Acheulean period
Further development of labor is reflected in the improvement of stone tools and technology for their manufacture.
Wherever there are tough Chellean guns in their place there are new, more thoroughly and expertly made – Acheulean (named for the place of their first discovery in St. Ashely (a suburb of the city of Amiens in France).
Acheulean hand ax different from Chellean chopped primarily for its proper almond-shaped, triangular or oval outline. The surface of the Acheulian chopping usually handled entirely chipped testifying has a good knowledge of the properties of silicon, a much more skillful hand of the master, which is applied is now apt and well calculated strokes. If a person, Chellean time could be applied only strong and sharp blows, resulting in at the edges of guns remained deep recess, the Acheulean man learned to separate from the rock flakes are thin and flat. Acheulian blade chopping was therefore no longer zigzag shaped, and the direct and sharp. Improves the shape of shells made from flakes, steadily repeated series of specific products: pointed and so-called drill.
Important were changes in the way people live. The Acheulean first time there hunting camps, there are more or less permanent settlements. A remarkable example of such settlements can be findings in Torralba (Spain). The ancient settlement was located here at an altitude of 112 m above sea level, on the shores of an ancient lake. To the lake to drink on its shores covered with lush vegetation come the elephants, rhinoceroses, bulls, deer and horses, falls prey to primitive people. In the parking lot of bones survived these animals, including the entire skull southern elephant with tusks, reaching 3 meters in length, the bone Etruscan rhinoceros and Merck rhinoceros, horse Stenon. However, animal bones in the cultural layer of chopped numerous quartzite, sandstone and chalcedony were found, as well as the usual small items of flakes.
Man Acheulean already widely develops ready natural home, which served the cave shelters and caves for him. There are cave settlements Acheulean time in the grotto of the Observatory, near Monaco, near the shore of the Mediterranean Sea, in the cave of Umm Katafa, south-east of Jerusalem, and especially in the cave Et-Tabun, on Mount Carmel, in the northern part of Palestine.
Et-Tabun Cave was somewhat deep and high niches open to the north and cave filled with loose deposits of more than 15 m. In its layer, remains of hearths as brown or yellow spots burnt earth were found. Processed silicon arranged differently, mostly about the rocky walls of the grotto. At one point at the entrance to the grotto appeared accumulation of weapons, consisting of 29 especially of hidden hand axes. Just a grotto-excavated areas were about 50 thousand items found, with the bulk of their mass is finished, it is finished tools: Choppers, scrapers, tip, retouched flakes and plates. The most striking here is the set of hand axes, which indicates the importance of this ancient instrument in the life of Paleolithic man. They found there are more than 8 thousand.
Numerous traces of hearths, lots of perfectly processed implements of flint, including thousands of chopping, clearly show that the cave Et-Tabun for millennia served as a dwelling to man at that time, already leaving far behind its progenitors and ancestors Chellean period, wandering without permanent shelter in sub-tropical forests and jungles of pre-glacial era. The fire was now, along with the tools, the foundation of human existence and the support of the primitive community in its struggle with nature.
Man Acheulean time apparently used fire not only as a source of life-giving heat to warm your body in the cold season, but also as a means of combating the constantly threatened him with predators.
Even poor old men, women and children, armed with flaming smut, were stronger than those of animals that were storm rainforest.
Very early, I think, people have learned to roast on the fire animal meat and edible roots and fruits. This not only improved food and expanded the food supply, but also put even more sharp distinction between humans and animals can only eat food in its natural, given the very nature of the form.