Archaeological periodization of the history of primitive society. Chronology and periodization in the study of history
The primitive era of mankind is the period that lasted before the invention of writing. In the 19th century it received a slightly different name - “prehistoric”. If you do not delve into the meaning of this term, then it unites the entire time period, starting from the origin of the Universe. But in a narrower perception, we are talking only about the past of the human species, which lasted until a certain period (it was mentioned above). If the media, scientists or other people use the word “prehistoric” in official sources, then the period in question must be indicated.
Although the characteristics of the primitive era have been developed by researchers bit by bit for several centuries in a row, discoveries of new facts relating to that time are still being made. Due to the lack of writing, people compare data from archaeological, biological, ethnographic, geographical and other sciences for this purpose.
Development of the primitive era
Throughout the development of mankind, various options for classifying prehistoric time have been constantly proposed. Historians Ferguson and Morgan divided it into several stages: savagery, barbarism and civilization. The primitive era of humanity, which includes the first two components, is divided into three more periods:
Stone Age
The primitive era received its periodization. We can highlight the main stages, among which was and At this time, all weapons and objects for everyday life were made, as you might guess, from stone. Sometimes people used wood and bones in their works. Towards the end of this period, clay dishes appeared. Thanks to the achievements of this century, the area of human settlement on the inhabited territories of the planet has changed greatly, and it was also as a result of it that human evolution began. We are talking about anthropogenesis, i.e. the process of the emergence of intelligent beings on the planet. The end of the Stone Age was marked by the domestication of wild animals and the beginning of the smelting of certain metals.
According to time periods, the primitive era to which this century belongs was divided into stages:
Copper Age
The eras of primitive society, having a chronological sequence, characterize the development and formation of life in different ways. In different territorial regions the period lasted for different times (or did not exist at all). The Eneolithic could have been combined with the Bronze Age, although scientists still distinguish it as a separate period. The approximate time period is 3-4 thousand years. It is logical to assume that this primitive era was usually characterized by the use of copper devices. However, the stone never went out of fashion. Acquaintance with new material happened rather slowly. When people found it, they thought it was a stone. The usual treatment at that time - hitting one piece against another - did not give the usual effect, but still the copper was deformable. When cold forging was introduced into everyday life, work with it went better.
Bronze Age
This primitive era became one of the main ones, according to some scientists. People learned to process certain materials (tin, copper), due to which they achieved the appearance of bronze. Thanks to this invention, a collapse began at the end of the century, which occurred quite synchronously. We are talking about the destruction of human associations - civilizations. This entailed a long development of the Iron Age in a certain area and a too long continuation of the Bronze Age. The latter in the eastern part of the planet lasted a record number of decades. It ended with the emergence of Greece and Rome. The century is divided into three periods: early, middle and late. During all these periods, the architecture of that time actively developed. It was she who influenced the formation of religion and the worldview of society.
Iron Age
Considering the eras of primitive history, we can come to the conclusion that it was the last one before the advent of intelligent writing. Simply put, this century was conditionally singled out as a separate one, since objects made of iron appeared and were widely used in all spheres of life.
Iron smelting was a fairly labor-intensive process for that century. After all, it was impossible to obtain real material. This is due to the fact that it corrodes easily and does not withstand many climate changes. In order to obtain it from ore, a much higher temperature was required than for bronze. And iron casting was mastered after too long a period of time.
The emergence of power
Of course, the emergence of power was not long in coming. There have always been leaders in society, even if we are talking about the primitive era. During this period, there were no institutions of power, and there was no political dominance either. Here, social norms were given more importance. They invested in customs, “laws of life,” traditions. Under the primitive system, all requirements were explained in sign language, and violations of them were punished by an outcast from society.
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Periodization of primitive history
The oldest period of human history (prehistory) - from the appearance of the first people to the emergence of the first states - was called the primitive communal system, or primitive society. At this time, there was a change not only in the physical type of a person, but also in tools, housing, forms of organization of groups, family, worldview, etc. Taking these components into account, scientists have put forward a number of systems for the periodization of primitive history.
The most developed is archaeological periodization, which is based on a comparison of human-made tools, their materials, forms of dwellings, burials, etc. According to this principle, the history of human civilization is divided into centuries - stone, bronze and iron. In the Stone Age, which is usually identified with the primitive communal system, three eras are distinguished: Paleolithic (Greek - ancient stone) - up to 12 thousand years ago, Mesolithic (middle stone) - up to 9 thousand years ago, Neolithic (new stone ) – up to 6 thousand years ago.
Epochs are divided into periods - early (lower), middle and late (upper), as well as into cultures characterized by a uniform complex of artifacts. The culture is named according to the place of its modern location (“Chelles” - near the city of Chelles in Northern France, “Kostenki” - from the name of a village in Ukraine) or according to other characteristics, for example: “culture of battle axes”, “culture of log burials”, etc. .
The creator of the Lower Paleolithic cultures was a man like Pithecanthropus or Sinanthropus, the Middle Paleolithic was a Neanderthal, and the Upper Paleolithic was a Cro-Magnon man. This definition is based on archaeological research in Western Europe and cannot be fully extended to other regions. On the territory of the former USSR, about 70 sites of the Lower and Middle Paleolithic and about 300 sites of the Upper Paleolithic have been studied - from the Prut River in the west to Chukotka in the east.
During the Paleolithic period, people initially made rough hand axes from flint, which were standardized tools. Then the production of specialized tools begins - these are knives, piercings, scrapers, composite tools, such as a stone axe. The Mesolithic is dominated by microliths - tools made of thin stone plates, which were inserted into a bone or wooden frame.
It was then that the bow and arrows were invented. The Neolithic is characterized by the production of polished tools from soft stones - jade, slate, slate. Master the technique of sawing and drilling holes in stone.
The Stone Age is replaced by a short period of the Eneolithic, i.e. the existence of cultures with copper-stone tools.
The Bronze Age (Latin – Chalcolithic; Greek – Chalcolithic) began in Europe from the 3rd millennium BC. At this time, in many regions of the planet, the first states emerged, civilizations developed - Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Mediterranean (Early Minoan, Early Helladic), Mexican and Peruvian in America. On the Lower Don, settlements of this time have been studied in Kobyakovo, Gnilovskaya, Safyanovo, and on the shores of the Manych lakes.
The first iron products appeared on the territory of Russia in the 10th–7th centuries. BC – among the tribes that lived in the North Caucasus (Scythians, Cimmerians), in the Volga region (Dyakovo culture), Siberia and other regions. Let us note that frequent and massive migrations of various peoples from the east, passing through the territory of Central Russia and the Don steppes, destroyed the settlements of the sedentary population, destroyed entire cultures that could, under favorable conditions, develop into civilizations and states.
Another system of periodization, based on a comprehensive description of material and spiritual cultures, was proposed in the 70s of the 19th century. L. Morgan. In this case, the scientist was based on a comparison of ancient cultures with modern cultures of the American Indians. According to this system, primitive society is divided into three periods: savagery, barbarism and civilization.
The period of savagery is the time of the early tribal system (Paleolithic and Mesolithic), it ends with the invention of the bow and arrow. During the period of barbarism, ceramic products appeared, agriculture and animal husbandry appeared. The civilization is characterized by the emergence of bronze metallurgy, writing and states.
In the 40s of the XX century. Soviet scientists P.P. Efimenko, M.O. Kosven, A.I. Pershits et al. proposed systems for the periodization of primitive society, the criteria of which were the evolution of forms of ownership, the degree of division of labor, family relationships, etc.
In general terms, such periodization can be represented as follows:
- the era of the primitive herd;
- the era of the tribal system;
- the era of the decomposition of the communal-tribal system (the emergence of cattle breeding, plow farming and metal processing, the emergence of elements of exploitation and private property).
All of these periodization systems are imperfect in their own way. There are many examples when stone tools of Paleolithic or Mesolithic form were used by the peoples of the Far East in the 16th-17th centuries, while they had a tribal society and developed forms of religion and family. Therefore, the optimal periodization system should take into account the largest number of indicators of social development.
The history of primitive society (hereinafter referred to as IPS) is the oldest stage in the history of mankind, the longest chronologically. The term was introduced by Soviet scientists. In foreign literature it is called “prehistory”, “prehistory” (due to the lack of writing). The subject of IPE research is the society and culture of mankind, physiology, and intellectual abilities. IPO is part of a unified historical science. Specifics: other historical disciplines are based on the study of written sources; IPO has practically no such sources. Historians are forced to reconstruct the IPO based on data from archaeology, ethnology, paleoanthropology, paleozoology, and paleobotany. Reconstruction of IPO is the result of a synthesis of data from a number of other sciences. The main aspect of such research (DNA) is that it allows us to reconstruct the history of the emergence of man himself.
The extreme similarity of humans at the level of DNA structure is observed with monkeys, especially with chimpanzees, with whom we are almost 99% similar at the genetic level. (+33% with Narcissus, 75% with a dog). This again proves the origin of man from one of the species of fossil apes.
Historiography of the history of primitive society.
The earliest information about primitiveness is ethno-observations of ancient Eastern civilizations. Writing begins with Ancient Egypt. Egyptian texts contain information about neighbors who were at a lower stage of development. In ancient times, the center of civilization was the Mediterranean, and the peoples of this area - the Greeks and Romans - were considered civilized. Ancient researchers were also interested in them; there is quite a lot of material in ancient literature about peoples who were lower in the level of development of Ancient Greece and Rome. In the Middle Ages, Western Europe experienced an era of decline and stagnation of scientific thought. All the postulates of the Holy Scriptures were taken on faith. The concept of primitiveness remained entirely dogmatically Christian. This means that the entire history of mankind began with Adam and Eve. With the beginning of the Age of Discovery, Europeans encountered peoples who were at a significantly lower stage of development. Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, outlined in 1859, is important for understanding human development. Subsequently, an increasing number of finds of ancient remains of the human skeleton began to confirm this theory. XX century – large scientific in-depth processing, a large number of new archaeological discoveries, involvement of data from natural science disciplines. The modern stage: clarification and addition of the ancestral forms of man. Further development of Darwin's theory of evolution in connection with advances in genetics.
Chronology of the history of primitive society.
About 6 thousand years have passed since the emergence of the first states and writing. Regarding the chronology of IPO, two types of definition of events and phenomena should be distinguished:
- absolute chronology - when a specific, more or less exact date of an event is indicated (for example, a year, a century, the number of thousands of years ago),
- relative chronology, when, considering and comparing a number of events and phenomena, we only determine their position in time relative to each other, without naming specific dates (for example: site A existed before site B, but later than site C).
As for the methods of absolute chronology, they are based on chemical studies. The decay rate of radioactive elements is constant and practically independent of environmental conditions. Knowing this speed, and measuring the content of such elements in an archaeological find, it is possible to calculate how much time has passed since the death of the organism or the manufacture of the tool. Methods of relative chronology are methods, primarily geological and paleontological, the essence of which is to identify the relative positions of various geological and cultural layers, i.e., in other words, to establish and study stratigraphy. Periodization is closely related to chronology.
Periodization of the history of primitive society.
Archaeological periodization was created in the 19th century, it is based on the use of raw materials from which tools were made, Thomsen. The whole history is divided into three centuries: stone (rp - 2-3 million - 250 thousand BC; SRP - 250-40 thousand BC; vp - 40-12 thousand BC. ; Mes - 10-5 thousand BC; Neo - 5-3 thousand BC; Eneo - 3-2 thousand BC), bronze (2 thousand BC) – 8th century BC) and iron (8-7th century BC). John Lubbock, Paleolithic and Neolithic. O. Thorell, Mesolithic.
Geology is the science of changes in the earth's surface and its structure. The last 65 million years of Earth's history is called the Cenozoic era. The final stage of the Cenozoic is usually distinguished as the Quaternary period. Eocene - 54 million (monkeys), Oligocene (38 million), Miocene - 23 million (Hominoids), Pliocene - 5.5 million (Hominids), Pleistocene - 1.7 million, Holocene - 10 thousand BC. e.
A large number of tools - additional periods (stone processing techniques, tool processing). Frenchman Gabriel de Mortilley Chelle, Acheuleur, Mousterian.
Introduction
About 3 million years ago, man separated from the animal world. The formation of modern man dates back to 35 - 10 thousand years ago. And only 5 - 1 thousand years ago, classes and states took shape in different parts of the globe. Scientists have calculated that if the entire history of mankind is equated to one day, then the time from the formation of classes to the present day will take only 4 minutes.
In the entire history of mankind, the primitive communal system lasted the longest - more than a million years. It is not easy to determine its lower limit with any certainty, since in the newly discovered bone remains of our distant ancestors, most experts see either a pre-human or a human, and from time to time the prevailing opinion changes. Currently, some scientists believe that ancient man (and thus primitive society) arose 1.5 - 1 million years ago, others attribute his appearance to a time of more than 2.5 million years ago. The upper limit of the primitive communal system fluctuates within the last 5 thousand years, differing on different continents. In Asia and Africa, the first class societies and states emerged at the turn of the 4th and 3rd millennia BC, in America - in the 1st millennium AD, in other areas of the ecumene - even later.
The history of the emergence of human beings from animals is still a mystery of nature. Where, when and why man and the human community appeared - there is still no consensus among scientists. And the question is very interesting, especially since there are no monuments of that time - neither written nor architectural. All that remains is to examine the skeletal remains of ancient people, excavate burials and dwellings of people - and on the basis of such meager material, draw general conclusions, make far-reaching assumptions, talk about the origins of modern man and modern civilizations. In this regard, a later time, the Copper or Bronze and Iron Age, is a more “fertile” soil for historical research - monuments, including written and architectural, of that time have still been preserved enough, and therefore the mysteries generated by that stage of history are all much less. That is why the purpose of this work is to reveal the specifics of psychology in the ancient past of mankind, especially since recent decades have brought many sensational discoveries that in many ways overturn our ideas about the ancient history of mankind.
Periodization of primitive history.
Let us note right away that at present, among scientists involved in the study of the ancient history of mankind, there is no consensus on the periodization of this history. There are several special and general (historical) periodizations of primitive history, partly reflecting the nature of the disciplines that participate in their development.
Of the special periodizations, the most important is the archaeological one, based on differences in the material and technique of making tools. The division of ancient history into three centuries, already known to ancient Chinese and ancient Roman philosophers - stone, bronze (copper) and iron - received scientific development in the 19th - early 20th centuries, when the epochs and stages of these centuries were mainly typologized.
At the dawn of the cultural development of mankind, the Stone Age period was distinguished, its duration being several hundred times longer than the entire subsequent history of mankind, and periodization within this period was carried out in accordance with the change and complexity of the forms of stone implements. Within the Paleolithic, as already mentioned, the eras of the Lower, Middle and Upper Paleolithic are usually distinguished; the Olduvian stage, characteristic of Australopithecines, precisely represents the beginning of the Lower Paleolithic era. It is this era that correlates within a broad chronological framework with the time of Pithecanthropus, its duration is enormous, and it itself reveals significant dynamics in the forms of settlements of the most ancient groups of people and the types of stone tools they made.
So, the Stone Age begins with the Old Stone (Paleolithic), in which most scientists now distinguish the eras of the Early (Lower), Middle and Late (Upper) Paleolithic.
This is followed by the transitional era of the Middle Stone Age (Mesolithic), which is sometimes called the “post-Paleolithic” (Epipalaeolithic), or “pre-Neolithic” (Protoneolithic), but sometimes is not distinguished at all.
The final era of the Stone Age is the New Stone Age (Neolithic). At the end of it, the first tools made of copper appear, which gives grounds to talk about a special stage of the Eneolithic, or Chalcolithic.
The schemes of internal periodization of the New Stone, Bronze and Iron Ages at the stage of different researchers differ greatly from each other. Even more distinct are the cultures or phases distinguished within the stages, named after the areas where they were first discovered.
For most of the ecumene, the Lower Paleolithic ended approximately 100 thousand years ago, the Middle Paleolithic - 45 - 40 thousand, the Upper Paleolithic - 12 - 10 thousand, the Mesolithic - no earlier than 8 thousand and the Neolithic - no earlier than 5 thousand years ago. . The Bronze Age lasted until the beginning of the 1st millennium BC. e., when the Iron Age began.
Archaeological periodization is entirely based on technological criteria and does not provide a complete picture of the development of production as a whole. Currently, archaeological periodization has turned from global into a set of regional ones, but even in this form it retains considerable significance.
The paleoanthropological (paleanthropological) periodization of primitive history, based on the criterion of human biological evolution, is more limited in its goals. This is the identification of the eras of the existence of the most ancient, ancient and fossil modern man, i.e. archanthropus, paleoanthropus (paleanthropus) and neoanthropus. The taxonomy of people themselves, identified as a family of hominids or a subfamily of hominins, their genera and species, as well as their names, varies greatly among different researchers. The most controversial periodization is the place of the so-called skilled man, in whom some researchers still see a pre-man, others - already a man. Nevertheless, paleoanthropological periodization in its most established part echoes the archaeological periodization of primitiveness.
A special aspect of the periodization of primitive history is its division into the history of primitive societies that existed before the emergence of the first civilizations, and societies that coexisted with these and later civilizations. In Western literature they are distinguished as, on the one hand, prehistory, on the other, proto-, para- or ethnohistory, which refers not only to branches of science, but also to the eras they study. But this is mainly a source-study distinction: prehistory is studied mainly archaeologically, protohistory - also with the help of written information from civilizations neighboring primitive societies, i.e. historically itself. Meanwhile, the distinction between these and other societies also has a substantive and historical significance. Both of them belong to the same socio-economic formation, since the criterion for belonging to a formation is the method of production, and not the era of its existence. However, they are not identical in the degree of independence of their development: as a rule, the former experienced less outside influences than the latter. Therefore, recently many researchers distinguish them as apopolitean primitive societies (APO) and synpolitean primitive societies (SPO).
Despite the importance of special periodizations of primitive history, not one of them is able to replace the general (historical) periodization of the ancient past of mankind, the development of which has been going on for more than a century, mainly based on ethnographic and archaeological data.
The first serious attempt in this direction was made by the outstanding American ethnographer L. G. Morgan, who came close to the historical-materialist understanding of primitive history. Using what was established in the 18th century. dividing the historical process into eras of savagery, barbarism and civilization and based mainly on the criterion of the level of development of the productive forces (“production of the means of living”), he identified in each of the named eras the lowest, middle and highest stages. The lowest stage of savagery begins with the appearance of man and articulate speech, the middle - with the advent of fishing and the use of fire, the highest - with the invention of the bow and arrow. The transition to the lower stage of barbarism is marked by the spread of ceramics, to the middle - by the development of agriculture and cattle breeding, to the highest - by the introduction of iron. With the invention of hieroglyphic or alphabetic writing, the era of civilization begins.
This periodization was highly appreciated by F. Engels, who at the same time initiated its re-examination. He generalized Morgan's periodization, defining the era of savagery as the time of the appropriating, and the era of barbarism as the time of the producing economy. He also emphasized the qualitative originality of the initial. corresponding to the lowest stage of savagery, the stage of primitive history as a kind of formative period of the “human herd”. The same qualitative originality of the final stage of primitive history, corresponding to the highest stage of barbarism, was shown by him in a special chapter (“Barbarism and Civilization”) of his work “The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State.” The underestimation in Morgan's scheme of the fundamental facets separating the stage of maturity of primitive society from the stages of its formation and decline, and the significant expansion in the future of factual material, made it necessary to develop a new historical-materialist periodization of primitive history.
A number of periodizations were proposed in Soviet science in the pre-war and especially in the post-war years, but even the most thoughtful of them did not stand the test of time. In particular, it turned out that using only the level of development of productive forces as a criterion for periodizing primitive history leads to theoretical inconsistencies. Thus, even the creators of some civilizations did not yet know the industrial use of metals, while some of the late primitive tribes had already mastered iron smelting. To get out of this contradiction, one would have to take into account the level of relative rather than absolute productive forces, and thereby ultimately abandon the monistic principle of periodization. Therefore, scientists, and above all ethnographers, turned to the criterion on which the formational division of the entire historical process is based: differences in the method of production and, in particular, in the forms of production relations. In this regard, an attempt was made to trace the development of forms of primitive property, which led to the identification, in addition to the stage of the primitive human herd, of the stages of the primitive clan community and the primitive neighboring community.
The historical-materialistic periodization of primitive history is based on the evolution of productive forces. In accordance with this scheme, the history of human society is divided into three large stages depending on the material from which the tools used by man were made: Stone Age - 3 million years ago - the end of the 3rd millennium BC; Bronze Age - from the end of the 3rd millennium BC. - 1st millennium BC; Iron Age - from the 1st millennium BC
A general periodization of primitive history has been and is also being developed by many Western researchers. Such attempts are made primarily by some historically oriented scientists in the United States. The most common distinction is between egalitarian and stratified, or hierarchical, societies. Egalitarian societies correspond to societies of the era of the primitive tribal community, stratified societies correspond to societies of the era of class formation. Ranked societies will often get in the way between egalitarian and stratified. At the same time, supporters of these schemes believe that in ranked societies there is only social inequality, and in stratified societies there is also property inequality. The most significant and attractive feature of these schemes is their recognition of the egalitarian character of primitive society, that is, primitive collectivism. V.P. Alekseev, A.I. Pershits. “History of primitive society.” M. 1990. S. 6 - 16
Thus, there are more than enough criteria for the periodization of human history - they can be found for every “taste and color,” i.e. There is no problem of classifying certain primitive communities, tools or tools, even fossilized remains. There is a problem with the so-called “homeland of humanity.”
So, views on the nature of the main epochs of primitive history are more uniform than views on their relationship with archaeological and paleoanthropological eras. Only if we proceed from the most established points of view, the eras of general (historical) periodization can be compiled with the most important links of archaeological and paleoanthropological schemes in the following way.
It is even more difficult to indicate the absolute age of these eras, and not only because of differences in views on their relationship with archaeological and paleoanthropological eras. After all, starting from the time of the early primitive community, humanity developed extremely unevenly, which led to the above-mentioned coexistence of societies that were very different in their stage affiliation.
Currently, among scientists involved in the study of the ancient history of mankind, there is no consensus on the periodization of this history. There are several special and general (historical) periodizations of primitive history, partly reflecting the nature of the disciplines that participate in their development.
Of the special periodizations, the most important is the archaeological one, based on differences in the material and technique of making tools. The division of ancient history into three centuries, already known to ancient Chinese and ancient Roman philosophers - stone, bronze (copper) and iron - received scientific development in the 19th - early 20th centuries, when the epochs and stages of these centuries were mainly typologized.
At the dawn of the cultural development of mankind, a period of the Stone Age was distinguished, the duration of which was several hundred times longer than the entire subsequent history of mankind, and periodization within this period was carried out in accordance with the change and complication of the forms of stone implements. Within the Paleolithic, as already mentioned, the epochs of the Lower, Middle and Upper Paleolithic are usually distinguished; the Olduvian stage, characteristic of Australopithecines, precisely represents the beginning of the Lower Paleolithic era. It is this era that correlates within a broad chronological framework with the time of Pithecanthropus, its duration is enormous, and it itself reveals significant dynamics in the forms of settlements of the most ancient groups of people and the types of stone tools they made.
So, the Stone Age begins with the Old Stone (Paleolithic), in which most scientists now distinguish the eras of the Early (Lower), Middle and Late (Upper) Paleolithic.
This is followed by the transitional era of the Middle Stone Age (Mesolithic), which is sometimes called the “post-Paleolithic” (Epipalaeolithic), or “pre-Neolithic” (Protoneolithic), but sometimes is not distinguished at all.
The final era of the Stone Age is the New Stone Age (Neolithic). At the end of it, the first tools made of copper appear, which gives grounds to talk about a special stage of the Eneolithic, or Chalcolithic.
The internal periodization schemes of the New Stone, Bronze and Iron Ages at the stage of different researchers differ greatly from each other. Even more distinct are the cultures or phases distinguished within the stages, named after the areas where they were first discovered.
For most of the ecumene, the Lower Paleolithic ended approximately 100 thousand years ago, the Middle Paleolithic - 45 - 40 thousand years ago, the Upper Paleolithic - 12 - 10 thousand years ago, the Mesolithic - no earlier than 8 thousand years ago and the Neolithic - no earlier than 5 thousand years ago. The Bronze Age lasted until the beginning of the 1st millennium BC. e., when the Iron Age began.
Archaeological periodization is entirely based on technological criteria and does not provide a complete picture of the development of production as a whole. Currently, archaeological periodization has turned from global to a set of regional ones, but even in this form it retains considerable significance.
The paleoanthropological (paleanthropological) periodization of primitive history, based on the criterion of human biological evolution, is more limited in its goals. This is the identification of the eras of the existence of the most ancient, ancient and fossil modern man, i.e. archanthropus, paleoanthropus (paleanthropus) and neoanthropus. The taxonomy of people themselves, identified as a family of hominids or a subfamily of hominins, their genera and species, as well as their names, varies greatly among different researchers. The most controversial periodization is the place of the so-called Homo habilis, in which some researchers still see a pre-human, others – already a human. Nevertheless, paleoanthropological periodization in its most established part echoes the archaeological periodization of primitiveness.
A special aspect of the periodization of primitive history is its division into the history of primitive societies that existed before the emergence of the first civilizations, and societies that coexisted with these and later civilizations. In Western literature, they are distinguished as, on the one hand, prehistory, on the other, proto-, para- or ethnohistory, which refers not only to branches of science, but also to the eras they study. But this is mainly a source-study distinction: prehistory is studied primarily archaeologically, protohistory also with the help of written information from civilizations neighboring primitive societies, that is, historically itself. Meanwhile, the distinction between these and other societies also has a substantive and historical significance. Both of them belong to the same socio-economic formation, since the criterion for belonging to a formation is the method of production, and not the era of its existence. However, they are not identical in the degree of independence of their development: as a rule, the former experienced less outside influences than the latter. Therefore, recently many researchers distinguish them as apopolitean primitive societies (APO) and synpolitean primitive societies (SPO).
Despite the importance of special periodizations of primitive history, none of them is able to replace the general (historical) periodization of the ancient past of mankind, the development of which has been going on for more than a century, mainly based on ethnographic and archaeological data.
The first serious attempt in this direction was made by the outstanding American ethnographer L. G. Morgan, who came close to the historical-materialist understanding of primitive history. Using what was established in the 18th century. dividing the historical process into eras of savagery, barbarism and civilization and based mainly on the criterion of the level of development of the productive forces (“production of the means of living”), he identified in each of these eras the lowest, middle and highest stages. The lowest stage of savagery begins with the appearance of man and articulate speech, the middle one with the advent of fishing and the use of fire, the highest with the invention of the bow and arrow. The transition to the lowest stage of barbarism is marked by the spread of ceramics, to the middle - by the development of agriculture and cattle breeding, to the highest - by the introduction of iron. With the invention of hieroglyphic or alphabetic writing, the era of civilization begins.
This periodization was highly appreciated by F. Engels, who at the same time initiated its revision. He generalized Morgan's periodization, defining the era of savagery as the time of the appropriating, and the era of barbarism as the time of the producing economy. He also emphasized the qualitative originality of the initial one. corresponding to the lowest stage of savagery, the stage of primitive history as a kind of formative period of the “human herd”. The same qualitative originality of the final stage of primitive history, corresponding to the highest stage of barbarism, was shown by him in a special chapter (“Barbarism and Civilization”) of his work “The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State.” The underestimation in Morgan's scheme of the fundamental facets separating the stage of maturity of primitive society from the stages of its formation and decline, and the significant expansion in the future of factual material, made it necessary to develop a new historical-materialist periodization of primitive history.
A number of periodizations were proposed in Soviet science in the pre-war and especially in the post-war years, but even the most thoughtful of them did not stand the test of time. In particular, it turned out that using only the level of development of productive forces as a criterion for the periodization of primitive history leads to theoretical inconsistencies. Thus, even the creators of some civilizations did not yet know the industrial use of metals, while some of the late primitive tribes had already mastered iron smelting. To get out of this contradiction, one would have to take into account the level of relative rather than absolute productive forces, and thereby ultimately abandon the monistic principle of periodization. Therefore, scientists, and above all ethnographers, turned to the criterion on which the formational division of the entire historical process is based: differences in the method of production and, in particular, in the forms of production relations. In this regard, an attempt was made to trace the development of forms of primitive property, which led to the identification, in addition to the stage of the primitive human herd, of the stages of the primitive clan community and the primitive neighboring community.
A general periodization of primitive history has also been developed and is being developed by many Western researchers. Such attempts are made primarily by some historically oriented scholars in the United States. The most common distinction is between egalitarian and stratified, or hierarchical, societies. Egalitarian societies correspond to societies of the era of the primitive tribal community, stratified societies - to societies of the era of class formation. Ranked societies will often get in the way between egalitarian and stratified. At the same time, supporters of these schemes believe that in ranked societies there is only social inequality, and in stratified societies there is also property inequality. The most significant and attractive feature of these schemes is their recognition of the egalitarian character of primitive society, that is, primitive collectivism.
Thus, there are more than enough criteria for the periodization of human history - they can be found for every “taste and color,” i.e. There is no problem of classifying certain primitive communities, tools or tools, even fossilized remains. There is a problem with the so-called “homeland of humanity.”
So, views on the nature of the main eras of primitive history are more uniform than views on their relationship with archaeological and paleoanthropological eras. Only if we proceed from the most established points of view, the eras of general (historical) periodization can be compiled with the most important links of archaeological and paleoanthropological schemes as follows.
| Historical eras | Archaeological eras | Paleoanthropological eras | |
| The era of the ancestral community | Lower and Middle Paleolithic | The time of archanthropes and paleontropes | |
| Neolithic | Stage of the early primitive (early tribal) community | Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic | Time of Neontropes |
| Stage of the late primitive (late tribal) community | |||
| The era of class formation | Late Neolithic, Chalcolithic or Early Metal Age | ||
It is even more difficult to indicate the absolute age of these eras, and not only because of differences in views on their relationship with archaeological and paleoanthropological eras. After all, starting from the time of the early primitive community, humanity developed extremely unevenly, which led to the above-mentioned coexistence of societies that were very different in their stage affiliation.
