Test 2 ‘s questions from chapters 14 and 15 of the text concern the Stone Age (See Scientific Cosmology Timeline handout ; bottom two rows). The word “stone” in this name refers to the stone tool artifacts found first in this archaeological age associated with Genus Homo hominin fossils starting approximately from 2.5 million years ago. The stone tools are different from other stones in that they are made by design, that is according to a pattern, in a style; not shaped by natural forces . But rather we can infer by animals with Symbolic Thinking and Communication and imagination. Pictures of these designed implements can be found in the text on pages, 347, 350 (Oldowan tradition or style), 349 (Acheulean tradition), and 355 ( Mousterian tradition); and handout. The fact that anthropologists who have found and examined these artifacts can classify them into “traditions” or styles implies that they are seeing design in them; and that therefore they are designed by animals with symbolic thinking and imagination (See lecture 5 where I argue that imaginative thinking is a capacity of symbolic thinking. )

Anthropology 153 Test 2 ‘s questions from chapters 14 and 15 of the text concern the Stone Age (See Scientific Cosmology Timeline handout ; bottom two rows). The word “stone” in this name refers to the stone tool artifacts found first in this archaeological age associated with Genus Homo hominin fossils starting approximately from 2.5 million years ago. The stone tools are different from other stones in that they are made by design, that is according to a pattern, in a style; not shaped by natural forces . But rather we can infer by animals with Symbolic Thinking and Communication and imagination. Pictures of these designed implements can be found in the text on pages, 347, 350 (Oldowan tradition or style), 349 (Acheulean tradition), and 355 ( Mousterian tradition); and handout. The fact that anthropologists who have found and examined these artifacts can classify them into “traditions” or styles implies that they are seeing design in them; and that therefore they are designed by animals with symbolic thinking and imagination (See lecture 5 where I argue that imaginative thinking is a capacity of symbolic thinking. ) So , as I have argued that the unique species characteristic or we humans is to have the capacity for symbolic communication and thinking, language and culture, we can infer from the stone tools made by design that they are associated with the first humans. That anthropologists have designated these hominins the first Genus Homo hominins – Homo habilis – implies that this is the origin of Human Beings ! Although Homo habilis brain size is much smaller than our Homo sapiens brains, the qualitative characteristic of having the ability to communicate symbolically , the ability to design tools, and the ability to pass on the method of design _in a tradition to future generations_ makes Homo habilis human. Interestingly , though the text (and all other anthropologists) name these fossils _Homo_ habilis , and observe design patterns in all these tools, it ( the text) places the origin of symbolic thinking in later Genus Homo species. In my opinion , this means that the text does not have a correct understanding of the nature of symbolic signs, language and culture as I have discussed these concepts in previous lectures. In other words, why does the text say that the stone tools associated with Homo habilis are uniquely patterned, if Homo habilis didn’t have the symbolic thinking necessary to make them according to an imaginary design ? Why does the text place Homo habilis hominin ( habitually erect, bi-pedal) fossils in the Genus Homo , if Homo habilis doesn’t have some qualitatively different mental capacity than the fossils of australopithecine hominins from Chapter 13 ? You are only required to give short answers , 1 or 2 paragraphs , to questions C and D, the questions from the text: 5, 6 and 7 on page 323 , and 1,2,3 and 9 on page 362. Notice that the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age is 99% of the Stone Age. The whole Stone Age is approximately 2,500,000 years long . The Mesolithic/Middle Stone Age ( which is nowhere near the middle of the 2.5 million years); and Neolithic or New Stone Age begin about 12,000 and 10,000 years ago. So the length of the Old Stone Age is 2,500,000 minus 12,000. That is, the Old Stone Age is 99% of the Stone Age and of Human existence. ( Civilization) begins about 6,000 years ago. The Paleolithic beginning with Homo habilis , through Homo Erectus/Ergaster, Homo Neanderthal, Homo Sapiens fossil types with increasing brain size and sophistication of cultural artifacts. The Paleolithic had Lower, Middle and Upper stages. The Paleolithic and Neolithic: I will discuss both briefly ( also see handouts) contrasting one with the other, a good way to define something – by discussing what it is not or its opposite. The Old Stone Age might be said to have a Mode of Direct Appropriation of Wild Food in contrast with the New Stone Age having a Mode of _Production) of Cultivated Plants and Domesticated Animals; and then Civilization, with expansion to large scale agriculture and animal husbandry The Old Stone Age Mode is termed foraging , including scavenging, hunting and gathering _wild_ animals and _wild_ vegetation. “Wild” means that they were not domesticating animals or planting and seeds and cultivating plants . They ate hand to mouth or briefly collected and stored them. Also, the Old Stone Agers ( and the Middle Stone Agers ) were NOMADS. They spent much more of their time than New Stone Agers walking around a range, foraging; they were relatively mobile. Old Agers spent less time SEDENTARY in camps, and the camps were moved more frequently than New Stone Age villages. The New Stone Agers or Neolithic Peoples changed from the Old Life in several ways 1) It originated the planting of seeds and the raising of farm animals ( termed pastoralism ) to produce food as opposed to living from wild foods. 2) New tool types for this new mode of life 3) Settlement in villages or sedentarism in contrast with the Old mode of nomads So “ The Neolithic Revolution was the origin of The Cultivation and Domestication of Plants and Animals. A Wikipedia item describes the transition from the Old Stone Age to the New as follows : “Hunter-gatherers had different subsistence requirements and lifestyles from agriculturalists. Hunter-gathers were often highly mobile and migratory, living in temporary shelters and in small tribal groups, and having limited contact with outsiders. Their diet was well-balanced though heavily depended on what the environment could provide each season. In contrast, because the surplus and plannable supply of food provided by agriculture made it possible to support larger population groups, agriculturalists are lived in more permanent dwellings in more densely populated settlements than what could be supported by a hunter-gatherer lifestyle. The agricultural communities' seasonal need to plan and coordinate resource and manpower encouraged division of labor, which gradually led to specialization of labourers and complex societies. The subsequent development of trading networks to exchange surplus commodities and services brought agriculturalists into contact with outside groups,[11] which promoted cultural exchanges that led to the rise of civilizations and technological evolutions. However, population increase and food abundance did not necessarily correlate with improved health. Reliance on a very limited variety of staple crops can adversely affect health even while making it possible to feed more people. Maize is deficient in certain essential amino acids (lysine and tryptophan) and is a poor source of iron. The phytic acid it contains may inhibit nutrient absorption. Other factors that likely affected the health of early agriculturalists and their domesticated livestock would have been increased numbers of parasites and disease-bearing pests associated with human waste and contaminated food and water supplies. Fertilizers and irrigation may have increased crop yields but also would have promoted proliferation of insects and bacteria in the local environment while grain storage attracted additional insects and rodents.[11]” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neolithic_Revolution Usually the term “Civilization” or Civilized is used to refer to human society that is superior morally and technologically to the Stone Age human societies. The popular image of “cavemen” and Neanderthals is of brutes, savages who drag women around by the hair and presumably force themselves on them. Cannibals who are in regular and frequent conflict with each other . Civilization is superior technologically in that it has an increasingly more productive social organization and technology. With Civilization population size begins to grow more and is more concentrated than in the Stone Age. So , in that regard , Civilization is superior to the Stone Age on the Darwinian Fitness/Adaptation test, moving further from potential extinction/zero population. On the other hand, the total population of the Stone Age was growing and perpetuated for approximately 2.5 million years; and it was able to adapt to the full range of environmental types , from arctic to rain forest. Civilization has only existed for about 6,000 years, a tiny fraction of the 2.5 million years of the Stone Age . And , importantly, tragically, “civilized’ technology has gone so far as to invent NUCLEAR WEAPONS. Nuclear war at this stage would probably create a “nuclear winter’, similar to the “winter” created by the comet that hit the Earth and caused the extinction of the dinosaurs. So, by So-called Civilization originating War between members of the same species, and super-destructive war technology, weapons, it has created a potentially UNFIT /EXTINCTION/POPULATION LOSS , in the Darwinian sense, dynamic for the human species. Civilization has 100,000s of years to go before it equals the Stone Age longevity of the human species. Not only that: War with even less than nuclear destructive potential , with swords, knives, clubs, guns and other weapons USED ON MEMBERS OF OUR OWN SPECIES is morally inferior – real savagery/barbarism- to Stone Age largely peaceful society, in my opinion. Furthermore, “Civilization’s” slaves work harder at food production than foragers or hunters and gatherers . This claim is based in part on Marshall Sahlins’s thesis in “ The Original Affluent Society” essay with the inference that societies through the 2.5 million years of the Stone Age were basically the same in terms of work time and intensity as Stone Age/Hunter-gatherer societies in the last 500 years; societies that Europeans _observed_ as they conquered the globe in the era of Capitalist Civilization . Civilization has more toil than Stone Age Society (See Lecture 12). A society with more leisure is superior , in my opinion. “Civilized” society with masters exploiting production surpluses from slaves, greed; and oppressing and capturing slaves with armed force is inferior to Stone Age society where all adults are of equal status Also, Stone Age society with equal status between women and men is morally superior to So-called Civilization’s Male Supremacist culture. Along with the inference concerning the nature of Ancient Stone Age society from the thesis of “The Original Affluent Society”, I make the following inference concerning the superior morality of Stone Age Society ( from the Overview Lecture number 1): Since the advent about 6,000 years ago of so-called civilization, as you have no doubt heard it referred to sometimes, it's not so clear how wise our culture makes us. Therein lies the central drama of the history of the human species. Nonetheless, clearly in the Stone Age, our having culture was a highly adaptive advantage over species that did not have culture , stone tools or controlling fire made through culture or symbolic or imaginary thinking and communication, etc, raising our species fitness, the growth of our population . This is evidenced by _Homo sapiens_ expanding in population and therefore migrating to an expanded area of living space across the earth , out of what is now named Africa to the other continents. Stone Age foraging and kinship organized societies were the mode of life for the vast majority of time of human species ' existence, 95% or more. The first human societies had an extraordinarily high survival need to be able to rely on each other at levels of solidarity that we cannot even imagine. The intensity of the network of social connections of a band of 25 to 100 people living in the ecological food chain location close to the one described in our textbook , Chapter 4, would almost constitute a new level of organic organization and integrity above individual bodies or selves. Ancient kinship /family/culture /symbolic communication systems from around 2.5 million years ago ( the beginning of the Truly Civilized Stone Age) were almost super-organic bodies; the human social group was a harmonious , multi-individual Body, quasi-organism. The Individual human bodies, Selves, were very frail and weak in contrast with the bodies of the field of predators they were prey for . The dominance of the food chain that humans, ultimately reached even in the Stone Age with relatively _frail_ individual bodies. could only be reached by super-social , super internally-cooperative, super-intra-species harmony . This was only possible with symbolic communication both within a living generation and across generations, It is clear to me that natural selection , in the classical Darwinian sense, elected hominin groups with policies and practices of of "love thy neighbor as thyself " and "charity" over those that might have derived principles of "selfishness and greed", if there were any in the Stone Age before Civilization. Treating each other better was critical to survival and thriving for the ancient Stone Age