Lessons in History: Part 2, The Mesolithic and Neolithic
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Hi kids! Know you're all jonesing to hear the rest of the story of human's history! Well, just chillax, get out your sandwich, poke that straw into your juicebox and get ready for...
MORE STONE AGE
So when we left off, anatomically modern humans had spread to all parts of the world, overthrowing the previous regimes of The Sabertooth Tiger Empire and Woolly Mammoth Dynasty with the use of a powerful new weapon made by attaching a sharpened stone to a long stick, Spear. This combined with their snazzy new skill firemaking, they made Burning Spear.
Burning Spear, once properly hafted and alit, quickly allowed humans to rise to the top of the food chain with his steady beats and intelligent retrospective lyrics, which, while often not as heavy as say Dennis Brown, constantly reminded early humans of the social inequality in Jamaica at the time. In academia, Burning Spear is generally considered the terminal Palaeolithic and beginning of the Middle Stone Age, or...
MESOLITHIC
The Mesolithic has been a period largely ignored in archaeologically research until the past few decades. While the Palaeolithic had motorcycles and ape-men and the Neolithic has agriculture, the Mesolithic lacked a real defining characteristic. Until the efforts of one man.You see, back in the period we archaeologists refer to as "the day" (c. 1910-1960), the Neolithic was championed by a man named Vere Gordon Childe. Childe had ridiculous glasses, an odd name, a crazy mustache, often talked to himself, and was a downright weirdo. In other words, the perfect archaeologist.
With the Childe riding the Neolithic white war steed into battle the period reached new heights and Neolithic stock rose through the roof. But all cool people are destined to become uncool one day. As time went on lithographs of a new archaeologist started appearing in the student centre's billboard, John Grahame Douglas Clark.
Grahame Clark was younger, sexier, had a longer name, no mustache, and wouldn't shut up about "socio-economies". In short, he was the bee's knees.
Grahame Clark inspecting a Aquilonian Blade found in the garden
And also, for some reason, he cared about a little known period called the Mesolithic. Incidentally, I need to install Photoshop already and stop messing around with MS Paint. As all the female archaeologists wanted him and all the male archaeologists wanted to be him, no one ignored the Mesolithic ever again. So what actually happened during the Mesolithic? I haven't a clue.
Read more...
The Mesolithic has been a period largely ignored in archaeologically research until the past few decades. While the Palaeolithic had motorcycles and ape-men and the Neolithic has agriculture, the Mesolithic lacked a real defining characteristic. Until the efforts of one man.You see, back in the period we archaeologists refer to as "the day" (c. 1910-1960), the Neolithic was championed by a man named Vere Gordon Childe. Childe had ridiculous glasses, an odd name, a crazy mustache, often talked to himself, and was a downright weirdo. In other words, the perfect archaeologist.
'V' for Vere
With the Childe riding the Neolithic white war steed into battle the period reached new heights and Neolithic stock rose through the roof. But all cool people are destined to become uncool one day. As time went on lithographs of a new archaeologist started appearing in the student centre's billboard, John Grahame Douglas Clark.
Grahame Clark was younger, sexier, had a longer name, no mustache, and wouldn't shut up about "socio-economies". In short, he was the bee's knees.
Grahame Clark inspecting a Aquilonian Blade found in the gardenAnd also, for some reason, he cared about a little known period called the Mesolithic. Incidentally, I need to install Photoshop already and stop messing around with MS Paint. As all the female archaeologists wanted him and all the male archaeologists wanted to be him, no one ignored the Mesolithic ever again. So what actually happened during the Mesolithic? I haven't a clue.
NEOLITHIC
The Neolithic is considered the beginning of agriculture and pastoralism. That and building big things. Those wacky guys couldn't get enough of it! The predominant theory was that after farming and livestock had been adopted by the ex-hunter gatherers, they became very very very bored. Stalking killer bears in the forest does not compare to watching wheat grow or making sure your slow moving sheep do not walk off a cliff. So to pass the time they built monuments. Here are a few you will probably recognize:
After the destruction of the several limestone Death Stars by pesky rebel scum, Neolithic groups decided it was time to hurry up and find some metal to make them out of. And so we leave the Stone Age and enter the exciting, shiny AGE OF METAL. Stay tuned for your next fat dose of history, the Bronze Age!
The Neolithic is considered the beginning of agriculture and pastoralism. That and building big things. Those wacky guys couldn't get enough of it! The predominant theory was that after farming and livestock had been adopted by the ex-hunter gatherers, they became very very very bored. Stalking killer bears in the forest does not compare to watching wheat grow or making sure your slow moving sheep do not walk off a cliff. So to pass the time they built monuments. Here are a few you will probably recognize:
After the destruction of the several limestone Death Stars by pesky rebel scum, Neolithic groups decided it was time to hurry up and find some metal to make them out of. And so we leave the Stone Age and enter the exciting, shiny AGE OF METAL. Stay tuned for your next fat dose of history, the Bronze Age!
