Technologies and technical devices of the Stone Age. Primitive technologies of the Stone Age
Before watching videos about the production and use of stone axes, a brief educational program on the topic of what a stone ax is and what reconstructions are. Let's start with reconstructions. As noted earlier, these are not scientific reconstructions, but only a visualization of primitive technologies. As their author himself writes, he relies on the SAS survival book:
- "SAS survival book - this teaches you how to survive in all climates"
Even in an ordinary textbook on the history of technology, for example, much more practically useful information is given on this subject:
Reconstruction from
And secondly, the type of ax offered as an example is one of the common misconceptions on this topic. This is not an axe, but rather the shape of a club or club. It is convenient to break through her head, but it is hardly possible to work as a tool:
From John Wiseman. "The Complete Survival Guide - 2011"
- Axe- one of the oldest composite tools, but its pedigree began with a simple stone, which was pointed on one side and rounded on the other. It was with such a tool that the reenactor in past videos began construction. It's called primitive hand ax - hand ax.
Reconstruction from
The first axes with a handle appeared in the Late (Upper) Paleolithic (35-12 thousand years ago). Axes, initially, and for a long time, were used primarily as a tool, war came to the world of people later. Unfortunately, it was not possible to find a good work on the history of the ax; as a standard, the evolution of the ax is presented something like this:
Reconstruction of the evolution of axes from
Although such a scheme causes me big doubts. Well, firstly, they began to grind the stone from the Neolithic era, and before that, the axes looked something like on. In addition, I repeat, there are doubts that the second ax in the row was used as an ax at all. It is difficult to imagine working with it in practice. It's more of a variant of the club. In any case, so far I have not come across reconstructions of work with a similar type of ax. Thirdly, the proposed sequence shows different types of axes that developed not sequentially, but in parallel, as they were the specialization of the original ax for different tasks.
One of the main technological difficulties was to securely attach the handle to the ax. And then they went to different tricks. Later, when the stone was learned to drill, according to one of the technologies, the ax handle was rotated into an axe. It looked something like this:
Of the variety of types of axes and techniques for their manufacture, we will consider two in the videos: celt (selt) and adze:
Celt and adze
Both will be made already using grinding technology, but still without drilling.
We make a stone celt (selt):
What to pay attention to? In addition to the ax, the reenactor also has to make a stone chisel, and instead of a drill, use fire, or rather burning coals. And somewhere in the comments, he wrote a very interesting remark about the psychology of the prehistoric "artisan". He said that the work on the production of the ax went very well in the evening around the fire, although there were very few interlocutors to work and communicate, exchanging news during the day. That is, labor then was a part of social life, and most likely a sacred one, and not at all a duty that had to be served for a reward, as is often the case now.
Making an adze:
And what I want to say in the end. The opinion about the primitiveness of the technical capabilities of prehistoric peoples is greatly exaggerated, and, as a rule, is a consequence of the modernization of history. Yes, it is almost impossible for a modern person, without special knowledge, to create jade axes from Troy.
These four stone hammer-axes come from hoard L, discovered by Schliemann in 1890, who completed its excavations at the same time,
and his life path. Schliemann considered hammer axes as his most valuable discovery made during the entire period of the Trojan excavations.
But even an ordinary person, armed with knowledge from the videos, after some time is able to make quite technological axes. Our ancestors from the Ancient World not only had extensive experience in stone processing, but also used quite impressive mechanization devices for their activities:
Drilling machine :
Reconstruction of the evolution of axes from
Sanding machine :
Reconstruction of the evolution of axes from
Sources
1. S. A. Semenov. The development of technology in the Stone Age. Leningrad: Nauka, 1968. 376 p.
2. N.B. Moiseev, M.I. Semenov. Reconstruction of the attachment of stone tools. Humanitarian sciences. History and political science. ISSN 1810-0201. Bulletin of TSU, issue 1 (69), 2009
3. B. Bogaevsky, I. Lurie, P. Schultz and others. Essays on the history of technology of pre-capitalist formations. 1936. Publishing House of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. 462 p.
4. Zworykin A. A. et al. History of technology. M., Sotsekgiz, 1962. 772 p. [Acad. sciences of the USSR. Institute of History of Natural Science and Technology]
A good selection in the video, but it’s not necessary to say that civilization, as the author says, was one, only because the same technologies were used all over the world. In our time, the same technologies are also used everywhere, but our civilization is not unified - there is confrontation and, in general, unity is still very far away. In addition, if the ancient civilization referred to in the video was really united, then it would exist to this day, but we do not observe this, which means that something ruined it, due to its disunity.
As for the “technologies” themselves, there is a mention in the Koran about the people of Samud, who carved their dwellings in the rocks - “Remember how He made you the successors of Adites and settled you on the land, on the plains of which you erect palaces, and in the mountains you carve dwellings….” (7 al-Araf (Fences), 74), “They carved safe dwellings in the mountains” (15 al-Hijr, 82), “And will you skillfully (or proudly) carve dwellings in the mountains?” (26 ash-Shuara (Poets), 149), "With the Thamud who cut the rocks in the dell?" (89 al-Fajr (Dawn), 9) “Will you be left in safety among what is here: among gardens and springs, among crops and palm trees with tender fruits, and will you skillfully (or proudly) carve dwellings in the mountains? » (26 ash-Shuara (Poets), 146-149), but for a long time the Thamud lived in prosperity and prosperity, until they began to forget God, who sent down all this grace to them. The people of the tribe began to carve idols from the rocks and deify them. In addition, they fell into the sin of pride: they became an arrogant and arrogant people, where the rich oppressed the poor: they did not recognize their right to use pastures for livestock and water. blinded by pagan delusions, they believed that insufficiently strong dwellings became the cause of his death from a hurricane (which was possibly the reason not for building buildings from stone, but for carving them in the rocks) - and God punished the proud people.
“And to the Thamudites - Salih, their brother, (We sent), and he said: “O my people! Worship God! You have no other god besides Him. A clear testimony has come to you from your Master: This is the she-camel of God, which will be a sign of Him to you. Let her graze on the land of the Lord, without harming her, so as not to incur severe punishment on yourself. You will remember that he appointed you the successor of the people of Hell and placed you on the earth, where you build palaces and castles in the valleys and cut your houses out of the rocks. So remember (about all) the blessings of God and do not walk on the earth, outrageous on it (and thereby bringing trouble into His order) ”(Sura“ Barriers ”: 73-74).
Together we open the abstract of the first lecture and study, study, study.
2) Technologies and technical devices of the Stone Age.
At the end of the 19th century, the Stone Age was divided into the Paleolithic and the Neolithic. However, in the future, and in the Paleolithic, it was possible to distinguish a number of periods. The basis for this was the observation of changes in the forms and processing techniques of stone tools. To be understood, I will have to say at least a few words about the cleavage technique.
Even in order to obtain the simplest flake - a thin chip with sharp edges - a number of preliminary expedient actions are required. On a piece of stone, you need to prepare a place for striking and hit it at a certain angle and with a certain force. It is even more difficult to make a tool of a strictly specified, sometimes quite complex shape. In ancient times, a system of upholstering with small chips, called retouching in archeology, was used for this.
These techniques have been developed and improved over a very long time - from one era to another. Today, scientists are studying the technique of chipping with special methods. The experiment is of great help in this, that is, the archaeologist himself begins to split stones and make stone tools, trying to better understand how this was done in antiquity.
Let me also remind you that the communities of mammoth hunters of interest to us lived in the era of the Upper (or Late) Paleolithic, which, according to modern data, lasted from about 45 to 10 thousand years ago. Not so long ago, it was believed that the beginning of this era approximately coincides with the emergence of modern humans - Homo sapiens sapiens. However, it has now been established that this is not the case. In fact, people of the same physical type as modern humanity appeared much earlier - perhaps about 200 thousand years ago. However, the development of technology was rather slow. For a long time, Homo sapiens sapiens made the same primitive tools as people of a more archaic type - archanthropes and paleoanthropes - later completely extinct.
A number of scientists believe that the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic era should be associated with the massive introduction of new material into human practice - bones, horns and tusks. This material turned out to be more ductile than stone and harder than most tree species. In that distant era, its development opened up completely new opportunities for man. Longer, lighter and sharper knives appeared. Spearheads and darts appeared, and with them simple but ingenious devices for throwing them at a target.
At the same time, people invented new tools for removing and dressing the skins of dead animals. Awls and needles made of bone appeared, the thinnest of which hardly differ in size from our modern ones. This was the most important achievement of mankind: after all, the presence of such needles meant the appearance of sewn clothes among our ancestors! In addition, tools specially designed for digging dugouts and storage pits began to be made from tusks and horns. There were probably many other specialized objects made of bone in that period. But the purpose of many of them found at Paleolithic sites is still a mystery to archaeologists... Finally, it is worth noting: the vast majority of various decorations and works of Paleolithic art were also made of bone, horn and tusk.
People processed these materials in different ways. Sometimes with a piece of tusk or thick bone they did the same as with flint: they chipped, removed flakes, from which they then made the necessary things. But much more often, special techniques were used: felling, planing, cutting. The surface of finished objects was usually polished to a shine. A very important technical achievement was the invention of the drilling technique. As a mass reception, it arose at the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic. However, the very first drilling experiments, apparently, were already carried out in the previous Middle Paleolithic era, but extremely rarely.
The most important achievement of Upper Paleolithic technology was the first combination of two different materials in one tool: bone and stone, wood and stone, and other combinations. The simplest examples of this kind are flint scrapers, chisels or piercers fixed in a bone or wooden handle. More complex are compound or insert tools - knives and tips.
The earliest of them were found in the Sungir burial: the impact ends of the tusk spears were reinforced with two rows of small flint flakes glued with resin directly to the surface of the tusk. Somewhat later, such tools were improved: a longitudinal groove would be cut into the bone base, where inserts specially prepared from small flint plates should be inserted. Subsequently, these liners were fixed with resin. However, such spearheads are typical not for mammoth hunters, but for their southern neighbors, the inhabitants of the Black Sea steppes. There lived tribes of buffalo hunters.
Let us immediately note one point that is extremely important for archaeologists. In archaic societies, not only clothes, not only jewelry and works of art were able to "speak" about their belonging to one or another genus-tribe. Tools of labor - too. Although not all. Tools of the simplest forms - the same needles and awls - are, in fact, the same everywhere and, therefore, are "dumb" in this respect. But more complex tools in different cultures look different. So, for example, mammoth hunters who came to the Russian Plain from the territory of Central Europe are characterized by tusk hoes with richly ornamented handles, which were used for digging the earth. When dressing skins, these people used elegant flat bone spatulas, the handles of which were ornamented along the edges and ended with a carefully carved “head”. These are the items that are really able to "report" their cultural identity! Later, when the newcomers from the banks of the Danube were replaced on the Russian Plain by the tribes of builders of land dwellings from mammoth bones, the forms of tools for the same purpose immediately changed. "Talking" things have disappeared - along with the human community that lived here before.
The processing of new material inevitably required new tools. In the Upper Paleolithic, the main set of stone tools changed, and the technologies for their manufacture were improved. One of the main achievements of this period is the development of the lamellar cleavage technique. For the removal of long and thin plates, the so-called prismatic cores were specially prepared; chipping from them was carried out with the help of a bone intermediary. Thus, the blow was applied not to the stone itself, but to the blunt end of a bone or horn rod, the sharp end of which was placed exactly in the place from which the master intended to chip off the plate. In the Upper Paleolithic, the squeezing technique first appeared: that is, the removal of the workpiece is carried out not by impact, but by pressure on the intermediary. However, everywhere this technique began to be used later, already in the Neolithic.
Previously, the masters were content, mainly, with the raw materials that were located in the vicinity of the parking lot. Starting from the Upper Paleolithic, people began to take special care of the extraction of high quality raw materials; for its search and extraction, special trips were made for tens and even hundreds of kilometers from the parking lot! Of course, not nodules were transferred to such a distance, but already prepared cores and chipped plates.
The prismatic cores of mammoth hunters have such a complex and perfect shape that for a long time their finds were identified as very large axes. In fact, this is an object specially prepared for the subsequent chipping of the plates.
Later it was found that such cores were indeed used as tools - however, not for cutting wood, but for loosening dense rock. Apparently, in long-distance campaigns for flint raw materials, noiryrao people used cores already at hand to extract new nodules from Cretaceous deposits. This chalk flint is especially good.
Improved at this stage and retouching technique. Squeeze retouching is used - especially in the manufacture of elegant double-sided tips. The craftsman sequentially presses the edge of the workpiece to be processed with the end of the bone rod, separating thin, small chips running in a strictly specified direction, giving the tool the desired shape. For the decoration of stone tools, not only stones, bones or wood were sometimes used, but also ... their own teeth! This is how some Aborigines of Australia retouch the tips. Well, one can only envy the amazing health and strength of their teeth! Along with retouching, other processing techniques are being developed: the technique of incisal chipping is widely spread - a narrow long removal from a blow inflicted on the end face of a workpiece. In addition, the technique of grinding and drilling stone appears for the first time - however, it was used far from everywhere and only for the manufacture of jewelry and specific tools (“graters”) intended for grinding paint, grains or plant fibers.
Finally, the set of tools itself undergoes strong changes in the Upper Paleolithic. Former forms completely disappear, or their number is sharply reduced. They are replaced by such forms that were either absent in the monuments of early eras, or met there as a few curiosities: end scrapers, chisels, chisels and chisels, narrow points and piercings. Gradually, there are more and more various miniature tools used either for very delicate work, or as components (inserts) of complex tools, fixed in a wooden or bone base. Archaeologists today count not dozens, but hundreds of varieties of these tools!
It is worth noting one circumstance, which is sometimes forgotten even by experts. The names of many stone tools seem to suggest that we know their purpose. "Knife", "cutter" - this is what they cut with; “scraper”, “scraper”, - what they scrape with; “piercing” - what they pierce with, etc. In the century before last, when the science of the Stone Age was just emerging, scientists really tried to “guess” the purpose of incomprehensible objects mined by excavations by their appearance. This is how these terms came about. Later, archaeologists realized that with this approach they were too often mistaken.
One of the features of the Upper Paleolithic is that a person not only actively masters new material, but for the first time starts artistic creativity. He began to decorate bone tools with rich and complex ornaments, carved figures of animals and people from bone, tusk or soft stone (marl), and was engaged in the manufacture of a wide variety of ornaments. All these delicate works, sometimes performed with amazing skill, required a special set of tools.
Stone processing technology became so advanced that in different groups, sometimes living side by side, people began to make tools for the same purpose in different ways. Processing the tip of a spear, scraper or chisel differently than the neighbors do, giving them a different shape, the ancient masters seemed to say: “It's us! This is ours!". By grouping sites with the closest set of tools into archaeological cultures, scientists are able to some extent to present a picture of the existence of ancient groups, their distribution, life characteristics, and, finally, their relationship with each other.
The side-notch tip is a shape especially characteristic of one of the mammoth hunter cultures. However, from time to time (although not often) the shape of the same tip, characteristic of one culture, was “borrowed” by foreigners for one reason or another. However, in such cases, the tools, as a rule, acquired specific features that were clearly visible to the archaeologist.
In some cultures, special attention was paid to high craftsmanship in the manufacture of thin leaf-shaped tips, processed by flat chips on both sides. In the Upper Paleolithic, three cultures are known where the production of such tools reached an exceptionally high level. The most ancient of them - the Streltsy culture - existed on the Russian Plain between 40 and 25 thousand years ago. The people of this culture made triangular-shaped arrowheads with a concave base. In the solutre culture, common in the territory of modern France and Spain about 22-17 thousand years ago, leaf-shaped tips no less perfect in processing had other, elongated forms - the so-called laurel-leaved or willow-leaved. Finally, the production of various types of double-ended arrowheads reached exceptionally high development in the Paleo-Indian cultures of North America, which existed approximately 12-7 thousand years ago. It should be noted that to date, no links between these three cultural variants have been established. Different groups of people invented similar techniques quite independently, independently of each other.
Eastern European mammoth hunters belonged to cultures of a different type, where the necessary shape of the tool was achieved by processing only the edge of the workpiece, and not its entire surface. Here, special attention was paid to obtaining good plates, with the necessary dimensions and proportions.
It should be noted once again: after the cultures of immigrants from Central Europe were replaced by the cultures of builders of houses from mammoth bones in most of the Russian Plain, there were noticeable changes in the processing of stone. The forms of stone tools are becoming simpler and smaller, and the technique of chipping blanks, leading to obtaining thin long plates and regular cut plates, is becoming more and more perfect. This should not be considered "degradation" in any way. Mammoth hunters, who lived on the banks of the Dnieper and Don 20-14 thousand years ago, reached real heights for their era in housebuilding, in bone and tusk processing, and in ornamentation (here it is worth recalling that the meander-type ornament was created for the first time not by the ancient Greeks at all, but by the inhabitants of the Mezinsky site!). So, apparently, their "simplified" stone inventory at that time simply corresponded to its purpose.
^ 3) Ceramics and its revolutionary significance.
CERAMICS(Greek keramike - pottery, from keramos - clay; English ceramics, French ceramique, German keramik), the name of any household or artistic products made from clay or mixtures containing clay, baked in a kiln or dried in the sun. Ceramics include pottery, terracotta, majolica, faience, stone mass, porcelain. Any object molded from natural clay and cured by sun-drying or firing is considered pottery. Porcelain is a special type of pottery. Translucent, with a vitreous sintered body and a white base, real porcelain is made from special grades of clay, feldspars and quartz or quartz substitutes.
Pottery making is an ancient art, predating metallurgy or even weaving in most cultures. Porcelain, however, is a much later invention; it first appeared in China c. 600 AD, and in Europe - in the 18th century.
TECHNIQUES
Material.
The main material for the production of ceramics is clay. The quarried clay is usually mixed with sand, small stones, the remains of rotted plants and other foreign matter, which must be completely removed in order for the clay to become usable. Today, as in ancient times, this is done by mixing clay with water and settling the mixture in a large tub. The mud settles to the bottom, and the top layer of clay and water is pumped out or scooped out into an adjoining tank. The process is then repeated, sometimes several times; the clay is refined with each subsequent precipitation until the material of the desired quality is obtained.
The cleaned clay is stored in a damp state in enclosed spaces until it is used. Exposure of clay for several months significantly improves its working qualities, allowing the clay to retain its shape in the process of creating a product, while remaining malleable and plastic. Fresh clay is often combined with old clay from a previous mixed batch; this enhances bacterial activity and appears to improve the quality of the material.
Any product molded in clay undergoes some degree of compression, both during drying and during the firing process. For uniform drying and minimal shrinkage, coarsely ground pieces of terracotta, usually pottery scrap, are added to the clay. It also increases the strength of the clay, reducing the chance of it shrinking violently during molding.
Molding.
Stucco ceramics.
The earliest pottery-making technique, invented c. 5000 BC, during the early era Neolithic, was the modeling of a vessel by hand from a lump of clay. Clay was crushed and squeezed out to obtain the desired shape. Samples of products made in this ancient technique, which is still used by some potters today, have been found in Jordan, Iran and Iraq.
^ Band ceramics.
A later invention was the technique of ring molding, in which the vessel was lined up from several clay strips. A flat, hand-sculpted clay base was surrounded by a thick strip, and then a strong connection between the base and the strip was achieved by pressure and smoothing. The remaining strips were added until the pot had the desired height and shape. To facilitate the process of lining up and smoothing the walls, a rounded stone was sometimes placed inside the pot, and the outside surface was processed with a spatula. This technique was used to make beautiful pottery with walls of the same thickness. The band pottery method resembles the technique of weaving baskets from long fibrous ropes (or bast), and it is possible that the band pottery technique originates from this method.
Improvements in the band technique led to the molding of the pot on a small piece of reed matting or a curved crock (fragment of a broken vessel). The mat or shard served as a base during the building of the pot and as a convenient axis of rotation, thanks to which the vessel turned easily in the hands of the potter. This manual rotation gave the potter the ability to continuously smooth the pot and symmetrically align the shape as it was built. Among some primitive peoples, such as the American Indians, nothing more advanced than this technique was created, and all their ceramics were made by this method. The tape method was used to make large jugs for food storage even after the invention of the potter's wheel.
^ Potter's wheel.
The invention of the potter's wheel dates back to about the end of the 4th millennium BC. Its use was not immediately widespread; some regions adopted the new technology much earlier than others. One of the first was Sumer in southern Mesopotamia, where the potter's wheel was used around 3250 BC. In Egypt it was already in use by the end of the 2nd Dynasty, around 2800 BC, and in Troy pottery made on the potter's wheel was found in the layer of Troy II, ca. 2500 BC
The ancient potter's wheel was a heavy, durable disc of wood or terracotta. On the underside of the disk there was a recess with which it was mounted on a low fixed axle. The whole wheel was balanced so as to rotate without staggering and vibration. In Greece, it was customary for the potter's apprentice to turn the wheel, adjusting the speed at the master's command. The large size and weight of the wheel provided a sufficiently long period of its rotation after launch. The presence of an assistant turning the wheel allowed the potter to use both hands in shaping the vase and give this process his full attention. The foot potter's wheel does not appear to have been used until Roman times. In the 17th century the wheel was set in motion by means of a rope thrown over a pulley, and in the 19th century. The steam powered potter's wheel was invented.
The process of making a pot on a potter's wheel begins with kneading the clay to remove air bubbles and turn it into a homogeneous, workable mass. Then the clay ball is placed in the center of the rotating circle and held with bent palms until the circle is evened out. By pressing the thumb into the middle of the clay ball, a ring with thick walls is formed, which gradually stretches between the thumb and the rest of the fingers, transforming into a cylinder. This cylinder can then, at the request of the potter, open in the shape of a bowl, stretch out like a long pipe, flatten into a plate or close, creating a spherical shape. At the end, the finished product is “cut off” and put to dry. The next day, when the clay has dried to a hard crust, the vessel is turned upside down into the center of the circle. On a rotating wheel, they hone, or clean, a shape by cutting off an unnecessary part of the clay, for which tools made of metal, bone or wood are usually used. This completes the molding of the product; the vessel is ready for decoration and firing. The leg and other parts of the vessel can be dressed and turned separately and then attached to the body of the vessel with clay coating - liquid clay used by the potter as a bonding material.
Casting.
The casting technique is used to create mass-produced ceramics. First, a plaster mold is made from the pattern to be reproduced. Then, a liquid clay mortar called casting mortar is poured into this template. It is left until the gypsum absorbs moisture from the solution and the layer of clay deposited on the walls of the matrix hardens. This takes about an hour, after which the form is turned over and the remaining solution is poured. The hollow clay casting is finished by hand and then fired.
In ancient times, soft, pliable clay was pressed into the mold by hand rather than poured in as in the casting technique. The production process began with the molding of the model itself. The clay sample (patrix) made by the master was created both for the final use of the vase and for the intermediate production stages. In most of these sculpted vases, the stucco part is attached to a piece, such as a mouth, molded on a potter's wheel. Therefore, the manufacture of the patrix was limited only to this stucco part.
Burning.
The technique of treating dried clay with heat to change it from a soft brittle substance into a hard vitreous material was discovered c. 5000 BC This discovery was undoubtedly accidental, possibly the result of a hearth built on a clay base. Probably, when the fire went out, people noticed that the clay base of the hearth became extremely hard. The first inventive potter could repeat this phenomenon by molding something out of soft clay and putting it into the fire, and then making sure that the fire did not damage his product, but, on the contrary, gave it a solid, stable shape. Thus, the technique of ceramic firing could have appeared.
Paleolithic. under the broad term "stone Age" we understand a huge period, covering tens of thousands of years, when the main material from which tools were made was stone. In addition to stone, of course, wood and animal bones were used, but objects made from these materials survived either in relatively small quantities (bone) or did not survive at all (wood).
The technologies of the Lower and Middle Paleolithic did not differ in variety and were dictated by the harsh natural conditions of these eras. The development of human communities at this time is determined by hunting and gathering. From large groups of Paleolithic sources stand out hand tools and ground structures. The last group is less numerous, but very informative, as it gives an idea of the level of "engineering" thinking of Paleolithic man. The remains of Late Paleolithic structures have been studied the most. Modern researchers distinguish two types of such structures - temporary and permanent. The first type is close to the modern plague (dwelling of the peoples of the Far North of Europe and America) and is a cone-shaped frame made of wooden poles placed vertically and covered with animal skins. Long-term dwellings had a domed shape (the frame was made both from wood and from the ribs of a mammoth), a kind of foundation from the jaws or skulls of mammoths. Technologically, such a structure is close to the modern northern yaranga. Yarangi, unlike plagues, are more stable, have a larger area. The remains of such structures have been found in France (Mezin), Ukraine (Mezhirichi site) and Russia (Kostenki site).
No less expressive source of knowledge of the Paleolithic man was drawings in caves. Such drawings were discovered in the caves of France and Spain - Altamira (1879), La Moute (1895), Marsula, Le Grez, Marnifal (beginning of the 20th century), Lascaux (1940), Rufignac (1956). In 1959
rock paintings were also discovered in Russia - in the Kapova cave in Bashkiria. I must say that until the beginning of the XX century. many researchers questioned the antiquity of the discovered drawings - they were too realistic and multicolored. Not in favor of ancient dating spoke and their excellent safety. The first doubts in antiquity were shaken after the discovery of an elephant drawing in the Chabot cave (France). Subsequently, the improvement of the excavation technique and the development of technical means made it possible to date the drawings in the caves more accurately, and it turned out that most of them really belong to the Paleolithic era.
In addition to evidence of ancient fauna, these images give insight into the primitive technology of creating colors and lighting. For example, to create drawings, durable mineral paints were used, which were a mixture of crushed stones, ocher and water. Since it was dark in the caves, the ancient artists used stone lamps - flat stones with hollowed out recesses, where fuel (obviously, animal fat) was poured into which the wick was lowered.
The beginning of the Paleolithic is also human mastery of fire - we can say the first energy revolution in the history of mankind. There are different points of view on the dating of the earliest use of fire (traces of such use, for example, are noted in the sites Homo erectus, however, the most probable dating is 120-130 thousand years BC), but the main thing is that fire changed a person’s life. It became possible to use new products (of both plant and animal origin) as food, to heat habitats, and to protect themselves from wild animals with the help of fire. All this led to biological changes - a person received more energy, as well as new useful substances. Later, with the help of fire, the development of pottery, blacksmithing and many other crafts became possible.
Important changes occur on the verge of the Middle and Upper Paleolithic. At this time, a hard-to-explain radical leap took place in the physical and, most importantly, intellectual development of the emerging person: a person of the modern type appears (and has hardly changed since then) - Homo sapiens, the history of human society begins. This process originates in Africa (in Europe at the same time the formation of Neanderthals takes place). About 40-30 thousand years ago Homo sapiens begins to spread to other regions - Asia, Australia and Europe. This leads to the assimilation of Homo sapiens from these regions by Homo sapiens (modern anthropologists sometimes find features of Neanderthals on the skulls of Homo sapiens dating back to the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic).
Mesolithic. Important changes in technology and knowledge occur during the Mesolithic era. This period is characterized by the beginning global warming. Natural conditions are gradually changing - the melting of glaciers leads to an increase in the area of inland waters, the development of some species of fauna. A person masters a new form of activity for himself - fishing. Warming has led to the gradual disappearance of megafauna. However, modern researchers are inclined to believe that, for example, the extinction of mammoths is associated not so much with changes in natural conditions as with human activities. Thus, the migration of mammoths to the northern parts of Europe was accompanied by their extermination by tribes of hunters. It can also be said that already in the Stone Age there are features of a later era of consumption - a person killed more mammoths than he could eat.
A person masters hunting for smaller fauna (relatively small mammals, birds) - In the Mesolithic, one of the main inventions of mankind appears - Bow and arrows. This is an ingenious device where potential energy is converted into kinetic energy. The relatively small one-time damage (in comparison with spears or stones) inflicted by arrows on an animal or bird was compensated by a rather high initial speed of the arrow, hit accuracy and rate of fire. The bow was used not only for hunting land dwellers, but also for fishing. Spears were still used in hunting, but were developed in another invention of the Mesolithic era - the harpoon, a piercing tool mainly with a bone tip, used to catch large fish.
During the Mesolithic era, they became widespread and insertion tools. Such tools (for example, a knife) were based on a small thick stick with a longitudinal groove in the middle. Small thin stone plates were inserted into this gutter to form a blade. As it was squeezing or in case of breaking off, the plate could be replaced with a new one, and it was not necessary to change the entire blade or its base - hand-held liner tools were easier to manufacture, which led to their wide distribution.
The history of the "material production" of primitive man is not very rich, but, constantly remembering that such inventions as simple, and then lined stone tools, bows, arrows, traps, the development of fire, were made for the first time, it is difficult to object to the fact that if labor, perhaps, did not create a person, then it certainly ensured his survival in changing natural conditions.
Scientists call the most ancient people before historical, cavemen and the time in which they lived is called the Stone Age. A lot has been written about the ability to process stone in prehistoric times, everyone knows everything about stone tools, stone arrowheads and spears - you take a stone for a couple of hours of hard work and a primitive tool is ready! And where did the primitive people of the Stone Age live? Of course in the caves! The next technological order is the Bronze Age, i.e. a man got out of the cave and immediately made bronze, he made himself a chisel out of bronze and made ancient megalithic structures of Egypt, India, erected ancient masterpieces of architecture of Greece and Rome. It was hard to part with the usual stone, so, purely out of habit, I took rock massifs and cut them, made habitual caves for myself, and made temples of Jupiter, all sorts of parthenons from scraps. Everything is logical - a smooth transition from the Stone Age to the Bronze Age, from the cave to the temples. A man got used to stone - he made temples in Baalbek, Syria, India, America. Such is the logic of modern historiography.
And this is how, approximately, with a pebble, with a pebble, the ancient Egyptians cut obelisks. The donkey was harnessed and taken all over the world.
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I would like to start a smooth transition from the cave to antiquity with the Aswan quarry. because there is everything we need, all traces of the use of tools of ancient man.
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In the first picture, a person imitates the way that ancient people cut down obelisks - they just took another stone and beat it for a long time .....
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On the processed wall and surfaces of the obelisk, very characteristic bands of stone working are visible, scientists explain these bands by the fact that the stone is so convenient, the hand habitually takes just such a band in width .... well, God be with them, with scientists.
Stripes, these stripes seemed very familiar to me, I have seen them many times when I looked at various ancient quarries.
This is China, very ancient, prehistoric Longue caves. Pay attention to the same stripes.
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This is Crimea, Inkerman quarries
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This is India. Elora. 
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This is Crimea, Inkerman .... one wants to put either Buddha or some other god into this drink ...
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This is Egypt, Aswan.
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For too "alternative" historians who blame such mountain cuts on modernity or recent history, I will say right away - no. I have a photo of the late 19th century and Inkerman and Egypt where these traces already exist. 
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Thus, the people of the Stone Age are not called so in vain, they loved to fiddle with stones, especially when it turns out so easily - he took a cobblestone in his calloused hand and went to cut the mountains ... But now it’s still worth looking into the caves.
These are the catacombs of Odessa. As they say in official sources, not fully explored, from 2000 to 5000 kilometers long! I did not describe myself, this is not a typo - they write about five thousand kilometers in total length, but they have not been fully explored!
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A very interesting photo - a stone track stretches along the floor of this corridor, as on the surface in Malta, Turkey, Chutuf - Kale, wherever there are quarries, these tracks are everywhere.
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Figure 17 clearly shows the "stripes" on the wall. There are catacombs almost everywhere, at least Odessa is not alone, the quarries of Kerch, Feodosia are widely known, allegedly the stone was taken from the Inkerman quarries to ROME !!! Back in antiquity! Although there are catacombs in ROME itself and they are about the same. But let's think about the figure of 2000 km! For every meter of length, there are two cubic meters of rock - a total of at least four thousand cubic kilometers of rock in Odessa alone! And where did all this go, in my opinion, the whole of Odessa is unlikely to pull such a volume with all its houses now! And also Kerch, and there the catacombs speak longer .... well, only if all the stone went to antiquity and Egypt, well, they took it on papyrus boats ....
Let's take a closer look at the "stripes", closer to what they did, what they did interestingly, they already saw in Egypt, they specially poured stones nearby for tourists - if you want, take and cut Aswan granite.
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On the hard Aswan granite there are point notches, on the rock the features and cuts are softer, well, supposedly from a chisel and a cobblestone ...
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Finding such traces in modern mining is not a problem, here they are stripes, this is how they are made today!
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It would seem that everything is clear, they brought mining equipment and worked, so what if archaeologists do not find it - they hid it somewhere or took it to other planets, new ancient Romes to do.
But all my early assumptions are broken by one Aswan obelisk, it actually breaks all assumptions about the development of technology and conjures up the idea of \u200b\u200b"helpers - aliens", well, they had nothing to do more than cut down obelisks! I would have taken all the historians and dragged them to Aswan, and no matter what the history was about until they explained how it was done !!!
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This cheerful tourist is having fun until they put him in a narrow passage between the wall and the obelisk with a pebble ....
Moreover, modern technology will not fit into such a narrow space, nor any saws and plasma cutters of the builders of the Aswan dam of the 20th century (there is such a version).
Well, even if we take and consider for fun a version of a chisel, albeit not bronze, albeit with a diamond tip .....
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Now, if we were to step back from the fact that this is granite, it looks like they took a shovel and dug it out in wet sand .... I called this tool a "magic shovel" if you have my readers' versions, then I will be glad to listen to them .. ..
