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Stone Age
Paleolithic Era

Topics covered in this section:

Introduction

During the Paleolithic Era, Stone Age cavemen arrived on the European continent. They established several home sites, which have been the subject of study by numerous archaeologists.

Cavemen

In spite of the primitive nature of these Paleolithic (Stone Age) hunters and gatherers, it's important to dispel the "cave man" stereotype right off the bat.

Nebula to Man Stereotype

In the 19th century, the stereotypical view of Stone Age cave men was summed up by Henry Knipe in his 1905 poem, Nebula to Man — "Short, thick-boned hairy beings of savage mien, with ape-like skulls: but yet endowed with pride and power of mind to lower brutes denied."

Note

How anyone can determine that they were proud, but savage brutes based on archaeological evidence is beyond me!

His poem and the numerous drawings and paintings of stoop-shouldered, club-clutching brutes who were barely able to walk upright were meant to illustrate the ascending progress of human beings over time.

Continuous Improvement

The idea was that mankind had slowly risen, via improvements in technology and by the development of mental powers, from such brutish "animals" to modern humans, who are now at the pinnacle of creation.

Alternatives Rejected

Those images of cave men are almost totally without merit or archaeological support. However, they are so strongly ingrained in our consciousness that alternative views, even when based on evidence rather than fancy, are all too easily brushed aside.

Any book or movie, in fact, that portrays these early Stone Age humans in a different light is looked upon as lacking adequate research.

Think About It

However, I want to make my viewpoint perfectly clear. The "Hollywood" cave man of the 19th century stereotype never existed! Nor did the GEICO caveman of their commercials ("So simple even a caveman could do it.")

Imagine for a moment that you were asked to go out into the back country and survive on your own. Suppose you couldn't take any modern technology or textbooks with you. Using just what you know now, could you build a car or a computer? Could you make a bowl, a spoon, a fork, a knife? Do you know how to extract iron from the ground and turn it into steel?

Even if you could take a dozen or so of your friends with you, would your group have enough technological know-how to build any of our modern tools or appliances? Unless you were lucky enough to choose a dozen people who did know how to perform these technological feats, you'd probably revert to using stone tools to survive ... until your small group grew large enough to contain these specializations.

Might not the same hold true for the small bands of Stone Age cave dwellers?

Stone Age cavemen might not have been stupid, brutes after all. They just might not have had the required expertise in their particular group. Remember, there were very few of them. They didn't dwell in large cities where you could most likely find people with the required talents. They had to make do with the talents found among their smaller groups.

Neanderthal

Neanderthals (Homo sapiens neanderthalensis) appeared in Europe about 200,000 years ago. It was the discovery of the Neanderthal that gave us our original "cave man" stereotype as mentioned earlier.

However, as more and more Neanderthal sites were found, our view had to be modified. It seems the earliest find was of a man who suffered from disfigurement, and was not typical of the species as a whole.