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The Middle Paleolithic period is the second subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age. And the experts believe that The Middle Paleolithic is the successor of the Lower Palaeolirhic period. The Middle Palaeolithic period lasted from about 250,000 to 30,000 years ago. This period was characterized by flake tools and the widespread use of fire. Please keep in touch with the article to know more about subject.
The second phase of Stone age is called The Middle Paleolithic period. As in Europe, Africa and Asia it is called as the second sub-division of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age. But the term Middle Stone Age is used in African archeology is as an equivalent for the Middle Paleolithic period. The experts believe that the period of Middle Palaeolithic period is broadly spanned in between from 300000 years ago to 50000 year ago. But there are is a difference in considerable dating between regions and locations. Most of the experts believe that “The Middle Paleolithic period” was the successor of “The lower Palaeolithic period” and succeeded by “The Upper Paleolithic period”. These are treated as the subdivisions of stone age.
Paul Pettitt who is a British archaeologist and academic. He specialises in the Palaeolithic era, with particular focus on claims of art and burial artfacts. Mark White who was the co-director with him at the excavations in the world famous site of Kent’s Cavern came in the can conclusion that the date of the Early Middle Paleolithic in Great Britain to about 325,000 to 180,000 years ago and the last phase of Middle Paleolithic start from at about 60,000 to 35,000 years ago.
According to the theory of the recent African origin of modern humans. The experts believe that anatomically modern humans began migrating out of Africa during the Middle Stone Age/Middle Paleolithic around 125,000 years ago and began to replace earlier pre-existent Homo species such as the Neanderthals and Homo erectus.
Factors for the Origin of Behavioral Modernity
Some of the anthropologists and archeologists such as mainly Philip Lieberman believe that the cultures of Middle Paleolithic period may have possessed a developing religious ideology in which the concepts of an afterlife. Because they found evidence related to the Middle Paleolithic period during the excavation of many sites. The main one being around 130,000 B.P. The Krapina Caves of Croatia and the Qafzeh and Es Skhul caves of Israel which are dated to about 100,000 BP.
Why the Krapina Caves are famous & important to research on early humans?
The Krapina Caves of Croatia are famous because the archaeologist found here around 900 fossil bones belonging to about 80 Neanderthal individuals of different gender which vari between 2 year to 27 years of age.
Why are the Skhul Cave and Qafzeh Cave sites in Israel important to research on early humans?
The Skhul Cave are located on the slopes of Mount Carmel and Qafzeh Cave is a rockshelter near Nazareth in Lower Galilee.
The significance of the Skhul Caves are because they contain some of the earliest fossil evidence of anatomically modern humans outside Africa. The discoveries made at this site reveal both modern and archaic physical traits in these early populations. Which highlightes a major transitional phase in human evolution.
The Qafzeh Cave sites of Israel is important for the discovery of the human fossils, morphologically recognized as modern. Which were uncovered and dated at Qafzeh cave of Israel.
This classification demonstrated that the Mousterian industries of Middle Paleolithic age were made by populations different from Neanderthals, who produced similar techno-complexes in Europe.
Evidences of Social Stratification
Before we go further we have to understand what is the meaning of social stratification and who defined the concept of social stratification?
Social Stratification is the ranking of individuals in a society based on power, prestige, and wealth and the founder of the theory of the concept of social stratification was Max Weber. In simple words we can say that the theory of social stratification works on the theory of comparison based on the power, prestige, and wealth.
As per the theory of social stratification the discovered evidence from archeology and comparative ethnography indicates that the people of Middle Paleolithic lived in small egalitarian band societies. The societies where all were considered equal, irrelevant of gender, race, religion, or age. (There is not a class system in an egalitarian society.)
As per the discovered evidences the experts believe that in the societies during the Middle Paleolithic period Neanderthal would also be taken care of the elderly members of their societies like the modern human societies does.
An American cultural anthropologist Christopher Boehm has hypothesized in the year 1999 that egalitarianism may have arisen in Middle Paleolithic societies because of a need to distribute resources such as food and meat equally to avoid famine and ensure a stable food supply.
According to the collected evidences the experts has also been assumed that the females of the societies of middle palaeolithic period would be gathered firewood or fire-able material for cooking and produce heat and on the other side the men of the society provides meat and other eatable material. Their work was hunting and scavenging the hunted and dead animals.
Riecker Distinguished Professor in the School of Anthropology, University of Arizona Dr. Steven L. Kuhn and His wife Dr.Mary Stiner suggested that the sex-based division of labor did not exist prior in the Paleolithic history. they believe that the sexual division of labor may have evolved after 45,000 years ago to allow humans to acquire food and other resources more efficiently.
Adopted Technologies during the Middle Palaeolithic period
As per the discovered tools and artifacts the experts believe that during the Middle Paleolithic period, the stone tool manufacturing spawned a tool-making technique known as the prepared-core technique and that technique was more elaborate than previous Acheulean techniques.
Wallace and Shea, who was a naturalist and a geographer. They split the core artifacts into two different types –
1) Formal cores and
2) Expedient cores.
According to them the Formal cores would have been designed to extract the maximum amount from the raw material while Expedient cores would be based more upon functional need. They suggested that this method would have been permitted to increase the efficiency in creation of more controlled and consistent flakes.
The experts also believe that the technology of this period allowed Middle Paleolithic humans correspondingly to create stone-tipped spears, which were the earliest composite tools, by hafting sharp, pointy stone flakes onto wooden shafts.
The experts also believe that Paleolithic groups such as the Neanderthals who possessed a Middle Paleolithic level of technology. And the build technology of the tools was like that they would have been comfortable in hunting and could be fought a large fight with large animals even with the Upper Paleolithic modern humans and the Neanderthals in particular may have likewise hunted with projectile weapons.
Food and Nutrition
The experts believe that as the collected evidences shows that the main food supply during the Middle Palaeolithic period was hunting. There is also the evidences that the people had began to use seafood as the supplement of their diet. The evidences are also found that the people of Middle Palaeolithic period have also been started preserve and store the meet by drying it and the people would have been started smoking also.
Some of the evidences for the seafood hunting
01) Around 90000 years ago the inhabitants of Middle Stone Age have hunted a 6 feet large (at about 1.8-metre long) catfish with a specialized barbed fishing hook at the region of Africa (now occupied by the Democratic Republic of the Congo).
02) Neandertals or the Middle Paleolithic Homo sapiens of Africa began to catch shellfish for food. It was revealed by the cooking evidences of shellfisha at Neanderthal sites in Italy and some Middle Paleolithic Homo sapiens site’s at Pinnacle Point in Africa about 110,000 years ago.
03) Anthropologists Tim D. White is believed that prior to the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic period the cannibalism (eating of human flesh by humans) was common in human societies.
04) The theory Tim D White was based on the evidences found of the large amount of butchered human bones found in Neandertal and other Middle Paleolithic sites. And he believe that the reason of the Cannibalism in the Middle Paleolithic may have occurred because of food shortages.
The experts believe that however it is also possible that the cannibalism (situation where human eat humans) occurred during Middle Palaeolithic period would have been due to some religious reasons, which is coincide with the development of religious practices thought to have occurred during the Upper Paleolithic.
Some the the experts also believe that it remains possible that the people of Middle Paleolithic societies never eat human flesh and the recovered evidences of human bones was either the result of excarnation or predation by carnivores such as saber-toothed cats, lions and hyenas.
Important Sites of Middle Palaeolithical period
There are two types of archeological sites discovered by the experts
01) Cave type archeological sites
02) Open air type of sites
Cave sites are mainly discovered at Middle East Countries, Africa and Western Europe.
Name of the some important site discovered in Middle East Countries
01) Bisitun Cave, Iran
02) Daş Salahlı, Azerbaijan
03) Wezmeh, Iran
Name of the some important site discovered in Africa
01) Aterian, North Africa
Name of the some important site discovered in Western Europe
01) Axlor, Spain
02) Grotte de Spy, Spy, Belgium
03) La Cotte de St Brelade, Jersey
04) Le Moustier, France
05) Mousterian
Neandertal (valley), Germany
06) Petralona, Greece
Some of the important Open-air sites
01) Biache-Saint-Vaast, France
02) Maastricht-Belvédère, The Netherlands
03) Veldwezelt-Hezerwater, Belgium
Some of the important Link of the Articles which is important for your preparation of the exam.
| 01 | The Prehistoric Period – How Humans Lived Before Written Records? | CLICK HERE |
| 02 | Stone Age ‑ Definition, Period & Tools | Ancient History | CLICK HERE |
| 03 | Lower Paleolithic Period – The Most Early phase of Stone Age | CLICK HERE |
| 04 | Lomekwi Stone Tools – The World’s Oldest Artifact – Stone Age | CLICK HERE |
| 05 | Oldowan Tools – The Oldest Stone Tools In The World – Stone Age | CLICK HERE |
| 06 | List of Important Oldowan Sites and the Name of their Archaeologists | CLICK HERE |
Some of the important Link of the related MCQ/Quiz which is helpful for the preparation of the exam.
| 01 | Prehistoric Period MCQ/Quiz – UPSC, SSC, Bank Exam | MCQs/Quiz | CLICK HERE |
| 02 | MCQs on Stone Age ‑ Classification, Period & Tools | Ancient History | MCQs/Quiz | CLICK HERE |
| 03 | MCQ on Lower Paleolithic Period – The Most Early phase of Stone Age | MCQs/Quiz | CLICK HERE |
| 04 | MCQs on Lomekwi Archaeological Site – Important Milestone | MCQs/Quiz | CLICK HERE |
| 05 | MCQs/Quiz on Oldowan Tools – The Oldest Stone Tools | MCQs/Quiz | CLICK HERE |
All the best for a brightest future.