prehistory

How they lived and their housing:

Lifestyles evolved according to the historical period:

Paleolithic: They were nomads and moved around in search of food. They lived in natural caves or in light huts made of branches, mud, and animal hides.

Neolithic: They became sedentary thanks to agriculture and livestock farming. They built the first villages with stable houses made of stone, adobe (mud and straw), and wood.

Clothing and "fashion": Clothing had a purely survival function, although over time it acquired an aesthetic purpose:

Materials: At first, they used exclusively the hides of hunted animals. They scraped them to clean them and sewed them with needles made of bone and sinew as thread.

Textiles: In the Neolithic period, the loom was invented. They began to manufacture clothing from linen, wool, and cotton.

Adornments and "fashion": They wore necklaces, bracelets, and amulets made from seashells, animal teeth, carved bones, and colored stones. They also decorated their bodies with natural paints and tattoos or scarification.

Customs and social organization: Coexistence transformed as technology advanced:

Society: In the Paleolithic era, people lived in small tribes or family clans where everyone collaborated. In the Neolithic and Metal Ages, social hierarchies, chiefs, warriors, and the division of labor (artisans, farmers) emerged.

Food: They went from eating what they hunted and gathered (fruits, roots) to consuming their own crops (wheat, barley) and domesticated animals (goats, sheep).

Rituals: They buried their dead with personal belongings (funerary goods), which demonstrates their belief in the afterlife. They also worshipped the forces of nature and fertility goddesses.

Art: They painted animals and hunting scenes inside caves (cave art) using charcoal, blood and minerals mixed with animal fat.

Mortality and survival: Becoming an adult was the greatest challenge for a prehistoric child:

High mortality: Almost half of the children died before the age of five due to infections, malnutrition, injuries, or predator attacks.

Late weaning: Mothers breastfed babies until they were three or four years old to protect them from diseases, since breast milk transmitted antibodies.

Community care: The entire tribe protected the babies. Because they were small groups, the loss of one child affected the future of the entire clan.

Education, games and toys: Children learned by playing and observing adults. There was no strict separation between play and work.

Real toys: Archaeologists have found miniature tools carved from stone, bone, and wood, such as small bows, arrows, and axes made to the scale of a child's hand.

Clay figures: They also used small clay animal figures that probably served for play and, at the same time, to learn to identify prey in the environment.

Imitation: They played at tracking footprints, hiding and fighting safely, which trained their reflexes for hunting and defense.

Work and responsibilities: Childhood was short; as soon as they had sufficient physical strength, they began to contribute to the group:

Gathering: Children accompanied women to collect wild fruits, roots, bird eggs, firewood, medicinal plants, and mollusks on the coast.

Technical learning: Paleolithic children watched stone carvers. Archaeological remains show "practice stones" with clumsy blows, evidence that the children were rehearsing the craft.

Fire and animal care: In the Neolithic period, they helped tend the crops, scare birds away from the harvest, and herd flocks of goats or sheep near the village. Participation in rock art

Children were not excluded from the spiritual or artistic world of the tribe:

Handprints in caves: In many caves with cave paintings, handprints belonging to children and babies have been found. Adults held them in their arms or on their shoulders so they could leave their mark on the upper areas of the walls.

In prehistoric times, the transition from childhood to adulthood occurred much earlier than it does today. There was no exact chronological age (like turning 18); instead, maturity was determined by physical development and the capacity for survival. Puberty as a boundary (between 12 and 15 years old) The physical changes marked the end of childhood. Upon reaching puberty, a young man was considered ready for the full responsibilities of the clan.

Reproductive capacity: Due to the short life expectancy (which was around 30 or 35 years), it was vital to have children early to ensure the continuity of the tribe.

Physical strength: At this age, the body already had enough strength to withstand long days of hunting or hard agricultural work.

Rites of passage or initiation: To demonstrate that a child was now an adult, many tribes performed ceremonies or "rites of passage".

Although there are no written records, anthropology and archaeology suggest that they consisted of:

Tests of courage or endurance: Young men had to spend days alone in the wild, hunt their first big game, or endure physical pain (such as tattoos, piercings, or scarification) without complaining.

Isolation: In some clans, young people were separated from the rest of the group for a time to receive secret teachings from elders or shamans about the myths and traditions of the tribe.

Change of status: Upon passing the test, the young man returned to the group with a new identity. He received his own adult weapons and the right to marry and participate in clan decisions. Evidence in skeletal remains: Archaeologists have found graves of prehistoric adolescents buried with the same honors as adults.

Grave goods: From the age of 12 or 13, young people were buried with complex hunting tools, expensive ornaments, or heavy weapons. This demonstrates that the community already recognized them as mature and productive members at the time of their death.

Physically, prehistoric people were very different from us at first, but they changed drastically over thousands of years. Their appearance depended on the species and the period in which they lived. If we focus on Homo sapiens (our own species, which lived during the Upper Paleolithic and Neolithic periods), their characteristics were as follows: Physical appearance and build

Very strong and athletic: Their bodies were adapted to extreme daily physical exertion. They walked dozens of kilometers, carried heavy animals, and sculpted stone, so they had very developed musculature and thicker bones than ours.

Height: Contrary to the myth that they were "dwarfs," Paleolithic Homo sapiens were tall. Men averaged between 1.70 and 1.80 meters in height. However, in the Neolithic period (when they began to eat more cereals and less meat), average height decreased by about 10 centimeters due to changes in diet.

Weathered faces: Their skin, features and hands were badly worn from the extreme weather, sun, cold and constant manual labor.

Hygiene and health (The harsh reality): Healthy but worn teeth: They didn't have cavities in the Paleolithic era because they didn't consume sugar or processed carbohydrates. However, their teeth were extremely worn and smoothed because they used them as tools to bite and soften the leather of animal hides.

Natural hygiene: They didn't use soap, so their body odor was very strong (a mixture of sweat, smoke from campfires, and animal fat used to protect themselves from the cold). Despite this, they bathed in rivers and cared for their hair, which they cut with sharp stone flakes or braided so it wouldn't get in their way while hunting.

Scarred body: It was normal to have marks, scars from hunting wounds and burns caused by sparks from campfires in caves. Expression and aesthetics

Decorated bodies: Physical appearance was not only biological; aesthetics mattered to them. They painted their skin with red clay (ochre) and charcoal for rituals or to protect themselves from insects. They also made tattoos or marks on their skin.

Intelligent gaze: They were not wild or clumsy beings. They had the same brain capacity as a modern human. Their gaze reflected absolute attention to the sounds, smells, and movements of nature in order to survive.

In the beginning: Several species at once (Paleolithic) For most of prehistory, the Earth was not inhabited by just one type of human, but by several that came to coexist on the same planet: Homo habilis: The first to make very simple stone tools. They were smaller and resembled an upright ape. Homo erectus: The first to master fire and walk fully upright. Their face had very prominent eyebrows and a flat forehead.

Homo neanderthalensis (Neanderthals): They were a different human species from ours. They were short, extremely robust, very strong, and adapted to the glacial cold of Europe. They had broad noses and sloping foreheads.

Homo sapiens (Us): We appeared in Africa and then spread throughout the world. We were more slender, with a high forehead, chin, and a brain highly focused on abstract thought (art, complex language).

2. In the end: Only we remain (Neolithic and Metal Ages) About 40,000 years ago, all other human species (including Neanderthals) became completely extinct.