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 emergence 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 is necessarily indicated.

Although the characteristics of the primitive era were formed bit by bit by researchers for several centuries in a row, new facts about that time are still being discovered. Due to the lack of written language, people compare data from archaeological, biological, ethnographic, geographical and other sciences for this.

The 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 into several stages: savagery, barbarism and civilization. The primitive era of mankind, including the first two components, is divided into three more periods:

Stone Age

The primitive era received its periodization. It is possible to single out the main stages, among which was and At that 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. Already closer to the end of this period, dishes made of clay appeared. Thanks to the achievements of this century, the area of accommodation in the inhabited territories of the planet of man has greatly changed, and it was also as a result of it that human evolution began. We are talking about anthropogenesis, that is, the process of the emergence of intelligent beings on the planet. The end of the stone period 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 age 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 areas, the period lasted for different times (or did not exist at all). The Eneolithic could be connected with the Bronze Age, although scientists still distinguish it as a separate period. Approximate time period - 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 did not go out of "fashion". Acquaintance with new material was rather slow. People, finding it, thought it was a stone. The processing that was common at that time - hitting one piece against another - did not give the usual effect, but still the copper succumbed to deformation. With the introduction of cold forging into everyday life, work with it went better.

Bronze Age

This primitive era has become one of the main ones, according to some scientists. People learned how to process some 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 formation of the Iron Age in a certain area and a too protracted continuation of the Bronze Age. The last one in the eastern part of the planet lasted a record number of decades. It ended with the advent of Greece and Rome. The century is divided into three periods: early, middle and late. During all these periods, the architecture of that time was actively developing. It was she who influenced the formation of religion and the worldview of society.

iron age

Considering the epochs of primitive history, one can come to the conclusion that he was the last before the advent of reasonable writing. Simply put, this century was conditionally singled out as a separate one, since iron objects appeared, they were widely used in all spheres of life.

The smelting of iron was a rather laborious process for that century. After all, it was impossible to get real material. This is due to the fact that it is easily corroded and does not withstand many climatic 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.

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 more important. They invested in customs, "laws of life", traditions. Under the primitive system, all requirements were explained in sign language, and their violations were punished with the help of an outcast from society.

Culture and civilization

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Typology of cultures and civilizations

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Primitive society: the birth of man and culture

General characteristics of primitiveness
Material culture and social relations
spiritual culture
- The emergence of mythology, art and scientific knowledge
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History and culture of the ancient civilizations of the East

The East as a sociocultural and civilizational phenomenon
Pre-Axial Cultures of the Ancient East
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Culture of Ancient India
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Culture of Ancient China
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Antiquity is the basis of European civilization

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Antique polis as a unique phenomenon
Man's worldview in ancient society
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History and culture of the European Middle Ages

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Medieval Arab East

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Byzantine civilization

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Rus' in the Middle Ages

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Renaissance and reformation

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History and culture of Europe in modern times

General characteristics of the New Age
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Russia in the Modern Era

General information
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History and culture of Russia in the late XIX - early XX century.

General characteristics of the period
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Reassessment of the traditional system of values in the public mind
Silver Age - the renaissance of Russian culture

Civilization of the West in the 20th century

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Cultural Development

Periodization of primitive history

The most ancient 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, not only did the physical type of a person change, but also the tools of labor, dwellings, forms of organization of collectives, families, worldviews, etc. Taking into account these components, scientists have put forward a number of systems of periodization of primitive history.

The most developed is archaeological periodization, which is based on a comparison of man-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 epochs 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 cultures characterized by a uniform complex of artifacts. The culture is named after the place of its current location (“Shel” - near the city of Shel in Northern France, “Kostenki” - from the name of the village in Ukraine) or according to other signs, for example: “culture of battle axes”, “culture of log burials”, etc. .

The creator of the cultures of the Lower Paleolithic was a man of the Pithecanthropus or Sinanthropus type, the Middle Paleolithic - Neanderthal, the Upper Paleolithic - Cro-Magnon. 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 explored - from the Prut River in the west to Chukotka in the east.

In the Paleolithic period, people initially made rough hand axes from flint, which were unified tools. Then the manufacture of specialized tools begins - these are knives, piercers, side-scrapers, composite tools, such as a stone ax. In the Mesolithic, microliths predominate - tools made of thin stone plates, which were inserted into a bone or wooden frame.

At the same time, the bow and arrows were invented. The Neolithic is characterized by the manufacture of polished tools from soft rocks of stone - jade, slate, slate. The technique of sawing and drilling holes in stone is being mastered.

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 - Eneolithic; Greek - Chalcolithic) began in Europe from the 3rd millennium BC. At this time, in many regions of the planet, the first states arise, civilizations develop - Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Mediterranean (early Minoan, early Helladic), Mexican and Peruvian in America. On the Lower Don, settlements of this time were studied in Kobyakovo, Gnilovskaya, Safyanovo, 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. It should be noted 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 settled 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. At the same time, 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 arrows. During the period of barbarism, ceramic products appeared, agriculture and animal husbandry arose. The civilization is characterized by the appearance of bronze metallurgy, writing and states.

In the 40s of the XX century. Soviet scientists P.P. Efimenko, M.O. Kosven, A.I. Pershits and others proposed systems of periodization of primitive society, the criteria for which were the evolution of forms of ownership, the degree of division of labor, family relations, etc.

In a generalized form, such a periodization can be represented as follows:

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 the 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 families. Therefore, the optimal periodization system should take into account the largest number of indicators of the development of society.

The history of primitive society (hereinafter - IPO) is the oldest stage in the history of mankind, the longest in chronological terms. The term was introduced by Soviet scientists. In foreign literature, it has the names "prehistory", "prehistory" (due to the lack of writing). The subject of IPO research is the society and culture of mankind, physiology, and intellectual abilities. IPO is part of a single historical science. Specificity: other historical disciplines are based on the study of written sources, the IPO has practically no such sources. Historians are forced to reconstruct the IPO on the basis of data from archeology, ethnology, paleoanthropology, paleozoology, and paleobotany. IPO reconstruction is the result of a synthesis of data from a number of other sciences. The main aspect of such studies (DNA) is that they allow reconstructing the history of the emergence of the person himself.
The extreme similarity of a person 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 monkeys.

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 level of development. In ancient times, the center of civilization was the Mediterranean, the peoples of this region, the Greeks and Romans, are 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 terms of the level of development of Ancient Greece and Rome. In the Middle Ages, an era of decline and stagnation of scientific thought began in Western Europe. All the postulates of Holy Scripture 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 era of the great geographical discoveries, Europeans encountered peoples who were at a significantly lower stage of development. Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, set forth in 1859, is important for understanding human development. In the following time, an increasing number of finds of ancient remains of the human skeleton began to confirm this theory. 20th century - a large scientific deep processing, a large number of new archaeological discoveries, the involvement of data from natural sciences. Modern stage: refinement and addition of human ancestral forms. Further development of the Darwinian theory of evolution in conjunction with the achievements of genetics.

Chronology of the history of primitive society.

About 6 thousand years have passed since the emergence of the first states and writing. With regard to the chronology of the IPO, two types of definitions of events and phenomena should be distinguished:

absolute chronology - when a specific, more or less exact date of an event is indicated (for example, year, century, number of thousands of years ago),
chronology is relative, 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 does not depend on environmental conditions. Knowing this rate 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. Relative chronology methods are primarily geological and paleontological methods, the essence of which is to identify the relative position of various geological and cultural layers, that is, 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. ; Mez - 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 the 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 (technique of stone processing, processing of tools). Frenchman Gabriel de Mortilley Shell, ashel, Mousterian.

Introduction

About 3 million years ago man separated from the animal world. By the time 35 - 10 thousand years ago is the formation of modern man. And only 5 - 1 thousand years ago, classes and states formed in different parts of the globe. Scientists have calculated that if the entire history of mankind is equated to one day, then it will take only 4 minutes from the moment the classes were formed to the present day.

Of the entire history of mankind, the primitive communal system was the longest in time - more than a million years. It is not easy to determine its lower limit with any accuracy, since in the newly discovered bone remains of our distant ancestors, most experts see either a prehuman or a human, and from time to time the prevailing opinion changes. At present, some scientists believe that the most ancient man (and thus the primitive society) arose 1.5 - 1 million years ago, others attribute his appearance to 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 formed at the turn of the 4th and 3rd millennium BC, in America - in the 1st millennium AD, in other areas of the ecumene - even later.

The history of the origin of human beings from animal creatures is still a mystery of nature. Where, when and why a person 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. It remains only to explore the skeletal remains of the most ancient people, to dig up the burial places and dwellings of people - and on the basis of such meager material to draw generalizing conclusions, build 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 Ages, is more “fertile” soil for historical research - monuments, including written and architectural ones, of that time still survived enough, and therefore the mysteries generated by that stage of history are all but much less. That is why the purpose of this work is to reveal the specifics of psychology to the ancient past of mankind, especially since the last decades have presented many sensational discoveries that largely turn our ideas about the ancient history of mankind.

Periodization of primitive history.

We 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 involved in their development.

Of the special periodizations, the most important is archaeological, based on differences in the material and technique of making tools. Already known to ancient Chinese and Roman philosophers, the division of ancient history into three centuries - stone, bronze (copper) and iron - received scientific development in the 19th - early 20th centuries, when the epochs and stages of these centuries were basically typified.

At the dawn of the cultural development of mankind, the period of the Stone Age is distinguished, several hundred times longer than the entire subsequent history of mankind, and periodization within this period is carried out in accordance with the change and complication of the forms of stone inventory. Within the Paleolithic, as already mentioned, the epochs of the Lower, Middle and Upper Paleolithic are usually distinguished, the Olduvian stage characteristic of the Australopithecus, just represents the beginning of the Lower Paleolithic era. It is this era that correlates in a wide chronological framework with the time of the Pithecanthropes, its duration is enormous, and it in itself reveals significant dynamics in the forms of settlements of the most ancient human groups and the types of stone tools they made.

So, the Stone Age begins with the Old Stone Age (Paleolithic), in which most scientists now distinguish the epochs of the early (lower), middle and late (upper) Paleolithic.

Then follows the transitional era of the Middle Stone Age (Mesolithic), which is sometimes called the “Post-Paleolithic” (Epipaleolithic), or “Pre-Neolithic” (Protoneolithic), sometimes it 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 reason to speak of a special stage of the Eneolithic, or Chalcolithic.

The schemes of the internal periodization of the New Stone, Bronze and Iron Ages at the stage of different researchers are very different from each other. Even more different 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 - not earlier than 8 thousand and the Neolithic - not earlier than 5 thousand years ago . The Bronze Age lasted until the beginning of the 1st millennium BC. e., when the age of iron began.

Archaeological periodization is entirely based on technological criteria and does not give a complete picture of the development of production as a whole. At present, archaeological periodization has turned from a global into a set of regional ones, but even in this form it retains considerable significance.

More limited in its goals is the paleoanthropological (paleanthropological) periodization of primitive history, based on the criteria of human biological evolution. This is the allocation of the epochs of the existence of the most ancient, ancient and fossil modern man, i.e. archanthropus, paleoanthrope (paleanthropus) and neoanthrope. The taxonomy of the people themselves, distinguished 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 place of the so-called skilled man, in which some researchers see a pre-human, others - already a man. Nevertheless, paleoanthropological periodization in its most well-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 appearance 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 hand, proto-, para- or ethnohistory, which are understood not only as sections of science, but also as the eras they study. But this is mainly a source study distinction: prehistory is studied mainly archeologically, protohistory - also with the help of written information from civilizations neighboring primitive societies, that is, historically proper. Meanwhile, the selection of those and other societies also has a content-historical significance. Both of them belong to the same socio-economic formation, since the criterion for belonging to a formation is the mode of production, and not the era of its existence. However, they are not identical in terms of the degree of independence of their development: as a rule, the former experienced less outside influences than the latter. Therefore, in recent years, many researchers distinguish them as apopolite primitive societies (APO) and synpolyte primitive societies (SPO).

For all the importance of special periodizations of primitive history, none of them is able to replace the general (historical) periodization of the most ancient past of mankind, the development of which has been going on for more than a century, mainly on the basis of 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-materialistic understanding of primitive history. Using the established in the XVIII century. dividing the historical process into eras of savagery, barbarism and civilization, and based mainly on the criteria for the level of development of productive forces (“production of means of life”), he singled out in each of these eras the lower, middle and higher stages. The lowest stage of savagery begins with the appearance of man and articulate speech, the middle stage with the emergence of fishing and the use of fire, the highest stage with the invention of the bow and arrows. The transition to the lower stage of barbarism is marked by the spread of ceramics, to the middle stage by the development of agriculture and cattle breeding, to the higher stage 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 laid the foundation for its revision. He generalized Morgan's periodization, defining the era of savagery as the time of appropriation, and the era of barbarism as the time of the productive economy. He also emphasized the qualitative originality of the initial. corresponding to the lowest level of savagery of 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 lines separating the stage of maturity of primitive society from the stages of its formation and decline, and a significant expansion of the factual material in the future, made it necessary to develop a new historical-materialistic 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 the use of only the level of development of productive forces as a criterion for the periodization of primitive history leads to theoretical inconsistencies. So, even the creators of some civilizations did not yet know the production use of metals, while some of the late primitive tribes had already mastered the smelting of iron. In order to get out of this contradiction, one would have to take into account the level not so much of the absolute as of the relative 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 mode 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 allocation, in addition to the stage of the primitive human herd, the stages of the primitive tribal community and the primitive neighbor community.

The historical-materialistic periodization of primitive history is based on the evolution of the 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 III millennium BC; Bronze Age - from the end of the III millennium BC. - 1 millennium BC; Iron Age - from the 1st millennium BC

The general periodization of primitive history has been developed and is also being developed by many Western researchers. Such attempts are made predominantly by some historically oriented US scientists. The most common distinction is between egalitarian and stratified, or hierarchical, societies. Egalitarian societies correspond to the societies of the era of the primitive tribal community, stratified - to the societies of the era of class formation. Between egalitarian and stratified societies, ranked societies often also interfere. 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. Peppers. "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 any “taste and color”, i.e. problems to classify certain primitive communities, tools or jotas, even fossilized remains do not exist. There is a problem of the so-called. "homeland of mankind".

So, views on the nature of the main epochs of primitive history are more uniform than views on their correlation with archaeological and paleoanthropological epochs. Only if we proceed from the most established points of view, the epochs of the 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 epochs, and not only because of differences in views on their relationship with archaeological and paleoanthropological epochs. After all, starting from the time of the already 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 involved 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. Already known to ancient Chinese and Roman philosophers, the division of ancient history into three centuries - stone, bronze (copper) and iron - received scientific development in the 19th - early 20th centuries, when the epochs and stages of these centuries were basically typified.

At the dawn of the cultural development of mankind, the period of the Stone Age is distinguished, several hundred times longer than the entire subsequent history of mankind, and periodization within this period is carried out in accordance with the change and complication of the forms of stone tools. Within the Paleolithic, as already mentioned, the epochs of the Lower, Middle and Upper Paleolithic are usually distinguished, the Olduvian stage, characteristic of the Australopithecus, just represents the beginning of the Lower Paleolithic era. It is this era that correlates in a wide chronological framework with the time of the Pithecanthropes, its duration is enormous, and it in itself reveals significant dynamics in the forms of settlements of the most ancient human groups and the types of stone tools they made.

So, the Stone Age begins with the Old Stone Age (Paleolithic), in which most scientists now distinguish the epochs of the early (lower), middle and late (upper) Paleolithic.

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 - not earlier than 8 thousand and the Neolithic - not earlier than 5 thousand years ago. The Bronze Age lasted until the beginning of the 1st millennium BC. when the Iron Age began.

The paleoanthropological (paleanthropological) periodization of primitive history, based on the criteria of human biological evolution, is more limited in its goals. This is the allocation of the epochs of the existence of the most ancient, ancient and fossil modern man, i.e., archanthrope, paleoanthrope (paleanthrope) and neoanthrope. The taxonomy of the people themselves, distinguished 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 place of the so-called skilled man, in which some researchers still see a pre-human, 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 appearance 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 hand, proto-, para- or ethnohistory, which are understood not only as sections of science, but also as the epochs they study. But this is mainly a source study distinction: prehistory is studied mainly archaeologically, protohistory - also with the help of written information of civilizations neighboring primitive societies, that is, historically proper. Meanwhile, the selection of those and other societies also has a content-historical significance. Both belong to the same socio-economic formation, since the criterion for belonging to a formation is the mode of production, and not the era of its existence. However, they are not identical in terms of the degree of independence of their development: as a rule, the former experienced less outside influences than the latter. Therefore, in recent years, many researchers distinguish them as apopolite primitive societies (APO) and synpolyte primitive societies (SPO).

The first serious attempt in this direction was made by the outstanding American ethnographer L. G. Morgan, who came close to the historical-materialistic understanding of primitive history. Using the established in the XVIII century. dividing the historical process into eras of savagery, barbarism and civilization, and based mainly on the criterion of the level of development of productive forces (“production of means of life”), he singled out in each of these eras the lower, middle and higher stages. The lowest stage of savagery begins with the appearance of man and articulate speech, the middle stage with the emergence of fishing and the use of fire, the highest stage with the invention of the bow and arrows. The transition to the lower stage of barbarism is marked by the spread of ceramics, to the middle stage by the development of agriculture and cattle breeding, to the higher stage 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 laid the foundation for its revision. He generalized Morgan's periodization, defining the era of savagery as the time of appropriation, and the era of barbarism as the time of the productive economy. He also emphasized the qualitative originality of the elementary. corresponding to the lowest level of savagery of 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 lines separating the stage of maturity of primitive society from the stages of its formation and decline, and a significant expansion of the factual material in the future, made it necessary to develop a new historical-materialistic 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 the use of only the level of development of productive forces as a criterion for the periodization of primitive history leads to theoretical inconsistencies. So, even the creators of some civilizations did not yet know the production use of metals, while a part of the late primitive tribes had already mastered the smelting of iron. In order to get out of this contradiction, one would have to take into account the level not so much of the absolute as of the relative 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 mode 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 allocation, in addition to the stage of the primitive human herd, the stages of the primitive tribal community and the primitive neighbor community.

The general periodization of primitive history has been developed and is also being developed by many Western researchers. Such attempts are made predominantly by some historically oriented US scientists. The most common distinction is between egalitarian and stratified, or hierarchical, societies. Egalitarian societies correspond to the societies of the era of the primitive tribal community, stratified societies correspond to the societies of the era of class formation. Between egalitarian and stratified societies, ranked societies often also interfere. 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, views on the nature of the main epochs of primitive history are more uniform than views on their relationship with archaeological and paleoanthropological epochs. Only if we proceed from the most established points of view, the epochs of the general (historical) periodization can be compiled with the most important links of archaeological and paleoanthropological schemes as follows.

Historical epochs		Archaeological epochs	Paleoanthropological eras
The era of the great community		Lower and Middle Paleolithic	Time of archanthropes and paleontrops
Neolithic	The stage of the early primitive (early tribal) community	Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic	Time of neonthropes
	The stage of the late primitive (late generic) community
The era of class formation		Late Neolithic, Chalcolithic, or Early Metal Age