materials. Man has achieved virtuoso art in the processing of stone and bone. Processing operations such as grinding and drilling. The tools acquired new properties, became complex, composite, miniature.

4. the emergence of the first social restrictions and laws;

5. the emergence of new knowledge systems transmitted from generation to generation (through writing).

With the course of the changes associated with the Neolithic revolution, agrarian communities began to fill the Earth, as hunters had previously filled it. The importance of male labor has increased markedly - clearing the land, cultivating the soil, etc. - all this required physical strength. An important element public organization became men's unions. The male part of the community chose leader. At first, such people were influential due to their personal qualities, and then the power of the leaders began to be transferred by inheritance. These processes resulted in the emergence privileged sections of society- leaders, priests.

People at that time livedtribal structure.tribal communities were united and united. All people worked together. The property was also shared. Tools of labor, a large family hut, all land, livestock were communal property. None of the people could arbitrarily alone dispose of the property of the community. But soon the so-called first division of labor took place (agriculture was separated from cattle breeding). A tangible surplus product began to appear, and tribal communities began to be divided into families.

Each family could independently work and feed themselves. Families demanded to share all communal property in parts, between families ( private property- from the word "part"). At first, tools, livestock, household items became private property. Instead of one large hut of a whole family, each family began to build a separate dwelling for itself. Housing also became the private property of the family. Later, the land also became private property.

Private property does not belong to the whole collective, but only to one owner. Usually such a master was the head of a large family. After the death of the head of the family, his eldest son became the owner. Private property awakens in people an interest in work. Each family understood that a good and well-fed life depends only on the hard work of family members. If the family worked hard, the entire harvest belonged to them. Therefore, people strove to cultivate arable land better, to take better care of livestock. It is sometimes said that private property arises from human greed. However, in fact, private property arose only when the economy began to develop, and when stocks of surplus product appeared. Tribal communities gradually died off. Instead they appeared neighboring communities.

Rice. Scheme of the organization of labor activity in the tribal (left) and neighboring (right) community (try to formulate the difference).

In the neighboring community, people gradually forgot about their once common relationship. It was not considered essential. Now, as a rule, they did not work as a single team, although they still worked voluntarily and without coercion. Each family in private ownership had a hut with a garden, a plot of arable land, livestock, and tools. But communal property remained. For example, rivers and lakes. Everyone could fish. Any member of the community did it on their own. The boat and the net were his private property, so the catch also became private property. The forest was a communal property, but the animals killed in the hunt, harvested mushrooms, berries and brushwood became private property. They used the pasture together, every morning driving out cattle on it. But in the evening, each family drove their cows and sheep into the barn. But the neighboring community still continued to unite people.

Gradually, out of a complex of such relations for the production and possession of a surplus product, property relations arose. inequality. Leaders and other categories of influential community members began to demand offerings to themselves from ordinary members. Captives captured in wars between tribes became slaves.

Some researchers believe that the hunting tribes, who did not adopt an agrarian lifestyle, began to “hunt” rural communities, taking away food and property. This is how the system of producing rural communities and hunting squads of hunters plundering them was formed. The leaders of the hunters gradually switched from robbery to regular exactions (tributes). Fortified cities were built for self-defense and protection of citizens from the raids of competitors. The last stage of the pre-state development of society was the so-called military democracy.

began to emerge chiefdoms- political formations (prototypes of states), which include several villages or communities united under the constant authority of the supreme leader. The tribes began to unite into unions of tribes, which gradually began to transform into nationalities. Most likely, this is how the first states in Mesopotamia arose, Ancient Egypt and ancient india at the end of the 4th - beginning of the 3rd millennium BC.

The true revolution in the history of mankind was the development metal. The transition to it was long, difficult and not simultaneous. The development of metal became possible only on the basis of a manufacturing economy that had already emerged, with some, at least minimal, surplus of food, so that part of the time could be devoted to the manufacture of metal products. That is why the ancient blacksmithing and metallurgy originated primarily in the southern regions, where, thanks to good natural conditions, agriculture used to develop.

The first metal used by man was copper. At first, tools and decorations were made from it by cold forging, which this relatively soft metal is easily amenable to. Of course, this copper was not chemically pure: in natural deposits, copper, as a rule, contains certain impurities - arsenic, antimony, etc. But these are not yet artificial alloys, the development of which was a matter of the future.

The appearance of copper tools intensified the exchange between the tribes, because copper deposits are very unevenly distributed around the globe. Many of the tribes that used the metal lived far from its sources. Constant exchange led to significant shifts in relations.

Formation of peoples

Linguistic classification formed the basis of the ethnic picture of the world. All languages ​​are divided into large families related by a common origin and subdivided into groups of related languages. Branches are sometimes distinguished within groups, while some languages ​​are not included in groups. For example, the Indo-European language family.

Indo-European language family

Slavic group:

Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Serbo-Croatian.

Baltic group:

Latvian, Lithuanian.

German group:

German, English, Flemish, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish.

Roman group:

Italian, Spanish, Moldovan, Portuguese, Romanian, French.

Iranian group:

Afghan, Iranian, Ossetian, Tajik.

Although we do not have reliable data to determine the ethnic groups of the Neolithic and Eneolithic periods, we still managed to obtain some information through the analysis of geographical names. On the territory of the Volga-Oka interfluve settled Finno-Ugric and Samoyedic peoples. Apparently, in the Late Neolithic and the beginning of the Bronze Age, Eastern Siberia was mastered by them. Already in the Neolithic, Finno-Ugric tribes occupied the Eastern Baltic, and in the middle of the III millennium BC. e. spread throughout the forest belt of the Volga region and the Volga-Oka interfluve.

Most of Eastern Europe has long been inhabited Indo-Europeans. In the Baltics, along with the Finno-Ugric tribes, tribes have long appeared Balts.

Iranian-speaking tribes lived in southern Siberia until the beginning of our era. The heirs of the tribes of this culture were Cimmerians, Scythians, Sarmatians.

ancestral home Turkic peoples are the steppes of Central Asia. At the end of the Bronze Age and the beginning of the Iron Age, they begin to penetrate north into Siberia and west to the Urals, Central Asia and the Caucasus.

Questions for self-control:

1. List the main approaches to the periodization of the prehistoric period.

2. List the main stages of anthropogenesis with the chronology of their occurrence.

3. Describethe concept of "tribal system" and the dynamics of its development.

4. Whatmanifests the essence of the Neolithic revolution?

5. What important consequences of the Neolithic revolution can you name?

6. Tell us about the process of formation of peoples in the Euro-Asian region.

Questions for discussion (discussions on the forum):

1. What influence did the prehistory period have on the development process?

2. Is the process of anthropogenesis completed?

Complete the answers to the tasks in a MS Office Word document, save under the name "Name_History as a science" and send by e-mail: ae. *****@***en

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