Cro-Magnons are considered to be the ancestors of modern man who lived on our planet in the era of the Late (or Upper) Paleolithic (40-12 thousand years ago). The name of this species of primitive people came from the Cros-Magnon Cave, located in the southwestern part of France. It was there that in 1868, archaeologist Louis Larthe, during excavations, came across the remains of ancient people, which in their appearance differed from previously discovered skeletons of Neanderthals and resembled a reasonable person (Homo sapiens). The find, whose age was about 30 thousand years, immediately attracted the attention of scientists who studied the history of that period, because then nothing was known about the Cro-Magnon lifestyle. In subsequent years, their remains, along with tools, were also found in other territories (Mladeč and Dolni Vestonice in the Czech Republic, Peyvilend in England, Pestera-ku-Oasa in Romania, Murzak-Koba in Crimea, Sungir in Russia, Mezhirech in Ukraine, Fish Hook, Cape Flats in Africa, etc.).
Occurrence and migration
The origin of the Cro-Magnons has not been completely studied to this day. Historians and anthropologists used to adhere to the Marxist theory of the emergence of this type of ancient man. If you believe her, the Cro-Magnon is a direct descendant of the Neanderthal. Many modern scholars question this theory. They are inclined to the version that Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons descended from a common ancestor, after which each of them began to develop separately.
Modern scientists have not been able to reach a consensus on what part of the planet the first ancestors of modern man appeared in and when it happened. The most common version says that Cro-Magnons formed into a separate species about 200 thousand years ago, and this happened in eastern Africa. After 70 thousand years, in search of new lands for life, they began to migrate to the Middle East. From here, one part of the Cro-Magnons settled Front Asia and the coast of the Indian Ocean, while the other advanced north and reached the lands of Asia Minor and the Northern Black Sea Coast. In Europe, Homo sapiens appeared approximately 40-45 thousand years ago.
Appearance
What did the Cro-Magnons look like? An ancient person, a fossil person, differed from modern individuals in body structure and brain size. In contrast, representatives of Homo sapiens resembled modern people, but were larger. Archaeological finds have revealed that the Cro-Magnon men who inhabited ancient Europe reached a height of 180 cm (women were shorter), had wide faces and deep-set eyes. The brain volume of a rational person was 1400-1900 cubic centimeters, which corresponds to this indicator in modern people. The lifestyle of Cro-Magnons, who had to survive in the harsh conditions of antiquity, contributed to the formation of their well-developed muscle mass.
Life
Ancient people lived in communities, the number of which reached 100 people. Their main occupations were hunting and collecting plant foods. They were the first to make tools from bones and horns. Along with this, the use of stone tools remained widespread among them. Lighter and improved products allowed them to get more food, sew clothes, invent devices aimed at facilitating their existence. Scientists are convinced that the ancient people of this era had well-developed speech.
Home
Cro-Magnons still continued to settle in caves, but new types of housing began to appear in them. They learned to build reliable tents from the skins of animals, wood and bones. Such houses could be moved, so the Cro-Magnon lifestyle was no longer sedentary. Wandering from place to place in order to develop new lands, they moved housing and households with them. Cro-Magnon became the first prehistoric people who managed to tame a dog and use it as an assistant.
The cult of hunting was widespread among the ancestors of mankind. This is evidenced by the numerous finds of animal figures pierced by arrows, found during excavations of their settlements. Ancient people decorated the walls of their housing with images of animals and hunting scenes.
Food extraction
Hunt firmly entered the life of the Cro-Magnon. The realities of the Stone Age were such that in order to feed themselves, it was necessary to kill. The ancient inhabitants of our planet were hunted by well-organized groups of 10-20 people. The objects of their pursuit were large animals (mammoths, wolves, woolly rhinos, bears, red deer, bison). Having destroyed the beast, they provided their communities with a large amount of skin and meat. The main instruments for killing animals from Cro-Magnons were spear throwers and a bow. In addition to hunting, they were engaged in catching birds and fish (for the first lesson, snares were used, and for the second, harpoons and hooks were used).
In addition to meat and fish, the descendants of modern man ate wild plants. The food of Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons was very similar. They ate everything that nature gave them (bark, leaves and fruits of trees, stems, flowers and roots of plants, cereals, mushrooms, nuts, algae, etc.).
Burial places
The Cro-Magnons had interesting funeral customs. They laid the deceased relatives in the grave in a bent position. Their hair was decorated with a net, their hands with bracelets, and their faces were covered with flat stones. The bodies of the dead were sprinkled with red ocher on top. Ancient people believed in the afterlife, so they buried their relatives with household items, jewelry and food, being sure that they would need them after death.
Cultural Revolution Cro-Magnon
People who lived in the Late Paleolithic period made a number of discoveries that allowed them to significantly surpass their predecessors in the cultural development. Their main achievement is the invention of a new method for processing flint, which went down in history under the name “knife-shaped plate method”. This discovery made a real revolution in the manufacture of tools. The method consisted in the fact that separate plates were beaten or squeezed from stone nodule (nucleus), from which various products were subsequently made. Thanks to the new technology, prehistoric people learned to get up to 250 cm of working edge from one kilogram of flint (for Neanderthals this figure did not exceed 220 cm, and for their predecessors it barely reached 45 cm).
No less important discovery Cro-Magnon became the production of tools from animal raw materials. Spending a lot of time on the hunt, an ancient man noticed that the bones, horns and tusks of animals are characterized by increased strength. He began to make qualitatively new products from them that made his life easier. Bone needles and sewing appeared, making it easier to sew clothes from skins. They began to use animal raw materials in the construction of new homes, as well as to make jewelry and figurines from it. The development of new materials led to the invention of more advanced hunting tools - spear throwers and onions. These devices allowed the Cro-Magnons to kill animals that were many times superior to them in strength and size.
The Cro-Magnon lifestyle was not only about survival in the wild. Prehistoric people strove for beauty. They left to their descendants many works of art. This wall painting in caves, and decorated with a unique ornament of tools, and made of flint, clay, bones and tusks figurines of bison, horses, deer and other animals. The ancient Cro-Magnon worshiped female beauty. Among the finds discovered by archaeologists, there are many figures of the fair sex. For the magnificence of forms, modern historians have called them "Venus."