Civilizations #1: Stone

Lithos #

Paleolithic, Mesolithics and Neoliths are terms that refer to one age, the Stone Age. Suffix -lithic is taken from the word lithos, Greek: λίθoς.

The three periods above stand on an umbrella term, the Stone Age that represents 90% of modern and non-modern human history.

About the Stone Age #

Explaining what it is the Stone Age is self-explanatory, this period ranges from 3.4 million BC to 3000 BC ended by the transition to the use of copper tools (Chalcolithic).

This period is divided into three sub-periods, namely:

Old Stone Age (Paleolithic) #

The Paleolithic period began with the extensive use of stone and rocks by the species hominini (more advanced ape species), life-oriented hunter-gatherer (hunting wild animals and collecting wild fruits) and nomads (non-resident/nomadic habitat).

By the end of this era, the species “hominini” would be slowly extinct, replaced by one modern human species, “homo sapiens”, building a more complex civilization than the previous one.

Middle Stone Age (Mesolithic) #

Mesolithic is a bridge of two periods. Humans with large brains are slowly transitioning to settlements by making a settlement while still conducting hunter-gatherer activities.

Humans also upgrade their devices by making them more precise and efficient in use.

TL;DR: Humans perform gear enhancements and live a semi-nomadic life.

New Stone Age (Neolithic) #

So far agriculture and animal domestication made a “revolution” of the former semi-nomadic lifestyle into permanent settlements.

In this period, mankind has begun to create more complex social structures that nearly identical to today’s social structure such as regional power, state or simple government system.

Extensive use of clay also represented a significant change to mankind during this period.

This period marks the end of the Stone Age before man discovered metal through metallurgy, one of the greatest technological achievements of human civilization leading to the Copper Age. (Chalcolithic).

After the Stone Age #

The Chalcolithic (copper age) is a transition period from the Stone Age to the Bronze Age.

During this period, stone tools were still widely used by humans, at the same time also experimenting with copper that eventually found the formula for copper.

By mixing lead and copper, human finds copper, that will begin the next era, the copper age.