The scientific image of the Stone Age of the 19th and first half of the 20th century depicts a man with underdeveloped consciousness who feeds on semi-raw meat, with animal skin and fur wrapped around his body serving as clothing. This is a man who is unfamiliar with art and spirituality, lacks technological knowledge and skills, and lives in caves and shelters under rocks, which is why he is called a cave man.
However, recent research in the last few decades has resulted in discoveries that could change established beliefs.
Neanderthal Man
According to scientists, Neanderthal man appeared in Europe and Western Asia after the second Ice Age, about 200,000 years ago. The Neanderthal was a robustly built man, up to 160 cm tall, with strong brow ridges on the frontal bones and protruding jaws without a pronounced chin. Recent research shows that he had a brain size comparable to that of modern humans, which is considered evidence of high development according to classical scientific understanding.
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Neanderthals lived until about 35,000 years ago when they suddenly disappeared. The ultimate fate of these people is unknown. Some scientific authorities believe that they did not survive the arrival of modern humans, Homo sapiens, while others argue that they biologically and culturally merged with each other. However, none of the numerous scientific hypotheses, which change daily, are complete or certain.
The period between 200,000 and 40,000 years ago, when Neanderthals were dominant in Europe, is called the Mousterian culture period, named after the rich French site Le Moustier. From this period, the Salzgitter-Lebenstadt site in Saxony is also known, where a summer camp of a stone age hunter, as it is still called, was located, and where a site of stone tools was discovered: scrapers, axes, knives, stone hammers, finely polished limestone, sandstone or flint balls. The position of these findings in the layers indicates that humans regularly left this place at regular intervals and then returned to it. He was returning. Also found were carefully crafted stone tips, known as leaf-shaped stone points, which resemble laurel leaves and are believed to have had a certain ritual significance.
The people of the Stone Age did not dress in raw fur or leather aprons. The glacial climate conditions in which they lived would not have allowed it. We can assume that their clothing was similar to that of contemporary Arctic peoples. Coats, pants, hats, and shoes were made from soft-tanned fur. Numerous bone needles of different sizes, with a hole pierced through the eye, have been found at the sites. Animal tendons were likely used for sewing. In three caves in the area of the Swiss Säntis near St. Gallen (Wildkirchli, Wildmannlis, Drachenloch), at elevations between 1500 and 2500 m, remains of leather tanning workshops have been discovered.
In addition to numerous remains of everyday domestic activities, research on central European Mousterian huts has revealed not only ornaments made of mammoth ivory, decorative balls Necklaces with seashell pearls, richly decorated diadems, ornate weapons and tools, as well as interesting figurines with human and animal figures in ivory and stone, can be found at the Ukrainian site of Mezhirich, estimated to be 43,000 years old. Mammoth bones painted with complex red geometric motifs, the meaning of which is yet to be discovered, have been discovered there. Almost all human remains from the later Ice Age are found in tombs. These findings reveal that the deceased were laid to rest in the ground with certain rituals, most often in the fetal position or sleeping position. Objects such as weapons, tools, jewelry, and food were placed in the grave. In the Regourdoua Mousterian tomb in France, dating back 80,000 years, the deceased was laid on a stone pedestal and covered with bear bones. The use of red ochre to decorate the bottom and sides of the pit appears later, towards the end of this Neanderthal period. One unique example is the so-called flower grave, located 15 meters from the cave entrance at Shanidar IV. ., Iraq (60000 years ago), in which the deceased is covered in flowers. Pollen analysis has determined that the pollen of seven types of flowers could not have been carried into the cave by wind or any other natural means, but rather that the person was buried with some form of ritual.
Homo sapiens
The Upper and Middle Paleolithic of Europe encompass several cultures of modern humans, Homo sapiens. The largest of these are the Aurignacian culture (35000 – 25000), Gravettian (28000 – 22000), Solutrean (22000 – 18000), and Magdalenian culture (18000 – 10000).
The Stone Age humans did not live in caves. In the oldest European layers of modern humans, we find the establishment of permanent settlements.
Based on the research of archaeological remains, huts and summer shelters of hunters from the valleys and steppes of Europe and Western Asia have been reconstructed, which were cooled by glacial winds. Although they belong to the same cultures, there are certain differences between different regions. For example, the Magdalenians from the Pincevent area built Seasonal shelters for hunters were similar to modern Indian teepees with wooden structures, while the permanent settlements in Perigord consisted of rectangular huts with floors paved with pebbles from nearby rivers. The Magdalenians from Gönnersdorf area built round huts covered with skin, partially using wooden and bone structures.
At the Kostenki site in Russia, 35-meter-long and 18-meter-wide huts were reconstructed, which likely housed several families. The remains show typical household activities such as food preparation and cooking, floor cleaning, and maintaining resting areas.
Archaeological findings of everyday objects in Europe and Western Asia are very rich. Well-preserved stone tools made of flint, obsidian, quartzite, and quartz, spear throwers, handheld spearheads, razors, knives, small shovels, axes, chisels, carving tools with various shaped tips for work, eye needles, hooks, as well as discoveries of harpoons, bows, and arrows from the late Neolithic period are abundant. The Paleolithic period. Most Magdalenian spear throwers, especially those from the Pyrenees, are adorned with intricately crafted rich decorations featuring carved animal figures and symbolic geometric signs.
Although pottery was thought to be an invention of the Neolithic period, therefore exclusively associated with the first agricultural cultures, recently Gravettian pottery, 26,000 years old, was discovered at Czech archaeological sites such as Dolní Věstonice, Předmostí, Pavlov, and Petrkovice. Animal figurines and Venus figurines were found at the sites. Two ceramic kilns were also discovered. To create replicas of these findings using local clay, archaeologists had to achieve temperatures of 500 to 800°C, which required quite advanced technology. It is believed that the figurines served a certain ritualistic purpose.
The world of the older Stone Age humans was not filled with silence. Several Magdalenian flutes made of narrow and cylindrical bird bones were found. At the Mzin site (Ukraine, 20,000 years ago), a whole series of them was discovered. Percussion and wind instruments, as well as castanets made of mammoth bone, adorned with ornaments and colored with ochre, necklaces, and two ivory rattles. The instruments were kept in a separate uninhabited house. Today, scientists and musicians are trying to reconstruct this ancient music.
As already mentioned, abstract geometric symbols often occur in art, whose meaning is equally mysterious when it comes to the oldest finds dating back 350,000 years (Homo erectus site in Bilzingsleben, Germany), Neanderthal Bacho Kiro (Bulgaria, 43,000 BC), or the youngest Magdalenian animal and human figurines and painted caves filled with abstract drawings from the time of the last ice age.
The Ice Age
The traces of the Ice Age have deeply marked the face of our planet. During the peak of the glacial period, glaciers and icy mountains covered one third of all Earth’s continents. In Scandinavia, for example, the height of ice reached up to 3,000 m. Climate fluctuations, which caused the expansion and retreat of ice caps and individual glaciers, have caused significant disruptions in the plant and animal world and inevitably affected human life.
Studying the end of the last ice age, or the warming that began about 11,700 years ago, shows the magnitude and suddenness of climate change. The entire change occurred within a period of 1,500 years, and the temperature rose by 15°C, which represents a much more dramatic reversal than any scenarios of today’s global warming. This was a time of huge floods and inundations that completely changed the world. In Europe, numerous plant species became extinct, as did animals such as mammoths, giant deer (megaloceros), penguins, cave bears, cave lions, sabre-toothed cats, moose, and many others. It is precisely this enigmatic world of the Stone Age that has been recorded and preserved in cave art.
The Vogelherd archaeological site in Germany, which is over 30,000 years old, contains layers from the Aurignacian period. They hid the admirable animal figurines made of ivory, with common motifs such as horse, cat, bison, and mammoth, also decorated with geometric symbols. The style of these figurines, the oldest known so far, demonstrates a high level of technical and aesthetic achievement reached by the peoples of the Aurignacian period.
Around five hundred Venus figurines have been found in the area from the Pyrenees to Siberia, indicating the communication and complexity of social relations in the Gravettian culture.
In the last decades of the previous century, a lot of effort was put into researching the early chapters of human life, and much was discovered. We now know that humans of the Stone Age had art of high aesthetics, diverse knowledge, technological skills, and performed certain rituals. We know that certain communities were interconnected and exchanged their cultural achievements.
However, all these discoveries bring new puzzles and raise new questions: Where did Where do these knowledge originate from? From even earlier periods? Who were those even older craftsmen, artists? Humanity is older than we think then…
“The Cult of the Bear Skull”
Bear skulls can be found in caves dating back to the time of the Moustierian culture (80000 – 35000). In Switzerland, in the hilly areas of Silesia, in Franconia, and in the Karawanken region, stone boxes have been discovered, as well as natural hollows in the rock enclosed with stones. Numerous bear skulls were found in them.
In the Zmajeva Jama cave in the Swiss Alps, a stone box covered with plates was found, which scientists consider to be a sacrificial altar. In addition to carefully sorted bones, there were also seven bear skulls inside. Next to this stone box, there was also a hearth made of stones and filled with ashes. Based on the amount of ash, it is believed that an eternal fire with cultic significance was maintained there.