The cultural evolution of man

Cultural development and what it means

If you use the word "Culture"hears, one thinks primarily of the arts, that is, of theater, music, film and the like. This could easily lead to the misconception that it is cultural evolution revolves around the development of these very arts. This is not true, however, because in the broadest sense "culture" means everything that is done by human activity is influenced - a whole lot more than what is understood today under the field of culture will. For this reason, the cultural evolution of man is the development of the archaic stone age people to today's Homo sapiens - technical, spiritual and socially.

The evolution of human society

• 8 million years - that is an extremely long time and yet it has been so long since the development of mankind began. To be more precise, the evolutionary line of chimpanzees and later humans separated at that time. At that time, however, there was no question of cultural development.
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• This changed 2.5 - 1.5 million years ago, because the oldest finds come from this period of tools that had been shaped by the Stone Age people of that time to make better use of them can. Stones and branches were probably used as tools before, but not manipulated, and culture begins, as already mentioned, where people have an influence on something.
• The simple hammers and hand axes remained unchanged for a very long time - the people of the time were satisfied with the simple tools. But with the steadily advancing development of Homo to Homo sapiens, the brains and the intellect became larger and thus the skills became more sophisticated.
• Scientists now believe that about 80,000 years ago there was a real cultural explosion. Little by little, many important things happened: The Stone Age people developed their first throwing weapons and thus became skilled hunters. They also learned to protect themselves against the cold by wearing the simplest clothing and thus spread out into areas that they had not been able to inhabit before.


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• Then there was the preservation of meat, keeping pets for "bad times" and the discovery of clay as a material for pottery. Little by little, people settled in better and better and created good conditions for themselves to develop biologically.
• While there were burials and grave goods before, the first indications are Religions to about 40,000 BC Chr. dated. Religion is an important part of cultural evolution, as it still forms or supports the spiritual superstructure of many societies today. The belief in higher powers also speaks for a fairly good understanding and abstraction ability among early humans.
• Shortly after religion came art: the oldest known cave paintings date from around 37,000 BC. Chr. At that time animals were depicted, but also symbols of fertility. This is where the typically human need for communication is evident.
• Compared to the many millions of years before, things went forward rapidly from then on - just think of the advanced civilizations of antiquity, which are socially in no longer a lot today inferior. If you were to draw a curve over the cultural development of humans, this would only increase rapidly towards the end.

Finally, one might ask why research into the cultural development of mankind is important in the first place. This can be easily answered by rolling up the field from behind. Considering that there are more than 7000 languages ​​in the world today, one considers the many different forms of society, that exist today, it is interesting to know their common origins - and fascinating that at some point everything is done with a hand ax started.