by Sophia Lyn

Created on: January 30, 2007   Last Updated: April 20, 2007

Paleolithic People apparently lived in small hunting, gathering, and scavenging bands that rarely exceeded a few dozen individuals. Life expectancy was typically 30 years or less, often much less.

Paleolithic humans are depicted as a hunting and gathering group. During this time their food supply consisted almost exclusively of lean wild meats, fish, vegetables and fruits. These provided all the nutrients necessary for a very active lifestyle which involved far more exercise than our current way of living. The types of tools used were somewhat primitive stone tools. For many years the societal development of these prehistoric groups was defined by the technology of the surviving artifacts. It seems the hunting was done primarily by the men, and the gathering primarily by women. It does not seem to be because men were generally bigger and stronger. The women had the biological task of childbearing, and seem to be more sensible for the mothers to stay close to home and family. Purely having adequate food was not enough to ensure the survival of the society. Reproduction would of been essential to the group's survival, just as obtaining food would be. Gathering and hunting would seem to be extremely labor-intensive, and if the group did not at least reproduce itself with an average of two children who survived to maturity, it would quickly lose the people necessary to provide communally for that group.

Paleolithic peoples acquired their food and adapted themselves to their environment. They took food when and where it was available. They also learned migration patterns of the animal herds and they learned which plants were safe to eat and nutritious. They would also have learned that some plants had medicinal effects. Learning to control fire helped them adapt to their environment, both by providing a source of warmth and making food more palatable and digestible.

Complex tools were designed to work for the group. This was a massive intellectual advancement for the society. It also extended the variety of materials that could be used for tool making. These people frequently decorated their tools with small pieces of stone, bone, antler, and ivory. Necklaces, bracelets, and decorative pendants were made of bones, teeth, and shells. Cave walls were often painted with naturalistic scenes of animals. Clay was also modeled occasionally. Perhaps, the most well-known piece of art was in the form that has become known as the Venus.

This are sculpture is of women. They are not portraits but rather faceless idealized representations of well fed, healthy, usually pregnant nude women. Because of these exaggerated sexual characteristics, they are thought to be ritual objects symbolizing female fertility. Paleolithic peoples took a very spiritualistic attitude toward life. What was to them most important was not the outer appearance of things, but the inner workings of the unseen spirits.

These people could have been brutish cave dwellers and ignorant savages, this we will never truly know. The evidence of there life style which was left here for us to discover will never truly tell the entire story. Just as today, in the modern world, we have brutish behavior amongst some groups and we have loving well adjusted productive societies.

Learn more about this author, Sophia Lyn.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.