Misplaced Pages

#926073

150-695: The first signs of human settlement in Collecchio date from the Paleolithic Age . With growing numbers of inhabitants in the Neolithic , deforestation led to flooding in the plains. As a result, settlements were moved up into the hills. The Roman road Clodia Segunda linking Parma and Luni (via Fornovo ) and the Cisa Pass was a mainstay for the local economy and for the development of the ancient Roman city of Sustrina. The road can still be seen today, branching off to

300-742: A Neanderthal child found in 1938 shows similarities with the Mousterian of Iraq and Iran . In the Upper Palaeolithic , by contrast, most remains are found in the Urals, where, among other things, rock carvings depicting mammoths are found, in Altai, on the upper Yenissei, west of Lake Baikal and around 25,000 on the shore of the Laptev Sea , north of the Arctic Circle . The remains of huts have been found in

450-428: A nomadic lifestyle. In addition, even a large area of land could not support many people without being actively farmed - food was difficult to come by and so groups were prevented from growing too large by the amount of food they could gather. Like contemporary hunter-gatherers, Paleolithic humans enjoyed an abundance of leisure time unparalleled in both Neolithic farming societies and modern industrial societies. At

600-404: A "rolled animal", pairs of different animal species may be interlaced in a purely ornamental way, or depicted fighting one another. A line of the members of the same species often appear in borders, while individual parts of animals, like their heads, often serve as ornaments. Especially in the western steppes metal wares are found almost exclusively decorated with elements of the animal style; in

750-402: A baseball team established in 1974. Architecturally of note are the " Pieve di San Prospero " and " Villa Paveri-Fontana ", formerly "Villa Dalla Rosa-Prati". Villa Paveri-Fontana was built in the late seventeenth century on a pre-existing sixteenth-century building. It still keeps rooms painted with mythological themes and architectural perspective. A monumental arched structure that is called

900-629: A fortified Lombard court. In 1000 A.D., the Lombard Countess Ferlinda gave a hospice to the canons of Parma in Madregolo . After the year 1000 A.D., Collecchio was the centre of battles among the Visconti, Rossi, Pallavicino, and Sforza families that would endure until Parma would become a duchy in the hands of the Farnese family in 1545 A.D. There is a reference that is dated 1173 A.D., noting that

1050-678: A group of early humans, frequently called Homo heidelbergensis , came to Europe from Africa and eventually evolved into Homo neanderthalensis ( Neanderthals ). In the Middle Paleolithic, Neanderthals were present in the region now occupied by Poland. Both Homo erectus and Homo neanderthalensis became extinct by the start of the Upper Paleolithic. Descended from Homo sapiens , the anatomically modern Homo sapiens sapiens emerged in eastern Africa c.  300,000  BP, left Africa around 50,000 BP, and expanded throughout

1200-417: A height of less than one or more than 18 metres, evidently reflecting differences in social hierarchy. In some regions, kurgans are surrounded by various kinds of stone enclosure. The more or less rectangular tombs of the later Tagar culture were sometimes surrounded by a row of stones at the edge of the kurgan mound, which was broken up by higher stones at regular intervals - later these were usually just at

1350-788: A herd of animals at a waterhole so as to stun one of them. There are no indications of hafting , and some artifacts are far too large for that. Thus, a thrown hand axe would not usually have penetrated deeply enough to cause very serious injuries. Nevertheless, it could have been an effective weapon for defense against predators. Choppers and scrapers were likely used for skinning and butchering scavenged animals and sharp-ended sticks were often obtained for digging up edible roots. Presumably, early humans used wooden spears as early as 5 million years ago to hunt small animals, much as their relatives, chimpanzees , have been observed to do in Senegal , Africa. Lower Paleolithic humans constructed shelters, such as

1500-505: A need to distribute resources such as food and meat equally to avoid famine and ensure a stable food supply. Raymond C. Kelly speculates that the relative peacefulness of Middle and Upper Paleolithic societies resulted from a low population density, cooperative relationships between groups such as reciprocal exchange of commodities and collaboration on hunting expeditions, and because the invention of projectile weapons such as throwing spears provided less incentive for war, because they increased

1650-540: A number of ways by modern archaeologists. The earliest explanation, by the prehistorian Abbe Breuil , interpreted the paintings as a form of magic designed to ensure a successful hunt. However, this hypothesis fails to explain the existence of animals such as saber-toothed cats and lions , which were not hunted for food, and the existence of half-human, half-animal beings in cave paintings. The anthropologist David Lewis-Williams has suggested that Paleolithic cave paintings were indications of shamanistic practices, because

SECTION 10

#1732854642927

1800-523: A pronounced hierarchy and a somewhat formal division of labor ) and may have engaged in endemic warfare . Some argue that there was no formal leadership during the Middle and Upper Paleolithic. Like contemporary egalitarian hunter-gatherers such as the Mbuti pygmies, societies may have made decisions by communal consensus decision making rather than by appointing permanent rulers such as chiefs and monarchs . Nor

1950-491: A rather different picture, however. There the burial chambers are deeper and were accessed by a ramp. Along with the corpse, the burial chambers also contained grave goods, whose richness could vary dramatically. Ordinary mounted warriors were buried with a fully equipped horse and weapons, women were buried with a horse, a knife and a mirror. The burials of higher ranking people were much richer. These could include up to twentyfive richly outfitted horses and an elaborate chariot;

2100-647: A result of gigantic building projects. Eventually, even remote areas of the Soviet Union such as Sakha and Chukotka , were archaeologically explored. After the Second World War , these developments continued. Following the Collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, much more intensive collaboration with the west became possible. Siberia is characterised by a great deal of variety in climate, vegetation, and landscape. In

2250-675: A role. Through the whole Siberian prehistoric period from the Neolithic until the Iron Age, there are a very limited range of ceramic types. The vast majority of ceramic finds are round bulbous vessels, often with folded edges. In the Neolithic they mostly had concave bases, while later flat bases became more common. In the eastern part of the west Siberian forest steppe, on the Ob, Irtysh and Yenissei, decoration consisted of comb patterns, puncture rows and dimples, arranged in long series or fields (right image). In

2400-453: Is a general glacial excursion, termed a "glacial". Glacials are separated by "interglacials". During a glacial, the glacier experiences minor advances and retreats. The minor excursion is a "stadial"; times between stadials are "interstadials". Each glacial advance tied up huge volumes of water in continental ice sheets 1,500–3,000  m (4,900–9,800  ft ) deep, resulting in temporary sea level drops of 100 m (330 ft) or more over

2550-412: Is characterized by the use of knapped stone tools, although at the time humans also used wood and bone tools. Other organic commodities were adapted for use as tools, including leather and vegetable fibers ; however, due to rapid decomposition, these have not survived to any great degree. About 50,000 years ago, a marked increase in the diversity of artifacts occurred. In Africa, bone artifacts and

2700-458: Is indicated by the city-like settlements and by the social differentiation indicated by differences in their grave goods. In the middle Bronze Age, this development seems to have reversed and social differentiation is only detectable again in the late Bronze Age and the Iron Age. Since the northern part of west Siberia was unknown to ancient literate cultures and the ancient inhabitants of this region have left no literary source material themselves, it

2850-569: Is more pronounced in Lower Paleolithic humans such as Homo erectus than in modern humans, who are less polygynous than other primates, which suggests that Lower Paleolithic humans had a largely polygynous lifestyle, because species that have the most pronounced sexual dimorphism tend more likely to be polygynous. Human societies from the Paleolithic to the early Neolithic farming tribes lived without states and organized governments. For most of

3000-547: Is no evidence for agriculture or even pastoralism in Siberia during the central European Neolithic. However, the neolithic cultures of North Asia are distinguished from the preceding Mesolithic cultures and far more visible as a result of the introduction of pottery . Southwest Siberia reached a neolithic cultural level during the Chalcolithic , which began here towards the end of the fourth millennium BC, which roughly coincided with

3150-533: Is no evidence of hominins in America, Australia, or almost anywhere in Oceania during this time period. Fates of these early colonists, and their relationships to modern humans, are still subject to debate. According to current archaeological and genetic models, there were at least two notable expansion events subsequent to peopling of Eurasia c.  2,000,000  – c.  1,500,000  BP. Around 500,000 BP

SECTION 20

#1732854642927

3300-479: Is responsible for the different biomes of the region. In the northernmost section, there is tundra with minimal vegetation. The largest part of Siberia, aside from the mountainous regions, is taiga , northern coniferous forests. In the southwest this becomes forested steppe, and even further south it transitions to grass steppes and the central Asian desert. Before the beginning of the Holocene about 12,000 years ago,

3450-563: Is the Russian expansion into the east which began in the 16th century and only concluded in the 19th century. This process marks the beginning of modernity in Siberia Reliable historical evidence for the area first appears at the beginning of the first millennium BC, with sources from the Near East. Greek and Chinese sources are also available from slightly later. Thus, certain statements about

3600-560: Is the area of the Onon River , where crouching graves are found. Grave goods and bone finds indicate that the inhabitants lived by hunting bears, fish, elk and beavers , as well as some fish. The importance of the hunt to their culture is indicated by carvings on bones and rock faces. Their main subjects are people hunting animals. Unlike in Yakutia, pastoralism was adopted in the Baikal region before

3750-551: Is uncertain whether damage to the skull reflects injuries that occurred before death or were made after death. Ritual trepanation cannot be assumed. After the guts were removed, distinguished corpses were tattooed and embalmed. These traditions are described also by the Greek historian Herodotus , who included material on the Scythians north of the Black Sea in his 5th century BC work, and is

3900-586: Is very difficult to make detailed statements about their society. In reference to the settled populations of the Wusun , who settled in the Tianshan and Zhetysu , Chinese sources indicate the existence of a king and several nobles. The economy of the sedentary population in prehistoric Siberia was dominated by pastoralism. Cattle were intensively farmed in all cultures, as were sheep and goats. The raising of horses became very significant in western Siberia, particularly with

4050-506: The !Kung San who live similarly to their Paleolithic predecessors. The economy of a typical Paleolithic society was a hunter-gatherer economy. Humans hunted wild animals for meat and gathered food, firewood, and materials for their tools, clothes, or shelters. The population density was very low, around only 0.4 inhabitants per square kilometre (1/sq mi). This was most likely due to low body fat, infanticide , high levels of physical activity among women, late weaning of infants, and

4200-482: The Altai Mountains and Indonesia, were radiocarbon dated to c.  30,000  – c.  40,000  BP and c.  17,000  BP respectively. For the duration of the Paleolithic, human populations remained low, especially outside the equatorial region. The entire population of Europe between 16,000 and 11,000 BP likely averaged some 30,000 individuals, and between 40,000 and 16,000 BP, it

4350-640: The Arctic Circle . By the end of the Upper Paleolithic Age humans had crossed Beringia and expanded throughout the Americas continents. The term " Palaeolithic " was coined by archaeologist John Lubbock in 1865. It derives from Greek: παλαιός , palaios , "old"; and λίθος , lithos , "stone", meaning "old age of the stone" or "Old Stone Age ". The Paleolithic overlaps with the Pleistocene epoch of geologic time. Both ended 12,000 years ago although

4500-568: The Hadza people and the Aboriginal Australians suggest that the sexual division of labor in the Paleolithic was relatively flexible. Men may have participated in gathering plants, firewood and insects, and women may have procured small game animals for consumption and assisted men in driving herds of large game animals (such as woolly mammoths and deer) off cliffs. Additionally, recent research by anthropologist and archaeologist Steven Kuhn from

4650-500: The Isthmus of Panama , bringing a nearly complete end to South America's distinctive marsupial fauna. The formation of the isthmus had major consequences on global temperatures, because warm equatorial ocean currents were cut off, and the cold Arctic and Antarctic waters lowered temperatures in the now-isolated Atlantic Ocean. Most of Central America formed during the Pliocene to connect

Collecchio - Misplaced Pages Continue

4800-549: The Minusinsk Hollow and Khakassia in the bronze and Iron Ages are usually distinguished from these settlements by their small size. Their purpose is still unclear; they may have been temporary refuges, the seats of elites, or sanctuaries. Unlike the nomadic groups of earlier times and of northeastern Siberia, complex social structures can be detected in sedentary groups in West Siberia in the early Bronze Age. Their existence

4950-583: The Mousterian and the Aterian industries. Lower Paleolithic humans used a variety of stone tools, including hand axes and choppers. Although they appear to have used hand axes often, there is disagreement about their use. Interpretations range from cutting and chopping tools, to digging implements, to flaking cores, to the use in traps, and as a purely ritual significance, perhaps in courting behavior . William H. Calvin has suggested that some hand axes could have served as "killer frisbees " meant to be thrown at

5100-503: The Old Stone Age (from Ancient Greek παλαιός ( palaiós )  'old' and λίθος ( líthos )  'stone'), is a period in human prehistory that is distinguished by the original development of stone tools , and which represents almost the entire period of human prehistoric technology . It extends from the earliest known use of stone tools by hominins , c.  3.3 million years ago, to

5250-528: The Oldowan , began around 2.6 million years ago. It produced tools such as choppers , burins , and stitching awls . It was completely replaced around 250,000 years ago by the more complex Acheulean industry, which was first conceived by Homo ergaster around 1.8–1.65 million years ago. The Acheulean implements completely vanish from the archaeological record around 100,000 years ago and were replaced by more complex Middle Paleolithic tool kits such as

5400-513: The Pleistocene epoch, our ancestors relied on simple food processing techniques such as roasting . The Upper Palaeolithic saw the emergence of boiling, an advance in food processing technology which rendered plant foods more digestible, decreased their toxicity, and maximised their nutritional value. Thermally altered rock (heated stones) are easily identifiable in the archaeological record. Stone-boiling and pit-baking were common techniques which involved heating large pebbles then transferring

5550-690: The Ruwenzori Range in east and central Africa were larger. Glaciers existed in the mountains of Ethiopia and to the west in the Atlas Mountains . In the northern hemisphere, many glaciers fused into one. The Cordilleran Ice Sheet covered the North American northwest; the Laurentide covered the east. The Fenno-Scandian ice sheet covered northern Europe, including Great Britain; the Alpine ice sheet covered

5700-585: The Samus culture of the upper Ob is related to these. In addition to humanoid sculptures and human heads engraved in pottery, the Samus culture also produced ceramic phalli and animal heads. Members of the nearby Susgun culture produced humanoid figures in bone. The only artistic products of the late Bronze Age are early South Siberian deer stones , stone steles decorated with images of deer, which were subsequently imitated by Scythian art. The early Iron Age animal style of

5850-610: The Xiongnu are worthy of mention. Based on personal names and titles transmitted by the Chinese sources, different scholars have attempted to identify the language of the Xiongnu as an early Turkic language , a proto-Mongolic language or a Yeniseian language . At the beginning of the early Middle Ages, the Iranian peoples disappeared and in their place Turkic peoples expanded across the region between

6000-411: The permafrost of south Siberia and Transbaikal, felt carpets and other textiles with elements from the animal style are also found, among which a felt swan stuffed with moss deserves special attention. Stone was only used a little, mostly in the so-called "deer stele," probably anthropomorphic grave stele, which were decorated with deer and are found in south Siberia, Transbaikalia and Mongolia. Finally,

6150-763: The " L'Arco del Bargello " stands at the entrance to a park. If approaching from Parma, the ornately decorated arch stands on the right and marks the entrance to the park. " Villa Meli-Lupi di Soragna ", located in the Fortunato Nevicati park, is an example of special architectural structures as it depicts a nut, with the front marked by small columns forming a portico, and a corner tower. Paleolithic Age Fertile Crescent : Europe : Africa : Siberia : The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic ( c.  3.3 million  – c.  11,700 BC ) ( / ˌ p eɪ l i oʊ ˈ l ɪ θ ɪ k , ˌ p æ l i -/ PAY -lee-oh- LITH -ik, PAL -ee- ), also called

Collecchio - Misplaced Pages Continue

6300-501: The 6th millennium BC, pottery spread across the whole of Siberia, which scholars treat as the beginning of the Siberian neolithic. Unlike Europe and the Near East, this event did not mark a major change in lifestyle, economy or culture. The prehistoric inhabitants of the vast areas of taiga and tundra east of the Yenissei and north of Baikal differ in many ways from the prehistoric cultures of

6450-704: The Alps. Scattered domes stretched across Siberia and the Arctic shelf. The northern seas were frozen. During the late Upper Paleolithic (Latest Pleistocene) c.  18,000  BP, the Beringia land bridge between Asia and North America was blocked by ice, which may have prevented early Paleo-Indians such as the Clovis culture from directly crossing Beringia to reach the Americas. According to Mark Lynas (through collected data),

6600-488: The Andronovo culture, homogenous ceramics are found, which also extended to the cultures on the Ob. Here, however, unique neolithic ceramic traditions were maintained as well. With the beginning of the late Bronze Age (c. 1500–800 BC), crucial cultural developments took place in southern Siberia. The Andronovo culture dissolved; its southern successors produced an entirely new form of pottery, with bulbous ornamental elements. At

6750-779: The Baikal region and Yakutia, storage places from early Neolithic times have been found, which often remained in use for centuries. Alongside tent settlements which leave no traces in the ground, there were also huts, often dug slightly into the ground, whose walls and roofs were made of animal bone and reindeer antlers. Tools and weapons were mostly made from flint , slate and bone, with few discernable differences between them despite their immense chronological and geographical scope. In some settlements, early artworks have been found, which consist of human, animal and abstract sculptures and carvings. The Palaeolithic and Mesolithic inhabitants of Siberia were hunter-gatherers, whose prey consisted of mammoths and reindeer , and occasionally fish as well. In

6900-491: The Bronze Age the corpses were usually in a crouching position, in the Iron Age they were usually laid on their backs. Evidence for the handling of the dead are only known from Altai and Tuva, were some bodies are preserved as ice mummies by the permafrost, making detailed analysis possible. In these locations, the guts and muscles were removed before burial and the resulting holes were stitched closed with tendons and horse hair. It

7050-458: The Central Asian steppes, Turkic groups become detectable sometime in the 5th century; over the following centuries, they expand to the north and west until eventually they brought the whole of southern Siberia under their control. The area further north, where the speakers of Uralic and Paleosiberian languages were located is still poorly known. The next clear break in the history of Siberia

7200-641: The Great (1682-1725), who ordered the collection of Scythian gold hoards and thereby rescued the contents of several robbed graves before they were melted down. During his reign, several expeditions were charged with the scientific, anthropological and linguistic research of Siberia, including the Second Kamchatka Expedition of the Danish-born Russian Vitus Bering (1733-1743). Scholars also took an interest in archaeology and carried out

7350-659: The Jōmon and paleolithic and Bronze Age Siberians. A genetic analyses of HLA I and HLA II genes as well as HLA-A, -B, and -DRB1 gene frequencies links the Ainu people and some Indigenous peoples of the Americas , especially populations on the Pacific Northwest Coast such as Tlingit , to paleolithic southern Siberians. Finds from the Lower Paleolithic appear to be attested between east Kazakhstan and Altai . The burial of

7500-603: The Kazakh border. The climate is very variable. Yakutia , northeast of the Lena, is among the coldest places on Earth, but every year temperatures may vary for more than 50 °C, from as low as −50 °C in winter to over +20 °C in summer. The rainfall is very low. This is true of the southwest as well, where steppes, deserts and semi-deserts border on one another. Agriculture is only possible in Siberia without artificial irrigation today between 50° and 60° north. The climatic situation

7650-571: The Lower Paleolithic ( c.  1.9  million years ago) or at the latest in the early Middle Paleolithic ( c.  250,000 years ago). Some scientists have hypothesized that hominins began cooking food to defrost frozen meat, which would help ensure their survival in cold regions. Archaeologists cite morphological shifts in cranial anatomy as evidence for emergence of cooking and food processing technologies. These morphological changes include decreases in molar and jaw size, thinner tooth enamel , and decrease in gut volume. During much of

SECTION 50

#1732854642927

7800-833: The Lower Paleolithic, human societies were possibly more hierarchical than their Middle and Upper Paleolithic descendants, and probably were not grouped into bands , though during the end of the Lower Paleolithic, the latest populations of the hominin Homo erectus may have begun living in small-scale (possibly egalitarian) bands similar to both Middle and Upper Paleolithic societies and modern hunter-gatherers. Middle Paleolithic societies, unlike Lower Paleolithic and early Neolithic ones, consisted of bands that ranged from 20–30 or 25–100 members and were usually nomadic. These bands were formed by several families. Bands sometimes joined together into larger "macrobands" for activities such as acquiring mates and celebrations or where resources were abundant. By

7950-547: The Mediterranean Sea, such as Coa de sa Multa ( c.  300,000  BP), has also indicated that both Middle and Upper Paleolithic humans used rafts to travel over large bodies of water (i.e. the Mediterranean Sea) for the purpose of colonizing other bodies of land. By around 200,000 BP, Middle Paleolithic stone tool manufacturing spawned a tool-making technique known as the prepared-core technique , which

8100-535: The Middle Ages; the earliest evidence comes from the chalcolithic Glazkov culture . From the Neolithic or early in the Chalcolithic, sedentary groups in which pastoralism played an important economic role developed in southwestern Siberia. The transition to the new economic system and to sedentarism was very smooth. Subsequently, it spread to the Baikal region, where the influence of northern China may also have played

8250-406: The Middle Paleolithic because trade between bands would have helped ensure their survival by allowing them to exchange resources and commodities such as raw materials during times of relative scarcity (i.e. famine, drought). Like in modern hunter-gatherer societies, individuals in Paleolithic societies may have been subordinate to the band as a whole. Both Neanderthals and modern humans took care of

8400-587: The Neanderthals hunted large game animals mostly by ambushing them and attacking them with handheld weapons such as thrusting spears rather than attacking them from a distance with projectiles. During the Upper Paleolithic , further inventions were made, such as the net ( c.  22,000 or c.  29,000  BP) bolas , the spear thrower ( c.  30,000  BP), the bow and arrow ( c.  25,000 or c.  30,000  BP) and

8550-417: The Neolithic. Upper Paleolithic cultures were probably able to time the migration of game animals such as wild horses and deer. This ability allowed humans to become efficient hunters and to exploit a wide variety of game animals. Recent research indicates that the Neanderthals timed their hunts and the migrations of game animals long before the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic. The social organization of

8700-672: The Paleolithic Age went through a set of glacial and interglacial periods in which the climate periodically fluctuated between warm and cool temperatures. By c.  50,000  – c.  40,000  BP, the first humans set foot in Australia . By c.  45,000  BP, humans lived at 61°N latitude in Europe . By c.  30,000  BP, Japan was reached, and by c.  27,000  BP humans were present in Siberia , above

8850-525: The Pleistocene started 2.6 million years ago, 700,000 years after the Paleolithic's start. This epoch experienced important geographic and climatic changes that affected human societies. During the preceding Pliocene , continents had continued to drift from possibly as far as 250  km (160  mi ) from their present locations to positions only 70 km (43 mi) from their current location. South America became linked to North America through

9000-473: The Pleistocene's overall climate could be characterized as a continuous El Niño with trade winds in the south Pacific weakening or heading east, warm air rising near Peru , warm water spreading from the west Pacific and the Indian Ocean to the east Pacific, and other El Niño markers. The Paleolithic is often held to finish at the end of the ice age (the end of the Pleistocene epoch), and Earth's climate became warmer. This may have caused or contributed to

9150-433: The University of Arizona is argued to support that this division of labor did not exist prior to the Upper Paleolithic and was invented relatively recently in human pre-history. Sexual division of labor may have been developed to allow humans to acquire food and other resources more efficiently. Possibly there was approximate parity between men and women during the Middle and Upper Paleolithic, and that period may have been

SECTION 60

#1732854642927

9300-414: The actual burial chamber was built from wooden planks (often larch ). The corpse, with a woman who probably accompanied him in death, lay, clothed, in a long treetrunk coffin . In Noin Ula in Mongolia, a woman's braids were interred instead of the woman herself. Outstanding examples of kurgans include the necropoleis of Pazyryk in Altai, Noin Ula in Mongolia, and Arzhan in Tuva , where organic matter

9450-410: The adoption of agriculture because women in farming societies typically have more pregnancies and are expected to do more demanding work than women in hunter-gatherer societies. Like most modern hunter-gatherer societies, Paleolithic and Mesolithic groups probably followed a largely ambilineal approach. At the same time, depending on the society, the residence could be virilocal, uxorilocal, and sometimes

9600-444: The appearance of the late Bronze Age Slab Grave culture . Here too there were some multi-layer storage places which extended back to the Mesolithic period, with hearths, waste pits and storage pits but no remains of buildings. The pottery was similar to that in Yakutia and shows a more or less parallel course of development. The burials are mostly stretched out on their backs, but often the graves were covered by stone slabs. An exception

9750-433: The area became the driving force behind the Italian charcuterie industry with pioneers such as Archimede Rossi and Domenico Ferrari. Collecchio also began to produce dairy products, including Parmesan cheese. On 27 April 1945, the town was liberated from German Nazi forces by the Brazilian Expeditionary Force in the Battle of Collecchio . Approximately 400 Germans were captured after two days of battle. In 2015,

9900-417: The area north of the Black Sea, Greek and Persian art had a great influence on the art of the steppe peoples. Known features, which were shared by the societies of the horse nomad cultures of the Bronze Age, include a powerful warrior elite, whose wealth and strength is clear from their elaborate grave goods. Particularly interesting in this context are the Chinese reports which provide detailed descriptions of

10050-437: The beginning of the Hunnic - Sarmatian period, named after two nomadic groups from southern Russia, which continued until the establishment of the Khaganate of the Gokturks in the sixth century AD. While the art of the settled cultures of the Asiatic steppe in the Bronze Age was dominated by anthropomorphic motifs, the advent of the horse nomads was accompanied by the development of the Scytho-Sarmatian animal style, which all

10200-485: The beginning of the Iron Age. A somewhat different image is given by the finds from the Xiongnu, who had also domesticated pigs and dogs. Hunting and fishing were initially an important supplement, but lost a lot of their significance over time. Based on important tool remains and the possible remains of irrigation systems, a wide use of agriculture has been proposed by many researchers, but other scholars state that remains of cereals and other clear evidence are only found in

10350-415: The beginning of the period. Climates during the Pliocene became cooler and drier, and seasonal, similar to modern climates. Ice sheets grew on Antarctica . The formation of an Arctic ice cap around 3 million years ago is signaled by an abrupt shift in oxygen isotope ratios and ice-rafted cobbles in the North Atlantic and North Pacific Ocean beds. Mid-latitude glaciation probably began before

10500-422: The bodies of important people were tattooed with motifs from the animal style. The origins of the animal style are unclear. Based on possible interactions with ancient eastern art, a strong influence from the south has been proposed. The early dating of some pieces from southern Siberia however, makes a local development on the steppes themselves more likely. It is certain however that especially in central Asia and

10650-432: The camel. Agriculture was undertaken by parallel settled populations, but probably did not play an important role. Ore mining and metal working which are known for some nomadic cultures, was probably undertaken by very elusive settled groups as well. All horse nomad cultures shared the burial of the dead in barrow graves which are known as kurgans . Their size is very variable, with a radius of between 2 and 50 metres and

10800-472: The central Asian steppe: the sedentary , predominantly pastoralist society of the late Bronze Age is replaced by the mobile horse nomads who would continue to dominate this region until modern times. The mobility, which the new cultural form enabled, unleashed a powerful dynamic, since henceforth the people of Central Asia were able to move across the steppe in great numbers. The neighbouring sedentary cultures were not unaffected by this development. Ancient China

10950-528: The chalcolithic settlement of Botai on the Ishim river , settlements experienced substantial expansion. It was not unusual for larger settlements to have walls and extramural graveyards, as in the case of the west Siberian settlements of Sintashta and Tshitsha . The inner space of these city-like settlements was densely and regularly packed with rectangular houses, indicating a form of town planning. The fortified settlements in elevated locations, like those located in

11100-551: The continents of North and South America, allowing fauna from these continents to leave their native habitats and colonize new areas. Africa's collision with Asia created the Mediterranean, cutting off the remnants of the Tethys Ocean . During the Pleistocene , the continents were essentially at their modern positions; the tectonic plates on which they sit have probably moved at most 100 km (62 mi) from each other since

11250-550: The corners. In the Iron Age culture of Tuva , some but not all kurgans were surrounded by a rectangular or round stone wall. The kurgans themselves were partially built of earth and partially of stone, with regional variation. In the ground beneath the kurgan was buried one or (very often) more tombs. The corpse lay either in a wooden chamber or a stone cist. The grave goods found along with them indicate that wooden chambers were reserved for people of higher status. While in burials from

11400-493: The course of the dramatic growth of the Andronovo culture in the middle Bronze Age, another type spread through the region. Examples of it are decorated with meander bands , herringbone patterns and triangles (left image). These ceramic types endured even into the Iron Age in west Siberia, yet a stark decline in decoration is observable, contemporary with the entrance of the Scythian and Hunnic Sarmatian nomads. This applies even to

11550-540: The court of Collecchio was property owned by the monastery of San Paolo. By 1777 A.D., further feuding had brought Collecchio under the rule of the Dalla Rosa-Prati family. In 1796 A.D., under Napoleon , the Commune of Collecchio was born. At the end of the nineteenth century, Collecchio began to develop as an agricultural centre for canning and meat products in what has become known as Italy's food valley. In particular,

11700-692: The damage done to the attacker and decreased the relative amount of territory attackers could gain. However, other sources claim that most Paleolithic groups may have been larger, more complex, sedentary and warlike than most contemporary hunter-gatherer societies, due to occupying more resource-abundant areas than most modern hunter-gatherers who have been pushed into more marginal habitats by agricultural societies. Anthropologists have typically assumed that in Paleolithic societies, women were responsible for gathering wild plants and firewood, and men were responsible for hunting and scavenging dead animals. However, analogies to existent hunter-gatherer societies such as

11850-470: The damper steppes to the north, the sedentary pastoralist culture of the late Bronze Age developed under the influence of the material culture of the nomads. Proto-urban settlements like Tshitsha form the late Irmen culture in west Siberia and the settlements in the north of the Xiongnu cultural area. In many places the transition to later periods remains problematic due to the lack of archaeological evidence. Nevertheless, some generalisations are possible. In

12000-555: The earliest Paleolithic ( Lower Paleolithic ) societies remains largely unknown to scientists, though Lower Paleolithic hominins such as Homo habilis and Homo erectus are likely to have had more complex social structures than chimpanzee societies. Late Oldowan/Early Acheulean humans such as Homo ergaster / Homo erectus may have been the first people to invent central campsites or home bases and incorporate them into their foraging and hunting strategies like contemporary hunter-gatherers, possibly as early as 1.7 million years ago; however,

12150-449: The earliest evidence for urbanisation in Siberia. In the valleys of the Ob and Irtysh the same ceramic cultures attested there during the neolithic continue; the changes in the Baikal region and Yakutia were very slight. In the middle Bronze Age (c. 1800–1500 BC), the west Siberian Andronovo culture expanded markedly to the east and even reached the Yenissei valley. In all the local forms of

12300-537: The earliest solid evidence for the existence of home bases or central campsites (hearths and shelters) among humans only dates back to 500,000 years ago. Similarly, scientists disagree whether Lower Paleolithic humans were largely monogamous or polygynous . In particular, the Provisional model suggests that bipedalism arose in pre-Paleolithic australopithecine societies as an adaptation to monogamous lifestyles; however, other researchers note that sexual dimorphism

12450-523: The early Iron Age the nomadic Sakas lived there, but the region was subsequently taken over by the sedentary Wusun. The earlier nomadic cultures are referred to collectively by archaeologists using the term " Scythian ", which is the ancient Greek term for a group of horse nomads living north of the Black Sea ; in a wider sense it referred to all horse nomads in the Eurasian steppe. The third century AD marks

12600-556: The eastern taiga and the tundra were dominated by hunter-gatherers until the Late Middle Ages and even beyond. Substantial changes in society, economics and art indicate the development of nomadism in the Central Asian steppes in the first millennium BC. Scholarly research of the archaeological background of the region between the Urals and the Pacific began in the reign of Peter

12750-519: The eastern edge of Europe and northeastern Siberia. In the areas to the north of the Asiatic steppes, speakers of Uralic and Palaeo-Siberian languages are suspected to have been settled; in the Middle Ages, Turkic peoples appear here as well, but their prehistoric extent is not clear. The earliest known archaeological finds from Siberia date to the Lower Palaeolithic. In various places in West Siberia,

12900-533: The elderly members of their societies during the Middle and Upper Paleolithic. Some sources claim that most Middle and Upper Paleolithic societies were possibly fundamentally egalitarian and may have rarely or never engaged in organized violence between groups (i.e. war). Some Upper Paleolithic societies in resource-rich environments (such as societies in Sungir , in what is now Russia) may have had more complex and hierarchical organization (such as tribes with

13050-508: The end of the Pleistocene , c.  11,650 cal BP . The Paleolithic Age in Europe preceded the Mesolithic Age , although the date of the transition varies geographically by several thousand years. During the Paleolithic Age, hominins grouped together in small societies such as bands and subsisted by gathering plants, fishing, and hunting or scavenging wild animals. The Paleolithic Age

13200-480: The end of the Paleolithic era ( c.  10,000  BP), people began to settle down into permanent locations, and began to rely on agriculture for sustenance in many locations. Much evidence exists that humans took part in long-distance trade between bands for rare commodities (such as ochre , which was often used for religious purposes such as ritual ) and raw materials, as early as 120,000 years ago in Middle Paleolithic. Inter-band trade may have appeared during

13350-782: The end of the Paleolithic, specifically the Middle or Upper Paleolithic, people began to produce works of art such as cave paintings , rock art and jewellery and began to engage in religious behavior such as burials and rituals. At the beginning of the Paleolithic, hominins were found primarily in eastern Africa, east of the Great Rift Valley . Most known hominin fossils dating earlier than one million years before present are found in this area, particularly in Kenya , Tanzania , and Ethiopia . By c.  2,000,000  – c.  1,500,000  BP, groups of hominins began leaving Africa, settling southern Europe and Asia. The South Caucasus

13500-625: The end of the Pleistocene caused the mammoths' habitat to shrink, resulting in a drop in population. The small populations were then hunted out by Paleolithic humans. The global warming that occurred during the end of the Pleistocene and the beginning of the Holocene may have made it easier for humans to reach mammoth habitats that were previously frozen and inaccessible. Small populations of woolly mammoths survived on isolated Arctic islands, Saint Paul Island and Wrangel Island , until c.  3700  BP and c.  1700  BP respectively. The Wrangel Island population became extinct around

13650-430: The end of the epoch. The global cooling that occurred during the Pliocene may have spurred on the disappearance of forests and the spread of grasslands and savannas . The Pleistocene climate was characterized by repeated glacial cycles during which continental glaciers pushed to the 40th parallel in some places. Four major glacial events have been identified, as well as many minor intervening events. A major event

13800-616: The entire surface of the Earth. During interglacial times, drowned coastlines were common, mitigated by isostatic or other emergent motion of some regions. The effects of glaciation were global. Antarctica was ice-bound throughout the Pleistocene and the preceding Pliocene. The Andes were covered in the south by the Patagonian ice cap. There were glaciers in New Zealand and Tasmania . The decaying glaciers of Mount Kenya , Mount Kilimanjaro , and

13950-403: The extinction of the Pleistocene megafauna , although it is also possible that the late Pleistocene extinctions were (at least in part) caused by other factors such as disease and overhunting by humans. New research suggests that the extinction of the woolly mammoth may have been caused by the combined effect of climatic change and human hunting. Scientists suggest that climate change during

14100-400: The figurines as representations of goddesses , pornographic imagery, apotropaic amulets used for sympathetic magic, and even as self-portraits of women themselves. R. Dale Guthrie has studied not only the most artistic and publicized paintings, but also a variety of lower-quality art and figurines, and he identifies a wide range of skill and ages among the artists. He also points out that

14250-468: The first art appear in the archaeological record. The first evidence of human fishing is also noted, from artifacts in places such as Blombos cave in South Africa . Archaeologists classify artifacts of the last 50,000 years into many different categories, such as projectile points , engraving tools, sharp knife blades, and drilling and piercing tools. Humankind gradually evolved from early members of

14400-608: The first archaeological excavations of Siberian kurgans . After a temporary reduction of interest in the first half of the nineteenth century, archaeological research in Siberia reached new heights in the late nineteenth century. Excavations were particularly intense in South Siberia and Central Asia. The results of the October Revolution 1917 created different, often restricted, conditions for archaeological research, but led to even larger projects, especially rescue excavations as

14550-553: The first millennium BC, an independent culture developed on the Taymyr Peninsula , which shared its basic features with the Ust-Mil culture. The Iron Age began in Yakutia around the 5th century BC, but apart from the adoption of iron weapons and tools it does not mark a major change in the material culture. The cultural development in neolithic and chalcolithic Baikal region, where the circumstances were similar to those in Yakutia until

14700-524: The first millennium BC, when neighbouring literate cultures came into contact with the people of the steppe. In the steppes north of the Black Sea and east of the Caspian Sea , Greek, Assyrian and Persian sources attest to horse nomads, which can be identified as speakers of Iranian languages . The first reports from ancient China of the nomads north of China date from the same period. Along with various unidentified groups from Shang and Zhou dynasty texts,

14850-400: The first time, whose inhabitants were members of a newly developed warrior class (to judge from the grave goods interred with them) and were not buried in simple pits, but in wooden or stone structures. Already in the middle Bronze Age phase of the Andronovo culture, kurgans are found, but without differentiation of their grave goods. The corpse was interred in a crouched position or cremated. In

15000-509: The first users of stone tools. Excavations in Gona, Ethiopia , have produced thousands of artifacts, and through radioisotopic dating and magnetostratigraphy the sites can be firmly dated to 2.6 million years ago. Evidence shows these early hominins intentionally selected raw stone with good flaking qualities and chose appropriately sized stones for their needs to produce sharp-edged tools for cutting. The earliest Paleolithic stone tool industry,

15150-421: The genus Homo —such as Homo habilis , who used simple stone tools—into anatomically modern humans as well as behaviourally modern humans by the Upper Paleolithic . During the end of the Paleolithic Age, specifically the Middle or Upper Paleolithic Age, humans began to produce the earliest works of art and to engage in religious or spiritual behavior such as burial and ritual . Conditions during

15300-416: The horse nomads. From the chalcolithic, ore mining and metallurgy also occurred. This is shown by finds of slag, tools and workshops in various cultural contexts. The burial customs of the sedentary societies were characterised by great variation. In the west Siberian chalcolithic, simple flat graves are found, in which the corpse is laid flat on its back. In the early Bronze Age, kurgans were erected for

15450-531: The hot stones into a perishable container to heat the water. This technology is typified in the Middle Palaeolithic example of the Abri Pataud hearths. The Lower Paleolithic Homo erectus possibly invented rafts ( c.  840,000  – c.  800,000  BP) to travel over large bodies of water, which may have allowed a group of Homo erectus to reach the island of Flores and evolve into

15600-407: The inner house. Floodplains and lakesides were the preferred settlement locations. Settlements could take entirely different forms in different cultures; small groups of houses, large unfortified settlements, fortified city-like settlements and elevated fortress complexes are all found. Small village-like groups of houses are found in great numbers in all the sedentary cultures. In some cases, such as

15750-416: The introduction of copper–working. In the northern and eastern regions, there is no detectable change. In the second half of the third millennium BC, bronzeworking reached the cultures of western Siberia. Chalcolithic groups in the eastern Ural foothills developed the so-called Andronovo culture , which took various local forms. The settlements of Arkaim , Olgino and Sintashta are particularly notable as

15900-634: The invention of these devices brought fish into the human diets, which provided a hedge against starvation and a more abundant food supply. Thanks to their technology and their advanced social structures, Paleolithic groups such as the Neanderthals—who had a Middle Paleolithic level of technology—appear to have hunted large game just as well as Upper Paleolithic modern humans, and the Neanderthals in particular may have likewise hunted with projectile weapons. Nonetheless, Neanderthal use of projectile weapons in hunting occurred very rarely (or perhaps never) and

16050-434: The lack of control of fire: studies of cave settlements in Europe indicate no regular use of fire prior to c.  400,000  – c.  300,000  BP. East Asian fossils from this period are typically placed in the genus Homo erectus . Very little fossil evidence is available at known Lower Paleolithic sites in Europe, but it is believed that hominins who inhabited these sites were likewise Homo erectus . There

16200-565: The late Middle Paleolithic around 100,000 BP or perhaps even earlier. Archaeological evidence from the Dordogne region of France demonstrates that members of the European early Upper Paleolithic culture known as the Aurignacian used calendars ( c.  30,000  BP). This was a lunar calendar that was used to document the phases of the moon. Genuine solar calendars did not appear until

16350-507: The left just before the bridge over the River Taro after leaving Parma on the Via Aemilia. Collecchio's history is tied closely to that of nearby Parma , under whose powerful bishops the city was ruled. The town is first mentioned in a document from 929 A.D. that refers to "ad castro Coliclo", although it is uncertain whether Collecchio ever had a real castle, it is certain that it did have

16500-464: The main Greek source on the Scythians. Even his report of cannabis inhalation in small groups during the funeral have been corroborated by finds from the Pazyryk burials . This corroboration not only affirms the accuracy of Herodotus, but also indicates the cultural homogeneity of the steppe peoples of west Siberia, Central Asia and the region north of the Black Sea. The great kurgans of the Xiongnu present

16650-440: The main themes in the paintings and other artifacts (powerful beasts, risky hunting scenes and the over-sexual representation of women) are to be expected in the fantasies of adolescent males during the Upper Paleolithic. Prehistory of Siberia The Prehistory of Siberia is marked by several archaeologically distinct cultures. In the Chalcolithic , the cultures of western and southern Siberia were pastoralists , while

16800-415: The most gender-equal time in human history. Archaeological evidence from art and funerary rituals indicates that a number of individual women enjoyed seemingly high status in their communities, and it is likely that both sexes participated in decision making. The earliest known Paleolithic shaman ( c.  30,000  BP) was female. Jared Diamond suggests that the status of women declined with

16950-467: The necropoleis near the early Bronze Age settlement of Sintashta , are probably cult buildings. The horse nomads who were characteristic of the Asiatic steppe until modern times are a relatively recent phenomenon. Even in the late second millennium BC, settled pastoralists lived in the arid regions of Central Asia. They were replaced by the early horse nomads in the course of the first millennium BC in ways which are not entirely clear. The transition to

17100-558: The nomadic cultures themselves. Excepting the abstract decoration of the pottery, which has been dealt with above, artistic products are found in south Siberia only in the early Bronze Age. Artefacts from the Karakol culture in Altai and the Okunev culture in the middle Yenissei include anthropomorphic motifs on stone plates and steles; the Okunev culture also produced humanoid sculptures. The art of

17250-616: The oldest example of ceramic art, the Venus of Dolní Věstonice ( c.  29,000  – c.  25,000  BP). Kilu Cave at Buku island , Solomon Islands , demonstrates navigation of some 60 km of open ocean at 30,000 BCcal. Early dogs were domesticated sometime between 30,000 and 14,000 BP, presumably to aid in hunting. However, the earliest instances of successful domestication of dogs may be much more ancient than this. Evidence from canine DNA collected by Robert K. Wayne suggests that dogs may have been first domesticated in

17400-536: The other parts of north Asia. There is stronger evidence than usual for settlement continuity here from the Mesolithic until the second half of the first millennium AD, when the not yet entirely clear transition to the Medieval period occurred. Despite the enormous geographic extent of the area, only minor local differences are visible, indicating very mobile, nomadic inhabitants. The earliest culture in Yakutia to make ceramic

17550-471: The paintings of half-human, half-animal figures and the remoteness of the caves are reminiscent of modern hunter-gatherer shamanistic practices. Symbol-like images are more common in Paleolithic cave paintings than are depictions of animals or humans, and unique symbolic patterns might have been trademarks that represent different Upper Paleolithic ethnic groups. Venus figurines have evoked similar controversy. Archaeologists and anthropologists have described

17700-657: The people responsible for the Syalakh culture were nomads who survived from hunting and fishing and inhabited certain spots on a seasonal basis. This culture gradually transitions into the Belkachi culture (named after the Belkachi settlement in Yakutia) without any clear break. Their pottery features cord decorations, stripes, zigzag lines and such like. Their dead were buried on their backs in earthen graves. Otherwise, no major differences from

17850-450: The peoples and languages of the region are only possible from the Iron Age. For earlier times and the northern part of Siberia, only archaeological evidence is available. Some theories, like the Kurgan hypothesis of Marija Gimbutas , attempt to relate hypothetical language families to archaeological cultures , but this is a highly uncertain procedure. Sure statements are possible only since

18000-695: The pigment ochre from late Lower Paleolithic Acheulean archaeological sites suggests that Acheulean societies, like later Upper Paleolithic societies, collected and used ochre to create rock art. Nevertheless, it is also possible that the ochre traces found at Lower Paleolithic sites is naturally occurring. Upper Paleolithic humans produced works of art such as cave paintings, Venus figurines, animal carvings, and rock paintings. Upper Paleolithic art can be divided into two broad categories: figurative art such as cave paintings that clearly depicts animals (or more rarely humans); and nonfigurative, which consists of shapes and symbols. Cave paintings have been interpreted in

18150-486: The planet. Multiple hominid groups coexisted for some time in certain locations. Homo neanderthalensis were still found in parts of Eurasia c.  40,000  BP years, and engaged in an unknown degree of interbreeding with Homo sapiens sapiens . DNA studies also suggest an unknown degree of interbreeding between Homo sapiens sapiens and Homo sapiens denisova . Hominin fossils not belonging either to Homo neanderthalensis or to Homo sapiens species, found in

18300-643: The possible wood hut at Terra Amata . Fire was used by the Lower Paleolithic hominins Homo erectus and Homo ergaster as early as 300,000 to 1.5 million years ago and possibly even earlier by the early Lower Paleolithic (Oldowan) hominin Homo habilis or by robust Australopithecines such as Paranthropus . However, the use of fire only became common in the societies of the following Middle Stone Age and Middle Paleolithic . Use of fire reduced mortality rates and provided protection against predators. Early hominins may have begun to cook their food as early as

18450-423: The preceding culture are visible. The Ymyyakhtakh culture (2200–1300 BC) is marked out by a new kind of "waffle ceramic", whose upper side is decorated with textile impressions and takes on a waffle-like appearance as a result. Towards the end of the 2nd millennium BC, bronzeworking reached Yakutia. Ymyyakhtakh settlements already feature bronze artifacts. Ust-Mil culture  [ de ] followed next. In

18600-408: The same time the island was settled by prehistoric humans. There is no evidence of prehistoric human presence on Saint Paul island (though early human settlements dating as far back as 6500 BP were found on the nearby Aleutian Islands ). Nearly all of our knowledge of Paleolithic people and way of life comes from archaeology and ethnographic comparisons to modern hunter-gatherer cultures such as

18750-464: The same time the southern cultures also developed new forms of bronze working, probably as a result of influence from the southeast. These changes were especially significant in the Baikal region. There, the chalcolithic material culture which had continued up to this time was replaced by a bronze-working pastoralist culture. There and in Yakutia, bronze was only used as a material for the first time at this point. The Ymyakhtakh culture (c. 2200–1300 BC)

18900-521: The sedentary groups further north was fluid in many places. The inhabitants of the Minusinsk hollow remained settled pastoralists even in the Iron Age, but their cultural development shows strong affinities to the neighbouring nomads. The Xiongnu in Transbaikal region show characteristics of both horse nomads and settled pastoralists and farmers. The situation in northern Tianshan and Zhetysu is remarkable: in

19050-549: The settlement of Mal'ta near Irkutsk . Sculptures of animals and women ( Venus figurines ) recall the European Upper Palaeolithic. The Siberian Palaeolithic continues well into the European Mesolithic . In the postglacial period, the taiga developed. Microliths , which are common elsewhere, have not been found. In North Asia, the Neolithic (c. 5500–3400 BC) is mostly a chronological term, since there

19200-472: The situation was different. During the Weichselian glaciation (from before 115,000 years ago until 15,000 years ago), the tundra extended much further south and an ice sheet covered the Urals and the area to the east of the lower Yenisei. Late Paleolithic southern Siberians appear to be related to paleolithic Europeans and the paleolithic Jōmon people of Japan. Various scholars point out similarities between

19350-423: The small hominin Homo floresiensis . However, this hypothesis is disputed within the anthropological community. The possible use of rafts during the Lower Paleolithic may indicate that Lower Paleolithic hominins such as Homo erectus were more advanced than previously believed, and may have even spoken an early form of modern language. Supplementary evidence from Neanderthal and modern human sites located around

19500-545: The society of the Xiongnu. According to them, the population was divided into clan-like groups, which gathered together in large clan alliances. Their leaders stood in a strict hierarchy and were all under the authority of the Chanyu , the commander of the entire Xiongnu confederacy. The horse nomads of Inner Asia were nomadic pastoralists and probably travelled about in rather small groups. They particularly focussed on sheep, goats and horses, and in some regions other animals, such as

19650-542: The somewhat later Karasuk culture on the middle Yenissei, the tombs include rectangular stone enclosures, which were further developed into the stone-cornered kurgans characteristic of the area by the Tagar culture in the Iron Age. A special position belongs to the early Iron Age Slab Grave culture in the Transbaikal area; their dead were sometimes interred in stone cist graves. The burial of corpses lying on their backs which

19800-463: The south Siberian horse nomads only influenced the cultures of the west Siberian lowlands a little. An entirely unique style was developed by the Kulaika culture and its neighbours in the middle and lower Ob. Here bronze figures of animals and people were manufactured, in which eagles and bears played a particularly important role. The predominant building material in prehistoric north Asia was wood; stone

19950-532: The southernmost cultures, as remains of the Wusun of the Tianshan and Zhetysu. There, as in the northern parts of the Xiongnu territory, millet was cultivated and traces of wheat and rice have also been found. Millet seeds are also found in graves from Tuva , possibly indicating that a hitherto unknown population of settled agriculturalists, who might have been responsible for the area's metal-working, existed there alongside

20100-476: The spouses could live with neither the husband's relatives nor the wife's relatives at all. Taken together, most likely, the lifestyle of hunter-gatherers can be characterized as multilocal. Early examples of artistic expression, such as the Venus of Tan-Tan and the patterns found on elephant bones from Bilzingsleben in Thuringia , may have been produced by Acheulean tool users such as Homo erectus prior to

20250-746: The start of the Middle Paleolithic period. However, the earliest undisputed evidence of art during the Paleolithic comes from Middle Paleolithic / Middle Stone Age sites such as Blombos Cave –South Africa–in the form of bracelets , beads , rock art , and ochre used as body paint and perhaps in ritual. Undisputed evidence of art only becomes common in the Upper Paleolithic. Lower Paleolithic Acheulean tool users, according to Robert G. Bednarik, began to engage in symbolic behavior such as art around 850,000 BP. They decorated themselves with beads and collected exotic stones for aesthetic, rather than utilitarian qualities. According to him, traces of

20400-472: The steppe people of Asia and eastern Europe shared. Its basic motifs were taken from a repertoire of wild animals, with a remarkable absence of animals which were significant to the daily life of the horse nomads. Thus depictions of horses and of people are extremely rare. Instead, the common motifs are deer, mostly lying down, elk, big cats (which must indicate Near Eastern influence), griffins and hybrids. Individual animals sometimes appear rolled up together as

20550-422: The tools themselves that allowed access to a wider variety and amount of food sources. For example, microliths or small stone tools or points were invented around 70,000–65,000 BP and were essential to the invention of bows and atlatls (spear throwers) in the following Upper Paleolithic. Harpoons were invented and used for the first time during the late Middle Paleolithic ( c.  90,000  BP);

20700-459: The town introduced legislation mandating the use of 'silent' fireworks in consideration of animals and it has been recognized internationally as the first community to mandate silent fireworks. A major food-producing area, it is home to the multinational Italian dairy and food corporation Parmalat and the Parma F.C. training complex, Centro Sportivo di Collecchio , and Il Collecchio Baseball Club ,

20850-514: The west, it is bordered by the Ural Mountains . From there, the west Siberian lowlands extend to the east, all the way to the river Yenisei . Beyond this are the central Siberian highlands which are bordered on the east by the basin of the Lena River , beyond that are the northeast Siberian highlands. Siberia is bordered on the south by a rough chain of mountains and to the southwest by the hills of

21000-535: Was a Late Neolithic culture of Siberia, with a very large archaeological horizon. Its origins seem to be in the Lena river basin of Yakutia , and also along the Yenisei river . From there it spread both to the east and to the west. The cultural continuity on the Ob continued in the first millennium BC, as the Iron Age began in Siberia; the local ceramic style continues there even in this period. A much larger break occurred in

21150-514: Was even lower at 4,000–6,000 individuals. However, remains of thousands of butchered animals and tools made by Palaeolithic humans were found in Lapa do Picareiro , a cave in Portugal , dating back between 41,000 and 38,000 years ago. Some researchers have noted that science, limited in that age to some early ideas about astronomy (or cosmology ), had limited impact on Paleolithic technology. Making fire

21300-429: Was more elaborate than previous Acheulean techniques. This technique increased efficiency by allowing the creation of more controlled and consistent flakes . It allowed Middle Paleolithic humans to create stone-tipped spears , which were the earliest composite tools, by hafting sharp pointy stone flakes onto wooden shafts. In addition to improving tool-making methods, the Middle Paleolithic also saw an improvement of

21450-402: Was occupied by c.  1,700,000  BP, and northern China was reached by c.  1,660,000  BP. By the end of the Lower Paleolithic, members of the hominin family were living in what is now China, western Indonesia, and, in Europe, around the Mediterranean and as far north as England, France, southern Germany, and Bulgaria. Their further northward expansion may have been limited by

21600-531: Was practiced in west Siberia continued in the developing Scythian cultures of south Siberia, which is dealt with separately along with the other horse nomad cultures below. Only isolated sanctuaries are known. Among them are the many burnt offering places found near the necropolis of the chalcolithic Afanasevo culture in south Siberia. They consisted of simple stone circles containing ashes, pottery, animal bones and tools made of copper, stone and bone. The many circular buildings containing wooden stakes and walls, in

21750-413: Was preserved by the permafrost. Thus, felt carpets which decorated the inner walls of the burial chamber, decorated saddles and various kinds of clothing were also found. Although many large kurgans have been robbed of their contents by grave robbers, exceptional examples still remain, including countless gold objects. On account of the general absence of written source material, research on the religion of

21900-503: Was the Syalakh culture , which have been dated by radiocarbon dating to the 5th millennium BC. They are known from a type of pottery decorated with net patterns and bands of puncture marks. Their remains include weapons and tools made from flint and bone. A series of settlements, some of which were already in use in the Mesolithic, are known, at which the finds are limited to hearths and pits, while remains of buildings are entirely absent. Thus,

22050-454: Was there a formal division of labor during the Paleolithic. Each member of the group was skilled at all tasks essential to survival, regardless of individual abilities. Theories to explain the apparent egalitarianism have arisen, notably the Marxist concept of primitive communism . Christopher Boehm (1999) has hypothesized that egalitarianism may have evolved in Paleolithic societies because of

22200-560: Was threatened by the Xiongnu and their neighbours, the ancient states of modern Iran were opposed by the Massagetae and Sakas , and the Roman empire eventually was confronted by the Huns . The social changes are clearly indicated in the archaeological finds. Settlements are no longer found, members of the new elite were buried in richly furnished kurgans and completely new forms of art developed. In

22350-402: Was used for foundations at most. Most houses were tight structures, sunk less than 1 metre into the earth and had a rectangular or circular ground plan; oval or polygonal ground plans occur rarely. The structure of the roofs may have been pitched wooden constructions or saddle roofs. In many cultures, a small, corridor-like porch was built in front of the entrance. One or more hearths were found in

22500-433: Was widespread knowledge, and it was possible without an understanding of chemical processes, These types of practical skills are sometimes called crafts. Religion, superstitution or appeals to the supernatural may have played a part in the cultural explanations of phenomena like combustion . Paleolithic humans made tools of stone, bone (primarily of deer), and wood. The early paleolithic hominins, Australopithecus , were

#926073