Unit 7:
Prehistory
Consider, with zoologists and anatomists, that man is more like a monkey than an angel, and that he lacks the titles to puff up and conceit himself.
Santiago Ramón y Cajal, Spanish neuroscientist, pathologist, and histologist specializing in neuroanatomy and the central nervous system. He received the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1906
1. Stages of History
2. Prehistory timeline
Warning! Circa 3250 BC writing is invented in Mesopotamia (Today's Irak). This fact marks the end of the Prehistory and the beginning of History. But writing was not invented in every place at the same time. For example, in the Iberian Peninsula, the first writings belong to the 1st millennium BC. Therefore, prehistory was 2,000 years longer in the Iberian Peninsula than in Mesopotamia
What we know about Prehistory has been unfold through the analysis of archeological remains. Archeology is a complex science and requires a lot of knowledge and patience. Archeology has taught us all we know about our ancestors in Prehistory.
3. Origin and evolution of human beings.
In century XIX, the British biologist Charles Darwin enunciated his theory of the evolution of the species, according to which the species that better adapt to the changes in the environment have more possibilities of surviving. It's what we call the survival of the fittest.
According to this theory, the first hominids appear on Earth 4.4 million years ago (Australopithecus) and descend, like gorillas and chimpanzees, from primitive primates.
​
Characteristics of hominids:
- They are bipeds. This allows the hands are free to perform many tasks.
-They have opposable thumbs. This allows them to hold and manipulate objects accurately and make tools.
-They have a bigger brain. This allows them to think, speak and form complex societies.
The oldest hominids lived in Africa.
4. The Paleolithic (4.4 million years - 10000 years BC)
4.1) The daily life of the hunter-gatherer.
The first humans lived in Africa, within the torrid zone. There they hunted to live and gathered fruits of trees and plants, although they did not yet know how to cultivate the land. A series of climate changes caused humans to spread to other latitudes, reaching Europe and Asia.
From the animals they hunted (mammoths, deer, bison ...) they obtained food, skins for clothing and bones to make weapons and other tools.
These humans were nomads, because, as we have said, they did not know how to cultivate the land and had to move where there would be hunting. In summer, they camped outdoors near a river, while in winter they sought refuge in natural caves. In these caves have been found human remains and utensils, as well as the first manifestations of rock art.
​
4.2) Advances and tools.
-
Tools of stone: They are made by carving the stone with other stones or objects to give it the desired shape. They made scrapers, racloirs, knives, harpoons, needles. Especially important is the bifaz: a double sided point with different uses.
-
The discovery of fire: it is not known exactly, but it seems that 1.5 million years ago men managed to control fire. This allowed them to:
-Get warm
-Cook the food
-Frighten animals and enemies.
-Dry the skin of the animals.
-Gather around the fire to make decisions or to socialize.
4.3) Tribal society
From what we know so far, Paleolithic people were grouped by tribes or clans. They were nomads, since they had to change residence whenever there was a shortage of hunting or gathering. When the weather was nice they used to camp out in the open air, near the riverside, and when it was cold they looked for shelter in the caves. We know this because human remains and utensils have been found, as well as artistic representations both indoors and outdoors. It seems that the tribe was organized hierarchically, and the work was divided. There were warriors, hunters, shamans, healers ...
Olduvai stone chopping tool.
More than one million years ago.
Solustrean bifaz (double sided) point. Around 20,000 years ago.
Paleolithic weapons and fishing hooks. The level of elaboration of the hooks indicates that they belong to the Upper Palaeolithic.
4.4) Paleolithic art
Perhaps the name 'Paleolithic graphics' fits better than 'art', since, according to experts in archeology, these works give us an account, above all, of an unspoken language. This art is developed mainly at the end of the Palaeolithic period, since about 40,000 years ago. The meaning of this graphic design remains a mystery, and all explanations are pure speculation. For example, it is not true that Paleolithic man paint what he hunts.
There are two fundamental forms of paleolithic graphics: portable art and rock art.
-
Portable art: Consists of objects that can be moved. They were made of stone, bone, ivory and other materials. A good example are the Venus (Willendorf, Laussel, Lespugue ...), which some archaeologists considered fertility goddesses. Today that interpretation is discussed.
-
Cave painting: It is found inside the caves and also outside, although the latter has suffered more intensely the effect of erosion. It is thought that it had to do more with the everyday than with the magical or sacred, given the high frequency of the representations. Scenes of animals, hunting, war, dance and rituals have been found. Many of them, but not only, in the Cantabrian and south of France area.
Venus of Hohle Fels, circa 35,000 years ago
Venus of Willendorf, circa 27,000 years ago
Venus of Dolni Vestonice, circa 26,000 years ago
Bulls hall, Lascaux cave, France.
5. Neolithic (10 000 - 4500 BC)
​
Towards the year 10000 BC a climatic change began that produced an increase of temperatures and a descent in the precipitations. Hunting, fishing and gathering, which until then had been abundant, ceased to be so. Man had to learn to cultivate the land and to domesticate animals. He became a farmer and sedentary. The Neolithic revolution had begun.
This passage to the Neolithic took place in an area located between Asia and Africa known as the Fertile Crescent. This area is also known as 'Crescent Fertile Moon' or 'The Cradle of Civilization'.
Paleolithic or Neolithic? Hunter-gatherers or farmers?
What lifestyle was better?
5.1 Society, beliefs, art
​
Society: The people, when cultivating their own land and cattle, had to stay to live where they had their farms, so they ended up building the first villages.
Sedentary lifestyle and food production led to population growth and division of labor. The richest and most powerful families became leaders, resource managers, and priests.
Beliefs: We know almost nothing for sure about the religions in the Neolithic. Presumably they worshiped the forces of nature that helped them get food, such as the sun, rain, earth, etc. The famous Venus were considered 'mother goddesses', who represented or favored fertility, for a long time. However, today we have to admit that we don't really know what they meant.
Art: Apart from the Venus, which already existed in the Paleolithic,during the Neolithic period, ceramics were widely practiced and decorated in different ways. A well-known type is cardium pottery. In architecture, its funerary monuments, such as dolmens or tholoi, are impressive.
Some examples of cardium pottery. It was very common during the 6th - 5th millennium BC, or, in other words, more than 7000 years ago.
6. Metal Age: Copper, Bronze, Iron (4500-500 BC)
​
The metal age begins around the middle of the fifth millennium BC (4500 BC). It was a step forward of the Neolithic societies, because they began to use metals to make all kinds of instruments. The possession of these metal artifacts was a symbol of prestige.
Metals began to be used in the Fertile Crescent area, the same place where the Neolithic Revolution took place. From there, they spread to various areas of Europe, Africa and Asia. Some of these peoples of the Fertile Crescent, the Sumerians, developed writing around 3000 BC. They were the first to emerge from prehistory to enter history, but this did not happen at the same time everywhere.
Copper Age: Around 4500 BC, people started working copper, a metal soft enough to be worked even in the cold state. However, most of the time, copper was worked in fire, in order to give it the desired shape. Since it was too soft a metal, it was mainly used to make ornaments or household items, such as plates or jugs.
​
​
​
​
​
​
Bronze Age: Around 2200 BC, people discovered bronze by mixing copper and tin. This new metal was more resistant and allowed making much more resistant farm implements, weapons and household items. As a result, food production increased, the population grew, and the first cities appeared. Among these first great civilizations, we find the Sumerians, who were very advanced and began to use writing, making them the first to go from prehistory to history. This script is called cuneiform writing, because the characters are wedge-shaped. Those men wrote with sticks on clay bars.
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
Iron Age: Around 1500 BC iron was discovered in the Caucasian zone (I hope you remember Unit 3). It was a hard and abundant mineral, which provided raw material for new inventions: weapons (swords, spears, daggers), plows, sickles, the wheel ... The peoples who dominated metallurgy achieved superiority over others and dominated them. They also started trading metals and sailing. The first civilizations, as we know them today, had finally arrived.
​
Copper age household items
The City of Ur, in Summeria. Bronze age
Cuneiform writing from Summeria
Bronze tools and weapons
Swords and other weapons. Casting has achieved a remarkable level of complexity
Sickles. Agriculture was capital for these early civilizations
The invention of the wheel by the Sumerians gave them an advantage over their rivals. Especially in war
6.1 Art in the Metal age
Apart from household utensils and weapons, the artistic vein of the people of the Metal Age is manifested in their constructions. These are made of stone, and are known as megalithic monuments (from mega = large, and lithos = stone). There are three types of megalithic monuments: menhirs, cromlech and dolmens.
Menhirs: they are large vertical stones that were nailed to the ground. We don't know what they were for. Perhaps they had some religious significance, or were used to delimit terrain.
Anyone who has read the Asterix comics will surely recognize menhir as the great stones that Obelix manufactures and carries.
The largest known menhir is that of Locmariaquer, in France. Sometimes these menhirs appear in a row, like those of Carnac, also in France. When menhirs are presented in this way, they are called 'row of stones'.
Cromlech: It is a circle of menhirs. We do not know its meaning. Some think that it had a ritual or religious function, and others that it may be astronomical observatories. The truth is that they continue to cause speculation. Stonehenge (the place of the hanging stones, in the Saxon language) is the most famous cromlech.
Dolmen: It consisted of a series of vertical stones placed together and other horizontal ones placed on top as a roof. Sometimes the dolmen formed a stone tunnel, like the Menga dolmen in Antequera, which we have studied before. They were used as collective tombs, usually of important families or clans.
​
Menhir at
Champ-Dolent, France.
Stone Row at
Carnac, France.
Stonehenge Cromlech at
Salisbury plain, England. Digital reconstruction.
Sorginetxe dolmen at
Álava, Spain
7. Prehistory in Spain
In Spain, human remains of great value have been found, as they are the oldest in Europe.
In the Sierra de Atapuerca (Burgos) a human jaw of more than a million years was found, but the best preserved remains are those of individuals from more than 800,000 years ago that have been classified as Homo Antecessor. Miguelón, as the fossil was named in honor of Miguel Indurain, was a hunter-gatherer and a man-eater.
The 'Man of Orce' (one and a half million years old), found in Granada, we will not take into account, since it is not known whether the posterior bone of the head, which is the only thing that remains, belongs to a human or an equine.
Miguelón, more than 800,000 years old. Found in Atapuerca, Spain, in 1992.
The 'Man of Orce' (1,500,000 years ago). It's a man... or is it a donkey?
7.1 Paleolithic: As it has already been said, we have news of human presence in the Peninsula of about a million years ago. There were homo antecessor, homo heidelbergensis, homo neanderthalensis and homo sapiens, that we know of. They were hunter-gatherers and they have left us wonderful samples of cave painting in the Cantabrian mountains and in the Levant.
Cantabrian Mountains: The representations are realistic. There are important exhibitions in Tito-Bustillo (Asturias), Ekain (Guipúzcoa) and, especially, in Altamira (Cantabria), with scenes of spectacular realism.
In the Levante area, the painting is more schematic, and the figures are represented in silhouettes. A good example is the 'Woman taking honey', from the Cueva de la Araña, in Valencia.
Woman taking honey', cave painting at Cueva de la Araña, Valencia
7.2 Neolithic: The Neolithic revolution reaches the Iberian Peninsula around 6000 BC, and with it, the first settlements. The Neolithic legacy is presented to us in the form of funerary monuments, such as the aforementioned Dolmen de Menga, in Antequera, Malaga, or the Tholos del Romeral, with a circular floor plan and also in Antequera. The corpses were usually buried in a fetal position in graves, and they were usually accompanied by a trousseau of objects related to the deceased, especially if he belonged to a wealthy family.
We also have to highlight the pottery with cardium and incised decoration, like those found in the Levante caves.
7.3 Metal Age: Copper, Bronze, Iron (2500-100 BC)
Copper Age (2500-1000 BC): Organized societies appear, with hierarchies, division of labor and inhabiting fortified towns. They are towns that live on agriculture and livestock and defend their resources from possible invaders. A magnificent example is the culture of Los Millares, in Almería. In prehistory, we call 'culture' societies that group a certain geographical extension and that have common characteristics. Apart from the typical copper utensils and weapons, the Bell Beaker pottery is very characteristic of the Iberian Peninsula, and was used in meetings and rituals, surely to drink liqueurs, and from here it spread throughout the rest of Europe.
Cardium pottery from Cueva de L'or,
Alicante
Model of the town of Los Millares, Almeria
Bell Beaker pottery
Bronze Age (2250-700 BC): The bronze age coexisted with that of copper for a long time. It should not be forgotten that bronze is an alloy of copper and tin. The societies form villages on the slopes of the mountains, where they have access to mining resources and the elevated position serves to monitor the surroundings for the presence of enemies. One of the most important towns was El Argar, in the southeast of the peninsula, which developed luxurious burnished pottery. Another relevant town was La Motilla de Azuar, in La Mancha, where the inhabitants built an impressive fortress to store and defend their water and food during a long drought.
During the late Bronze Age (1250-700 BC), megalithic constructions such as the talaiots (watchtowers), the navetas (collective tombs) or the taulas, of unknown purpose, appear in the Balearic Islands.
In the Catalonia area, originating from Central Europe, there are burials in urns (Urnfield culture). This is a sign of the arrival of the Celtic peoples on the peninsula.
El Argar, southeast of the Iberian Peninsula. Digital reconstruction
Burnished luxury pottery from El Argar
Fortification Motilla de Azuer, La Mancha
Talaiot of Torrellonet Vell, Menorca
Typical burial in urns. Urnfield culture, Catalonia area
Naveta des Tudons, Menorca
Taula at Talati de Dalt, Menorca
Iron Age (800 - 218 BC, Roman conquest): As always, it is impossible to say for sure when a historical period begins and ends. The Iron Age overlaps with the end of the Bronze Age, and bronze is still used during the Iron Age. During this time, very diverse peoples arrive in Spain. Some of them are Indo-European, who entered through the Pyrenees and are grouped under the generic (and not very rigorous) name of Celts.
The Celts inhabited the entire Peninsula except the Levantine area. They were warrior peoples, quite primitive. They developed the culture of the Verracos: bulky bulls made of stone. There are numerous examples along the Central Plateau, perhaps the most famous are the Bulls of Guisando, at El Tiemblo, Ávila.
Another town that inhabited the peninsula were the Iberos, who settled in the Levant and came into contact with Greek towns. Its origin is not clear, but they had writing, with what, strictly speaking, they entered history.
Also, around 800 BC, the Phoenicians came to the Peninsula, a very prosperous Middle Eastern people. They did not come to invade, but to found commercial colonies, since it was a people dedicated to trade throughout the Mediterranean Sea. His contributions were: writing, jewelry and advances in metallurgy and agriculture. They founded some city, like Gadir (today Cádiz) and commercial colonies like Sexi (Almuñecar) or Malaka (Málaga).
Other people who came to the Iberian Peninsula were the foceos, from Greece. They arrived around 570 BC, when the Phoenician decadence began, and their purpose was commercial too, since they founded more commercial colonies than cities. Emporion (today Ampurias, in Gerona), however, is an example of a Greek city. The Greek influence is appreciated in the artistic forms of the Iberians, as in the famous 'Lady of Elche'.
The Carthaginians were another people who dwelt the Iberian Peninsula. This former Phoenician colony in North Africa (today Tunisia) did have the intention of conquering. They started by settling in Ibiza and then going to the peninsula. They founded the city of Qart Hadasht (today Cartagena, Region of Murcia), which means Nueva Cartago. The Carthaginians were defeated, between 219 and 202 BC, by the Romans in the so-called Punic Wars. Then began the Roman conquest of the Peninsula.
Finally, we must mention Tartessos, a town of eastern origin that we know very little about and that has been the protagonist of many legends and mysterious stories. They lived in the southwest of the peninsula and exploited its mines. Some gold treasures, such as that of Carambolo, could be of Tartessian origin, although it is not certain.
In the first 30 seconds of this video you can see the arriving of the different peoples during the Iron Age
The bulls of Guisando, 4th century BC. El Tiemblo, Ávila.
The Lady of Elche. 4th century BC.
Greek krater from Ampurias. 5th century BC
The Lady of Ibiza, Carthaginian goddess Tanit. Clay. 3rd century BC
Treasure of El Carambolo, Seville. Phoenician? Tartessian? 7th-5th centuries BC
TEST
Clik here to take the test on Prehistory
Voluntary work: Analyzing Prehistory maps. Click here.
Identifying Archeological sites