The Stone Age

The Stone Age shaped, developed and formed our modern day form of living.

There are numerous facts and events that have occurred throughout time that are

evidence of this.

"The Stone Age began as far back as two million years ago in some

places" (www.bergen.org, April, 1997). This was when neanderthals were

roaming the world using primitive weapons to hunt animals as well as searching

for other sources of food. Since that time the ways of living and even the shape of

man have evolved greatly into their modern form. The men of those times

were hunter-gatherers and used, in some cases only one tool for numerous jobs.

Today we have many varieties of tools that any man has access to just for doing

the simplest of jobs. People of the Stone Age began this way of living hundreds

of thousands of years ago and it is still used greatly, with the help of computers.

That way of living formed what we are today because of the fact that we still live

a sort of hunter-gathering way of life. In the sense that we still have many

farmers and hunters that roam the wild for food so that they can get cash in

return. The Stone Age was also where farming began which was very

important then and now. Many countries rely on their crops to supply them

with either food or money. Settlements began to take place during this time

which have a great impact on how we live today. Settlements are all over the

world in different shapes, sizes and with different cultures and people within.

These are some of the reasons why the Stone Age has shaped and developed our

modern day form of living.

Farming was a very important part of life in the Stone Age. "The

world's first farmers lived in Abu Hureyra" (Rowley-Conwy, 1993, p. 27). Abu

Hureyra is located near Mesopotamia on the Euphrates River and farming

began between 9000 BC and 7000 BC. Farming is and was a very important

source of food and income for the ancient civilizations. Farming, with

technology advanced greatly. With these advancements in farming equipment it has

made modern day farming easier and we are now able to finish relatively large

jobs in only a matter of days or even hours. Because of Abu Hureyra farming is

now in every corner of the world. without this way of life many civilizations

would be in trouble or maybe not even exist. Saskatchewan for example would

not be as wealthy as it is without farming, in fact we would be nothing because

our ways of living revolve around agriculture. Farming is a very reliable source

of food and income because there is always a season to farm in out of the year.

The only problem with farming is there is only one season to farm in, where as

hunters can hunt any time of the year. This new way of life developed and shaped

many forms of civilizations throughout the world.

Another important part of farming and even all of life was the development

and the use of tools. Tools were also very important for many ancient civilizations

as well as the modern civilizations. Tools come in all different shapes and sizes and

are used for different types of work. Ancient tools were made of chipped stone

which were then sharpened and polished-up so they could later be used as weapons

, equipment for farming or utensils. Tools play a key role in the development of

man because without tools man would not have been able to farm effectively, hunt

effectively, skin animal hides, eat with utensils and many other reasons like building

homes.

Settlements are very important in our modern day life. Nearly every

culture or group of people develop a settlement or a way of being civilized at some

point in time. The Stone Age was the period which developed the idea of settlements

and because of this way of thinking nearly every group of people in the world

have developed a type of settlement. The Stone Age has helped us in many ways,

but without the development of settlements we would have little or no money

because lot's of money is made within groups of people or settlements. Settlements

have helped many cultures develop ways of making money. When one group of

people start making money it drives other people to make money and they later

feed off of each other until they become fairly wealthy. We have developed greatly

from settlements because it has helped us mature economically. We now have a

good sense of how to make money off of things made within settlements. Because of

the Stone Age and their settlements we now have a very organized way of living.

The Stone Age shaped and developed our modern day form of living. The

people of the Stone Age had a great impact on the ways that we lived. Those four

main ways are listed above. The Stone Age lasted about two million years ago in

some places and because of the vast time span it took-up, it was divided into three

periods which are the Paleolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic eras. Some of which

lasted longer than others. If the era which we are in now could last that long we still

could not develop such things as farming, settlements and tools. However if it did

last that long the tools, farming equipment and settlements would be much more

advanced than that of those times. We would develop things like computers and

cars, but never could we again invent farming or start making the first tools again.

Most of the things that were developed during the Stone Age are very important

things, things that we need to live. Without the era of the Stone Age the earth

would amount to nothing, we would still be neanderthals roaming around the earth

living a hunter-gatherer way of life. Their would even be more wars today without

the coming of the Stone Age because we would have no organization and groups of

people would be killing each other for no reason. The Stone Age was a very-much

needed era because of the development of farming, tools, settlements and even the

ways in which man developed during this time. The Stone Age had the biggest role

and greatest effect on what we are today.