User:Infoman 2016-17 Group 1/sandbox/Draft
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Prehistoric Europe is the designation for the period of human presence in Europe before the start of recorded history, beginning in the Lower Paleolithic.[3] As history progresses, considerable regional irregularities of cultural development emerge and increase. The region of the eastern Mediterranean is, due to its geographic proximity, greatly influenced and inspired by the classical Middle Eastern civilizations, and adopts and develops the earliest systems of communal organisation and writing.[4] The Histories of Herodotus (from around 440 BC) is the oldest known European text that seeks to systematically record traditions, public affairs and notable events.[5] In contrast, the European regions furthest away from the ancient centers of civilisation tended to be the slowest, regarding acculturation.[clarification needed] In Northern and Eastern Europe in particular, writing and systematic recording was only introduced in the context of Christianization, after 1000 CE.
Early Prehistory | |
---|---|
Lower Paleolithic | Homo antecessor[1][2] Homo heidelbergensis |
Middle Paleolithic | Homo neanderthalensis |
Upper Paleolithic | Homo neanderthalensis, Homo sapiens |
Mesolithic | Homo sapiens population of all regions |
Neolithic | Homo sapiens Proto-farmers, herding, pottery |
Late Prehistory | |
Chalcolithic | Indo-Europeans, agriculture, |
Bronze Age | Minoan Crete, Mycenaean Greece |
Iron Age | Greece, Rome Iberians, Germanic tribes |
Europe portal | |
Widely dispersed, isolated finds of individual fossils of bone fragments (Atapuerca, Mauer mandible), stone artifacts or assemblages that suggest Lower Paleolithic palaeo-human presence are rare and typically separated by thousands of years. The karstic region of the Atapuerca Mountains in Spain represents the currently earliest known and reliably dated location of residence for more than a single generation and a group of individuals.[6][7] Prolonged presence has been attested for Homo antecessor (or Homo erectus antecessor, Homo heidelbergensis and Neanderthals.
Homo neanderthalensis emerged in Eurasia between 350,000 and 600,000 years ago as the earliest body of European people, that left behind a substantial tradition, a set of evaluable historic data through rich fossil record in Europe's limestone caves and a patchwork of occupation sites over large areas, including Mousterian cultural assemblages.[8][9] Modern humans arrived in Mediterranean Europe during the Upper Paleolithic between 45,000 and 43,000 years ago, and both species occupied a common habitat for several thousand years. Research has so far produced no universally accepted conclusive explanation as to what caused the Neanderthal's extinction between 40,000 and 28,000 years ago.[10][11]
Homo sapiens subsequently proceeded to populate the entire continent during the Mesolithic and advanced north, following the retreating ice sheets of the last glacial maximum. A 2015 publication on ancient European DNA collected from Spain to Russia concluded that the original hunter-gatherer population had assimilated a wave of "farmers" who had arrived from the Near East during the Neolithic about 8,000 years ago.[12]
The Mesolithic era site Lepenski Vir, the earliest documented sedentary community of Europe with permanent buildings as well as monumental art precedes the chronological framework by many centuries. The community's year round access to a food surplus prior to the introduction of agriculture was the basis for the sedentary lifestyle[13] However, the earliest record for the adoption of elements of farming can be found in Starčevo, a community with close cultural ties.[14]
Belovode and Pločnik, a location in Serbia is currently the oldest reliably dated copper smelting site in Europe (around 7,000 years ago). Attributed to the Vinča culture, which on the contrary provides no links to the initiation of or a transition to the Chalcolithic or Copper age.[15][16][17]
The process of smelting bronze is an imported technology with debated origins and history of geographic cultural profusion. It established in Europe about 3200 BC in the Aegean and production was centered around Cyprus, the primary source of copper for the Mediterranean for many centuries.[18]
The introduction of metallurgy which initiated unprecedented technological progress has also been linked with the establishment of social stratification and distinction between rich and poor and precious metals as the means to fundamentally control the dynamics of culture and society.[19]
The European Iron Age culture also originates in the East through the absorption of the technological principles obtained from the Hittites about 1200 BC, finally arriving in Northern Europe by 500 BC.[20]
During the Iron Age, Central, Western and most of Eastern Europe gradually entered the historical period. Greek maritime colonization and Roman terrestrial conquest form the basis for the diffusion of literacy in large areas to this day. This tradition continued in an altered form and context for the most remote regions {Greenland and Old Prussians, 13th century) via the universal body of Christian texts, including the incorporation of Eastern European Slavic people and Russia into the Orthodox cultural sphere. Latin and ancient Greek language continued to be the primary and best way to communicate and express ideas in Liberal arts education and the sciences all over Europe until the early modern period.[21]