Get to Know the People Living in the Past

By: Justine Yutangco.

Hunter gatherer culture developed among the early hominids of Africa, with evidence of their activities dating as far back as 2 million years ago. Among their distinguishing characteristics, the hunter gatherers actively killed animals for food, as opposed to scavenging meat left behind by other predators, and devised ways of setting aside vegetation for consumption at a later date.

The culture accelerated with the appearance of Homo erectus (1.9 million years ago), whose larger brains and shorter digestive systems reflected the increased consumption of meat. Additionally, these were the first hominins built for long-distance walking, pushing nomadic tribes into Asia and Europe.

Hunting and gathering remained a way of life for Homo heidelbergensis (700,000 to 200,000 years ago), the first humans to adapt to colder climates and routinely hunt large animals, through the Neanderthals (400,000 to 40,000 years ago), who developed more sophisticated technology.

It also spanned most of the existence of Homo sapiens, dating from the first anatomically modern humans 200,000 years ago, to the transition to permanent agricultural communities around 10,000 B.C.

Prehistoric hunter-gatherers often lived in groups of a few dozens of people, consisting of several family units.

They developed tools to help them survive and were dependent on the abundance of food in the area, which if an area was not plentiful enough required them to move to greener forests (pastures were not around yet). It is probable that generally, the men hunted while the women foraged.

FAMILY GROUP

The ancient hunter-gatherers lived in small groups, normally of about ten or twelve adults plus children. They were regularly on the move, searching for nuts, berries and other plants (which usually provided most of their nutrition) and following the wild animals which the males hunted for meat.

Each group had a large “territory” over which it roamed – large, because only a small proportion of the plants in any given environment were suitable for people to eat, and these came into fruit at different times of the year meaning a large area of land was needed to meet the food needs of a small number of people. The group’s territory had regular places where it stopped for a while. These might be caves or areas of high or level ground giving them a good all-round vision of approaching animals (and hostile neighbors), and where they would build a temporary encampment.

THE CLAN

These family groups belonged to larger “clans” of 50 to 100 adults, spread over a wide area and whose members regarded themselves as a “people”, descended from a common ancestor. Kinship was crucially important. This more than anything else gave them their identity and defined their place in the world. More practically, it told them who their friends and allies were, and governed whom they could or could not marry (incest, though differently defined at the margins, was a universal taboo, but marriage outside the clan was also restricted). Myths gave them their world view – how the universe was born, how humans came to be and so on – and there is clear evidence for spiritual beliefs, and indeed for belief in some kind of life after death.