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The birth of Lith:
- The word “Lith” literally means “Stone”, which has its origin in the Greek language. The lithic ages can be split into three across the world, where the oldest tools like handcrafts and hammerstones are found in Kenya(Lomekwi), which they use for various daily activities.
- The Paleolithic is the oldest among all the Lithic periods across the world; the word itself means “Old Stone Age”. This culture saw the advent of primitive activities, which can be further divided into three stages,
1. The Lower Paleolithic Period:
The Paleolithic human being
- This period is considered the first among the archaeological periods in prehistory, which saw the first marked evidence of human behaviours like making stone tools, axes, and the control of fire.
- These tools made by the Paleolithic people were found across the different parts of the world like Europe, Asia etc,. around 1.8 million years ago.
- They started creating tools for their daily purposes and their survival. These tools can be classified into two categories:
The Bifaced tools are seen as an advancement in the creative and cognitive skills of the Paleolithic Humans.
Acheulian Tools: The First of the Hand axes were found in modern-day France (St.Acheul); hence the name Acheulian tools were given. In India, these tools are found in Chennai, Karnataka (Isampur), and Madhya Pradesh (Bhimbetaka).
The Prehistoric humans wandered mainly for their subsistence and in search of food and water with these primitive weapons of hammer and axes. They were talented enough in picking raw materials for their weapons which were mainly used for hunting purposes.
2. The Middle Paleolithic Period:
- This period further witnessed the improvement in the technology of Homo Sapiens and the Neanderthals, who were spread all over the world. Going by the evidence Humans are found to be originated before three lakhs years.
- The development in the cognitive skills is witnessed with their weapon-making styles as they were sleek, sharp and appeared with new designs compared to the earlier period. These people were also believed to be aware of the systematic burials.
The Paleolithic weapons
Levalloisian Tools: This technique of tool making concentrated mainly on the core of the tool by breaking the edges of stones and giving various shapes to them is the feature of this method. The town of Levallois in France provided the inspiration for the name.
3. The Upper Paleolithic:
- This period is considered the most advanced among the Paleolithic periods as the people from this period slowly started wearing clothes and started eating food by cooking. This period also witnessed the artistic side of the humans, where numerous cave arts were found.
- The weapon technology got enhanced with polished tools, and further, these people started making weapons from various other objects like bones, fish hooks, antlers, Shell and woods.
Ice Age: The entire world was covered by ice and snow by the time of \(8000BC\). The climate of the earth witnessed repeatedly changed between very warm and very cold periods.
- They started worshipping the Venus Goddess, which was made of Bones and stones.
- Microliths, the usage of small stones culture began during this period.
Cave art
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