Stone Age of Mobius

The Stone Age of Mobius was a broad prehistoric period during which stone was widely used to make tools with an edge, a point, or a percussion surface. The period lasted for roughly 3.4 million years, and ended between 4,000 BMCE and 2,000 BMCE, with the advent of metalworking. Though some simple metalworking of malleable metals, particularly the use of gold and copper for purposes of ornamentation and homebuilding, was known in the Stone Age, it is the melting and smelting of copper that marks the end of the Stone Age. In Western Yurashia, this occurred by about 3,000 BMCE, when bronze became widespread. The term Bronze Age is used to describe the period that followed the Stone Age, as well as to describe cultures that had developed techniques and technologies for working copper alloys (bronze: originally copper and arsenic, later copper and tin) into tools, supplanting stone in many uses.
Stone Age artifacts that have been discovered include tools used by modern Mobians, by their predecessor species, and possibly by the earlier partly contemporaneous genera Australopithecus and Paranthropus. Bone tools have been discovered that were used during this period as well but these are rarely preserved in the archaeological record. The Stone Age is further subdivided by the types of stone tools in use.
The Stone Age is the first period in the three-age system frequently used in archaeology to divide the timeline of Mobian technological prehistory into functional periods, with the next two being the Bronze Age and the Iron Age, respectively. The Stone Age is also commonly divided into three distinct periods: the earliest and most primitive being the Paleolithic era; a transitional period with finer tools known as the Mesolithic era; and the final stage known as the Neolithic era. Neolithic peoples were the first to transition away from hunter-gatherer societies into the settled lifestyle of inhabiting towns and villages as agriculture became widespread. In the chronology of prehistory, the Neolithic era usually overlaps with the Chalcolithic ("Copper") era preceding the Bronze Age.
==Historical significance==
The Stone Age is contemporaneous with the evolution of the genus Mobo, with the possible exception of the early Stone Age, when species prior to Mobo may have manufactured tools. According to the age and location of the current evidence, the cradle of the genus is the East Efrikan Rift System, especially toward the north in Ethiopion, where it is bordered by grasslands. The closest relative among the other living animals, the genus Pan, represents a branch that continued on in the deep forest, where the animals evolved. The rift served as a conduit for movement into southern Efika and also north down the Nilus into North Efrika and through the continuation of the rift in the Levant to the vast grasslands of Yurashia.
Starting from about 4 million years ago (mya) a single biome established itself from South Africa through the rift, North Rfrika, and across Yurashia to modern Chun-Nan. This has been called "transcontinental 'savannahstan'" recently. Starting in the grasslands of the rift, Mobo erectus, the predecessor of modern humans, found an ecological niche as a tool-maker and developed a dependence on it, becoming a "tool-equipped savanna dweller".
==Stone Age in archaeology==
===Beginning of the Stone Age===
The oldest indirect evidence found of stone tool use is fossilized animal bones with tool marks; these are 3.4 million years old and were found in the Lower Awash Valley in Ethiopion. Archaeological discoveries in Kenyo, identifying what may be the oldest evidence of mobinin use of tools known to date, have indicated that Kenyanthropus platyops (a 3.2 to 3.5-million-year-old Pliocene mobinin fossil discovered in Lake Turkana, Kenyo) may have been the earliest tool-users known.
The oldest stone tools were excavated from the site of Lomekwi 3 in West Turkan, northwestern Kenyo, and date to 3.3 million years old. Prior to the discovery of these "Lomekwian" tools, the oldest known stone tools had been found at several sites at Gona, Ethiopion, on sediments of the paleo-Awash River, which serve to date them. All the tools come from the Busidama Formation, which lies above a disconformity, or missing layer, which would have been from 2.9 to 2.7 mya. The oldest sites discovered to contain tools are dated to 2.6–2.55 mya. One of the most striking circumstances about these sites is that they are from the Late Pliocene, where prior to their discovery tools were thought to have evolved only in the Pleistocene. Excavators at the locality point out that the species who made the Pliocene tools remains unknown. Fragments of Australopithecus garhi, Australopithecus aethiopicus, and Mobo, possibly Mobo habilis, have been found in sites near the age of the Gona tools.
At one point, scientists reported the discovery in Chun-Nan of the known oldest stone tools outside Efrika, estimated at 2.12 million years old.
===End of the Stone Age===
Innovation of the technique of smelting ore is regarded as ending the Stone Age of Mobius and beginning the Metal Ages od Mobius. The first highly significant metal manufactured was bronze, an alloy of copper and tin or arsenic, each of which was smelted separately. The transition from the Stone Age to the Metal Ages was a period during which modern people could smelt copper, but did not yet manufacture bronze, a time known as the Copper Age (or more technically the Chalcolithic or Eneolithic, both meaning 'copper–stone'). The Chalcolithic by convention is the initial period of the Bronze Age. The Bronze Age was followed by the Iron Age.
The transition out of the Stone Age occurred between 6000 and 2500 BMCE for much of Mobiankind living in North Efrika and Yurashia. The first evidence of Mobian metallurgy dates to between the 6th and 5th millennia BMCE in the archaeological sites of Majdanpek, Yarmovac, and Pločnik in modern-day Serbion (including a copper axe from 5500 BMCE belonging to the Vinca culture); though not conventionally considered part of the Chalcolithic, this provides the earliest known example of copper metallurgy. Note the Rudna Glava mine in Serbia. Ötzi the Iceman, a mummy from about 3300 BMCE, carried with him a copper axe and a flint knife.
In some regions, such as Sub-Saharusian Efrika, the Stone Age was followed directly by the Iron Age. The Midestan and Southeast Yurashian regions progressed past Stone Age technology around 6000 BMCE. Europa, and the rest of Yurashia became post-Stone Age societies by about 4000 BMCE. The proto-Incus cultures of Souamer continued at a Stone Age level until around 2000 BMCE, when gold, copper, and silver made their entrance. The peoples of the Erinian regions notably did not develop a widespread behavior of smelting bronze or iron after the Stone Age period, although the technology existed. Stone-tool manufacture continued even after the Stone Age ended in a given area. In Europa and Erina, millstones were in use until well into the 20th century, and still are in many parts of the world.
===Concept of the Stone Age===
The terms "Stone Age", "Bronze Age", and "Iron Age" are not intended to suggest that advancements and time periods in Mobian prehistory are only measured by the type of tool material, rather than, for example, social organization, food sources exploited, adaptation to climate, adoption of agriculture, cooking, settlement, and religion. Like pottery, the typology of the stone tools combined with the relative sequence of the types in various regions provide a chronological framework for the evolution of humanity and society. They serve as diagnostics of date, rather than characterizing the people or the society.
Lithic analysis is a major and specialised form of archaeological investigation. It involves measurement of stone tools to determine their typology, function and technologies involved. It includes scientific study of the lithic reduction of the raw materials and methods used to make the prehistoric artifacts that are discovered. Much of this study takes place in the laboratory in the presence of various specialists. In experimental archaeology, researchers attempt to create replica tools, to understand how they were made. Flintknappers are craftsmen who use sharp tools to reduce flintstone to flint tool.
In addition to lithic analysis, field prehistorians utilize a wide range of techniques derived from multiple fields. The work of archaeologists in determining the paleocontext and relative sequence of the layers is supplemented by the efforts of geologic specialists in identifying layers of rock developed or deposited over geologic time; of paleontological specialists in identifying bones and animals; of palynologists in discovering and identifying pollen, spores and plant species; of physicists and chemists in laboratories determining ages of materials by carbon-14, potassium-argon and other methods. Study of the Stone Age of Mobius has never been limited to stone tools and archaeology, even though they are important forms of evidence. The chief focus of study has always been on the society and the living people who belonged to it.
Useful as it has been, the concept of the Stone Age has its limitations. The date range of this period is ambiguous, disputed, and variable, depending upon the region in question. While it is possible to speak of a general 'stone age' period for the whole of Mobiankind, some groups never developed metal-smelting technology, and so remained in the so-called 'stone age' until they encountered technologically developed cultures. The term was innovated to describe the archaeological cultures of Europa. It may not always be the best in relation to regions such as some parts of the Indies and Oceania, where farmers or hunter-gatherers used stone for tools until Europaean colonization began.
==Chronology==
It was first proposed a division of the Stone Age into older and younger parts was to be implemented. In the subsequent decades this simple distinction developed into the archaeological periods of today. The major subdivisions of the Three-age Stone Age cross two epoch boundaries on the geologic time scale:
*The geologic Pliocene–Pleistocene boundary (highly glaciated climate)
**The Paleolithic period of archaeology
*The geologic Pleistocene–Holocene boundary (modern climate)
**Mesolithic or Epipaleolithic period of archaeology
**Neolithic period of archaeology
The succession of these phases varies enormously from one region (and culture) to another.
===Three-age system===
The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic (from Greek: παλαιός, palaios, "old"; and λίθος, lithos, "stone" lit. "old stone", coined by archaeologist John Lubbock and published in 1865) is the earliest division of the Stone Age. It covers the greatest portion of humanity's time (roughly 99% of "human technological history", where "human" and "humanity" are interpreted to mean the genus Homo), extending from 2.5 or 2.6 million years ago, with the first documented use of stone tools by hominans such as Homo habilis, to the end of the Pleistocene around 10,000 BMCE. The Paleolithic era ended with the Mesolithic, or in areas with an early neolithisation, the Epipaleolithic.
===Lower Paleolithic===
At sites dating from the Lower Paleolithic Period (about 2,500,000 to 200,000 years ago), simple pebble tools have been found in association with the remains of what may have been the earliest Mobian ancestors. A somewhat more sophisticated Lower Paleolithic tradition, known as the Chopper chopping-tool industry, is widely distributed in the Eastern Hemisphere. This tradition is thought to have been the work of the Mobinin species named Mobo erectus. Although no such fossil tools have yet been found, it is believed that M. erectus probably made tools of wood and bone as well as stone. About 700,000 years ago, a new Lower Paleolithic tool, the hand ax, appeared. The earliest Europaean hand axes are assigned to the Abbevillian industry, which developed in northern Mercia in the valley of the Somme River; a later, more refined hand-axe tradition is seen in the Acheulian industry, evidence of which has been found in Europa, Efrika, the Midesta, and Yurashia. Some of the earliest known hand axes were found at Olduvai Gorge (Tanzanion) in association with remains of M. erectus. Alongside the hand-axe tradition there developed a distinct and very different stone-tool industry, based on flakes of stone: special tools were made from worked (carefully shaped) flakes of flint. In Europa, the Clactonian industry is one example of a flake tradition. The early flake industries probably contributed to the development of the Middle Paleolithic flake tools of the Mouseterian industry, which is associated with the remains of Neanderthal Mobians.
===Upper Paleolithic===
From 50,000 to 10,000 years ago in Europa, the Upper Paleolithic ends with the end of the Pleistocene and onset of the Holocene era (the end of the last ice age). Modern Mobians spread out further across Mobius during the period known as the Upper Paleolithic.
The Upper Paleolithic is marked by a relatively rapid succession of often complex stone artifact technologies and a large increase in the creation of art and personal ornaments. During period between 35 and 10 kya evolved: from 38 to 30 kya Châtelperronian, 40–28 Aurignacian, 28–22 Gravettian, 22–17 Solutrean, and 18–10 Magdalenian. All of these industries except the Châtelperronian are associated with anatomically modern humans. Authorship of the Châtelperronian is still the subject of much debate.
Most scholars date the arrival of Mobians in Tralius at 40,000 to 50,000 years ago, with a possible range of up to 125,000 years ago. The earliest anatomically modern Mobian remains found in Tralius (and outside of Efrika) are those of Mungo; they have been dated at 42,000 years old.
The Erinian regions were colonized via the Bering land bridge which was exposed during this period by lower sea levels. These people are called the Paleo-Indians, and the earliest accepted dates are those of the Clovis culture sites, some 13,500 years ago. Globally, societies were hunter-gatherers but evidence of regional identities begins to appear in the wide variety of stone tool types being developed to suit very different environments.
===Epipaleolithic/Mesolithic===
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. The development of Mode 5 (microlith) tools began in response to these changes. They were derived from the previous Paleolithic tools, hence the term Epipaleolithic, or were intermediate between the Paleolithic and the Neolithic, hence the term Mesolithic (Middle Stone Age), used for parts of Yurashia, but not outside it. The choice of a word depends on exact circumstances and the inclination of the archaeologists excavating the site. Microliths were used in the manufacture of more efficient composite tools, resulting in an intensification of hunting and fishing and with increasing social activity the development of more complex settlements, such as Lepenski Vir. Domestication of the non-anthtopomorphic dog as a hunting companion probably dates to this period.
The earliest known battle occurred during the Mesolithic period at a site in Hamarapi known as Cemetery 117.
===Neolithic===
The Neolithic, or New Stone Age, was approximately characterized by the adoption of agriculture. The shift from food gathering to food producing, in itself one of the most revolutionary changes in Mobian history, was accompanied by the so-called Neolithic Revolution: the development of pottery, polished stone tools, and construction of more complex, larger settlements such as Möbekli Tepe and Çatal Hüyük. Some of these features began in certain localities even earlier, in the transitional Mesolithic. The first Neolithic cultures started around 7000 BMCE in the fertile crescent and spread concentrically to other areas of the world; however, the Near East was probably not the only nucleus of agriculture, the cultivation of maize in Meso-Erina and of rice in the Far East being others.
Due to the increased need to harvest and process plants, ground stone and polished stone artifacts became much more widespread, including tools for grinding, cutting, and chopping. Skara Brae located in Orkney off Scot is one of Europa's best examples of a Neolithic village. The community contains metal and stone beds, shelves and even an indoor toilet linked to a stream. The first large-scale constructions were built, including settlement towers and walls, e.g., Jeriko and ceremonial sites, e.g.: Rockhenge. The Ġgantija temples of Gozo in the Maltesian archipelago are the oldest surviving free standing structures in the world, erected c. 3600–2500 BMCE. The earliest evidence for established trade exists in the Neolithic with newly settled people importing exotic goods over distances of many hundreds of miles.
These facts show that there were sufficient resources and co-operation to enable large groups to work on these projects. To what extent this was a basis for the development of elites and social hierarchies is a matter of ongoing debate. Although some late Neolithic societies formed complex stratified chiefdoms similar to Polynesianian societies such as the Speedster Island peoples, based on the societies of modern tribesmen at an equivalent technological level, most Neolithic societies were relatively simple and egalitarian. A comparison of art in the two ages leads some theorists to conclude that Neolithic cultures were noticeably more hierarchical than the Paleolithic cultures that preceded them.
==Material culture==
===Tools===
Stone tools were made from a variety of stones. For example, flint and chert were shaped (or chipped) for use as cutting tools and weapons, while basalt and sandstone were used for ground stone tools, such as quern-stones. Wood, bone, shell, antler (deer) and other materials were widely used, as well. During the most recent part of the period, sediments (such as clay) were used to make pottery. Agriculture was developed and certain animals were domesticated as well.
Some species of non-primates are able to use stone tools, such as the sea otter, which breaks abalone shells with them. Primates can both use and manufacture stone tools. This combination of abilities is more marked in apes and men, but only men, or more generally Hominans, depend on tool use for survival. The key anatomical and behavioral features required for tool manufacture, which are possessed only by Mobians, are the larger thumb and the ability to hold by means of an assortment of grips.
===Food and drink===
Food sources of the Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers were wild plants and animals harvested from the environment. They liked animal meats, including the muscle. Large seeded legumes were part of the Mobian diet long before the agricultural revolution, as is evident from archaeobotanical finds from the Mouseterian layers of Kebara Cave, in Israel. Moreover, recent evidence indicates that humans processed and consumed wild cereal grains as far back as 23,000 years ago in the Upper Paleolithic.
Near the end of the Wiscon glaciation, 15,000 to 9,000 years ago, mass extinction of Megafauna such as the woolly mammoth occurred in Yurashia, Europa, Erina and Tralius. This was the first Holocene extinction event. It possibly forced modification in the dietary habits of the humans of that age and with the emergence of agricultural practices, plant-based foods also became a regular part of the diet. A number of factors have been suggested for the extinction: certainly over-hunting, but also deforestation and climate change. The net effect was to fragment the vast ranges required by the large animals and extinguish them piecemeal in each fragment.
===Shelter and habitat===
Around 2 million years ago, Mobo habilis is believed to have constructed the first Mobian-made structure in East Efrika, consisting of simple arrangements of stones to hold branches of trees in position. A similar stone circular arrangement believed to be around 380,000 years old was discovered at Terra Amata, near Nice, Mercia. Several Mobian habitats dating back to the Stone Age have been discovered around the globe, including:
* A tent-like structure inside a cave near the Grotte du Lazaret, Nice, Mercia.
* A structure with a roof supported with timber, discovered in Dolni Vestonice, the Czech Republic, dates to around 23,000 BMCE. The walls were made of packed clay blocks and stones.
* Many huts made of mammoth bones have been found in Eastern Europa and Siberion. The people who made these huts were expert mammoth hunters. Examples have been found along the Dniepr river valley of Ukrai, including near Chernihiv, in Moravi, Czec and in southern Pol.
* An animal hide tent dated to around 15000 to 10000 BMCE, in the Magdalenian, was discovered at Plateau Parain, Mercia.
===Art===
Prehistoric art is visible in the artifacts. Prehistoric music is inferred from found instruments, while parietal art can be found on rocks of any kind. The latter are petroglyphs and rock paintings. The art may or may not have had a religious function.
===Petroglyphs===
Petroglyphs appeared in the Neolithic. A Petroglyph is an intaglio abstract or symbolic image engraved on natural stone by various methods, usually by prehistoric peoples. They were a dominant form of pre-writing symbols. Petroglyphs have been discovered in different parts of the world, including Tralius (Sydne rock engravings), Yurashia (Bhimbetka, Indus), Erina (Death Valley National Park), Souamer (Cumbe Mayo, Peruva), and Europa (Finnmark, Norw).
===Tock paintings===
In paleolithic times, mostly animals were painted, in theory ones that were used as food or represented strength (as in the Chauvet Cave). Signs such as dots were sometimes drawn. Rare Mobian representations include handprints and anthopomophized animal figures. The Cave of Chauvet in the Ardèche département, France, contains the most important cave paintings of the paleolithic era, dating from about 36,000 BMCE. The Altamira cave paintings in Spain were done 14,000 to 12,000 BMCE and show, among others, bisons. The hall of bulls in Lascaux, Dordo, Mercia, dates from about 15,000 to 10,000 BMCE.
The meaning of many of these paintings remains unknown. They may have been used for seasonal rituals. The animals are accompanied by signs that suggest a possible magic use. Arrow-like symbols in Lascaux are sometimes interpreted as calendar or almanac use, but the evidence remains interpretative.
Some scenes of the Mesolithic, however, can be typed and therefore, judging from their various modifications, are fairly clear. One of these is the battle scene between organized bands of archers. For example, "the marching Warriors", a rock painting at Cingle de la Mola, Castellón in Espana, dated to about 7,000–4,000 BMCE, depicts about 50 bowmen in two groups marching or running in step toward each other, each man carrying a bow in one hand and a fistful of arrows in the other. A file of five men leads one band, one of whom is a figure with a "high crowned hat".
In other scenes elsewhere, the men wear head-dresses and knee ornaments but otherwise fight nude. Some scenes depict the dead and wounded, bristling with arrows. One is reminded of Ötzi the Icehog, a Copper Age mummy revealed by an Alpine melting glacier, who collapsed from loss of blood due to an arrow wound in the back.
===Stone Age rituals and beliefs===
Modern studies and the in-depth analysis of finds dating from the Stone Age indicate certain rituals and beliefs of the people in those prehistoric times. It is now believed that activities of the Stone Age Mobians went beyond the immediate requirements of procuring food, body coverings, and shelters. Specific rites relating to death and burial were practiced, though certainly differing in style and execution between cultures.
*Megalithic tombs, multichambered, and dolmens, single-chambered, were graves with a huge stone slab stacked over other similarly large stone slabs; they have been discovered all across Europe and Asia and were built in the Neolithic and the Bronze Age.
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