Stone Age Technology

Stone Age Technology

The Stone Age is a broad prehistoric period during which humans widely used stone for toolmaking. Stone stool were made from a variety of different sorts of stone. For example, flint and chert were shaped (or chipped) for use as cutting tools and weapons, while basalt and sandstone were used for groundstone tools, such as quern-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. A series of metal technology innovations characterize the later chalcolithic (Copper Age), bronze age and iron age

The Stone Age is usually divided into three separate periods--Paleolithic Period, Mesolithic Period, and Neolithic Period--based on the degree of sophistication in the fashioning and use of tools.

The Paleolithic (or Palaeolithic) (from Greek: παλαιός, palaios, "old"; and λίθος, lithos, "stone" lit. "old age of the stone"; was coined by archaeologist John Lubbock in 1865.) is a prehistoric era distinguished by the development of stone tools. It covers the greatest portion of humanity's time (roughly 99% of human history^[8]) on Earth, extending from 2.5^[9] or 2.6^[8][10] million years ago, with the introduction of stone tools by hominids such as Homo habilis, to the introduction of agriculture and the end of the Pleistocene around 10,000 BCE.^[8][9][10] The Paleolithic era ended with the Mesolithic, or in areas with an early neolithisation, the Epipaleolithic.

During the Paleolithic age, humans were grouped together in small scale societies such as bands and gained their subsistence from gathering plants and hunting wild animals.^[11] The Paleolithic is characterized by the use of knapped stone tools, although at the time, humans also used wood and bone tools. Other organic commodities were adapted for use as tools, including leather and vegetable fibers; however, given their nature, these have not been preserved to any great degree. Humankind gradually evolved from early members of the genus Homo such as Homo habilis, who used simple stone tools into fully behaviorally and anatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens sapiens) during the Paleolithic era.^[12] DNA and fossil evidence indicates that modern humans originated in east Africa about 200,000 years ago.^[13] During the end of the Paleolithic specifically the Middle and or Upper Paleolithic humans began to produce the earliest works of art and engage in religious and spiritual behavior such as burial and ritual.^{[11][14][15][16]} The climate during the Paleolithic consisted of a set of glacial and interglacial periods in which the climate periodically fluctuated between warm and cool temperatures.

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, larger settlements such as Çatal Hüyük and Jericho. The first Neolithic cultures started around 7000 BC in the fertile crescent. Agriculture and the culture it led to spread to the Mediterranean, the Indus valley, China and Southeast Asia.