Studying the deep past

Detail

Why the deep past matters

• Early human history is the story of two kinds of change running together:
• Biological evolution — slow change in the body and genes, from the australopithecines to Homo sapiens. The name comes from australis ("southern") + pithecus ("primates"). The first such fossils were dug up in South Africa, which is why the name says "southern". [4]

• Cultural evolution — change in how people live: tools, techniques and technology, all shaped by climate and environment.

• Body change is slow and passed by birth. Culture change is fast and passed by teaching and copying. This is why humans spread into cold, dry and wet lands without growing fur or claws.

• Australopithecus lived across much of Africa in the Pliocene (c. 5.3–2.6 mya) and Pleistocene (c. 2.6 mya–11,700 years ago) epochs. They walked upright on two legs and had more human-like teeth, but their brains were only a little bigger than those of great apes. [4]
• Most scholars accept that Australopithecus led on to the genus Homo, somewhere between 3 and 2 million years ago. [4]

The Quaternary Period — our time slice

• The scaffold's frame: the Quaternary Period = the last 26 lakh (2.6 million) years, including today.
• It is a unit inside the Cenozoic Era and is split into two epochs: [3]
• Pleistocene — c. 2.6 mya to c. 11,700 years ago. The age of repeated glaciations (ice ages), when thick ice sheets covered large parts of the continents. [3]

• Holocene — 11,700 years ago to now. Warmer. Farming, villages and cities belong here. [3]

• The main biological feature of the whole Quaternary is the evolution and spread of humans. [3]

• Exam link: almost all of prehistory (Palaeolithic to Neolithic) sits inside the Quaternary.

Hominins = tool makers

• Hominins = the group that includes modern humans plus our early human-like ancestors. The working definition in the scaffold is simple: tool makers.
• The earliest stone tools date to c. 3.3 million years ago. That is the start line of clearly "human behaviour".

• Animals do not have the thinking ability to make such tools. Using a stick is not the same as shaping a stone on purpose.

• The evidence behind that 3.3 mya date:

• Site: Lomekwi 3, West Turkana, Kenya. Stone artefacts found in situ (still lying in the layer where they were left) in the same place and time-layer as Pliocene hominin fossils, in a wooded landscape. Published in Nature in 2015. [2]
• This Lomekwian tool set is older than the Oldowan by about 700,000 years. [2]
• The tools are big — some weigh up to 15 kg, far heavier than Oldowan pieces. [2]
• Honest limit: no hominin fossils and no cut-marked animal bones were found at the site, so we cannot yet say who made them or exactly how they were used. [2] The tools are older than the first members of Homo, so an earlier ancestor must have had the brain and hand skill to make them. [2]

Tools as "extra-corporal limbs"

• Tools are called "extra-corporal limbs" — limbs outside the body.
• Meaning, broken down:
• A hand cannot cut hide, break bone or dig hard soil.
• A shaped stone does that job for the hand.

• So the tool works like an extra body part, added by thinking instead of by birth.

• This is the bridge between the two evolutions: a cultural answer (a tool) solves a problem that would otherwise need a biological change (claws, fangs).

Evidence base — what prehistorians actually read

• Discarded tools — broken, worn or thrown-away tools buried in the upper layers of the earth. Rubbish is the main archive of prehistory.
• Fossils — preserved remains, traces or impressions of plants, animals or humans. Over thousands or millions of years, under layers of earth, they turn to stone.

• A fossil may be a bone, a tooth, a shell, or even just an impression — a footprint or leaf shape pressed into rock.

• In India, the classic example of a living-floor archive is Bhimbetka (Madhya Pradesh):

• Found in 1957–58 by Dr Vishnu Wakankar of Vikram University, Ujjain. [5]
• About 45 km south-east of Bhopal; the site runs about 10 km long and 3 km wide, with more than 700 rock shelters, over 400 of them painted. [5]
• Lived in continuously from the Lower Palaeolithic onwards. Early layers give handaxes, cleavers and pebble tools; Middle Palaeolithic layers give smaller tools and scrapers; Upper Palaeolithic layers give blades, borers and burins. [5]
• On the main hill, research since 1971 has investigated 243 shelters, of which 133 have paintings. [5]

• Declared a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2003. [5]

• Because there is no writing in this period, all dating is approximate. Dates are given as ranges and as "c." (circa = about). See Section 8 on dating methods.

Periodisation is technological, not dynastic

• There are no kings and no dates in prehistory, so historians divide time by tools, food and settlement:
• Palaeolithic (palaeo = old, lithic = stone) — chipped stone tools; hunting and gathering; moving camps.
• Mesolithic — middle stone age; small tools called microliths; start of taming animals.
• Neolithic — new stone age; ground and polished stone; farming and herding; settled villages.
• Chalcolithic — copper used alongside stone.

• Bronze Age — copper mixed with tin to make bronze; cities, including the Harappan cities by c. 2600 BCE.

• Key point for answers: the scheme is a ladder of technology, not a strict calendar. The same stage begins at different dates in different regions, and stages overlap — some groups were still hunting with stone while neighbours farmed with copper.

Prelims Hooks

• Quaternary Period = last 2.6 million years, part of the Cenozoic Era; split into Pleistocene and Holocene. [3]
• Pleistocene: c. 2.6 mya – c. 11,700 years ago; Holocene: 11,700 years ago – present. [3]
• Earliest stone tools: c. 3.3 mya, site Lomekwi 3, West Turkana, Kenya; published in Nature, 2015. [2]
• The Lomekwian predates the Oldowan by about 700,000 years; some Lomekwi tools weigh up to 15 kg. [2]
• Australopithecus = Latin "southern ape"; australis = southern, pithecus = primates; first fossils from South Africa. [4]
• Australopithecus species span roughly 4.2 mya (A. anamensis) to 2.5 mya (A. garhi); transition to Homo between 3 and 2 mya. [4]
• Hominins are defined as tool makers; tools are termed "extra-corporal limbs".
• Bhimbetka: discovered 1957–58 by V. S. Wakankar; 700+ rock shelters, 400+ painted; UNESCO World Heritage, 2003. [5]
• Technological sequence: Palaeolithic → Mesolithic → Neolithic → Chalcolithic → Bronze Age.
• Prehistory has no writing, so all dates are approximate.

Mains Points

• Two evolutions, one story. Biological change gave the upright body, free hands and bigger brain; cultural change gave tools, fire and shelter. After c. 3.3 mya, culture becomes the faster route of adaptation — humans changed their tools instead of their bodies to survive the Pleistocene ice ages. Useful as the opening frame for any GS-I question on human origins.
• Tool-making as the marker of humanity — and its limits. Lomekwi 3 pushes stone tools back before the genus Homo, so "tool maker = human" no longer lines up neatly with "Homo = tool maker". [2] The site also has no maker's fossil and no cut-marked bone [2] — a good example for writing about how thin and indirect prehistoric evidence is.
• Why periodisation is technological. With no texts, inscriptions or rulers, the only surviving, comparable marker across regions is the tool. This makes the scheme workable but uneven: stages start at different dates in different regions and overlap, so it maps stages of technology, not fixed centuries.
• India's place in the global sequence. Bhimbetka shows one place used continuously from the Lower Palaeolithic into later ages, with the tool types changing layer by layer — handaxes, then scrapers, then blades and burins. [5] It links the global evolution story to Indian ground evidence, and to rock art as a source for early human thought.