Scope: In this lesson, we will see just how old “old” is. The basic divisions of prehistory (Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) will be discussed, and each category will be defined and its specific characteristics delineated. Here we will learn the details of how stone tools are fashioned. Once these categories are clear, we will discuss the difficulties in studying a prehistoric civilization and how its remains are dated. We discuss relative and absolute dating and the various techniques used to achieve them.
Outline
I. How old is “old”? In the seventeenth century, the Bishop of Usher’s Biblical estimate set the beginning of the world at 4004 BC. The argument against fossils and evolution—the battle against prehistoric study—was eventually challenged by both data and theory.
A. In 1859, excavations in England revealed Stone-Age tools and bones of extinct animals.
B. In the same year, Charles Darwin published The Origin of the Species, a book that suggested a far more distant point of origin for mankind than the Bishop of Usher had posited.
C. A century later, archaeologist Louis Leaky’s Olduvai Gorge excavation discovered a hominid (manlike) fossil that was 1.75 million years old—and some have proposed that hominids are even older.
II. The distant human past is conventionally divided into three ages: the Paleolithic, or Old Stone Age, when humans existed as hunter-gatherers; the Mesolithic, a transition stage; and the Neolithic, or New Stone Age, when plants and animals were first domesticated. We begin with several stages of the Paleolithic.
A. The Early Paleolithic Age dates from 700,000-70,000 BC, when Homo Erectus lived.
1. The earliest Egyptian habitation was circa 700,000 BC. These people perhaps migrated from the south along the Nile Valley. The climate supported fauna as found today on the Serengeti Plain—giraffes, gazelles, hippopotami.
2. The first human inhabitants used language, gathered food, used the hand axe, and perhaps controlled fire. The axe was flaked, fit nicely in the hand, and was the only tool for 70,000 years.
B. The Early Middle Paleolithic, 70,000-43,000 BC, was the time of Neanderthal man.
1. Neanderthals were not “brute savages.” They buried their dead in caves and cared for the injured and old.
2. They developed a flaking technique that provided smaller, better- formed tools, such as scrapers and daggers. Many have been found in the desert—Egypt was more moist at the time.
C. Homo Sapiens appeared during the Late Middle Paleolithic Age, from 43,000-30,000 BC.
1. Modern man, Homo Sapiens, replaced rather than evolved from the Neanderthal.
2. One of two sources of the Nile is Lake Tana in Ethiopia. During this period, it joins the Nile for the first time, causing flooding or inundation.
3. The average life expectancy during this time was less than 30 years.
D. The Late Paleolithic Age lasted from 30,000-10,000 BC.
1. The Nile was declining. The people lived by swamps (malaria was a problem), fished, and ate mollusks.
2. Their settlements had clay hearths on which they cooked, grindstones for grinding wild cereal grains, and pigments for eye make-up. There was no farming or cattle breeding.
3. Tools were now fashioned from quartz and diorite, as well as from flint and obsidian. The development of the sickle was an indication that plants were becoming important for food. An intensive caring for plants may indicate an early experiment in farming, but this was not yet domestication.
4. The development of the bow, the first weapon to store energy, along with the arrow, made hunting safer and easier.
5. Tools have been found in the south at Kom Ombo. They are called microtools—arrow points, sickle blades, and grindstones.
6. Sickles disappear for a couple of thousand years. This may indicate that early attempts at farming failed, perhaps because the climate changed or hunting became more efficient.
III. The Mesolithic Period dates from 10,000-5,000 BC.
A. During the Mesolithic, cosmetics for ritual use appeared.
B. There was no pottery in the north of Egypt; ostrich eggshells were used for cooking. In the south (Sudan), pottery was developed.
C. The human groups were very isolated, and each may have spoken its own dialect.
IV. The Neolithic Age dates from 5,000-3,200 BC.
A. Pottery was developed in the north.
B. Agriculture was introduced—grains were cooked, beer was brewed.
C. Settlements grew up along the Nile, and the first signs of kingship appeared in both the north (Lower Egypt) and the south (Upper Egypt).
D. This was the beginning of Egyptian civilization. The population was about 2,000 people. The dead were buried, with possessions, in sand-pit burials.
E. Carved palettes, some adorned with decorative art, were used for grinding cosmetics. This was a culture capable of more than just surviving.
V. Different kinds of dating establish the antiquity of ancient Egypt.
A. Relative dating is not absolute and, thus, is subject to variation.
1. Pottery is essential to dating sites. Sir Flinders Petrie’s insight was that the more highly decorated pottery is newer—things evolve from the simple to the complex.
2. Stratigraphy records layers during excavations—the higher excavations are newer.
B. Absolute dating is based on scientific examination.
1. Carbon-14 dating is Dr. Willard Libby’s discovery. All living things have the same proportion of C-14, with a half-life of 5,730 years. At death, organic material starts to decay into C-12 and nitrogen-14.
2. Problems with this method include contamination, such as the reuse of old wood in new houses. Carbon-14 dating can be used neither for very old samples (too little C-14 remains), nor for nonliving things, such as stones and metals.
C. Paleobotany and paleozoology are, respectively, the studies of plant and animal remains. Properly studied, pollen and bones can reveal the flora and fauna of a distant period.
Essential Reading:
Michael Hoffman, Egypt Before the Pharaohs.
Questions to Consider:
1. What was the rate of progress like in prehistoric Egypt?
2. How do we figure out what life was like in a preliterate society?