STONE AGE: The STONE AGE is a broad prehistoric time period during which humans widely

used stone for tool making.

Stone tools were made from a variety of different sorts of stone. Wood, bone, shell, antler (deer) and other materials were widely used, as well. During the most recent part of the period, sediments (like clay) were used to make pottery.

The Stone Age or prehistoric age is subdivided into the PALEOLITHIC, MESOLITHIC and NEOLITHIC periods that still are in use today these three periods are further subdivided.

PALEOLITHIC (Old stone age):

• The Paleolithic (or Paleolithic) (from Greek palaios, “old" and lithos "stone“ means "old stone age“.

• During the Paleolithic humans were grouped together in small scale societies

such as bands and gained their subsistence from gathering plants (The collecting of food that grows wild, such as berries, roots, and grains.) and hunting wild animals.

MESOLITHIC (Middle Stone Age):

• The period starting from the end of the last ice age, 10,000 years ago, to around 6,000 years ago was characterized by rising sea levels and a need to adapt to a changing environment and find new food sources.

NEOLITHIC (New Stone Age):

The Neolithic, New Stone Age, was characterized by the adoption of agriculture, the so-called Neolithic Revolution, the development of pottery, polished stone tools and more complex. The first Neolithic cultures started around 7000 BC

CAVE ART:

• Pre-historic art can only be traced from surviving artifacts. Prehistoric music is inferred from found instruments, while parietal art can be found on rocks of any kind. The latter are PETROGLYPHS and cave rock paintings.

PETROGLYPHS:• PETROGLYPHS is an abstract or symbolic image recorded on stone, usually by

prehistoric peoples, by means of carving, pecking or otherwise incised on natural rock surfaces. They were a dominant form or pre-writing symbols used in communication. PETROGLYPHS have been discovered in different parts of the world, including Asia (Bhimbetka, India), North America (Death Valley National Park), South America (Cumbe Mayo, Peru), and Europe (Finn mark, Norway).

CAVE ROCK PAINTINGS:

• Rock paintings were painted on rock and were more naturalistic depictions than pictographs. In Paleolithic times, the representation of humans in cave paintings was rare. Mostly, animals were painted: not only animals that were used as food but also animals that represented strength like the rhinoceros or large cats. Signs like dots were sometimes drawn. Rare human representations include handprints and half-human/half-animal figures. The Cave of Chauve in France contains the most important preserved cave paintings of the Paleolithic era, painted around 31,000 BC. The Altamira cave paintings in Spain were done 14,000 to 12,000 BC.

The hall of bulls in Lascaux, Dordogne, France, is one of the best known cave paintings from about 15,000 to 10,000 BC.

• The meaning of the paintings remains unknown. Arrow-like symbols in Lascaux are sometimes interpreted as calendar. But the evidence remains inconclusive. The most important work of the Mesolithic era were the marching Warriors, a rock painting at Cingle de la Mola, in Spain dated to about 7,000–4,000 BC. The technique used was probably spitting or blowing the pigments onto the rock. The paintings are quite naturalistic, though stylized. The figures are not three-dimensional, even though they overlap.

PREHISTORIC TOOLS AND WEAPONS:

The use of prehistoric tools and weapons began at the moment one human reached for a rock and used it to smash open a walnut shell or hurl it toward an animal or another human. Using only a few, rudimentary tools made form available materials, ancient humans managed to create weapons such as the club, spear, arrow and axe. These ancient tools and weapons could capture, kill or butcher just about any animal or serve as a constructive tool for dressing a kill, building a dwelling or clearing the land.

First prehistoric weapon

TYPES OF WEAPONS:

Club

In prehistoric times, when a human first picked up a stick, an easy transition began that led from a simple stick to a club used as a tool and weapon. Humans armed with clubs appear on African cave paintings dating back to 6,000 B.C.

Spear

A sharpened tip on a stick would describe the first spear used by prehistoric humans. In May 2009, "Archaeo News" reported finding a wooden spear tip in modern day Slovenia that may date back to between 38,000 and 45,000 years ago. As humans progressed and learned how to carve and shape stone, they would attach stone spear tips to the end of long branches. The stone tipped spear represented an advance in the technology of the day. This type of spear proved more durable and allowed humans to remain at a safe distance when hunting prey or attacking an enemy.

Stone Axe

While some prehistoric tools used an attached wooden stick or branch as a handle, other early stone axes did not have a handle of any type. Ancient man carved a number of tools and weapons for use with their bare hands in mind. Many samples of prehistoric stone age tools have a carved indention which served as an area for the thumb. These hand-held stone axes probably found use in cutting plants or bone. Prehistoric humans likely attached stone axe heads onto wooden sticks to use as weapons to hunt animals for food.

Bow and Arrow

In modern day Spain, images painted on cave walls dating from 5,000 B.C. to 10,000 B.C. depict humans fighting one another with bow and arrow. Some of the oldest writings and languages known to humankind contain references to the bow and arrow used for hunting and as a weapon. However, no archaeologist has ever found the wooden remains of a prehistoric bow. Arrowheads made from stone provide the earliest known prehistoric examples unearthed in ancient alluvial river beds and caves dating back to the Paleolithic era between 20,000 and 2.5 million years ago.