Handouts for Evolution of Society (Part I)
Paleolithic stage ( 500,000 BC – 8,000 BC)
This is also called The Old Stone Age
because men used unpolished and crude stones as
their tool implements. The term Paleolithic came
from two Greek word “palacios” which means old
and “lithos” means stone. The men living in this
period are the Java men, Neanderthal men and Cro-
Magnon men.
Java Men
■ Scientific name: Pithecanthropus erectus
(“ape-man who walked upright”)
■ One of the first specimens of Homo erectus
to be discovered, having been located first
in 1891, in Java, Indonesia.
■ Led by Eugène Dubois, the excavation team
uncovered a tooth, a skullcap, and a
thighbone at Trinil on the banks of the Solo
River in East Java.
Neanderthal men
■ Scientific name: Homo neanderthalensis
■ Neanderthals were our closest evolutionary
relatives. Neanderthals and modern
humans actually lived alongside each other
in Europe for several thousand years before
Neanderthals vanished 30,000 years ago.
■ The first human fossil assemblage described
as Neanderthal was discovered in 1856 in
the Feldhofer Cave of Neander Valley, near
Düsseldorf, Germany.
Cro-Magnon Men
■ The term EEMH is equivalent to Cro-
Magnon Men.
■ An early Homo sapiens ( the species to
which modern humans belong) that lived
about 40, 000 years ago. Skeletal remains
and associated artifacts of the Aurignacian
culture were first found in 1868 in Les
Eyzies, Dordogne, France.
■ Louis Lartet (1869) proposed Homo sapien
fossils as the systematic name for “Cro-
Magnon Man”.
Characteristics of Paleolithic Stage
a. They made and used tool implements,
especially crude stones.
b. They gathered and collected foods through
hunting and fishing.
c. The foods that they usually eat are wild
fruits, nuts and berries.
d. The early Paleolithic men hunted, fished
and protected their families and tribe while
the early Paleolithic women gathered wild
plants, fruits, nuts and prepared food for
eating as well as took care of their children.
e. Both men and women constructed their
dwelling made ornaments and tools and
trained their children for adult social and
political life.
f. The late Paleolithic people were lovers of
art and paintings and their paintings of
reindeers and horses are found in caves in
France and Spain which date back from
28,000 to 10,000 BC.
The Venus of Willendorf (25,000 BCE)
The Venus of Willendorf (25,000 BCE) One of the
most famous items of prehistoric culture, the Venus
of Willendorf was sculptured from oolitic limestone,
and is one of three such figurines unearthed at
Paleolithic archeological sites at Willendorf in
Austria. It was discovered in 1908 by archaeologist
Josef Szombathy.
Mesolithic stage (10,000 BC)
This is known as the Period of Transnational Culture.
Because of the glaciers that occurred, some of the
animals became extinct and they adjusted to the
new environment. People lived along the coast
fishing and gathering shellfish while others, lived in
land where they made bow and arrows for hunting
devise skis and sled and dug out canon and
domesticated dogs.
The art of the Mesolithic era
A skeleton of an 18 year old male wears a shell hat
and in a burial at the Mesolithic side of Arene
Candide in Italy.
Prepared by: Jodelyn Mae S. Cangrejo