Historical Development of Society, Culture and Development

Historical development of society, culture and environment

We are all familiar with the society that society is a social group that differ according to the subsistence strategies and also the ways that human use technology to provide need to themselves. Although, various societies are established by human themselves throughout the history. The anthropologists tend to classify different societies according to the degree to which different groups within the society have unequal access to the advantages such as resources, prestige, and power. All the societies have developed some degree of inequality among their people through the process of social stratification, the division of members of society into levels with unequal wealth, prestige, and power. Sociologists place societies into different categories as:

Prehistoric Societies:

The word prehistory (“meaning before the history” which has derived from the latin word for ‘pre’ means before) is the period of time before recorded in the history or the invention of writing systems. Prehistory refers to the time period of human existence on the earth before the availability of those written records with which the recorded history begins. Broadly, it refers the time period of human existence and the invention of the writing. The archaeologist Paul Tournal originally coined the terminate Historique in describing the findings he had made in the caves of the Southern France. Thus ,the term came into use in the France in 1830s to describe the time before the writing, and the word ‘prehistoric’ was later introduced into English by the archaeologist Daniel Wilson in 1851.

The term “prehistory” can be used to refer the vast span of the time period since the beginning of the Universe, but more it refers to the period of time since life appeared on the earth, or even especially to the time since human-like beings came into existence. The division of human pre-history includes typically the three age system, whereas the scholars of the pre-human time periods typically use the well-defined geological records and its internationally defined stratum base within the geological time scale. The three age system in the periodization of human prehistory into three consecutive time period are named for their respective predominant tool-making technologies: the Stone age, the Bronze age, and the Iron age. The other form of division on history and prehistory can be made between those written events that can be precisely dated by use of a continuous calendar date. The loss of continuity of calendar date most often occurs when a civilization falls and the language, as well as calendar, falls into disuse. Therefore the current civilization loses the ability to precisely date the events written through the primary sources to the event dated to current calendar dating.

The occurrence of written materials varies generally to the cultures classified within either the late Bronze age or within the Iron age. The Historians do not restrict themselves to the evidence from the written records and are always rely on the more evidence from the natural as well as from the social sciences, thereby blurring the distinctions between the terms “history” and the “prehistory”.

Paleolithic Societies

The Paleolithic (also called Palaeolithic) age or era or period is the largest prehistoric period of human history distinguished by the development of the least primitive stone tools discovered and covers roughly 99% of human technological prehistory. It extends from the earliest known use of stone tools, probably used by Hominins, such as Australopithecines, about 2.6 million years ago, to the end of Pleistocene. The Paleolithic era is followed by Mesolithic whose boundary may vary by locality as much as several thousand years ago.

During the Paleolithic time period, humans grouped together in small societies such as bands and are subsisted by gathering plants and hunting wild animals. Although humans used wood as well as bone tools, the Paleolithic period is characterized by the use of knapped stone tools. The other commodities were also adapted for the use of tools such as leather and vegetable fibers. The surviving artifacts of the Paleolithic era are known as Paleoliths. The humans evolved gradually from the early member of the genus Homo such as Homo – habits who used simple stone tools into fully behavioral and anatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens sapiens) during the Paleolithic era. During the end of the Paleolithic, especially the middle ages and Upper Paleolithic era humans began to produce the earliest works of the art and engaged in the religious and spiritual behavior such as burial and ritual. They had a belief that life started after death.

The climate during the Paleolithic consisted the set of the glacier and interglacial periods in which the climate periodically fluctuated between warm and cool temperatures.

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Mesolithic Societies

After the Paleolithic period , a transitional phase called the Mesolithic period ending with the spread of Agriculture followed by the Neolithic period which witnessed the establishment of permanent settlements. The information deduced are exclusively from archaeological findings. These findings tell that the people of the Mesolithic period formed relationship bonds as their predecessors did during the Paleolithic period and lived in groups of 10 to 30. Living in a permanent location in such way brings cohabitation and cooperation.

This period is categorized by more advanced hunting and gathering, fishing and other rudimentary forms of cultivation. People started to use colored stone from the fossils to decorate their caves. The culture of human beings was going to be more difficult than the Paleolithic age. They started to cook food, use weapons for hunting and fishing net for fishing. For the makeup, they used clay bangles and stone combo. The increased number of jewelry items also suggested that personal beauty accessories were more widespread. They also started to use language for communication. Similarly, the concept of division of labor had developed where male’s duty was hunting, fishing and female’s duty was searching food. Hence it can be predicted that the culture of this time was entering into the advanced level.

Neolithic Societies

Neolithic Societies are characterized by farming, domestication of animals, settled communication and the emergence of important civilization. This time is known as one of the revolutionary periods of human culture development because after entering this age, the person started fishing, animal husbandry, agricultural practices for their survival. People didn’t learn to farm all at once. They started raising plants from seeds while continuing to hunt and gather much of their food. Gradually some groups learned to rely on farming for most of their food which marks the beginning of Neolithic Revolution.

It is the last phase of stone age because the human brain of this Neolithic age enters into metal age after a long time. This phase is moreover followed by agriculture, pastoralism, pottery, occupation, textiles, permanent houses and social organization.

References:

Santa, S.C. Environmet\nt Science . India: New Central Book Agency (p) Ltd., 2004.

T., Richard. Towards a Sustainable Future . India: PHI (p)Limited, 2008.