What were the habitats like during the stone age?

Stone Age Habitats

The Stone Age is the period of time beginning about 600,000 to 700,000 years ago and ending around 6,000 BC. It is divided into three periods:   Neolithic, Mesolithic, and Paleolithic. Each period is characterized by the type of tools that were created and used by the humans of each period. The tools used by humans determined the sophistication of the dwellings they inhabited.

Based on detritus found during excavations of archaeological sites, Stone Age humans inhabited caves and cliff overhangs and created shelters from stones, animal skins, and bones. As mainly nomadic peoples who relied on hunting and gathering for survival, changing seasons determined the types of shelter necessary. In temperate climates or seasons, a light shelter like a lean-to would have been used to protect a hearth fire or to keep people and provisions dry. During the cold winter months and during the Ice Age, more substantial shelter was necessary because the temperatures averaged 13 º F. Caves and cliff overhangs were used in mountainous areas and many of those still in existence have provided Archaeologists with much information about the Stone Age cultures. On plains and steppes, shelters were constructed from bones, stones, trees, and animal skins.

As the glaciers diminished and the Stone Age climate warmed, the large animals they hunted disappeared, and people became more nomadic in search of wildlife to hunt. Various cultures intermingled and exchanged knowledge. Shelters began to be improved as groups learned from each other.

• The History of Stone Age Man
• A History of the Stone Age: Upper Paleolothic Era
• The Human Past: Hominin Dispersals in the Old World
• All You Ever Needed to Know About the Ice Age
• The Ancient World: Prehistotic Art and Architecture Magic and Survival
• A Guide to Prehistoric Climate
• Behold the Stone Age

Archaeologist have found a multitude of ancient habitats throughout the world. The most well known sites have provided much information about the Stone Age cultures.

• The Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania, Central Africa has been dated at about 2,000,000 BCE, and is the earliest known man-made habitat. Among the findings were bones of humans and animals and rock placements indicating campsites.

• The Archeulean hut found in the Grotte du Lazaret, Nice, France, dates back to 500,000 to 400,000 BCE. Found inside a cave, the hut was comprised of a frame made of wood and covered with animal hides. All French archaeological sites have interesting histories and have been written about extensively.

• An Upper Paleolithic site containing five huts about 24,000 years old were found at Dolni Vestonice, Czechoslovakia, and was home to Ice-Age mammoth hunters. Constructed of wooden posts in a sort of tee-pee shape, the walls would have been made of animal skins tied to the frames and held to the ground with bones and stones. Inside each hut was a hearth, the single determining factor in establishing a site as a habitat. Used by Cro-Magnons as a winter camp, the first potter’s kiln was found at this site.

• The site at Mezin, near Tchemogov, has a circular base made of mammoth bones that is similar to the Siberian yaranga.

• At Moldova, Ukraine, a Musterian hut made of mammoth bones and mammoth hides was found. The habitats found in the Ukraine are tent-like structures that are covered with mammoth hides and weighted down at the bottom by mammoth bones.

• An Upper Paleolithic Magdalenian tent was found at Plateau Parain, France. The Magdalenian sites show evidence of hearths and that the sites were occupied many times over by different groups of people.

• Circular tents from Malta, Siberia, resemble those found in other cultures around the world. These structures have a hearth in the center with an open peak above that allowed smoke to escape.

• Dolmens are stone structures that have a flat stone supported over upright stone. The most well known of these structures is Stonehenge located in the English county of Wiltshire. These structures have also appeared in Israel, Britain, Ireland, France, Denmark, Sweden, Jordan, and Holland and are thought to be burial sites.

Other stone age era huts and habitats from various areas have similarities as well as differences depending upon the climatic needs of the people. Throughout the world, archaeologists continue to investigate the Stone Age and its habitats and people.

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