The Stone Age Essay, Research Paper
The Stone Age
The Stone Age shaped, developed and formed our modern day form of living.
There are numerous facts and events that have occurred throughout time that are
evidence of this.
“The Stone Age began as far back as two million years ago in some
places” (www.bergen.org, April, 1997). This was when neanderthals were
roaming the world using primitive weapons to hunt animals as well as searching
for other sources of food. Since that time the ways of living and even the shape of
man have evolved greatly into their modern form. The men of those times
were hunter-gatherers and used, in some cases only one tool for numerous jobs.
Today we have many varieties of tools that any man has access to just for doing
the simplest of jobs. People of the Stone Age began this way of living hundreds
of thousands of years ago and it is still used greatly, with the help of computers.
That way of living formed what we are today because of the fact that we still live
a sort of hunter-gathering way of life. In the sense that we still have many
farmers and hunters that roam the wild for food so that they can get cash in
return. The Stone Age was also where farming began which was very
important then and now. Many countries rely on their crops to supply them
with either food or money. Settlements began to take place during this time
which have a great impact on how we live today. Settlements are all over the
world in different shapes, sizes and with different cultures and people within.
These are some of the reasons why the Stone Age has shaped and developed our
modern day form of living.
Farming was a very important part of life in the Stone Age. “The
world’s first farmers lived in Abu Hureyra” (Rowley-Conwy, 1993, p. 27). Abu
Hureyra is located near Mesopotamia on the Euphrates River and farming
began between 9000 BC and 7000 BC. Farming is and was a very important
source of food and income for the ancient civilizations. Farming, with
technology advanced greatly. With these advancements in farming equipment it has
made modern day farming easier and we are now able to finish relatively large
jobs in only a matter of days or even hours. Because of Abu Hureyra farming is
now in every corner of the world. without this way of life many civilizations
would be in trouble or maybe not even exist. Saskatchewan for example would
not be as wealthy as it is without farming, in fact we would be nothing because
our ways of living revolve around agriculture. Farming is a very reliable source
of food and income because there is always a season to farm in out of the year.
The only problem with farming is there is only one season to farm in, where as
hunters can hunt any time of the year. This new way of life developed and shaped
many forms of civilizations throughout the world.
Another important part of farming and even all of life was the development
and the use of tools. Tools were also very important for many ancient civilizations
as well as the modern civilizations. Tools come in all different shapes and sizes and
are used for different types of work. Ancient tools were made of chipped stone
which were then sharpened and polished-up so they could later be used as weapons
, equipment for farming or utensils. Tools play a key role in the development of
man because without tools man would not have been able to farm effectively, hunt
effectively, skin animal hides, eat with utensils and many other reasons like building
homes.
Settlements are very important in our modern day life. Nearly every
culture or group of people develop a settlement or a way of being civilized at some
point in time. The Stone Age was the period which developed the idea of settlements
and because of this way of thinking nearly every group of people in the world
have developed a type of settlement. The Stone Age has helped us in many ways,
but without the development of settlements we would have little or no money
because lot’s of money is made within groups of people or settlements. Settlements
have helped many cultures develop ways of making money. When one group of
people start making money it drives other people to make money and they later
feed off of each other until they become fairly wealthy. We have developed greatly
from settlements because it has helped us mature economically. We now have a
good sense of how to make money off of things made within settlements. Because of
the Stone Age and their settlements we now have a very organized way of living.
The Stone Age shaped and developed our modern day form of living. The
people of the Stone Age had a great impact on the ways that we lived. Those four
main ways are listed above. The Stone Age lasted about two million years ago in
some places and because of the vast time span it took-up, it was divided into three
periods which are the Paleolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic eras. Some of which
lasted longer than others. If the era which we are in now could last that long we still
could not develop such things as farming, settlements and tools. However if it did
last that long the tools, farming equipment and settlements would be much more
advanced than that of those times. We would develop things like computers and
cars, but never could we again invent farming or start making the first tools again.
Most of the things that were developed during the Stone Age are very important
things, things that we need to live. Without the era of the Stone Age the earth
would amount to nothing, we would still be neanderthals roaming around the earth
living a hunter-gatherer way of life. Their would even be more wars today without
the coming of the Stone Age because we would have no organization and groups of
people would be killing each other for no reason. The Stone Age was a very-much
needed era because of the development of farming, tools, settlements and even the
ways in which man developed during this time. The Stone Age had the biggest role
and greatest effect on what we are today.