Pre-history: Life of Early Humans

In terms of social behavior, humans were now evolving fast and started to take care of their weaker companions. They also buried their dead…sometimes with food and flowers. This could be the beginning of the concept of after-life. Or, as most Indians know it…the cycle of life and death. One more noteworthy development was that of art in the form of cave drawings of animals. Ornaments made up of bones and stones were made.

By 32,000 BC we figured out how to heat up certain clay and harden it in any form we like. This was the beginning of making figurines and pots. By this time, humans were so fascinated by the process of birth and female embodiment of this fertility, that female goddess figurines were among the first ones made out of these hardened clay.

With expansion across all continents now, trading links began to form and exchange of exotic material took place. With trading possible, there was no need for every community to make everything needed for human sustenance. This is how communities of humans developed their characteristic cultures. And, with this cultures developed separate identities and ethnicities.

Food diet expanded from vegetables and animal meat to seafood. Also by this time smoking and drying of meat was mastered. After all, with advanced weapons and better team work with advanced language patterns, they hunted bigger animals. With ample supply of good quality food, better equipped humans accelerated their population growth and replaced all the previous species of human (homo erectus, Neanderthals).

Pre-history: homo habilis

So, as humans took a different path of evolution from chimpanzees and entered into Old Stone Age (or Paleolithic Era), they were…well…using first stone tools. These were our ancestors of homo habilis (handy person = person with tools of little over 4 feet tall) species about 2.5 to 2.6 million years ago. They were among many other human species. The social experimentation of humans have already begun by this time and they started living in groups. They relied on gathering plants and hunting wild animals to feed themselves. Apart from stone as the primary material for tools, they also used animal bones, wood, leather and vegetable fibers. At this stage, though, large portion of their meat diet came from scavenging from other animal's kills rather than actual hunting.

At this point of evolution, our ancestors were very similar chimpanzees, but subtly different in two defining ways - walking on two legs and depending on tools and other members of their "herd" in addition to their own abilities.