1 Prehistoric Man and Environment

Sunil Mittal and Gajendra Singh Vishwakarma

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1.  Introduction

2.  Prehistoric Period

3.  Ancient Climates

4.  Development of humans

5.  Pre Historic Man and Environmental Interactions

5.1. Stone Age

5.2. Metal Age

6.  Prehistoric Development and Environment

6.1 Agriculture

6.2 Animal Domestication

6.3 Technology developments

Conclusion

   1. Introduction

 

Environment is collectively a system of abiotic and biotic components. Since the origin of life, the abiotic components like air, water, soil, radiations etc. regulates the sustainability of biotic components. With time, humans developed the capacity to cope up and adapt the extreme conditions i.e. changes in the abiotic components. This is the main reason behind the existence of modern humans (Homo sapiens sapiens) and their ancestors (Homo sapiens and Homo erectus) from last three and a half million years on earth. During that time, a series of complex interactions occurred between humans and their environment that continued to shape our present world. The deep study and examinations of these interactions has explained us the intense materialistic growth and developmental activities by human. Humans have prompted a series of events by which the environment have been impacted undesirably. Until the advent of agriculture (10 to 12 thousand years ago), humans were depended on hunting and gathering of food for their survival (for nearly two million years). Earlier, livelihood was through hunting and gathering, affecting their environment minimally. Human’s survival was depended on their understanding of crops and season. As humans became adapted to different environmental variations and their brain size increased, new advancements in technology were followed. This lead to more synchronization between humans and their environment, but a complex relationship between the two created a vulnerable condition for the environment. Agriculture led a drastic change in human’s lifestyle and provided opportunities for better life. The dominance of humans resulted in their expansion and extinction of many species because of adverse effects on environment and climate change.

 

2. Prehistoric Periods

 

Prehistory time is defined as the period of human activity between the use of the first stone tools approx. 3.3 million years ago and the invention of writing systems, the earliest of which appeared nearly 5,300 years ago. The prehistoric age is divided into the Stone Age, Metal Age (Copper, Bronze and Iron Age), and Golden Age. The longest period is Stone Age, which is further divided into Old Stone Age (Paleolithic), Middle Stone Age (Mesolithic) and New Stone Age (New lithic) (scheme 1). The copper age is also known as Chalcolithic i.e use of copper and stones both.

 

3. Paleoclimatology – Ancient Climates

 

The study of changes in climate accounted on the scale of the entire history of Earth is called as Paleoclimatology. Under this branch, the natural materials such as rocks, sediments, ice sheets, tree rings, corals, shells, and microfossils were used to obtain the prehistoric climatic data as discussed below:

  • Ice: Ice caps and Mountain glaciers provide abundant information about the ancient climatic conditions. The air remained trapped within fallen snow as tiny bubbles. The trapped air has proven a tremendously valuable source for direct measurement of the composition of air from the time the ice was formed. The changing pattern in the layers thickness can be used to determine changes in precipitation or temperature.
  • Dendroclimatology: Climatic information can be obtained through an understanding of changes in tree growth. Generally, trees respond to changes in climatic variables by speeding up or slowing down growth, which in turn is generally reflected by thickness of growth rings. Different species, however, respond to changes in climatic variables in different ways. A tree-ring record is established by compiling information from many living trees in a specific area.
  • Sediments, sometimes lithified to form rock, may contain remnants of preserved vegetation, animals, plankton, or pollen, which may be characteristic of certain climatic zones.
  • Biomarker molecules such as the alkenones may yield information about their temperature of formation.
  • Chemical signatures, particularly Mg/Ca ratio of calcite in Foraminifera tests, can be used to reconstruct past temperature.
  • Coral “rings” are similar to tree rings except that they respond to different parameters, such as the water temperature, freshwater influx, pH changes, and wave action.
  • Carbon dating: Carbon dating can be used to date organic artifacts, or things that were once alive. All living things contain a radioactive isotope of Carbon called Carbon 14 since the time they were alive. Carbon 14 has a half-life of 5000 years. That means it takes 5,000 years for half of the Carbon 14 to break down.
  • Fossils: The remains of ancient plants and animals. By studying fossils, archaeologists and anthropologists can learn about what people ate, what animals they had around, and their way of life.

 

4.  Development of Early Humans

 

Anthropologists divide hominids into three different types based on their body shapes and lifestyles. The first type of hominid was referred as Homo habilis, which means person with abilities. It is believed that Homo habilis lived about 1.5 million years ago. The second type of early human that lived on the Earth was Homo erectus, which means person who can walk upright.’ Homo erectus lived on the Earth about 150,000 years ago. The last hominid on Earth was Homo sapien. Homo sapien means person who can think. Presently all humans on Earth belongs to Homo sapiens. The pattern of human development is as follow.

 

5. Pre Historic Man and Environmental Interactions

 

The Paleo-climatic evidence and facts suggest that the changes in the climatic conditions always help in the incubation of several species. The development of prehistoric man is also the consequence of controlled climatic conditions. But, with the settlement and stabilization of human community, the dramatic shift was observed in the climatic conditions. The rapid changes in temperature, precipitation and distribution of vegetation are the major outcomes of the Pre Historic man and environmental interactions. The activities adapted by the prehistoric humans for improvement of their life style were totally dependent on their surroundings. The activities like hunting and gathering, use of stone & metals and discovery of fire & wheels were the initial steps of humans that influenced the surroundings. As the humans expended his knowledge of agriculture, animal domestication, the influence and burden on the surrounding environment increased.

 

5.1. Environmental Interactions in Stone Age

 

The Stone Age is one of the longest prehistoric period. This is known for the use of stone in the manufacturing of tools with a sharp edge, a point, or a flat surface. The period of this era is between 250000 years ago to 10000 years ago. The Stone Age is further divided into Palaeolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic, Chalcolithic ages. The information about the environmental and climatic conditions of this era collected by different places and sources is as follow:

 

1. In the Stone Age, initially the humans were hunter-gatherers who used to travel for hunting and gathering wild plants and meat.

 

2. The archeological data provides the proof of wet and dry spells from 80,000 to 40,000 years ago that created a huge impact in shaping modern human intelligence, adaptability, and social behaviors.

 

3.The aggregation and dispersion of humans were influenced by the climatic conditions e.g. humans left Africa, perhaps motivated by the competition for resources during droughts, they ended up in places, like Europe and Northern Asia that were colder and often covered in snow.

 

4.  Aurignacian tools, such as tools made of bones, stone bladed tools and tools made of antlers were created during this period and confirmed that the humans had little knowledge of agricultural practices.

 

5.      Neolithic humans domesticated dogs for personal protection, or hunting. The evidence of dog has been found in the burial of early age humans.

 

6.      The evidences also suggested the interaction of humans with other small animals like sheep, goat, cat and large animals like rhino, bison or even mammoths.

 

7.      The discovery of fire has also been reported in the late Stone Age. They used fire as a source of warmth. It allowed early humans to survive in cold temperatures of nights and to survive in colder environments. The fire also made possible the geographic expansion from tropical and subtropical climates to areas of temperate climates with colder winters.

5.2 Environmental Interactions in Metal Age

 

The progress of civilization heavily depended on the discovery of metals. Prehistoric man used metals to build tools and weapons and as the knowledge of metallurgy developed, metals played an essential role in the improvement of agriculture, transport, art and craft. Copper was the first metal used for the preparation of tools, implements and weapons. The metal age is divided into three stages: the Copper Age, the Bronze Age and the Iron Age.

  1. Agricultural evidences of Iron Age have shown that the new crops like wheat were introduced. In addition to the spelt wheat, barley, rye and oats were also in use.
  2. Harvested crops were stored in either granaries that were raised from the ground on posts, or in bell-shaped pits 2-3m (6-7ft) deep, dug into the chalk landscape.
  3. Domestication evidence indicates that cattle and sheep were the most common farm animals. In addition, pigs were also kept. The animals supported the family with heavy farm labor (in the case of the cattle) such as the ploughing of crop fields, and also as source of a valuable form of manure, wool or hide, and food products.
  4. Horses and dogs were also observed in the archaeological evidences from both faunal remains and art facts. Horses were used for pulling 2 or 4 wheeled vehicles (carts, chariots), while dogs would have assisted in the herding of the livestock and hunting.
  5. During the Metal Ages, people made variety of metal objects. They also invented new techniques for making clay pottery. The most characteristic examples are beaker pots.
  6. Palaeo-ecological surveys and radiocarbon dating of peat cores from ten sites indicated that field cultivation and animal husbandry had taken place constantly throughout the entire Iron Age.
  7. The Stone Age people follow the Burial custom. Burying of dead in north- south orientation has been revealed by excavations. There are evidences of pit-burial also.
  8. The people in this era does not knew the art of mixing of tin and copper, that is why, only few sites had the evidences of bronze.
  9. Generally, Chalcolithic cultures had grown in river valleys. Most importantly, the Harappan culture is considered as a part of Chalcolithic culture. In South India the river valleys of the Godavari, Krishna, Tungabhadra, Pennar and Kaveri were settled by farming communities during this period.

 

6.  Prehistoric Development and Environment

 

6. 1. Agricultural development

 

As agriculture spread humans began to grow different crops that were suitable to the environment. The places where people began to settle down, grow crops, and start villages became the Cradles of Civilization. Most of these areas were in river valleys. This first was Mesopotamia between the Tigris and Euphrates River Valleys. Other river valleys include Nile in Egypt, Indus in India, and the Huang He in China. These villages spread throughout Europe and the rest of the world. The oldest and largest of the villages were found in South West Asia. The major crops cultivated at that time are as follow.

  1. Southwest Asia- wheat, barley, rice
  2. Africa and Egypt: wheat, barley, banana
  3. Meso-Americans: Bean, squash, maize
  4. Creation of small settlements villages and towns started
  5. Population, warfare and disease increased
  6. Shift cultivation and deforestation
  7. Temperature of earth increased
  8. New varieties of crops developed
  9. Storing of foods and preservation techniques developed
  10. New tools, methods, agricultural land preparation started
  11. Animals were used for fieldworks

 

6.2. Animal Domestication

 

In addition to growing crops, Neolithic man also tamed animals for hunting (dogs) and other animals for their food supply such as sheep, cows, etc. The animals were used in the farm activities also. They also explored the animals for other works like travelling, recreation and other religious activities. The use of animal based products also increased. Use of animal skin, wool, horns and teeth for tool making was in progress.

 

The major effects of animal domestication associated with environment are as follows:

  • The animal domestication followed the artificial selection i.e the selection of advantageous natural variations, due to this mechanism most of the domestic species evolved.
  • The herd-living and herbivorous animals were preferably exploited by the Neolithic peoples due to their flexible diet (enough to live on what early farmers might provide), grew fast (and thus did not unduly expend farmers’ resources), and would freely breed in the presence of people. As the consequence of this, the species and breeds of these animals improved with time.

 

6.3. Technology developments

 

1.  Fire:

 

1.  Induced the cleaning of forests

2.  Dead Bodies burnt

3.  Helped in Cooking

4.  Increased the survival rate of humans even in cold places

 

2.  Tools: Axes, Arrow etc.

 

1.  Wide spread deforestation

2.  Instance hunting of animals

3.  Farm and field mechanization

4.  Use of woolen animal skin in cloth making

5.  Transportation

 

 

Conclusion

 

Anciently, the interaction between the human and environment was neutral and the early man minimally affected the environment. But with development of human race, the humans started exploiting the environment for their survival. But still the impacts were not very much pronounced till evolution of Homo Sapians. The environmental exploitation and degradation is very high during the modern times.

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Web Links:

  • http://www.historydiscussion.net/essay/essay-on-prehistoric-cultures-of-india/1952
  • http://narasimhan.com/SK/Culture/culture_history/culture_hist_prehist.htm
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prehistory

Suggestive Readings

1. Bhattacharya, D.K., Pre Historic archaeology, Delhi, 1972.
2. Krishna,V.D., Stone Age India , Ancient India .No.3, 1947. New Delhi
3. Misra, V.D. and Pal, J.N. (eds), Mesolithic India, Allahabad, 2002.
4. Sankalia, H.D., Prehistory and proto history in India and Pakistan. 1962. Bombay