A hammer, a saw, a sewing machine, a car, a tractor - these are all tools that make a person’s life very easy. But how did the ancient people live if they had nothing of this?

If we could miraculously travel back to that time, we would see a picture that was strange to us. Men ancient tribe wandering along the river bank all day. They carefully look for stones from which they can make sharp object. Having found the necessary stones, they hit one stone against another, obtaining a sharpened edge. Small stones make knives, and large stones make axes. Stones were also tied to strong sticks, making sharp clubs with which they hunted animals and fish. It was also possible to make a digging stick from a thick tree branch and a sharp stone. It was used to dig up edible plant roots.

Spears for hunting among people were first made from wooden sticks. They were made with very sharp stone axes and fired over a fire for strength. Then they learned to put tips made of sharp stones on them. They were tied with thin plant fibers. Such arrows have become a reliable weapon in the fight against wild animals.

The most ancient people sewed their clothes from animal skins. The needles were thin, pointed wooden sticks, and the threads were strong plants or thin leather straps. They even made their own shoes from skins!

A big event for the ancient people was that they learned to handle fire. At first the man was very afraid of him. If lightning suddenly set fire to grass or a tree, all the people and animals ran away from there, and the birds flew away. But one day the bravest people managed to get close to the fire. Maybe it was a tree lit during a thunderstorm, or maybe boiling lava from a volcano. For the first time, a person managed to catch a fire by holding out a branch towards it. The branch caught fire - the man had his own home fire! People liked the charcoal-roasted meat and fish. In cold times, the fire warmed, frightened prey during the hunt, and drove away terrible animals at night. People valued fire very much, and if the fire in their home went out, it was a great misfortune.

Then the man realized that it was not necessary to walk for a long time and collect only wild plants, but that he could grow them near his home. To plant something in the ground, it was first dug up with a wooden hoe. This is a simple stick with a short branch.
Seeds were placed in the resulting holes, covered with soil and watered. And the ripe harvest from ears of barley or wheat was cut with a sickle. It was made from wood, with sharp pebbles inserted inside, or from animal bones.

One day a man realized that grains baked in a fire are tastier than raw ones. And later I realized that you can bake cakes from flour. How did you get the flour? To do this, women took two flat stones, placed grains between them and ground them into flour. This is an ancient mill - a grain grinder.

Primitive people needed baskets. They learned to weave them from thin twigs of plants. They collected berries, fruits, and fish in such baskets.

But baskets were needed to store flour and grain. And the man thought - all the grain is pouring out of a basket made of twigs, maybe coat it with clay? But such a basket turned out to be inconvenient - when it rained, the clay got wet.

One day, such a clay basket accidentally fell into a fire, and the man suddenly noticed that the rods had burned out and the clay had become very hard. This is how a person got dishes, and he could cook food in them over a fire.

Women learned to weave clothes. At first they wove rugs from wood bast or straw. And then they came up with the idea of ​​making yarn from flax and animal wool. And they invented the primitive loom. With his help, they completely acquired a human appearance - they began to wear clothes instead of animal skins.

Macroliths or stone tools are the labor tools of primitive people, which were made from various types of stone, pebbles using the stone upholstery method.

The first stone tools

The first stone tools were pebble tools. The earliest find is a chopper found, dating back to 2.7 million years BC. e. The first archaeological culture to use stone tools was the Olduvai archaeological culture. This culture existed in the period from 2.7 to 1 million years BC. e.

Choppers were also used by Australopithecines, but their disappearance did not stop the production of such tools; many cultures used pebbles as a material until the beginning of the Bronze Age.

Australopithecines made tools in a primitive way: they simply smashed one stone against another, and then simply selected a suitable fragment. Australopithecines soon learned to process such axes using bones or other stones. They used the other stone as an axe, making the sharp end even sharper.

So Australopithecines developed something like a cutter, which was a flat stone with one sharp edge. The main difference between it and a chopper was that such a cutter did not chisel, but cut, for example, wood.

Revolution in the making of stone tools

Around 100,000 years ago, people realized that it was more efficient to first shape a large stone into simple geometric shapes and then chip off thin slabs of stone.

Often such a plate no longer required further processing, since the cutting side became sharp after chipping.

Breakthrough in weaponry

Around 20 thousand BC. e. The ancestors of people realized that stone tools would become more effective if wooden handles, or handles made of bone, or animal horns were attached to them. It was during this period that the first primitive axes appeared. In addition, people began to make the first spears with stone tips; they were significantly stronger than ordinary wooden tips.

When they came up with the idea of ​​attaching stone to wood, then the size of these tools decreased significantly, and so-called microliths appeared.

Microliths are small stone tools. Macroliths, in turn, are large stone tools, size from 3 cm, everything up to 3 cm is microliths.

In Paleolithic times, a primitive knife was made from a long piece of stone that was sharp at one or both ends. Now the technology has changed: small fragments of stone (microliths) were glued to a wooden handle using resin, so a primitive blade was obtained. Such a tool could serve as a weapon, and was much longer than a regular knife, but it was not durable, since the microliths often broke upon impact. Such a tool or weapon was very simple to manufacture.
At the time when the last ice age began on Earth, or rather when it was already coming to an end, many tribes had a demand for a partially sedentary life, and this way of life required some kind of technical revolution, tools had to become more advanced.

Mesolithic tools

During this time period, people learned new methods of processing stone tools, including grinding, drilling and sawing stone.

They polished the stone in the following way: they took the stone and rubbed it on wet sand, this could last for several tens of hours, but such a blade was already lighter and sharper.

The drilling technique also significantly improved the tools, since it was easier to connect the stone with the shaft, and this design was much stronger than the previous one.

Polishing spread very slowly, with widespread use of such technology only taking place in the fourth millennium BC. At the same time, in Egypt they were already using tools made of copper; the Egyptians did not master the grinding technique.

Stone tools in the Neolithic era

During this period, the production of microliths - small stone tools - was significantly improved. Now they already had the correct geometric shape; they formed even blades. The sizes of such guns became standard, meaning they were very easy to replace. To make such identical blades, the stone was split into several plates.

When the first states appeared in the Middle East, the profession of a mason appeared, who specialized in the professional processing of stone tools. So in the territory Ancient Egypt and Central America, the first masons could even carve long stone daggers.

Soon microlites were replaced by macrolites, and now plate technology was forgotten. In order to take stone tools somewhere, it was necessary to find accumulations of stone on the surface; primitive quarries appeared in such places.

The reason for the emergence of quarries was not a large number of suitable stone for making tools. To make high-quality, sharp and fairly light tools, obsidian, flint, jasper or quartz were needed.

When population density increased, the first states began to be created, migrations to stone were already difficult, then primitive trade arose, in places where there were deposits of stone, local tribes took it to places where this stone was not enough. It was the stone that became the first item of trade between tribes.

Obsidian tools were especially valuable because they were sharp and hard. Obsidian is a volcanic glass. The main disadvantage of obsidian was its rarity. The most commonly used materials were quartz and its varieties and jasper. Minerals such as jade and slate were also used.

Many Aboriginal tribes still use stone tools. In places where he did not reach, mollusk shells and bones were used as tools; in worst cases, people used only wooden tools.

The most ancient tool very easy to meet. Go out into the yard, find any large stone that is comfortable to hold with one hand - and here it is, the very first ancient tool. Initially, when ancient man needed something heavy and hard, he simply took any stone. It is impossible to reliably determine the period of use of such tools, since they are practically no different from natural ones. A breakthrough in processing came when people realized that by beating the edges of one stone with another, they could get a sharp edge, convenient for chopping.

This is how the first axes and pebble processing appeared. Several signs of this can be identified tools:

• comfortable rounded butt without protrusions for one-handed grip;
• the number of intentional chips on the side opposite the butt is small or insignificant. The chips themselves are large and uneven;
• the tools of this time are usually quite large, about the size of an axe.

Methods for processing ancient tools improved over time. Plates or scales, so-called flakes, removed from the processed piece of flint, became small and of the same type. This method of processing ancient tools is called by archaeologists retouching.

Retouching has undergone several changes during its development. The easiest way to remove a flint flake is to hit it with another flint or an equally hard stone. The disadvantages of this method are obvious - it is difficult to accurately calculate the force and direction of the impact, which can lead to complete breakdown of the entire workpiece, and as a result, a waste of many hours of work. However, even in this way, ancient people managed to create a new type of tools - pointed points. This type includes tools with two cutting edges - for example, spear tips or knives.

Rice. 1 - Ancient tools

It should be clarified that the names of the tools are arbitrary, since they did not come down to us from antiquity, but were given by archaeologists who discovered them during excavations and proposed options for their use. Later it turned out that not all names were given correctly. For example, the scraper was used not only for dressing animal skins, but also as a knife for cutting carcasses and as a woodworking tool. This versatility of use was largely due to two factors - on the one hand, the nomadic lifestyle required carrying all the tools with you, since it was quite difficult to find high-quality material for making tools, and on the other hand, a large number of stone tools in the absence of convenient methods of transportation had to cause great inconvenience.

The emergence of such methods of tool processing as push-pull and counter-punch retouching made it possible to achieve a finer finish. With this method, flakes were removed by point pressure with a stick or bone on the edge of the processed blade. The tools after this treatment look rough, with numerous notches. This method is more precise and allowed the production of thin, miniature tools - such as arrowheads.

Some tribes found themselves in more favorable territorial conditions, for example, people who lived near volcanoes gained access to obsidian or volcanic glass. The processing of this material was much more convenient due to its natural properties. Those tribes that lived far from the source of high-quality material had to travel long distances to them and prepare prismatic materials on the spot. cores(Fig. 2) - special blanks from which flakes were subsequently made.

Rice. 2 - Nuclei and obtaining flakes

Along with the improvement in stone processing, the processing of other materials also improved - wood, horn and bone or tusk. Methods for drilling stone and bone appeared. Bone and horn were processed by scraping, cutting and sawing. Often the handle of the instrument was made from these materials, a longitudinal groove was carved into it, sharp flint plates were inserted into it and filled with resin.

Ancient tools were made from bone - awls and needles, which were practically no different from modern ones, except for the absence of an eye in them. Subsequent improvements in the processing of tools made it possible to apply various ornaments and designs to the surface of the tools. Such decoration of tools spoke of their importance: a well-made knife in ancient times could be passed on from generation to generation.

Tools of labor of primitive man

2.5 million - 1.5 million years BC e.

The basis of human formation is labor. Hands free from locomotor functions could use objects found in natural conditions - in nature - as tools. Although the use of a number of objects as means of labor is characteristic in embryonic form of some animal species, specific feature man is that he not only uses found objects as tools, but creates these tools himself. Along with the development of the brain and vision, this characteristic feature human creation creates the basic prerequisites for the formation of the human labor process and the development of technology.

Technical progress and the culture of mankind are now manifested not in randomly made primitive tools, but in the target orientation in their manufacture, in the similarity of examples of their processing, in the preservation or improvement of their forms, which presupposes knowledge of the characteristics of the raw materials and processed material and the experience accumulated over a certain time and skills passed on to future generations. All this had a huge impact on the development of the brain. Apparently, Australopithecus began to purposefully process wood and other materials.

The oldest primitive stone tools made from pebbles, made from similar patterns and processed in a similar way, were found with the remains of fossil hominids. The creator of these tools is considered to be a “skilled man” - homo habilis. By hunting animals they obtained not only food, but also skins, bones, tusks and horns of animals, which were used to make various tools. Long animal bones and antlers were used as tools without further processing. Sometimes they were only broken and split.

2.5 million – 600 thousand years BC e.

One of the prerequisites for labor and the production of standardized tools was the emergence and development of primitive speech. results modern research do not provide any basis for determining when speech arose. Apparently the person had fairly developed speech organs modern type– homo sapiens, which appeared about 40–30 thousand years ago.

For a very long period, until the advent of agriculture, people obtained their food in two ways - by collecting fruits, plants, gifts of nature and by hunting. Women and children collected fruits, seeds, roots, shellfish, eggs, insects, shells, and caught small animals. The men hunted large animal, caught fish and some species of birds. To hunt and catch animals, it was necessary to make tools. The division of labor between the sexes - between man and woman - is the first significant division of labor in the history of mankind, which, like the improvement and development of tools, is one of the most important conditions progress of civilization.

The production of tools from stone began - pebbles, granite, flint, slate, etc. These tools looked like a piece of stone, which, as a result of one or two chips, resulted in a sharper edge - a stone chopper. The cleaving technique was as follows: the manufacturer held the stone being processed in one hand, and in the other a boulder, which he used to hit the stone being processed. The resulting flakes were used as scrapes. Typically, the production of stone tools processed using the cleaving technique was carried out by older people. In some areas, this technique existed for almost 2 million years, that is, until the end of the Stone Age.

Production activity during that period became possible despite the limited technical means, thanks to collective work, which was facilitated by the emergence of speech. The most important role in the struggle for existence was played by purposeful social relations people, their courage and determination to survive in the fight against animals that were many times stronger than humans.

600 – 150 thousand years BC e.

500 thousand years BC e. Sananthropus - Peking Man - appeared in China.

200 thousand years BC e. Homo sapiens appeared in China.

The most important invention of this period was the creation of a new universal tool - a hand ax. In the beginning, hand axes were made using the chopping technique. One end was cut off on both sides, sharpening it. The opposite end of the pebble was left untreated, which made it possible to hold it in the palm of your hand. The result was a wedge-shaped weapon, with uneven zigzag edges and a pointed end. Then the working part of the weapon began to be corrected with two or three more chips, and sometimes the correction was done using a softer material, such as bone.

At the same time, along with the universal hand ax, several types of flakes appeared, which were obtained by splitting stones. These were thin flakes, flakes with sharp edges, short thick flakes. The cleaving technique spread during the Lower Paleolithic period (100 thousand - 40 thousand years BC). At sites inhabited by synanthropes, for example, in rock caves near Beijing, the remains of fires were found along with stone tools.

The use of fire is one of the most important stages in the development of mankind. The acquisition and use of fire made it possible to expand the possibilities of human settlement and existence, and created opportunities for the diversity of human nutrition and food preparation. Fire provided new ways of defense against predators. And nowadays fire is the basis for many branches of technology. In ancient times, people made fire only as a result natural phenomena- from fires, lightning, etc. The fire was kept in fire pits and constantly maintained.

Long wooden spears with burnt hard tips appear. The hunters who invented such spears also used hand axes when hunting animals.

150 – 40 thousand years BC e.

Neanderthals, and perhaps also some other ancestors of the human race, mastered the art of making fire during the Upper Paleolithic period. It is difficult to accurately determine the date of this great invention, which determined the further development of human history.

Initially, fire was obtained by rubbing wooden objects, but soon fire began to be obtained by carving, when a spark appeared when a stone hit a stone. There are other opinions regarding the original methods of making fire - at first fire was obtained by carving, and later by friction. In a later period, a bow-type device was used to make fire by friction. Having learned to make fire, man began to consume boiled meat, which affected his biological development. However, the fire could not save the person from the onset of cold weather. To survive, people began to build houses.

At this time, changes occurred in the methods and techniques of processing stone tools. They began to be made from flakes obtained by chipping from a stone nodule - a core (nucleus). The flint core was pre-processed. Round chips were used to give it a certain shape, the surface was leveled with smaller chips, after which plates were chipped from the core, from which points and scrapers were made. The blades were more elongated than the flakes, shaped and of a thinner cross-section; one side of the plate after chopping was smooth, and the other side was subjected to additional processing - finer beating.

Axes, chisels, drills and thin knife-shaped plates were made from stone cores. Animals were caught using specially dug holes. The organization of the team improves when expanding pasture farming and when hunting animals. As a rule, the hunt was of a driven-raid nature.

For dwellings, caves, rock terraces, primitive dugouts and buildings were used, the foundations of which went deep into the ground. Neanderthals conquered quite wide areas. Their traces were found in the North, in particular in the West Siberian Lowland, in Transbaikalia, and in the valley of the middle Lena. This became possible after man learned to make and use fire. At this time, natural conditions also change, affecting a person’s lifestyle. Long time, until the advent of metals, tools were made mainly of stone, hence the names Old Stone Age (Paleolithic), Middle Stone Age (Mesolithic) and New Stone Age (Neolithic). The Paleolithic, in turn, is divided into lower (early) and upper (late). After the Ice Age, a new geological era begins - the Holocene. The climate is getting warmer.

The development of cold regions involves new changes in human clothing. It began to be made from the skins of killed animals. Already during the Lower Paleolithic period, many tools were made from the bones and horns of animals, the processing of which became more advanced. Objects made from bones were twisted, cut, hewn, split, and polished.

40 thousand - 12 thousand years BC e.

The formation of the modern type of man has ended. His remains are found along with objects and tools that indicate the emergence of technology during the Lower Paleolithic period. Human settlements extend to larger territory globe. This became possible thanks to the improvement of his experience, knowledge, and the development of technology, which allowed man to adapt to different climatic conditions.

Stone plates and blades made using percussion technology appear. Thin-section plates were subjected to secondary processing using bone tools - retouchers. Retouchers are tools for touching up other tools and are the first tools in history to create other tools.

Various types of anvils were used as cores when retouching items. Universal axes are being replaced by specialized tools that were made using the chopping technique. In this case, narrow plates are cut off from the small core - blanks, which are subsequently subjected to secondary processing.

Primitive stone skins, axes, chisels, saws, scrapers, cutters, drills and many other tools are made. In the Paleolithic and especially in the Neolithic, the technique of drilling using stone drills originated and developed. At first, they simply scraped out the holes. Then they began to tie the stone drill to the shaft and rotate it with both hands. Inserted tools appeared: stone or flint plates were connected to a wooden or bone handle. With the help of improved tools, the production of wooden, bone and horn objects and tools is significantly expanding: awls, needles with holes, fishing rods, shovels, harpoons, etc. In Georgia, in the paleolithic cave of Sagvardzhile, Turitella shells were found, which served as decoration and had holes obtained by sawing and scratching. On the islands of Melanesia, primitive tribes, in order to make a hole, first heated a flat stone, and then dropped drops into the same place from time to time cold water, thereby causing microscopic chips, which, as a result of repeated repetition, led to the formation of a depression and even a hole.

In France, in Aurignac, the first bone needles were found at sites of the Upper Paleolithic period. Their age is attributed to approximately 28–24 millennium BC. e. They easily pierced skins, and instead of threads, plant fibers or animal tendons were used.

They are beginning to use improved insert drills, which were used to modify the gun. For example, insert tools were clamped and rotated between the palms. Then they began to use bow drilling (the bow string was wrapped around the shaft and the bow was moved away from you and towards you, with the other hand you held the shaft and pressed it against the workpiece), which turned out to be much more productive than manual drilling.

The technique of building dugouts is being improved, hut-type dwellings are being built, the bases of which go deep into the ground. The huts were reinforced with bones or fangs of large animals, which were also used to line the walls and ceilings. Huts with low clay walls and walls woven from branches and reinforced with poles or stakes appear. Liquid food products are heated and boiled in natural stone cavities, where hot stones are thrown for heating.

Clothing is made from animal skins. However, the leather is processed more carefully; individual skins are sewn together with animal tendons or thin leather straps. Leather processing technology is quite complex. The processing process is labor-intensive and includes chemical methods, in which the skin is soaked in a salt solution, then the fat and juice of the bark of various types of trees are rubbed into the flesh.

A man trains a dog to hunt an animal.

Sleighs were invented for land transportation of goods and for movement. By the end of this period, some types of raw materials are already transferred over long distances, for example, Armenian obsidian (volcanic glass), from which cutting and stabbing tools and other tools were made, is transported almost 400 km.

The first boats and rafts were made from a whole piece of wood for fishing. Fish are caught with fishing rods and harpoons, and nets appear.

Roofs made of brushwood are woven to cover the top of buildings. Making baskets is the beginning of the weaving technique.

Some archaeologists believe that the beginning of pottery was laid by the fact that woven baskets were coated with clay and then fired over a fire. Pottery and the production of ceramic products played a very important role in the history of technology, especially during the birth of metallurgy.

Examples of the beginning of ceramic production are clay figurines fired over fire.

Living in caves contributed to the emergence of lighting technology. The most ancient lamps were splinters, torches and primitive oil burners. From the Lower Paleolithic period, sandstone or granite bowls have been preserved, which were used as burners.

Along with household items, jewelry began to be made: beads made of coral and various teeth with holes in the middle, objects carved from bone and horns, and the first religious objects appeared. The first figurines of women, animals, ritual sculptures, and drawings, often beautifully executed, were found in the caves. Of interest is also the production of paints that have not changed their colors over tens of thousands of years.

During the Lower Paleolithic period, a new weapon was used to hunt animals and for self-defense - the spear thrower. The use of a spear thrower is an example of the use of leverage, which increases the speed and distance of a spear's flight.

The bow with a string, which hits a target at a great distance, is the pinnacle of invention at the end of this period. The bow as a weapon was successfully used for many millennia, right up to our era. Some researchers believe that the bow was invented approximately 12 thousand years ago, but arrowheads found during excavations indicate that they were made in an earlier period. The bow made it possible to successfully hunt animals, which, according to some scientists, led to the complete destruction of many species of animals and forced hunters to look for new opportunities for existence, that is, to switch to agriculture.

Fire is produced using a bow-type device.

Towards the end of the Lower Paleolithic period, the first mines were laid for the underground extraction of raw materials, primarily flint, slate, and later limestone, from which jewelry was made. In some areas, on the territory of the initial surface mining, holes are deepened, shafts are dug, adits are diverted from them, and stairs are built. This is how a new branch of production arises - mining. Raw materials were obtained by a primitive method of cutting down rock in mines and by chipping or sawing off layers of rock.

12 - 10 thousand BC e.

At the end of the Ice Age, as well as during the Holocene era, many species of large animals, such as the mammoth, musk ox, and woolly rhinoceros, became extinct. As a result, hunters began to specialize in catching a specific animal. Some groups of hunters hunt reindeer, others hunt gazelles, fallow deer, bezoar goats, etc. Herds of wild animals, near which hunters settled, represented a kind of natural reserve of food and meat. The proximity of settlements to natural pastures allowed hunters to catch wild animals and keep them near their homes. This is how the process of domestication of animals occurs, primarily sheep and goats. Gradually, conditions for the emergence of pasture farming are beginning to be created.

In the countries of Western Asia, the practice of regularly harvesting wild cereals - barley, oats, and einkorn wheat - is spreading. The grains were ground in special mortars. Manual stone grain grinders and grain graters appear.

10 – 8 thousand years BC e. Beginning of the Neolithic period. Climatic conditions become similar to modern ones, glaciers are retreating. Natural conditions, especially in the mountainous regions of Western Asia, the southern part of North America, etc., do not contribute to the expansion of hunting, creating the preconditions for the emergence Agriculture. In Russia, in Siberia, an abrasive tool was found, consisting of two stone bars with conical grooves, intended for making bone needles, awls or arrowheads. A workpiece was placed between the bars in the groove. Then they began to rotate it and move it in a back-and-forth motion, gradually moving it deeper into the conical hole, squeezing both halves of the bars with their hands and adding water. As a result of using such a tool, exactly identical sharp and even needles or arrowheads appeared. An ancient bone needle with a small hole drilled in it was found.

9500 BC e.

In some regions of the globe, primarily in the countries of Western Asia, the foundations of agriculture are being formed, which represents an epoch-making phenomenon in the history of mankind.

As a result of inefficient farming, only a limited number of people could count on a constant supply of food. However, with the development of agriculture and cattle breeding, man began to produce more than was necessary for his own needs - to obtain a surplus product, which allowed some people to feed themselves at the expense of the labor of others. The excess product created the prerequisites for the separation of crafts into an independent branch of production, which, first of all, created the conditions for the emergence of cities and the development of civilization. The process of establishing agriculture lasted several millennia.

Agriculture made it possible to create and store grain reserves for a long time. This helps people gradually transition to a sedentary lifestyle, build permanent homes, public buildings, allows them to organize more efficient farming, and later carry out specialization and division of labor.

Single-grain wheat began to be cultivated primarily in southern Turkey, double-grain wheat in the valley of southern Jordan, and double-row barley in northern Iraq and western Iran. Lentils spread quickly in Palestine, later peas and other crops appeared there.

The crop fields were first cultivated with poles pointed at the ends. However, tools intended for cultivating the soil were known earlier, before the advent of agriculture.

Gradually, improved tools for harvesting and reaping appeared: knives, sickles, flails, hand grain grinders with a mortar.

Simultaneously with the emergence of agriculture, the domestication of wild animals began - goats, sheep, and later large cattle, pigs, etc. Instead of ineffective hunting and trapping of wild animals, productive forms of farming such as livestock breeding are being created.

Cattle breeding provides humans with meat and other food products, as well as clothing, raw materials for making tools, etc. Later, domestic animals are used as draft power. The question of whether agriculture or cattle breeding arose first is debated. Agriculture and cattle breeding are closely related. The domestication of wild animals apparently began in northern Syria or Anatolia (Turkey).

During this period, insert tools spread, the base of which was made of wood or bone, and the working part was made of a set of small stone plates, called microliths. The plates were most often made from flint, obsidian or other minerals. Thus, various knives, sickle-shaped tools, cutters with a blunt back or beveled edge, axes, hammers, hoes and other tools are created. These tools were used not only by the first farmers, but also by the majority of hunters, who began to cultivate the land much later, in subsequent millennia.

With the invention and widespread introduction of insert tools, a technical revolution occurred. Flint knives, saws, and chisels were placed into a wooden or bone base and secured with bitumen. One of the first composite and complex insert weapons was the bow and arrow. By the time the onion was invented in its economic activity people used various household devices - spear throwers, traps, traps.

The invention of the bow could have been prompted by the use of various throwing devices: spears, planks for throwing darts, etc. A person observed how energy was accumulated when bending branches or young trees, and released when straightening. The most ancient simple bows were made from a single bent stick, the ends of which were tied together with a bowstring made from animal tendons. At one end of the bow the string was attached with a knot, at the other it was put on with a loop. Compared to a spear, the use of a bow and arrow made it possible to increase the speed and distance of the arrow several times. In addition, the bow, compared to other throwing weapons, had aiming quality.

The arrow was made of wood, and the tip was made of microliths. Such arrows were light and long-range. The sizes of the bows varied - from 60 cm to 2 m or more. The bow quickly found use among different tribes and peoples. The image of a simple bow is found on ancient Assyrian and Egyptian monuments. He was known to the Romans, Gauls, and Germans. The Greeks, Scythians, Sarmatians, Huns and some other peoples used a more effective complex bow, which was glued together from several parts, from different types of wood, horn or bone.

The use of bows and arrows significantly increased human productivity and greatly facilitated the life of hunting tribes. In addition, it freed up time for collecting edible plants, including cereals, taming wild animals, fishing, collecting snails and mollusks. This was important because hunting did not satisfy the need for food. The bow and arrow laid the foundation for the technical prerequisites for the transition from hunting to agriculture and cattle breeding.

Microliths were used for many tools, including knives and then sickles. Fundamentally new means of labor, which found various economic applications, created the necessary technical prerequisites for the transition from hunting to agriculture and cattle breeding, that is, to a producing economy.

Sedentary farmers begin to build large residential buildings. Houses are built from twigs and coated with clay. Walls are sometimes built from separate layers of wet clay; mud bricks appear, stone buildings are erected. In some settlements of Western Asia in the 10th - 9th millennium BC. e. Up to 200 people lived there. Clay ovens were laid inside the structure and granaries were built for storing grain. A matting appears. Lime plaster is invented, which is used to coat buildings.

8 thousand years BC e.

A fortified city with about 3 thousand inhabitants was built in Jericho. The houses, round in plan, were built of mud brick. The entire city was surrounded by a wall of rubble stone with massive towers eight meters in diameter and 8 meters high. The height of the fortress walls was 4.2 meters. The walls were made of stone squares 2? 2 meters weighing several tons each. In the 8th millennium BC. e. and in subsequent millennia there were other fortresses.

Raw materials become traded items and are transported over long distances. Obsidian from Anatolia (Turkey) is transported to cities located at distances of over 1000 km. Some sources indicate that Jericho owes its power and prosperity to the obsidian trade.

The production of household ceramics emerges. Special ceramic or pottery kilns are built for firing clay objects and dishes.

8 – 6 thousand BC e.

The Neolithic, New Stone Age received its name due to the widespread introduction of new methods of processing large stone tools. Thus, a new method of processing stone tools by grinding, drilling and sawing appears. First, the workpiece is made, then the workpiece is ground. These techniques made it possible to move on to processing new, harder types of stone: basalt, jade, jadeite and others, which began to serve as the raw material for creating stone axes, hoes, chisels, picks. Various tools for working wood, mainly pointed axes, chisels and other tools, were embedded in a wooden base.

During processing, tools are cut and sawed with stone saws without teeth. Quartz sand served as an abrasive. Dry and wet grinding was used using special stone blocks. Sometimes grinding is carried out using sanding blocks, which are given appropriate profiles. Drilling holes, primarily cylindrical ones, using tubular bones or bamboo trunks, sharpened in the shape of teeth, is common. Sand was used as an abrasive. The use of sawing, drilling, and grinding made it possible to achieve a certain shape and cleanliness of the surface of the tool. Working with ground tools reduced the resistance of the material of the object being processed, which led to an increase in labor productivity. Over time, the grinding technique reaches high level. Great importance Tribes who occupied forest areas had polished axes. Without such a tool in these areas, the transition to agriculture would be very difficult.

With polished stone axes, rigidly attached to a wooden handle through drilled cylindrical holes, they began to cut down forests, hollow out boats, and build houses.

8 - 7 thousand BC e. Already early landowners became familiar with metal. In Anatolia (Turkey) and Iran, individual objects and decorations, tools made of copper by cold metal processing were discovered: piercings, beads, awls. However, this method of making tools cannot yet replace the traditional technique of making tools from stone. The final transition from stone tools to metal ones occurred during the period of the slave system.

7 thousand BC e.

The formation of craft production begins.

The settlement of Çatalhöyük in Anatolia was built according to a single plan. It is located near a copper ore deposit, which was developed in II BC. e. For the construction of houses, they began to produce adobe blocks - mud bricks. Their shape was elongated or oval, width 20–25 cm, length – 65–70 cm. They were sculpted from clay mixed with coarsely chopped straw. The oval shape of the brick did not allow the walls of the houses to be made strong; they often collapsed. At the same time, the house was not restored, but rebuilt on the site of the previous building. The bricks were held together with clay and adobe mortar. The floors were painted white or brown.

Rectangular houses, usually one-room, are closely adjacent to each other, the roofs are high and ribbed. Inside there was a rectangular hearth. The length of the living quarters reaches 10 m, the width - 6 m. In the city itself there are many beautifully decorated religious buildings - sanctuaries. By their nature, they differed from residential buildings only in their larger sizes.

Gradually, crafts emerge and people who specialize in them appear. First of all, the profession of a miner stands out. Developments of flint from the Neolithic period were found in France, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and England. One of the ancient monuments mining - primitive mines for flint extraction. Large flint-working workshops were discovered in Romania, Moldova, and Ukraine.

Open-pit workings gave way to mine developments. The oldest mines were shallow. The high quality of flint and its beautiful patterned design caused great demand for it.

Remains of textiles have been found in Anatolia, which proves the existence of spinning fabric from raw materials plant origin and weaving on machines. Patterns woven on textiles have been discovered that resemble patterns on modern Turkish carpets. The raw material for spinning was wool, then silk, cotton and flax. Spinning was carried out in various ways, for example, by twisting the fibers between the palms.

Then spinning was carried out using a spindle with a whorl and a slingshot. At one end of the spindle there was yarn, at the other there was a spindle made of stone or clay to ensure rotation. In this case, the fibers were twisted into a strong thread and wound onto a spindle. They wove on primitive handlooms with a horizontal or vertical warp. The design of the machine was very simple. Two posts were driven into the ground, on which a horizontal bolster was secured. The main threads were tied to the roller, which were pulled with weights. The weft thread was wound around a stick with a pointed end. The weaver pushed this stick with the thread with his fingers alternately above and below the warp threads. Woven fabric and woven matting were dyed. Vegetable dyes, such as moraine, were used as dyes.

In the most developed areas of Western Asia, a further division of labor occurs. Part of the population is not directly involved in food production, but is engaged in handicraft production - the manufacture of tools, instruments, and household items. This division of labor between the farmer and the artisan gradually acquired significant significance for the development of technology and production, for the emergence of cities and the first state institutions.

7 - 6 thousand BC e. In Anatolia, copper was smelted from ore for the first time, as well as tin. Based on the results of studies of the preserved ash, scientists claim that the smelting temperature reached more than 1000 degrees Celsius. Experts express the opinion that copper was smelted from malachite, and brown coal was used as fuel. Over the next millennium, this method of copper metallurgy spreads to the emerging and developing cities of the Middle East.