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Nage people

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The Nage are an indigenous people living on the eastern Indonesian islands of Flores (chiefly in the eponymous Nagekeo Regency ), and Timor . They are descended from the indigenous population of Flores They are largely assimilated by the neighboring people. They speak Nage , one of the major languages in the Austronesian languages group.

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67-415: The Nage people mainly engaged in manual slash-and-burn farming (tubers, rice, corn), hunting and gathering. Until the middle of the 20th century, communal land ownership with large families participation were still preserved. They live in cumulus-type settlements, located on the slopes of mountains and surrounded by stone walls. Houses are piled up in rectangular position and connected by an open gallery into

134-576: A common impurity. Tin ores are rare, as reflected in the fact there were no tin bronzes in Western Asia before 3000 BCE. The Bronze Age forms part of the three-age system for prehistoric societies. In this system, it follows the Neolithic in some areas of the world. While copper is a common ore, deposits of tin are rare in the Old World , and often had to be traded or carried considerable distances from

201-663: A much more evident Mesolithic era, lasting millennia. In Northern Europe , societies were able to live well on rich food supplies from the marshlands fostered by the warmer climate. Such conditions produced distinctive human behaviours that are preserved in the material record, such as the Maglemosian and Azilian cultures. These conditions also delayed the coming of the Neolithic until as late as 4000 BCE (6,000  BP ) in northern Europe. Remains from this period are few and far between, often limited to middens . In forested areas,

268-681: A policy to end the method in the state. Some American civilizations, like the Maya, have used slash-and-burn cultivation since ancient times. American Indians in the United States also used fire in agriculture and hunting . In the Amazon, many peoples such as the Yanomami Indians also live off the slash and burn method due to the Amazon's poor soil quality . Slash-and-burn techniques were used in northeastern Sweden in agricultural systems. In Sweden,

335-421: A possible species of extinct hominid, hence a renewed interest in the tribe. Slash-and-burn Slash-and-burn agriculture is a farming method that involves the cutting and burning of plants in a forest or woodland to create a field called a swidden . The method begins by cutting down the trees and woody plants in an area. The downed vegetation , or "slash", is then left to dry, usually right before

402-414: A ring of bark completely around the trunk of coniferous trees like pine or spruce or felling them, allowing them to dry, setting fire to the dried forest and growing crops on the fertile ash-covered soil. The resulting ash was highly fertile, but only for a short period. The clearing was initially planted to rye as soon as the ash had fully settled and sufficiently cooled. When the rain came, it packed

469-455: A single complex, which is intended for joint residence of several large families. The clothes of the Nage people are loincloth and skirt or kain . Women fasten it over the breast, and men around the waist. The diet is dominated by plant based foods (cooked groats and tubers with spicy seasoning), while meat is eaten only on holidays. Agrarian cults have survived and are still being practiced. Before

536-649: A single room. Settlements might have a surrounding stone wall to keep domesticated animals in and hostile tribes out. Later settlements have rectangular mud-brick houses where the family lived in single or multiple rooms. Burial findings suggest an ancestor cult with preserved skulls of the dead. The Vinča culture may have created the earliest system of writing. The megalithic temple complexes of Ġgantija are notable for their gigantic structures. Although some late Eurasian Neolithic societies formed complex stratified chiefdoms or even states, states evolved in Eurasia only with

603-723: A single source. The emergence of metallurgy may have occurred first in the Fertile Crescent , where it gave rise to the Bronze Age in the 4th millennium BCE (the traditional view), although finds from the Vinča culture in Europe have now been securely dated to slightly earlier than those of the Fertile Crescent. Timna Valley contains evidence of copper mining 7,000 years ago. The process of transition from Neolithic to Chalcolithic in

670-426: A swidden to recover depends on the location and can be as little as five years to more than twenty years, after which the plot can be slashed and burned again, repeating the cycle. In Bangladesh and India , the practice is known as jhum or jhoom . Slash-and-burn is a type of shifting cultivation , an agricultural system in which farmers routinely move from one cultivable area to another. A rough estimate

737-767: Is also a transition period between Stone Age and Bronze Age, the Chalcolithic or Copper Age. For the prehistory of the Americas see Pre-Columbian era . The notion of "prehistory" emerged during the Enlightenment in the work of antiquarians who used the word "primitive" to describe societies that existed before written records. The word "prehistory" first appeared in English in 1836 in the Foreign Quarterly Review . The geologic time scale for pre-human time periods, and

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804-511: Is an example. In archaeology, the Iron Age refers to the advent of ferrous metallurgy . The adoption of iron coincided with other changes, often including more sophisticated agricultural practices, religious beliefs and artistic styles, which makes the archaeological Iron Age coincide with the " Axial Age " in the history of philosophy. Although iron ore is common, the metalworking techniques necessary to use iron are different from those needed for

871-488: Is anonymous. Because of this, reference terms that prehistorians use, such as " Neanderthal " or " Iron Age ", are modern labels with definitions sometimes subject to debate. The concept of a "Stone Age" is found useful in the archaeology of most of the world, although in the archaeology of the Americas it is called by different names and begins with a Lithic stage , or sometimes Paleo-Indian . The sub-divisions described below are used for Eurasia, and not consistently across

938-747: Is called the Lower Paleolithic (as in excavations it appears underneath the Upper Paleolithic), beginning with the earliest stone tools dated to around 3.3 million years ago at the Lomekwi site in Kenya. These tools predate the genus Homo and were probably used by Kenyanthropus . Evidence of control of fire by early hominins during the Lower Palaeolithic Era is uncertain and has at best limited scholarly support. The most widely accepted claim

1005-446: Is most unsuitable for the production of cash crops . A huge amount of land, or a low density of people, is required for slash-and-burn. When slash-and-burn is practiced in the same area too often, because the human population density has increased to an unsustainable level, the forest will eventually be destroyed. Tribal groups in the northeastern Indian states of Tripura , Arunachal Pradesh , Meghalaya , Mizoram and Nagaland and

1072-558: Is provided by a wide variety of natural and social sciences, such as anthropology , archaeology , archaeoastronomy , comparative linguistics , biology , geology , molecular genetics , paleontology , palynology , physical anthropology , and many others. Human prehistory differs from history not only in terms of its chronology , but in the way it deals with the activities of archaeological cultures rather than named nations or individuals . Restricted to material processes, remains, and artefacts rather than written records, prehistory

1139-542: Is seen as a transition period between the Stone Age and Bronze Age. An archaeological site in Serbia contains the oldest securely dated evidence of copper making at high temperature, from 7,500 years ago. The find in 2010 extends the known record of copper smelting by about 800 years, and suggests that copper smelting may have been invented independently in separate parts of Asia and Europe at that time, rather than spreading from

1206-491: Is that H. erectus or H. ergaster made fires between 790,000 and 690,000 BP in a site at Bnot Ya'akov Bridge , Israel . The use of fire enabled early humans to cook food, provide warmth, have a light source, deter animals at night and meditate. Early Homo sapiens originated some 300,000 years ago, ushering in the Middle Palaeolithic . Anatomic changes indicating modern language capacity also arise during

1273-416: Is that 250 million people worldwide use slash-and-burn. Slash-and-burn causes temporary deforestation . Ashes from the burnt trees help farmers by providing nutrients for the soil. In low density of human population this approach is very sustainable but the technique is not scalable for large human populations. A similar term is assarting , which is the clearing of forests, usually (but not always) for

1340-506: Is when the first signs of human presence have been found; however, Africa and Asia contain sites dated as early as c.  2.5 and 1.8 million years ago, respectively. Depending on the date when relevant records become a useful academic resource, its end date also varies. For example, in Egypt it is generally accepted that prehistory ended around 3100 BCE, whereas in New Guinea

1407-475: The Bangladeshi districts of Rangamati , Khagrachari , Bandarban and Sylhet refer to slash-and-burn agriculture as podu , jhum or jhoom cultivation. The system involves clearing land, by fire or clear-felling, for economically important crops such as upland rice , vegetables or fruits. After a few cycles, the land's fertility declines and a new area is chosen. Jhum cultivation is most often practiced on

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1474-687: The Copper Age or Bronze Age ; or, in some geographical regions, in the Iron Age ). The term Neolithic is commonly used in the Old World ; its application to cultures in the Americas and Oceania is complicated by the fact standard progression from stone to metal tools, as seen in the Old World, does not neatly apply. Early Neolithic farming was limited to a narrow range of plants, both wild and domesticated, which included einkorn wheat , millet and spelt , and

1541-574: The Neolithic Revolution , groups of hunter-gatherers domesticated various plants and animals, permitting them to settle down and practice agriculture, which provided more nutrition per hectare than hunting and gathering. Some groups could easily plant their crops in open fields along river valleys, but others had forests covering their land. Thus, since Neolithic times, slash-and-burn agriculture has been widely used to clear land to make it suitable for crops and livestock. Large groups wandering in

1608-685: The Old Norse word sviða , which means "to burn". This practice originated in Russia in the region of Novgorod and was widespread in Finland and Eastern Sweden during the Medieval period. It spread to western Sweden in the 16th century when Finnish settlers were encouraged to migrate there by King Gustav Vasa to help clear the dense forests. Later, when the Finns were persecuted by the local Swedes, svedjebruk farming

1675-525: The Paleolithic , by the Neolithic only Homo sapiens sapiens remained. This was a period of technological and social developments which established most of the basic elements of historical cultures, such as the domestication of crops and animals , and the establishment of permanent settlements and early chiefdoms. The era commenced with the beginning of farming , which produced the " Neolithic Revolution ". It ended when metal tools became widespread (in

1742-606: The three-age system for human prehistory, were systematised during the nineteenth century in the work of British, French, German, and Scandinavian anthropologists , archaeologists , and antiquarians . The main source of information for prehistory is archaeology (a branch of anthropology), but some scholars are beginning to make more use of evidence from the natural and social sciences. The primary researchers into human prehistory are archaeologists and physical anthropologists who use excavation, geologic and geographic surveys, and other scientific analysis to reveal and interpret

1809-469: The "Chalcolithic", "Eneolithic", or "Copper Age" refers to a transitional period where early copper metallurgy appeared alongside the widespread use of stone tools. During this period, some weapons and tools were made of copper. This period was still largely Neolithic in character. It is a phase of the Bronze Age before it was discovered that adding tin to copper formed the harder bronze . The Copper Age

1876-606: The 19th century. The end of prehistory therefore came at different times in different places, and the term is less often used in discussing societies where prehistory ended relatively recently. In the early Bronze Age , Sumer in Mesopotamia , the Indus Valley Civilisation , and ancient Egypt were the first civilizations to develop their own scripts and keep historical records, with their neighbours following. Most other civilizations reached their end of prehistory during

1943-417: The Amazon, are nutritionally extremely poor, slash-and-burn is one of the only types of agriculture which can be practiced in these areas. Slash-and-burn farmers typically plant a variety of crops, instead of a monoculture, and contribute to a higher biodiversity due to creating mosaic habitats. The general ecosystem is not harmed in traditional slash-and-burn, aside from a small temporary patch. This technique

2010-623: The Americas, these areas did not develop complex writing systems before the arrival of Eurasians, so their prehistory reaches into relatively recent periods; for example, 1788 is usually taken as the end of the prehistory of Australia . The period when a culture is written about by others, but has not developed its own writing system, is often known as the protohistory of the culture. By definition, there are no written records from human prehistory, which can only be known from material archaeological and anthropological evidence: prehistoric materials and human remains. These were at first understood by

2077-678: The Azilian cultures, before spreading to Europe through the Iberomaurusian culture of Northern Africa and the Kebaran culture of the Levant . However, independent discovery is not ruled out. "Neolithic" means "New Stone Age", from about 10,200 BCE in some parts of the Middle East, but later in other parts of the world, and ended between 4,500 and 2,000 BCE. Although there were several species of humans during

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2144-454: The Iron Age, often through conquest by empires, which continued to expand during this period. For example, in most of Europe conquest by the Roman Empire means the term Iron Age is replaced by "Roman", " Gallo-Roman ", and similar terms after the conquest. Even before conquest, many areas began to have a protohistory, as they were written about by literate cultures; the protohistory of Ireland

2211-677: The Middle East is characterized in archaeological stone tool assemblages by a decline in high quality raw material procurement and use. North Africa and the Nile Valley imported its iron technology from the Near East and followed the Near Eastern course of Bronze Age and Iron Age development. The Bronze Age is the earliest period in which some civilizations reached the end of prehistory, by introducing written records. The Bronze Age, or parts thereof, are thus considered to be part of prehistory only for

2278-708: The Middle Palaeolithic. During the Middle Palaeolithic Era, there is the first definitive evidence of human use of fire. Sites in Zambia have charred logs, charcoal and carbonized plants, that have been dated to 180,000 BP. The systematic burial of the dead , music , prehistoric art , and the use of increasingly sophisticated multi-part tools are highlights of the Middle Paleolithic. The Upper Paleolithic extends from 50,000 and 12,000 years ago, with

2345-422: The ash around the rye. The rye germinated and grew prolifically, with anywhere from 25 to 100 stalks (or straws), each with multiple grains. Only two tools were required, the axe and the sickle. The axe cut the trees to start the cycle. When the rye had ripened, it was harvested with a sickle , which could reach among the rocks and stumps where a scythe would have been ineffective. In the second and third year

2412-516: The border area, but did not do so because it was judged they were too poor to survive if evicted. This type of agriculture is discouraged by many developmental or environmentalist organisations, with the main alternatives being promoted are switching to more intensive , permanent farming methods, or promoting a shift from farming to working in different, higher-paying industries altogether. Other organisations promote helping farmers achieve higher productivity by introducing new techniques. Not allowing

2479-553: The case of Indigenous Australian "highways" known as songlines . The Mesolithic, or Middle Stone Age (from the Greek mesos , 'middle', and lithos , 'stone'), was a period in the development of human technology between the Palaeolithic and Neolithic . The Mesolithic period began with the retreat of glaciers at the end of the Pleistocene epoch, some 10,000 BP, and ended with

2546-463: The collection of folklore and by analogy with pre-literate societies observed in modern times. The key step to understanding prehistoric evidence is dating, and reliable dating techniques have developed steadily since the nineteenth century. The most common of these dating techniques is radiocarbon dating . Further evidence has come from the reconstruction of ancient spoken languages . More recent techniques include forensic chemical analysis to reveal

2613-497: The end of the Bronze Age large states, whose armies imposed themselves on people with a different culture, and are often called empires, had arisen in Egypt, China, Anatolia (the Hittites ), and Mesopotamia , all of them literate. The Iron Age is not part of prehistory for all civilizations who had introduced written records during the Bronze Age. Most remaining civilizations did so during

2680-625: The end of the prehistoric era is set much more recently, in the 1870s, when the Russian anthropologist Nicholai Miklukho-Maklai spent several years living among native peoples, and described their way of life in a comprehensive treatise. In Europe the relatively well-documented classical cultures of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome had neighbouring cultures, including the Celts and the Etruscans , with little writing. Historians debate how much weight to give to

2747-446: The few mines, stimulating the creation of extensive trading routes. In many areas as far apart as China and England, the valuable new material was used for weapons, but for a long time apparently not available for agricultural tools. Much of it seems to have been hoarded by social elites, and sometimes deposited in extravagant quantities, from Chinese ritual bronzes and Indian copper hoards , to European hoards of unused axe-heads. By

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2814-420: The field would be sown with turnips or cabbages . It then might be grazed for several years before being allowed to return to woodland. Svedjebruk required felling new forest and burning a new area every year. It was necessary to allow the former fields to regrow with forest for 10–30 years before repeating the cycle. As a result, the dwellings were often many kilometers from the fields. Furthermore, since

2881-448: The first known use of stone tools by hominins c.  3.3   million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems . The use of symbols, marks, and images appears very early among humans, but the earliest known writing systems appeared c.  5,200 years ago. It took thousands of years for writing systems to be widely adopted, with writing having spread to almost all cultures by

2948-493: The first organized settlements and blossoming of artistic work. Throughout the Palaeolithic, humans generally lived as nomadic hunter-gatherers . Hunter-gatherer societies tended to be very small and egalitarian, although hunter-gatherer societies with abundant resources or advanced food-storage techniques sometimes developed sedentary lifestyles with complex social structures such as chiefdoms, and social stratification . Long-distance contacts may have been established, as in

3015-493: The first signs of deforestation have been found, although this would only begin in earnest during the Neolithic, when more space was needed for agriculture . The Mesolithic is characterized in most areas by small composite flint tools: microliths and microburins . Fishing tackle , stone adzes , and wooden objects such as canoes and bows have been found at some sites. These technologies first occur in Africa, associated with

3082-461: The following Iron Age . The three-age division of prehistory into Stone Age , Bronze Age , and Iron Age remains in use for much of Eurasia and North Africa , but is not generally used in those parts of the world where the working of hard metals arrived abruptly from contact with Eurasian cultures, such as Oceania , Australasia , much of Sub-Saharan Africa , and parts of the Americas . With some exceptions in pre-Columbian civilizations in

3149-451: The former field. After a few decades, another family or clan may then use the land and claim usufructuary rights . In such a system there is typically no market in farmland, so land is not bought or sold on the open market and land rights are traditional. In slash-and-burn agriculture, forests are typically cut months before a dry season. The "slash" is permitted to dry and then burned in the following dry season. The resulting ash fertilizes

3216-467: The introduction of agriculture , the date of which varied by geographic region. In some areas, such as the Near East , agriculture was already underway by the end of the Pleistocene , and there the Mesolithic is short and poorly defined. In areas with limited glacial impact, the term " Epipalaeolithic " is preferred. Regions that experienced greater environmental effects as the last ice age ended have

3283-474: The keeping of dogs , sheep , and goats . By about 6,900–6,400 BCE, it included domesticated cattle and pigs, the establishment of permanently or seasonally inhabited settlements, and the use of pottery . The Neolithic period saw the development of early villages , agriculture , animal domestication , tools , and the onset of the earliest recorded incidents of warfare. Settlements became more permanent, some with circular houses made of mudbrick with

3350-401: The nature and behavior of pre-literate and non-literate peoples. Human population geneticists and historical linguists are also providing valuable insight. Cultural anthropologists help provide context for societal interactions, by which objects of human origin pass among people, allowing an analysis of any article that arises in a human prehistoric context. Therefore, data about prehistory

3417-573: The practice is known as svedjebruk . Telkkämäki Nature Reserve in Kaavi , Finland, is an open-air museum where slash-and-burn agriculture is demonstrated. Farm visitors can see how people farmed when slash-and-burn was the norm in the Northern Savonian region of eastern Finland beginning in the 15th century. Areas of the reserve are burnt each year. Svedjebruk is a Swedish and Norwegian term for slash-and-burn agriculture derived from

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3484-481: The process was man-power intensive, extended families tended to work together and live in compact communities. The svedjebruk farming approach required a large area. When forest was plentiful, the Finns were very prosperous. As population grew and restrictions were placed on the forest which could be burned, it became increasingly difficult. By 1710, during the conflict with Sweden, because of their suspect loyalties Norwegian authorities considered expelling them from

3551-427: The purpose of agriculture. Assarting does not include burning. Historically, slash-and-burn cultivation has been practiced throughout much of the world. Fire was already used by hunter-gatherers before the invention of agriculture, and still is in present times. Clearings created by the fire were made for many reasons, such as to provide new growth for game animals and to promote certain kinds of edible plants. During

3618-418: The rainiest part of the year. Then, the biomass is burned, resulting in a nutrient-rich layer of ash which makes the soil fertile , as well as temporarily eliminating weed and pest species . After about three to five years, the plot's productivity decreases due to depletion of nutrients along with weed and pest invasion, causing the farmers to abandon the field and move to a new area. The time it takes for

3685-658: The regions and civilizations who developed a system of keeping written records during later periods. The invention of writing coincides in some areas with the beginnings of the Bronze Age. After the appearance of writing, people started creating texts including written records of administrative matters. The Bronze Age refers to a period in human cultural development when the most advanced metalworking (at least in systematic and widespread use) included techniques for smelting copper and tin from naturally occurring outcroppings of ores, and then combining them to cast bronze . These naturally occurring ores typically included arsenic as

3752-502: The rise of metallurgy, and most Neolithic societies on the whole were relatively simple and egalitarian. Most clothing appears to have been made of animal skins, as indicated by finds of large numbers of bone and antler pins which are ideal for fastening leather. Wool cloth and linen might have become available during the later Neolithic, as suggested by finds of perforated stones that (depending on size) may have served as spindle whorls or loom weights. In Old World archaeology,

3819-436: The slashed vegetation to burn completely and ploughing the resultant charcoal into the soil ( slash-and-char ) has been proposed as way to boost yields. Promoters of a project from the early 2000s claimed that slash-and-burn cultivation could be reduced if farmers grew black pepper crops, turmeric, beans, corn, cacao, rambutan and citrus between Inga trees, which they termed ' Inga alley cropping '. A method of improving

3886-427: The slopes of thickly-forested hills. Cultivators cut the treetops to allow sunlight to reach the land, burning the trees and grasses for fresh soil. Although it is believed that this helps fertilize the land, it can leave it vulnerable to erosion . Holes are made for the seeds of crops such as sticky rice , maize, eggplant and cucumber. After considering jhum ' s effects, the government of Mizoram has introduced

3953-440: The soil and the burned field is then planted at the beginning of the next rainy season with crops such as rice, maize, cassava, or other staples. This work was once done using simple tools such as machetes , axes , hoes and shovels . This system of agriculture provides millions of people with food and income. It has been ecologically sustainable for thousands of years. Because the leached soil in many tropical regions, such as

4020-631: The sometimes biased accounts in Greek and Roman literature, of these protohistoric cultures. In dividing up human prehistory in Eurasia, historians typically use the three-age system, whereas scholars of pre-human time periods typically use the well-defined geologic record and its internationally defined stratum base within the geologic time scale . The three-age system is the periodization of human prehistory into three consecutive time periods , named for their predominant tool-making technologies: Stone Age , Bronze Age and Iron Age . In some areas, there

4087-547: The sowing, rites of cleansing the field and the grains of rice will be performed on the first new moon, before the start of cultivating the fields. In 1940, Officer Louis Fontijne produced a Dutch Colonial Service study entitled Grondvoogden in Kelimado (Guardians of the land in Kelimado), Kelimado being a region included in the Nage district of central Flores. Commissioned as an investigation of indigenous land tenure and leadership,

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4154-481: The study was the only comprehensive description of Nage society and culture produced during the colonial period. In 1983, anthropologist Gregory Forth renewed interest in the tribe, revisiting the islands while seeking a copy of Fontijne's complete study. Forth has also hypothesized a possible connection between the local stories of the Ebu Gogo , a creature in Nage mythology, and the discovery of Homo floresiensis ,

4221-582: The use and provenance of materials, and genetic analysis of bones to determine kinship and physical characteristics of prehistoric peoples. The beginning of prehistory is normally taken to be marked by human-like beings appearing on Earth. The date marking its end is typically defined as the advent of the contemporary written historical record. Both dates consequently vary widely from region to region. For example, in European regions, prehistory cannot begin before c.  1.3  million years ago, which

4288-455: The whole area. "Palaeolithic" means "Old Stone Age", and begins with the first use of stone tools . The Paleolithic is the earliest period of the Stone Age . It extends from the earliest known use of stone tools by hominins c.  3.3  million years ago, to the end of the Pleistocene c.  11,650   BP (before the present period). The early part of the Palaeolithic

4355-474: The woodlands was once a common form of society in European prehistory . The extended family burned and cultivated their swidden plots, sowed one or more crops, and then proceeded on to the next plot. Slash-and-burn fields are typically used and owned by a family until the soil is exhausted. At this point the ownership rights are abandoned, the family clears a new field, and trees and shrubs are permitted to grow on

4422-471: The yields in a type of traditional assarting cultivation used to grow common beans in Central American called 'slash-and-cover', has been proposed, by additionally planting leguminous shrubs to act as a fallow crop after the soil is exhausted and one is ready to clear a new patch of forest. Prehistory Prehistory , also called pre-literary history , is the period of human history between

4489-556: Was spread by refugees to eastern Norway , more specifically in the eastern part of Solør , in the area bordering Sweden known as Finnskogen ("the Finnish woods"). The practice also spread to New Sweden in North America. Reinforced by the use of fire in agriculture and hunting by American Indians , it became an important part of pioneering in America. Svedjebruk involved stripping

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