Chapter 24 Back in time ten thousand years ①

the process of primitive culture Human culture (or civilization) includes primitive culture (or civilization) in prehistoric times and culture (or civilization) in historical periods. ① Originally contained in "The Rising Civilization--Cultural Perspective of Human Origin", Northeast Forestry University Press, 1996 edition. Prehistoric culture or primitive culture refers to the Stone Age culture, which occupied 99.75% of the entire human history.The culture of the Stone Age was initially divided into two periods, the Paleolithic and the Neolithic. The former used stone tools as its main tools, and its life was mainly gathering and hunting. The mammal groups associated with humans are ancient groups containing extinct species. The latter, using polished stone tools as the main tool, believes that the general (universal) not only exists in thinking, but also precedes and is unique, accompanied by the use of pottery, and life is based on primitive farming activities and partially domesticated livestock. Combined with hunting and gathering, the associated mammals are living fauna, and occasionally there are one or two extinct animals such as rhinoceros and elephants. Generally speaking, primitive agriculture and The emergence of animal husbandry.

With the deepening of prehistoric archaeological work, since 1875, cultural relics of the Magdalenian culture period later than the late Paleolithic period but not typical artifacts of the Neolithic period have been found in some French sites.Among them, the Azir site discovered in 1887, the Tadenoa site discovered in 1879 and the Campini site discovered in 1886 are the most famous.Therefore, archaeologist Alan Brown first proposed in 1892 that there was a "Mesolithic Age" between the Paleolithic Age and the Neolithic Age, but this view was not generally recognized by the academic circles at that time.Later, the archaeologist Piet further excavated and studied the Azir site, and successfully identified two other cultures between the Magdalenian culture and the Neolithic culture. He published a paper in 1895 and demonstrated that the "Mesolithic era" exists.Later, McAllister published the book "European Archeology" in 1921, and Grahame Clarke published the book "British Mesolithic Age" in 1932. They both gave the Mesolithic culture a clear definition, Only then did Mesolithic culture in Europe become widely accepted by academia.

Outside of Europe, in 1928, archaeologist Garrod excavated and studied the "Tunaf Culture" site in Jordan and Israel, which is a very important site in the transition from hunting to farming, which reflects a similar A completely different way of life at the end of the Paleolithic.They used flint to make small stone tools. At that time, flint stone sickles were used to harvest wild barley and wheat; the handle of the bone sickle was decorated with carved animal figures, as well as ornaments such as dental headdresses and necklaces.Hunting and fishing were still the main ways of obtaining food.

In Southeast Asia, cultural sites from this period have been explored as early as the mid-1920s.For example, when French archaeologist Colani conducted archaeological excavations in northern Vietnam, he obtained a large number of cultural relics of the "Peace Culture" named after her from many cave sites. This is also the earliest Mesolithic culture in Asia. identify. In my country, when Professor Pei Wenzhong, a famous prehistoric archaeologist, visited Guangxi in the 1930s, he found some cultural relics in caves in Wuming and Guilin, which were initially identified as cultural relics of the "Mesolithic Age".In recent years, explorations in this area have been carried out in South China. The most famous site excavation and research work is carried out around the cave site of Bailian Cave in Liuzhou, Guangxi. In recent years, breakthroughs have been made, showing the The whole process of cultural transition from Mesolithic culture to Neolithic culture is of great academic value

Anatomy of an Example The Bailian Cave site is located on the hillside of Baimian Mountain, 12 kilometers southwest of Liuzhou City, Guangxi. The top of Baimian Mountain is 152 meters above the ground, and the entrance of Bailian Cave is 27 meters above the ground.The entrance of the cave faces south, about 5.6 meters high and 18 meters wide. The cave is divided into two parts: the outer hall and the long cave behind it.The outer hall is actually a semi-concealed rock-shape cave, containing a large number of accumulations.Tongtianyan, the unearthed site of the famous Liujiang Man fossils in the late Paleolithic Age, is only 2 kilometers away from this place.

As early as 1956, the South China Expedition Team of the Chinese Academy of Sciences led by Professor Pei Wenzhong obtained many stone tools on the surface of the Bailian Cave, as well as a flat-pointed bone awl and a rough bone needle.After identification by Professor Jia Lanpo and others, it is believed that the age of the site belongs to the late Paleolithic period.Soon, another polished stone ax was found in the accumulation outside the cave, which was considered by Professor Pei Wenzhong to belong to the Neolithic Age.Since 1973, the cave has been cleaned up by the Liuzhou Museum, and some discoveries have been made one after another. From 1981 to 1982, the Beijing Museum of Natural History and the Liuzhou Museum organized a joint excavation team to continue cleaning and excavating here, and obtained a large number of animal fossil remains, with as many as 30 types, as well as two human tooth fossils and more than 500 fossils. Cultural relics including pieces of stone artifacts.It has been confirmed by research that this is a stone age cave site with rich connotations. From 1991 to 1993, with the support of the National Natural Science Foundation of China, a new round of research on the ancient ecological environment and ancient culture was carried out for a period of three years; through the cooperation of various experts, the accumulation of this cave site was confirmed again. The layer sequence is clear, continuous and uninterrupted, and cultural relics and animal fossils are enriched in the layer, which is a typical representative of the Mesolithic cultural sites in southern China.

The deposits of this cave ruins are 3 meters thick. The deposits can be divided into 8 layers on the east side and 10 layers on the west side. The 7th layer on the east side and the 3rd layer from the bottom to the The top of the four floors are connected in the middle of the cave, forming a huge thick travertine plate layer across the whole cave.After detailed analysis and research, the accumulation contains five cultural layers, and the important cultural relics excavated from each cultural layer (from top to bottom) are shown in Table 1. Table 1 Important cultural relics of each cultural layer

Sequence Artifacts The first cultural layer (East 1st and 3rd floors) contains original pottery sherds and polished stone tools (including "heavy stone") The second cultural layer (east 4th layer) is still dominated by rough gravel tools, and there are primitive sharpened stone axes and bone horn tools with polished ends The stone tools of the third cultural layer (east 6th layer) are mainly gravel tools, combined with perforated gravel ("heavy stone"), hematite powder In the fourth cultural layer (west 4th floor), there are many microlithic flint small stone tools, arrowheads and primitive grinding products

Typical Paleolithic artifacts in the fifth cultural layer (West 5th and 7th floors), and many small flint tools and quasi-arrowheads appeared.Human tooth fossils appear in this layer The layers of the Bailian Cave site are continuous and uninterrupted. According to the 25 absolute age data measured by the CCP, almost every important layer has specific age data. This is a site with such detailed dating in China so far. The time span is 30,000 years (7080±125 years ago on the first floor in the east to 37000±2000 years ago on the 10th floor in the west).The ages of the five cultural layers are: the first cultural layer is 7080±125 years ago to 11160±500 years ago; the second cultural layer is 13550±590 years ago; the third cultural layer is 14650±270 years ago; The cultural layer is from 19,910±180 years to 26,680±625 years; the fifth cultural layer is from 26,000 to 3,000 years.As a result, primitive people have lived in Bailian Cave for more than 20,000 years.

I have carried out detailed research and induction on these five cultural layers, combined with the changing trend of the ecological environment, it can be clearly seen that there are three consecutive cultural stages representing the Stone Age, that is, the Bailian Cave Phase III culture (the first cultural layer), Represents early and middle Neolithic cultures; Bailian Cave Phase II culture (second and third cultural layers), representing cultures transitioning from late Paleolithic to early Neolithic, that is, Mesolithic culture; Bailian Cave Phase I culture ( The fourth and fifth cultural layers) are the late Paleolithic cultures.

As the late Paleolithic culture, the Phase I culture of Bailian Cave was between 18,000 and 30,000 years ago. Due to the advent of the last ice age, the temperature at that time showed a downward trend.But in the early stage, there was still an interglacial segment about 26,000 to 28,000 years ago.After passing through this interglacial segment, it entered the maximum glacial period (15,000 to 23,000 years ago), when the climate was much drier and colder than today.Therefore, in terms of vegetation, the ecological landscape has changed from deciduous broad-leaved forest in warm temperate zone to mixed coniferous and broad-leaved forest in temperate mountainous area, while the mountainous area is cold-temperate or temperate coniferous forest.The mammal group at this time was the giant panda-stegodon fauna. When the maximum ice age came, the warm-loving animals in this fauna gradually migrated south. The economic life of the Bailian Cave people in the first cultural period of Bailian Cave was mainly gathering, fishing and hunting. The hunting objects included giant pandas and large species in the stegodont fauna, such as elephants and rhinos.The earliest layer of snail shells in the accumulations in Bailian Cave is the lower part of the West 4th layer. The travertine plate at the bottom of this layer is dated to 26680±625 years ago, that is to say, primitive people started fishing about 26,000 years ago. Edible snails.With the passage of time, the content of snail shells gradually increased, indicating that primitive people not only hunted and fished, but also generally caught snails and mussels as food. The tools of this period mostly used gravel as the main raw material, and the tool assemblage mainly consisted of choppers and scrapers. There were also many small stone tools made of black flint, which reflected the progressive trend of tool miniaturization in the Late Paleolithic Age.Arrowheads appeared in small flint tools, and there were quite a few "spoke blade" type scrapers with deep concave cutting edges for scraping arrow shafts. Correspondingly, most of the animal limb bones in the accumulation are fragments.There are also remnants of two stove pits in the layer of the Bailian Cave Phase I culture. In the stove kang, there are bones of small animals and burnt stones. BBQ food.The Phase I culture of Bailian Cave reflects the appearance of the late Paleolithic culture, and many similar cultural sites have been found in South China. The Phase II culture of Bailian Cave is a transitional culture and a typical representative of the Mesolithic culture in South China. For a long period of time, cultural relics from the Mesolithic Age were rare in my country. Only in 1935, when Professor Pei Wenzhong was investigating in Guangxi, did he question whether the cultural relics in caves in Guilin and Wuming belonged to the Mesolithic Age .Over the past 20 years, with the rapid development of archaeological excavations, the archaeological community has published a number of new materials about the cultural remains of the Mesolithic Age, but most of them are in the north and the Central Plains, such as Hailar in Inner Mongolia and Layihai in Guinan, Qinghai Province. Ruins, Shayuan in Dali County, Shaanxi Province, and Lingjing Site in Xuchang, Henan Province. As for whether there are modern Mesolithic remains in the southern region, it is still a question mark.The discovery of Phase II culture in Bailian Cave in Liuzhou provides conclusive physical evidence for solving this problem. The time span of the Bailian Cave Phase II culture is between 12,000 and 18,000 years ago, but some people think that it started earlier, such as Mr. Yuan Sixun, who believes that it may have started 20,000 years ago.During this period, the main ice age gradually turned to the warm period starting 14,000 years ago.However, 15,000 to 18,000 years ago was still the maximum ice age.During this period, the dry and cold climate formed a huge thick travertine plate across the entire cave.The giant panda-stegodont fauna has been gradually replaced by modern mammals, and some warm-loving large species such as rhinoceros, stegodont and orangutans have become extinct in this area.With the disappearance of glaciers, the temperature began to rise, and the cold-loving species in the vegetation decreased, gradually transforming into subtropical deciduous broad-leaved forest. Against the backdrop of climate fluctuations and changes in the ecological environment, although the economic life of the Bailian Cave people is still dominated by hunting and gathering, the specific content has changed, and the change is relatively strong, which is reflected in the new type of economic life. The emergence of tools and changes in the combination of tools -- of course, the diversification of economic activities is reflected through tools.In the second cultural layer of Bailian Cave, a stone ax with a polished blade appears, which is much more primitive than the polished stone ax in the future.The application of grinding technology to felling tools is undoubtedly a major event in the history of tool evolution.In the history of the development of grinding technology, belonging to the fourth cultural layer, the grinding cutter that appeared on the west 4th layer may have been accidental, and it only used small gravel to grind off a part, and the grinding surface and the gravel rock surface formed a Bladed.The sharpening products in the second cultural layer are consciously grinding one side of the sharp edge in order to obtain the sharp edge. It is a breakthrough, and it also shows that it is a new craft idea for certain labor needs. It is likely that the emergence of sharpened stone axes and stone adzes is related to cutting and processing bamboo and wood.Along with sharpened objects, various types of choppers also appear among the large gravel tools, which, together with sharpened stone axes, are more likely to be used as tools for felling trees.According to modern ethnographic data, the purpose of cutting down trees is to open up arable land, which is related to the primitive farming activity - burning.Cutting trees, burning mountains, and sowing on demand with sharp wooden sticks (sometimes with "heavy stones") are the primitive farming methods still adopted by some ethnic minorities in modern times. There is a radial-shaped concave-edged scraper in the stone tool combination, which can be used not only to scrape arrow shafts, but also to scrape wooden or bamboo pointed soil digging sticks.It is particularly interesting that two primitive "perforated gravels" (also known as "perforated round stones" or "heavy stones") were unearthed together with these felling tools.This primitive heavy stone processing method is rough, mainly drilling holes. I think it should be a symbol of the cultural relics of the Mesolithic Age in the south. Perforated gravel tools come in different sizes and have many uses: small ones can be used as net pendants or mace heads; large ones can be used as props for certain ceremonial activities; "(or "weighted stone") is used to increase the weight of the digging stick (or sharp wooden stick) to facilitate digging plant roots and digging holes.These scenes are not only vividly reflected in the prehistoric murals of the African Bushmen, but not long ago the Bushmen were still using digging sticks with weighted stones as sowing tools.The appearance of the heavy stone is an important improvement to the function of the pointed wooden stick, making it a new type of combination tool, which is convenient for increasing strength in gathering and burning.Even now, there are traces of deformed weighted stones on on-demand farm implements in some areas.The emergence and development of perforated gravel, like the emergence of sharpening technology, is an important event in the history of tools. It not only marks a new development in stone toolmaking technology, but also reflects a new level of wood and bamboo tools.The emergence of heavy stones and the continuous improvement of the production level and wide use show an important leap in the primitive economy from gathering activities to primitive farming.This leap happened precisely when the last ice age (Yamu ice age) receded at the peak of the cold peak, the climate gradually picked up, and the living environment gradually improved.Another thing worth noting is that pottery sherds dating back 15,000 years ago were discovered in the Miaoyan site in Guilin area. There is even the existence of "pottery-free Neolithic age", indicating that the appearance of pottery sherds cannot be earlier than the Neolithic age.The current situation is that pottery appeared before the arrival of the Neolithic age. The study of primitive pottery shows that the earliest pottery was used as drinking vessel and tableware, and the appearance of pottery was only related to household life. Only relatively stable living conditions, that is, settlement conditions, were conducive to the use of fragile vessels.How pottery was invented is still a scientific mystery. The first pottery may be covered with mud on woven baskets or wooden containers, or even on gourds. Due to chance, the attachments were burned off by fire. Leaving a hardened muddy shell, the earliest and very rough pottery (earthware) appeared.It is inferred from this that it is very likely that the primitive people used mud to paste the simple braided fabrics in order to cook something, which not only prevents water leakage, but also can withstand high temperatures, so pottery is likely to appear as a living utensil.The initial pottery was low in hardness due to the low firing temperature. Later, with the improvement of pottery technology, especially the invention of pottery kiln, the firing temperature was high and the hardness of pottery increased, so it developed from living utensils to pottery. Production tools, such as pottery spinning wheels, pottery pellets and pottery files, etc.According to my guess, what needs to be boiled the most in southern China may not only be wild rice, plant seeds and roots, but also aquatic animals such as snails and mussels that have a strong fishy smell and are difficult to eat raw. And the meat part hidden in the snail shell is easy to take out by boiling.It may sound absurd at first to produce pottery from cooking snails and mussels, but in fact, in the early snail shell culture layer in South China, Guilin, Guangxi, and corresponding sites in Jiangxi and Hunan, more than 15,000 years ago were found. The sherds, which are probably not accidental, are worthy of further study. Due to eating a lot of food such as snails and mussels, a kind of tool specially used for smashing snail shells appeared among the rough gravel tools, that is, a hammer with a handle for easy grasping, and the hammer end is pointed. or sharp ridges. Although a large amount of deposits in the Bailian Cave site had been dug up by local farmers as fertilizer, no early pottery fragments could be found in the remaining deposits.However, early pottery fragments have been found in Miaoyan and other sites in the same period, indicating that the production of pottery should be at this stage.Due to the appearance of early pottery sherds, it also illustrates the transitional characteristics of these cultural layers. In addition to sharpening stone tools and heavy stones, many small types of tunnel stone tools have been unearthed in this stage of the Bailiandong site, including the arrowheads used on bows and arrows - stone arrowheads.This shows that in the early days of primitive farming activities, hunting activities were still very developed, which laid the foundation for primitive livestock domestication activities.Unfortunately, we are still unable to determine exactly what animals or crops the people in Bailian Cave started to domesticate at this time. According to the existing archaeological data, it is very likely that the earliest domesticated animals were dogs and pigs... The earliest cultivated crops may be melons, beans, and root vegetables.In short, there is no doubt that they arose and developed on the background of an extremely wide range of food types (so-called broad-spectrum foods) during the transition period. This transitional character in production activities is also reflected in aspects of primitive human social life, which are elusive.A piece of round gravel used for crushing and grinding hematite was found in the east 6th layer, indicating that hematite powder was already used in this period.What exactly are they used for?There is no direct evidence.According to archaeological findings, red hematite powder often appears in burial activities, on the side of or on human bones at the Beiqiu site in Nanning, Guangxi, the Zengpiyan site in Guilin, the Chencun site in Chaoan, Guangdong, and even the top cave site in Zhoukoudian, Beijing. There are traces of hematite powder.Chen Zhaofu, an expert on petroglyphs in my country, has investigated prehistoric rock paintings all over the world. According to investigations, the use of red in prehistoric times is often related to funeral rites. Hematite powder was sprinkled on the bones of Mesolithic sites in the village of Kanchanaburi, Thailand. Funeral pottery with patterns painted in red pigments is also associated with funerals.The funerary objects of the cavemen in Zhoukoudian were also dyed red--on the small gravels drilled in the decorations, the red color remained on the walls of the holes, and there were traces of red dyeing on the stone beads with holes. There is also a flat There are three light red rough channels on the small circular gravel, similar to the painted gravel in the Mesolithic sites in Europe.In Xinglong, Hebei Province, a red antler with decorative patterns was also found, which was dated to 13065±270 years ago. This artwork may also be a funerary object.There are many bones buried in the Zengpiyan site, among which three pieces of round gravel similar to the red hematite powder remains unearthed from the 6th floor of Bailian Cave were also found.Red hematite powder can also be used to paint petroglyphs.Ethnography has also recorded that Tasmanian women scraped hematite powder with stone tools, and then mixed it with oil, which could be used to rub their hair.From all these, it is not difficult to speculate that the people of Bailian Cave may have used hematite powder for various purposes.Another thing worth noting is that at this stage, the small tunnel stone tools have many small pointed objects, which can be used as tattoo tools.This kind of artificial damage to the human body to leave scar patterns or deform parts of the body for aesthetics, or some kind of religious meaning, or as a tribal identification mark may be one of the cultural contents in this transitional period. Therefore, the second and third cultural layers of Bailian Cave belong to the transitional period (or Mesolithic Age), which has a special economic form and rich cultural connotation. This transitional intermediary stage is the cradle period of Neolithic culture.Accordingly, all other cultural sites similar to it in South China can be classified as Mesolithic cultural sites. The Phase III culture of Bailian Cave represents the early and middle Neolithic cultures. Neolithic tools are relative to Paleolithic tools, which means that the production technology of stone tools is not limited to the method of beating stones with stones, but also grinding stone tools.Although the grinding technology appeared as early as the middle and late Paleolithic Age, the use of grinding methods to process stone tools, especially polished stone tools, is still the main feature of Neolithic culture. . The time span of Phase III culture of Bailian Cave is from 12,000 to 7,000 years ago.During this period, as the global temperature rises, the sea level rises, and the atmospheric circulation changes, driving the summer monsoon to strengthen significantly.The temperature and humidity-loving coniferous broad-leaved forests that had grown during the maximum ice age shrunk in distribution, while the Chinese fir forests that had strong adaptability to cold-temperature environments disappeared in Liuzhou and Guilin, and the evergreen broad-leaved forests dominated by evergreen arbor species took over again. Liuzhou Basin at low latitude and low altitude.As the temperature became warm and humid, ferns flourished, and molluscs multiplied in rich waters, which provided abundant food for primitive people. In the palynological study of Bailian Cave deposits, it was also found that around 8,000 years ago, the evergreen forest near Bailian Cave decreased, and more pollen grains of Gramineae and Artemisiaceae appeared in the palynological assemblage.Palynologists Kong Zhaochen and Du Naiqiu pointed out that this may be due to the intensified influence of ancient human activities at that time, and proposed the possibility of active primitive farming activities.Phase III culture of Bailian Cave shows another style of primitive culture. In the stone tool combination of the Phase III culture of Bailian Cave, the polished stone products are exquisitely made.There is a double-edged adze-shaped cutter with a very thin body, with single-sided grinding edges on both ends. The edge of the blade is as sharp as a razor. There are relatively fine grinding marks on both sides of the body.There are also bone needles, bone cones and other grinding bone horns, and thin perforated gravel decorations can be used as pendants. Sites equivalent to the Phase III culture of Bailian Cave include the Liyuzuiyan Xia shell mound site in Dalongtan not far from Bailian Cave, the Zengpiyan site in Guilin, and the Wannian Xianren Cave in Jiangxi.Their upper cultural layer provides more varieties of bone products, including harpoons with inverted teeth, bone arrowheads, bone hairpins for hair decoration, mussel products, and stone products such as millstones and stones used as primitive agricultural tools. Pestle, polished stone ax and stone adze, etc.They have been able to operate together, so it is speculated that the earliest form of farming - fire farming ("slash and burn") may have been widely implemented.In addition, pottery has been widely used, and the bones of the earliest domestic pig appeared in the Zengpiyan site. The four elements of Neolithic culture generally considered by academic circles (polished stone tools, pottery, primitive farming and primitive domestication of domestic animals) are basically present in these sites, indicating that human beings have entered a new era, that is, human The economic form has been transformed from an extractive economy to a productive economy.From gathering natural resources to artificial planting and raising animals, the order of nature has been disrupted, the "harmonious relationship" between man and nature has been impacted, and the position of man in nature has changed. The role played by man is reversed - man is no longer a submissive, but appears as an alien force in nature, he wants to be the master! The significance of the discovery and research of the Stone Age cultural site in Bailian Cave, especially the identification and establishment of the cultural framework of Bailian Cave, is to confirm the real existence of Mesolithic culture in southern my country, and to explore how the Paleolithic culture in the South passed through China. The transition from Stone Age culture to Neolithic culture provides very precious empirical materials. Go Back in Time Ten Thousand Years--The Enlightenment of Aboriginal Life in Australia The development of primitive man into the Mesolithic Age can be regarded as entering a stage that connects the past and the future. The reason why this stage is very important is that major changes in the course of human history occurred during this stage; this stage.Is there any way for us to learn about this process in more detail and in a more practical way?Can at least understand their life? One is through archaeological methods, as revealed through the Bailian Cave site, but this is already a "fossil state", no matter how rich cultural relics are obtained, after all, they have lost their freshness and are just the past The freezing of time can only be told silently, and it is told intermittently and piecemeal, allowing us to scientifically construct ancient pictures with a high degree of imagination and even romantic feelings. The other is the method of ethnography, with the help of the materials (so-called "social living fossils") obtained from the investigation of ethnic minorities who are currently in a corresponding period of history, and through its refraction, to obtain corresponding information.Of course, they have trekked on this historical journey for a long time, and their current life is not exactly the same as the original appearance at that time. Obviously, they have undergone further development, and they have even been "eroded" by modern civilization and have been deformed, but after all Let us peek into a corner of history.There are not many such tribes and nations that maintain the primitive and ancient way of life, and even today they are unique.Due to their contact with modern civilization, the old way of life has been rapidly disappearing, and sometimes we have not been able to contact some aborigines (indigenous people) who existed not long ago. We can only learn from the historical records of predecessors. Find the information we need.In ethnography, the well-known people who have maintained the primitive hunting and gathering lifestyle include the Bushmen living in the Kalahari Desert in Africa, the Australian aborigines and the Tasmanian aborigines who have been destroyed by the colonists. resident.The last woman of the latter was named Truganina, and with her death in 1876, the nation disappeared from the world. Now let us go back 10,000 years to explore our ancestors in the Mesolithic Age through the information obtained by the former Soviet ethnologists when they investigated the economic life of Australian aborigines.For example, the living conditions of the cultural masters of the second phase of Bailian Cave.It must be known that the Dalongtan people in Liuzhou at this period reflected many physical characteristics similar to those of the Australian-Neglorian race. In some aspects, it may be a portrayal of the life of the ancestors of the Mesolithic Age in South China. The aborigines in Australia belong to the brown race in terms of ethnic classification. When they were "discovered", their economic form was still on the eve of the emergence of agriculture, which was equivalent to the early Mesolithic age, or even earlier.They live a pure hunting-gathering life, hunting small animals and collecting wild plants for a living, and the aborigines in a few lakes and ponds and coastal areas make a living by fishing.They cannot be counted as hoarders because they are still in the "food foraging" stage, and early researchers have pointed out that these aborigines do not know what they will eat until they eat lunch. The types of animals on the Australian mainland are limited and the number is not large, so the aborigines have little choice in terms of meat. They use all the animals they can get as food, but their hunting skills are so perfect that they have reached an astonishing level.Hunting, though their chief means of subsistence, was not their drudgery, but a pastime, a peculiarly beloved activity.They are so focused on hunting that they forget everything else in the world. Therefore, from childhood, they learn hunting skills under the guidance of adults on the one hand; , Understand the habits of prey, develop the habit of using weapons, and become a dexterous and skilled hunter when you grow up.At this point, as zoologists have observed, the hunting behavior of carnivorous animals is a purpose and a pastime in itself, and it is quite similar to educating young and young to learn to hunt! Australian aborigines often use various methods to achieve their goals when hunting large animals.They hunted kangaroos for a long time, staring at them from early morning to late at night. At night, they rested and slept by the fire. At dawn, they continued to track and chase them until the kangaroos were exhausted. He fell to the ground.This hunting method requires the hunter to have great stamina, perseverance and indomitable spirit.Some scholars believe that this hunting method was adopted as early as the period of Homo erectus and has been passed down to the present. They also used the method of collective roundup, dividing the personnel into two groups: one group chased the prey; the other group ambush behind the bunker and hunted the chased animals in a sudden attack.Digging traps and fences are also sometimes used, but this passive method is used less than the active pursuit method.They sometimes travel long distances to hunt according to the habits of their prey, and even return after several weeks.In order to catch animals in the trees (such as possums) and obtain bird eggs and honey, they have developed a unique set of climbing skills, which is unmatched by other ethnic groups.As for the animals in the burrows, such as marsupial rodents, bandicoots, rats, lizards, snakes, not only men, but also women and juveniles are quite enthusiastic about catching them, generally searching and digging them with digging sticks , but such activities are within the scope of collection. For birds, especially water birds, in addition to using the special hunting tool "boomerang", a collar is also used to catch them.Dealing with birds of prey shows their cleverness and bravery.With the fish in hand, they lie motionless on the bare rock face exposed to the sun. When the raptor comes down to eat, the hunter will grab its legs suddenly and kill it.Fishing is not only done with bare hands, but also with traps, baskets, harpoons, and nets woven from branches, grass bundles, and reeds.Fishing is also very common. Fishhooks are mostly made of bones and shells. The hooks have barbs and the tip of the harpoon has inverted teeth.They sometimes use torches to spear fish at night, and sometimes even drop leaves of narcotic plants to numb the fish before catching them.In coastal areas, boats are used to catch dugongs, sea striders and salmon.The purpose of Aboriginal hunting in Australia is purely for meat. Only on rare occasions are wolf dogs used to aid in hunting.They capture small wolf dogs for domestication, and sometimes women use their own milk to feed wolf dogs. This semi-domesticated animal is often used to find animal tracks, and sometimes to chase prey, often chasing kangaroos.However, Australian aborigines seldom take wolf dogs to hunt, because they believe and rely more on their dexterous hunting skills. Gathering, especially of plant food, plays a greater role in the economic life of Australia, and even in some areas it becomes the main subsistence activity. This is because hunting does not guarantee success in advance, and the plants collected by women Sexual food has become a relatively stable basis for their lives, especially in areas with few animal resources.This became even more important in the later period of primitive times when the population increased and the demand for food increased.Plants are not only used as food, but also as medicine, and even required for certain technologies, such as poisonous plants are used to anesthetize fishing and so on.For Aboriginal Australians, any part of any plant may be used as food, such as berries, nuts, grains, grass seeds, fine roots, tubers, tubers, stems, twigs, young shoots, seeds, flowers and Soft tree heart, etc.Among them, tubers and roots and fruits dominate and are often used as staple food, so some scholars call Australian aborigines "diggers of wild roots and fruits". In addition to various plant foods, many small animals (such as lizards, mice, frogs, shrimps, snails, snails, mussels, insects), wild bees, eggs of birds and reptiles, etc. are the objects of collection.In fact, Aborigines in Australia will not let go of anything that can be used as food. The main gathering tool is a digging stick made of a strong branch with a sharpened head.Gathering is mainly women's labor, because only women's patience and persistent efforts can be competent for this simple and boring, and sometimes monotonous, tiring labor.For example: in order to dig a 0.3-meter-long root tuber of Scutellaria chinensis, it is necessary to dig a large pit with a diameter of about 1 meter and a depth of 0.5 meters. It is indeed a very monotonous and tiresome job to dig out one by one.When collecting food such as seeds, strawberries, and nuts, no tools are needed, and it is enough to collect by hand. The only tool is a small wooden trough for holding things. Aboriginal Australians never eat raw meat and fish from hunting, but the processing method is relatively simple, and they are rarely cooked. They are mainly roasted on hot stones, sand and ashes.The collected food is sometimes eaten raw, but most of it is prepared on fire, such as small animals, eggs and worms are mostly buried in ashes and roasted.许多植物性食物无需调制即可生食，但与需要加工的食物相比只占次要的地位。块根多放在灰烬中煨熟，而禾谷和草籽的加工要复杂些，需要打谷脱粒、碾碎、加水揉成面团，再放在火上烤成面饼。这些方法几乎与农业民族所采用的步骤完全相同，只是制作程序分得不很清楚，将有些程序合并在一起进行。块根和根茎的加工和谷物加工程序差不多，但要稍复杂一些，时间也花费得多些，特别是那些带苦味的，甚至有毒的块根，必须先用水浸泡很久，并反复烤几次才能食用。 实际上，澳大利亚土著在采集和加工植物性食物的许多方面，已跟原始农业很接近。除了没有耕种土地、播种和栽培外，农业操作的其他阶段，如收割、挖掘、打谷、簸谷、浸揉和搓成面团再烤成面饼，他们已很熟练，只要学会耕地和栽种，他们就会成为真正的农人了。如果从经济形态的阶段来看，他们确实处在生产性经济--原始农耕的前夕，然而他们比纯粹的攫取性经济又向前迈进了一步，甚至已有某些农耕的萌芽迹象。在澳大利亚西部某些地区的妇女，把川蓖薢的块根挖回来后，为了保证以后再次收获，他们将切下的块茎茎头又回插到地里去。当然还有一些打算种植其他所需植物的例子。不少学者将澳大利亚土著的经济与文化定位在中石器时代，我看是没有什么问题的。现在已不复存在的原塔斯马尼亚文化，还要比澳大利亚土著显得原始，这里就不多作介绍了。 根据上面的介绍，我们可以看到处于这一发展阶段，人与自然的关系基本上是协调的，大自然为人类的生存提供了广泛的生活资料，所谓广谱性的生活资料。不同的生态环境提供不同种类和不同数量的生活资料，在人口压力不大的情况下能满足人们的需求，在这时人是尊重自然界的，仅是多种形式合理地利用它，还没有发生以后滥用资源的现象。在这种原始的狩猎一采集生活中，男女分工也很明确，狩猎是成年男性的主业，而且男人们没有将之视作苦役，而是一种"娱乐性"的活动，男人们乐意去做，甚至充满活力的男性会长途跋涉去狩猎动物。采集，特别是植物性食物的采集，是女性的主要技艺。女性特有的耐心和坚忍不拔的精神使她们承担了这种单调、疲劳的工种。由于采集是生活资料相对稳定的来源，人们，特别是细心的妇女，给予它的关注也就更多。这对走向原始种植和家畜驯化关系重大，很可能原始农业就是在采集工作中占首要地位的妇女手中产生的。时至今日，妇女在家庭乃至整个国家提供食物保证方面仍然发挥着决定性的作用。这一点是1996年11月在罗马召开的"世界粮食首脑会议"上，发布的一份题为《妇女喂养着世界》的公告中指出的。在原始时代，特别在中石器时代更可看出妇女在喂养整个人类的重要性和决定性作用了。 值得注意的是，根据对澳大利亚土著的考察，作为种植的植物往往是当地常见的、也是普遍食用的种类。如澳大利亚库被尔斯克里克河两岸生长着类似黍子的一种草，有的地区生长此草的面积可达4平方千米以上，而在其他国家它已是一种栽培谷物，但在此地仍为野生谷物。将它转化为栽培作物是不难的，其实只要澳大利亚土著学会了对它进行栽培，这个地区的澳大利亚土著也就进入原始农业阶段了。 澳大利亚土著的这种经济形态为我们提供了史前时期中石器时代，相当于白莲洞Ⅱ期文化的绝好的例证。 人类演化三轨道与"中石器革命" 原始人类的演化发展遵循着三个轨道在运行： 一个轨道是人本身--体质形态的演化发展。它由前人类（南猿群中的早期类型）进化为真人类（南猿群中的进步类型--人属的最初代表）；然后通过直立人群发展为化石智人群；最后通过中石器时代与新石器时代先民--他们是现代人的直接先辈，到达现代人阶段，其实到了化石智人群的后期代表已接近原始人阶段的结束。人类本身的这一演化历程，在某种意义上说是生物进化的历程，其机制十分复杂，既遵循生物进化的法则，更涉及到深层遗传物质的复杂机制，这不能用任何社会的、政治的、经济的口号可以一言概括。 另一个轨道是生产技艺的演化发展，这是石器时代生产工艺的演化历程。它表现在石器制作技艺上（有些学者所称的"石器工业"上）经历了旧石器时代（可分早、中和晚三期）、中石器时代（亦可分期，如白莲洞Ⅱ期文化还可分早、晚两期）和新石器时代（至少可分早、中和晚三期）。在由中石器时代向新石器时代演化过程中，在一些研究比较深入的地区，某阶段的划分要细致得多，以西亚的耶哥利文化为例，从事该文化研究的专家们做如下的划分： 由距今1.1万年前的中石器时代（纳吐夫文化）发展为"原始新石器时代"，原始新石器时代为由游猎向定居过渡的阶段，此时原始农业是否产生，尚不得而知。再由它发展为"前陶新石器时代"，有时也称为"无陶新石器时代"，它可再分为两段，距今1万年前的A段，以出现原始农业，石器中出现石镰、石镞、石锥、石凿和石锛为特色；距今0.9万年前的B段，此时石器中出现长而薄的石刀和大型的磨石、石锤、石杵和碾石等，特别是已有雏形的城市出现。再进一步发展为"有陶新石器时代"，顾名思义，此时已普遍使用陶器，本期亦可分为A、B两段，但具体资料较少。由此可见，耶哥利文化展现了不同于东南亚的白莲洞文化与和平文化的另一种文化面貌，欧洲又将是另一种特点。而这一切都是在各自特定的生态环境中发展起来的石器时代某一阶段生产工艺上的不同面貌。 第三个轨道是文化发展的历程。虽然生产技艺也是文化的一种表现形式，但文化还不止于此，它拥有更广泛、更深邃的内涵，它是人与生产技艺结合而产生的众多要素的综合体，包括物质和精神两个方面。其实生产技艺本身就是一种物质文化，然而更重要的是精神文化，它是借助于除生产工具之外的另一种"工具"--符号而发展起来的有形或无形的精神财富，它特别积淀在人的大脑，也就是思维与智能活动的物质基础之中，它使人拥有了巨大的潜能，人类的演化成为了生物进化与人类文化交互作用的产物。 数百万年来人类的祖先和先辈们所创造的一切财富--思想、知识、经验等等，所有这一切变成了信息都集中存蓄到大脑中来，一代代向下流传，人的心智由此越来越强，通俗地说就是人变得越来越聪明。随着人类文化的发展，也就是人类文明的昌盛，不只艺术，还有科学技术，再加上人类所特有的丰富的想像力。人发明了所能发明的一切，也创造了所能创造的一切。人的智慧已不仅是天赋的天然智能，还添加了人工智能……美国哈佛大学的张光直教授在北京大学的一次讲学活动中指出，过去我们对旧石器时代人类祖先的文化水平太低估了。确实如此，实际上我们对中石器时代的认识更肤浅，当我们越了解由中石器时代文化向新石器时代文化演化历程的具体内容时，就越发感到人类很早就拥有非常丰富的文化内涵了。虽然通过史前考古所能获得的有形东西太少、太零碎、太单调，很不起眼，但蕴藏在人类大脑中、深深根植于大脑之中人的智慧却具有巨大的能量。这一点已经和正在被深刻地认识到--只要人正常地生活着，大脑中的智慧就会进发出耀眼的光芒。有一句至理名言--人手是人类智慧的刀刃。毫无疑问，人手促进了人脑的进化和发展，进化了的大脑又指挥着人手的行动。这个世界只能由行动而不是由冥想来把握。行动不是盲目的举动，而是在智慧把握之下的实践。原始人类发展的三条轨道只在一个交汇点上才迸发出人类历史大转折的光辉，这就是由旧石器时代晚期文化向新石器时代文化的转化。它的根基是由攫取性经济形态向生产性经济形态过渡，这是一次非常重要的质的飞跃。这就是"中石器革命"，学者们喜欢用"新石器革命"来描述这个历史进程。在我看来，与其说是"新石器革命"，不如说是"中石器革命"来得更妥帖和更真实。