Sociocultural characteristics of primitive society. Primitive society

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Department of Cultural Studies.

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"The culture of primitive society."

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Dubna, 2000

Introduction................................................. ........................................................ ........................................................ ..................................... 3

The structure of world history. – K. Jaspers................................................... ........................................................ .................................... 5

Periodization of primitiveness................................................... ........................................................ ........................................................ ..... 6

Features of primitive art................................................................... ........................................................ ......................................... 7

Early forms of belief................................................................... ........................................................ ........................................................ ............. 13

Conclusion................................................. ........................................................ ........................................................ .................................... 15

List of used literature:........................................................ ........................................................ ......................................... 16

Primitiveness is the childhood of humanity. Most of human history dates back to the primitive period.

American ethnographer L. G. Morgan(1818-1881) in the periodization of human history (“Ancient Society”, 1877) calls the period of primitiveness “savagery.” U K. Jaspers in the scheme of world history, the period of primitiveness is called “prehistory”, the “Promethean era”.

Karl Jaspers(1883-1969) – one of the most prominent representatives existentialism. He emphasizes that humanity has a single origin and a single path of development, introduces the concept axial time .

Karl Jaspers characterizes it by saying that a lot of extraordinary things happen at this time. Confucius and Lao Tzu lived in China at that time, and all directions of Chinese philosophy arose. The Upanishads arose in India, Buddha lived, in the philosophy of India, as in China, all possibilities of philosophical comprehension of reality were considered, including skepticism, sophistry, nihilism and materialism; in Iran, Zarathustra taught about a world where there is a struggle between good and evil; The prophets Elijah spoke in Palestine. Isaiah, Jeremiah and Deuteroisaiah; in Greece this is the time of Homer, the philosophers Parmenides, Heraclitus, Plato, the tragedians, Thucydides and Archimedes. Everything associated with these names arose almost simultaneously over the course of a few centuries, independently of each other.

We know nothing about the soul of a person who lived 20,000 years ago. However, we know that throughout the history of mankind known to us, man has not changed significantly either in his biological and psychological properties, or in his primary unconscious impulses (after all, about 100 generations have passed since then). What was the formation of man in prehistoric times? What did he experience, discover, accomplish, invent before the beginning of the stories being told? The first formation of man is a deepest mystery, still completely inaccessible and incomprehensible to us.

The demands placed on our knowledge by prehistory are expressed in a question without answers.

Modern anthropology does not provide a final and reliable idea of the time and reasons for the transition from Homo habilis to Homo sapiens, as well as the starting point of its evolution. It is only obvious that man has traveled a long and very winding path in his biological and social development. In times and eras inaccessible to our definition, people settled on the globe. It went within limited areas, was endlessly scattered, but at the same time had an all-encompassing, unified character.

Our ancestors, in the most distant period available to us, appear before us in groups, around a fire. The use of fire and tools is an essential factor in the transformation of man into man. “We would hardly consider a living being that has neither one nor the other a person.”

The radical difference between man and animals is that the surrounding objective world is the object of his thinking and speech.

The formation of groups and communities, awareness of its semantic meaning is another distinctive quality of a person. Only when greater cohesion begins to emerge between primitive people does a sedentary and organized humanity appear instead of horse and deer hunters.

The emergence of art is a natural consequence of the development of labor activity and technology of Paleolithic hunters, inseparable deposits of the clan organization, the modern physical type of man. The volume of his brain increased, many new associations appeared, and the need for new forms of communication increased.

United world of humanity on the globe

The oldest human tool dates back to about 2.5 million years ago. Based on the materials from which people made tools, archaeologists divide the history of the Primitive World into the Stone, Copper, Bronze and Iron Ages.

Stone Age divided by ancient (Paleolithic), middle (Nesolithic) And new (Neolithic). The approximate chronological boundaries of the Stone Age are over 2 million - 6 thousand years ago. The Paleolithic, in turn, is divided into three periods: lower, middle and upper (or late). The Stone Age has changed copper (Neolithic), lasted 4–3 thousand BC Then came bronze age(4th–beginning of the 1st millennium BC), at the beginning of the 1st millennium BC. e. replaced him Iron Age.

Primitive man mastered the skills of agriculture and cattle breeding in less than ten thousand years. Before this, for hundreds of thousands of years, people obtained their food in three ways: gathering, hunting and fishing. Even in the early stages of development, the mind of our distant ancestors affected us. Paleolithic sites, as a rule, are located on capes and when enemies enter one or another wide valley. The rough terrain was more convenient for driven hunting of herds of large animals. Its success was ensured not by the perfection of the weapon (in the Paleolithic these were darts and spears), but by the complex tactics of the beaters pursuing mammoths or bison. Later, by the beginning of the Mesolithic, bows and arrows appeared. By that time, mammoths and rhinoceroses had become extinct, and small, shameless mammals had to be hunted. What was decisive was not the size and coherence of the team of beaters, but the dexterity and accuracy of the individual hunter. In the Mesolithic, fishing also developed, and nets and hooks were invented.

These technical achievements - the result of a long search for the most reliable, most expedient tools of production - did not change the essence of the matter. Humanity still appropriated only the products of nature.

The question of how this ancient society, based on the appropriation of wild nature products, developed into more advanced forms of farming and pastoralism constitutes the most complex problem of historical science. In excavations carried out by scientists, signs of agriculture dating back to the Mesolithic era were discovered. These are sickles, consisting of silicon inserts inserted into bone handles, and grain grinders.

It is inherent in the very nature of man that he cannot be only a part of nature: he shapes himself through the means of art.

For the first time, the involvement of Stone Age hunter-gatherers in the visual arts has been attested to by a famous archaeologist. Eduard Larte, who found an engraved plate in the Chaffo grotto in 1837. He also discovered an image of a mammoth on a piece of mammoth bone in the La Madeleine grotto (France).

A characteristic feature of art at a very early stage was syncretism .

Human activity related to the artistic exploration of the world also contributed to the formation of homo sapiens (reasonable man). At this stage, the possibilities of all psychological processes and experiences of primitive man were in embryo - in a collective unconscious state, in the so-called archetype.

As a result of the discoveries of archaeologists, it was discovered that monuments of art appeared immeasurably later than tools, almost a million years.

Monuments of Paleolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic hunting art show us what people's attention was focused on during that period. Paintings and engravings on rocks, sculptures made of stone, clay, wood, and drawings on vessels are devoted exclusively to scenes of hunting game animals.

The main object of creativity of the Paleolithic Mesolithic and Neolithic times were animals .

Both cave paintings and figurines help us capture the most essential in primitive thinking. The spiritual powers of the hunter are aimed at comprehending the laws of nature. The very life of primitive man depends on this. The hunter studied the habits of a wild animal to the smallest detail, which is why the Stone Age artist was able to show them so convincingly. Man himself did not receive as much attention as the outside world, which is why there are so few images of people in cave paintings and Paleolithic sculptures are so close in the full sense of the word.

The main artistic feature of primitive art was symbolic form, the conditional nature of the image. The symbols are both realistic images and conventional ones. Often works of primitive art represent entire systems of symbols that are complex in their structure, carrying a great aesthetic load, with the help of which a wide variety of concepts or human feelings are conveyed.

Culture in the Paleolithic era. Initially not isolated into a special type of activity and associated with hunting and the labor process, primitive art reflected man’s gradual knowledge of reality, his first ideas about the world around him. Some art historians distinguish three stages of visual activity in the Paleolithic era. Each of them is characterized by a qualitatively new pictorial form. Natural creativity– composition of ink, bones, natural layout. Includes the following points: ritual actions with the carcass of a killed animal, and later with its skin thrown on a stone or rock ledge. Subsequently, a molded base for this skin appears. Animal sculpture was an elementary form of creativity. The next second stage is artificial figurative form includes artificial means of creating an image, the gradual accumulation of “creative” experience, which was expressed at first in a fully three-dimensional sculpture, and then in bas-relief simplification.

Similar stages can be traced when studying the musical layer of primitive art. The musical principle was not separated from movement, gestures, exclamations and facial expressions.

The musical element of natural pantomime included: imitation of the sounds of nature - onomatopoeic motifs; artificial intonation form - motives, with a fixed pitch position of the tone; intonation creativity; two - and triad motifs.

An ancient musical instrument made from mammoth bones was discovered in one of the houses at the Mizinskaya site. It was intended to reproduce noise and rhythmic sounds.

The subtle and soft tradition of tones, the overlay of one paint on another sometimes creates the impression of volume, a feeling of the texture of the skin of an animal. For all its vital expressiveness and realistic generality, Paleolithic art remains intuitively spontaneous. It consists of individual specific images, there is no background, there is no composition in the modern sense of the word.

Primitive artists became the founders of all types of fine art: graphics (drawings and silhouettes), painting (color images made with mineral paints), sculpture (figures carved from stone or sculpted from clay). They also excelled in decorative arts - stone and bone carving, relief.

A special area of primitive art - ornament. It was used very widely already in the Paleolithic. Bracelets and all kinds of figurines carved from mammoth ivory are covered with geometric patterns. Geometric ornament is the main element of Mizinsky art. This design consists mainly of many zigzag lines.

What does this abstract pattern mean and how did it come about? There have been many attempts to resolve this issue. The geometric style did not really correspond to the brilliant realism of the drawings of cave art. Having studied the cut structure of mammoth tusks using magnifying instruments, the researchers noticed that they also consist of zigzag patterns, very similar to the zigzag ornamental motifs of the Mezin products. Thus, the basis of the Mezin geometric ornament was a pattern drawn by nature itself. But ancient artists not only copied nature, they introduced new combinations and elements into the original ornament.

Stone Age vessels found at sites in the Urals had rich ornamentation. Most often, the drawings were extruded with special stamps. They were usually made from rounded, carefully polished flat pebbles of yellowish or greenish stones with sparkles. Slots were made along their sharp edges; stamps were also made from bone, wood, and shells. If you press such a stamp onto wet clay, a pattern similar to the imprint of a comb is applied. The impression of such a stamp is often called comb, or jagged.

In all the cases carried out, the original plot for the ornament is determined relatively easily, but, as a rule, it is almost impossible to guess it. French archaeologist A. Breuil traced the stages of schematization of the image of a roe deer in the late Paleolithic art of Western Europe - from the silhouette of an animal with horns to some kind of flower.

Primitive artists also created works of art of small forms, primarily small figurines. The earliest of them, carved from mammoth ivory, marl and chalk, belong to the polealite.

Some researchers of Upper Paleolithic art believe that the most ancient monuments of art, for the purposes they served, were not only art, they had religious and magical significance, and oriented man in nature.

Culture in the Mesolithic and Neolithic era. Later stages of the development of primitive culture date back to the Mesolithic, Neolithic and the time of the spread of the first metal tools. From the appropriation of finished products of nature, primitive man gradually moves on to more complex forms of labor; along with hunting and fishing, he begins to engage in agriculture and cattle breeding. In the new Stone Age, the first artificial material invented by man appeared - fire-clay. Previously, people used what nature provided - stone, wood, bone. Farmers depicted animals much less often than hunters, but they increasingly decorated the surface of clay vessels.

In the Neolithic and Bronze Ages, ornamentation experienced its true dawn and images appeared. Conveying more complex and abstract concepts. Many types of decorative and applied arts were formed - ceramics, metal working. Bows, arrows and pottery appeared. The first metal products appeared on the territory of our country about 9 thousand years ago. They were forged - casting appeared much later.

Bronze Age culture. Since the Bronze Age, bright images of animals almost disappear. Dry geometric patterns are spreading everywhere. For example, profiles of mountain goats carved on the cliffs of the mountains of Azerbaijan, Dagestan, Central and Central Asia. People spend to create petroglyphs less and less effort, hastily scratching small figures on the stone. And although in some places drawings still make their way today, ancient art will never be revived. It has exhausted its capabilities. All his highest achievements are in the past.

The last stage in the development of Bronze Age tribes in the Northwestern Caucasus is characterized by the existence of a large center of metallurgy and metalworking. Copper ores were mined, copper was smelted, and the production of finished products from alloys (bronze) was established.

At the end of this period, along with bronze objects, iron objects begin to appear, which mark the beginning of a new period.

The development of productive forces leads to the fact that part of the pastoral tribes switches to nomadic cattle breeding. Other tribes, continuing to lead a sedentary lifestyle based on agriculture, move to a higher stage of development - to plow farming. At this time, social changes also occurred among the tribes.

In the late period of primitive society, artistic crafts developed: products were made from bronze, gold and silver.

Types of settlements and burials. By the end of the primitive era, a new type of architectural structures appeared - fortresses Most often these are structures made of huge rough-hewn stones, which have been preserved in many places in Europe and the Caucasus. And in the middle, forest. A strip of Europe from the second half of the 1st millennium BC. settlements and burials spread.

Settlements They are divided into fortified (sites, villages) and fortified (fortified settlements). Selishchami And fortifications usually referred to as monuments of the Bronze and Iron Ages. Under parking lots Of course, settlements of the Stone and Bronze Ages. The term “parking” is very relative. Now it is being replaced by the concept of “settlement”. A special place is occupied by Mesolithic settlements called kekenmeddingami, which means "kitchen piles" (they look like long piles of oyster shell waste). The name is Danish, since these types of monuments were first discovered in Denmark. On the territory of our country they are found in the Far East. Excavations of settlements provide information about the life of ancient people.

A special type of settlement - Roman terramara– fortified settlements on stilts. The building material of these settlements is marl, a type of shell rock. Unlike the pile settlements of the Stone Age, the Romans built terramaras not in a swamp or lake, but in a dry place, and then filled the entire space around the buildings with water to protect them from enemies.

Burials are divided into two main types: grave structures ( mounds, megaliths, tombs) and ground, that is, without any grave structures. At the base of many mounds Yamnaya culture stood out cromlech- a belt made of stone blocks or slabs placed on edge. The size of the pit mounds is very impressive. The diameter of their cromlechs reaches 20 meters, and the height of other heavily swollen embankments even now exceeds 7 meters. Sometimes stone tombstones, gravestone statues, stone women– stone sculptures of people (warriors, women). The stone woman formed an inextricable whole with the mound and was created with the expectation of being placed on a high earthen pedestal, with visibility from all sides of the most distant points.

The period when people adapted to nature, and all art was essentially reduced to “the image of the beast”, is over. The period of man's dominance over nature and the dominance of his image in art began.

The most complex structures are megalithic burials, that is, burials in tombs built of large stones - dolmens, menhirs. Common in Western Europe and southern Russia dolmens.Once upon a time in the north-west of the Caucasus, dolmens numbered in the hundreds.

The earliest of them were built more than four thousand years ago by tribes that had already mastered agriculture, cattle breeding and copper smelting. But the dolmen builders did not yet know iron, had not yet tamed the horse, and had not yet lost the habit of using stone tools. These people were very poorly equipped with construction equipment. Nevertheless, they created stone structures that were not left behind not only by the Caucasian aborigines of the previous era, but also by the tribes who later lived along the shores of the Black Sea. It was necessary to try many construction options before arriving at the classic design - four slabs placed on edge, supporting a fifth - a flat ceiling.

Megalithic tombs with engravings are also a monument to the primitive era.

The most ancient forms of religion in origin include: magic, fetishism, totemism, erotic rituals, and funeral cult. They are rooted in the living conditions of primitive people.

Animism. Beliefs in ancient human society were closely related to primitive mythical views and they were based on animism (from the Latin anima - spirit, soul), endowing natural phenomena with human qualities. The term was introduced into scientific use by the English ethnologist E. B. Tyler (1832 - 1917) in the fundamental work “Primitive Culture” (1871) to designate the initial stage in the history of the development of religion. Tylor considered animism to be the "minimum of religion." The poison of this theory is the assertion that initially any religion originated from the belief of the “savage philosopher” in the ability of the “soul”, “spirit” to separate from the body. Irrefutable proof of this for our primitive ancestors were the facts they observed, such as dreams, hallucinations, cases of lethargic sleep, false death and other inexplicable phenomena.

In primitive culture, animism was a universal form of religious beliefs; the process of development of religious ideas, rites and rituals began with it.

Animistic ideas about the nature of the soul predetermined the relationship of primitive man to death, burial, and the dead.

Magic. The most ancient form of religion is magic (from the Greek megeia - magic), which is a series of symbolic actions and rituals with spells and rituals.

The problem of magic still remains one of the least clear among the problems in the history of religions. Some scientists, like the famous English religious scholar and ethnologist James Freder (1854-1941), see in it the forerunner of religion. The German ethnologist and sociologist A. Vierkandt (1867-1953) considers magic as the main source of the development of religious ideas. Russian ethnographer L.Ya. Sternberg (1861-1927) considers it a product of early animistic beliefs. One thing is certain - “magic brightened up, if not entirely, then to a significant extent, the thinking of primitive man and was closely connected with the development of belief in the supernatural.”

Primitive magical rites are difficult to limit from instinctive and reflexive actions associated with material practice. Based on this role that magic plays in people’s lives, the following types of magic can be distinguished: harmful, military, sexual (love), healing and protective, fishing, meteorological and other minor types of magic.

The psychological mechanism of a magical act is usually largely predetermined by the nature and direction of the ritual being performed. In some types of magic, rituals of the contact type predominate, in others - imitative ones. The first includes, for example, healing magic, the second – meteorological. The roots of magic are closely related to human practice. Such, for example, are hunting magic dances, which usually represent imitation of animals, often with the use of animal skins. Perhaps it was hunting dances that were depicted in the drawings of a primitive artist in the Paleolithic caves of Europe. The most stable manifestation of hunting magic is hunting prohibitions, superstitions, omens, and beliefs.

Like any religion, magical beliefs are only a fantastic reflection in the minds of people of external forces dominating them. The specific roots of different types of magic are in the corresponding types of human activity. They arose and were preserved where and when man was helpless before the forces of nature.

One of the most ancient, and independent, roots of religious beliefs and rituals is associated with the area of gender relations - this is love magic, erotic rituals, various types of religious and sexual prohibitions, beliefs about human sexual relations with spirits, the cult of love deities.

Many types of magic are still used today. For example. One of the most stable types of magic is sex magic. Its rituals often continue to exist today in their simplest and most direct form.

Magical ideas determined the entire content side of primitive art, which can be called magical-religious.

Fetishism. Type of magic - feteshism(from the French fetiche - talisman, amulet, idol) - worship of inanimate objects to which supernatural properties are attributed. Objects of worship - fetishism - can be stones, sticks, trees, any objects. They can be either natural or man-made. The forms of veneration of fetishes are just as varied: from making sacrifices to them to driving nails into them in order to cause pain to the spirit and thereby more accurately force it to fulfill the benefit addressed to it.

belief amulets(from Arabic gamala - to wear) goes back to primitive fetishism and magic. It was associated with a specific subject. which was prescribed supernatural magical power, the ability to protect its owner from misfortunes and illnesses. In Siberia, Neolithic fishermen hung stone fish from their nets.

Fetishism is also widespread in modern religions, for example, the worship of the black stone in Mecca among Muslims, and numerous “miraculous” icons and relics in Christianity.

Totemism. In the history of religions of many ancient peoples, the worship of animals and trees played an important role. The world as a whole seemed to the savage animate; trees and animals were no exception to the rule. The savage believed that they possessed souls similar to his own, and communicated with them accordingly. When primitive man called himself by the name of an animal, called it his "brother" and refrained from killing it, such an animal was called totemic(from the northern Indian ototem - his family). Totetism is the belief in consanguineous ties between a genus and certain plants or animals (less commonly, natural phenomena).

The life of the entire clan and each of its members individually depended on the totem. People also believed that the totem was incomprehensibly embodied in newborns (incarnation). A common occurrence was the attempts of primitive man to influence the totem in various magical ways, for example, in order to cause an abundance of corresponding animals or fish, birds and plants and ensure the material well-being of the clan. It is likely that the famous cave paintings and sculptures of the Upper Paleolithic era in Europe are associated with totemism.

Traces and remnants of totemism are also found in the religions of class societies in China. In ancient times, the Yin tribe (Yin dynasty) revered the swallow as a totem. The influence of totemic survivals on world and national religions is traced. For example, the ritual eating of totem meat in more developed religions developed into the ritual eating of a sacrificial animal. Some authors believe that the Christian sacrament of communion is also rooted in a distant totem ritual.

Thirty thousand years of archaic culture have not disappeared. We have inherited rites, rituals, symbols, monuments, and stereotypes of primitive cults. It is no coincidence that remnants of primitive beliefs have been preserved in all religions, as well as in the traditions and way of life of the peoples of the world. Maybe it’s worth listening to the opinion of the famous German-American ethnographer F. Boas (1858-1942):

In many cases, the differences between a civilized person and a primitive person turn out to be rather apparent; in reality, the basic features of the mind are the same. The main indicators of intelligence are common to all humanity.

The art of the primitive era served as the basis for the further development of world art. The culture of Ancient Egypt, Sumer, Iran, India, China arose on the basis of everything that was created by their primitive predecessors.

The Yamnaya culture of the Chalcolithic era (2nd half of the 3rd – early 2nd millennium BC) in the steppes of Eastern Europe. Named after the construction of burial pits under the mounds.

From Breton. – crom – circle and lech – stone.

Megalith - from Greek. megas – big and lithos – stone

From Breton. dol – table and men – stone

From. Breton. men – stone and hir – long.

Tokarev S.A. Early forms of religion

Boas F. The mind of primitive man.

The culture of primitive society

1. Culture of primitive society

1.1Characteristic features of primitive culture

1.2Evolution of art in the Stone Age

1.3Culture and art in the Bronze and Iron Ages

List of sources used

1. CULTURE OF PRIMITIVE SOCIETY

1.1 Characteristic features of primitive culture

Historians divide the early stages of the development of human society into the Stone Age (2.5 million - 4 thousand years BC), Bronze Age (III-II millennium BC) and Iron Age (1st millennium BC. ).

The Stone Age is divided into Paleolithic (2.5 million - 10 thousand years BC), Mesolithic (10-6 thousand years BC), Neolithic (6-4 thousand years BC .) and Chalcolithic (III – early II millennium BC). There are two main periods in the Paleolithic - the Lower Paleolithic (2.5 million - 40 thousand years BC), ending, according to experts, with the Mousterian era (approximately 90-40 thousand years BC), and Upper Paleolithic (40–10 thousand years BC). The early stage of the Upper Paleolithic is followed by the following periods: Aurignacian (30–19 thousand years BC), Solutre (19–15 thousand years BC), Madeleine (15–10 thousand years BC) .).

Already in the Lower Paleolithic era, tool and signaling activity of higher mammals (hominids) arose. In the period 300–40 thousand years BC. There was a transition from reflexive-instrumental activity (“instinctive labor” in K. Marx’s terminology) of hominids to conscious human labor. Man continued to use fire and built the first dwellings. Collective (community) ownership of extracted consumer goods and means of labor and a kind of “yoke of collectivity” took shape, associated with the complete subordination of the individual to the clan and strict regulation of all aspects of his life. As noted by historian B.F. Porshnev (“On the Beginning of Human History”), the initial forms of articulate speech and the second signaling system were formed in the process of regulating social relations on the principles of primitive communism. The first components of the primitive language that emerged from the linguistic complex were verbs that encouraged the fulfillment of the requirements of the morality of survival in critical conditions (“don’t consume it yourself - give it to the mother and cub”).

During the Upper Paleolithic period, articulate speech appeared as a specifically human form of communication. Articulate speech rose and differentiated in unity with the forms of thinking and art. A series of words, symbolic designations of artistic symbols were identified for isolating and typologizing natural phenomena, key moments of social life. A modern type of man emerged – homo sapiens (“reasonable man”). There was an intensive development of fine arts - sculpture, relief, graphics, painting.

During the Mesolithic era, man tamed the dog, invented the bow and arrows, the boat, and mastered the manufacture of baskets and fishing nets.

In the Neolithic era, primitive society moved from an appropriating type of economy (gathering, hunting) to a producing type of economy (cattle breeding, agriculture). At the same time, spinning, weaving, and pottery production developed, home and ritual ceramics appeared, and trade arose.

Reviewing primitive culture as a whole, we can highlight the following features. Primitive culture is a pre-class, pre-state, pre-literate culture. For a long time it had a syncretic (undifferentiated) character, which was a consequence of the primitiveness of the system of needs of primitive man and his activities. The needs themselves were not differentiated. Labor operations, artistic activities, and magical rituals in primitive society were intertwined with each other.

Primitive culture focused primarily on material, utilitarian values and concrete sensory forms of their representation. At the same time, it brought to the fore magically significant components, fetishized and marked with totemic symbols, since it was believed that the survival of the clan and tribe primarily depended on them. The development of material culture followed the line of dominance of the hunting-nomadic way of life (Paleolithic, Mesolithic) with the transition to an agricultural-sedentary way of life (Neolithic). In the primitive picture of the world, moments of movement (kinetism) and mythological, sign-symbolic and spiritualistic mediation of important types of collective life activity (magism) prevailed. We can judge many features of primitive culture from the style of life, forms of sign-symbolic activity of the so-called archaic tribes, scattered in protected corners of the earth. In their sphere of spiritual activity (not completely separated from material existence), ancient beliefs, magic, forms of pre-logical thinking and myths are still cultivated. The most common early forms of beliefs of primitive and archaic tribes include fetishism, totemism, and animism. Among the most ancient sacred worships, funeral, agricultural, commercial, erotic, astral-solar cults should be highlighted. Along with them, personalized cults of leaders, tribal gods, totem animals, etc. appeared. The center of the sign world has always been occupied by the cult of ancestors, who were presented as the most important participants in the great struggle for survival and were perceived as “primary deities.”

Cult systems developed on the basis of magic in the Neolithic era. M. Hollingsworth writes: “Numerous communities arose with their very complex religious rituals. Excavations in southern Turkey, in Çatalhöyük, indisputably prove that already around 6000 BC. Rituals associated with the cult of the sacred bull (tur) were performed, and temples were decorated with its horns. In different parts of Europe, people worshiped different deities, in whose honor various rituals were held. The importance of heat and sunlight for farming determined the emergence of a large number of sun-worshipping communities.”

Let us define the fundamental formations of pre-logical thinking and ritualized behavior that characterize primitive culture.

Fetishism (from port, feitico - talisman) - belief in the supernatural, miraculous properties of selected natural objects or artificially created objects (less often plants, animals and even humans), the transformation of both into proto-symbols that secretly and miraculously have a beneficial effect on key moments life activity of the clan and tribe.

An example of such an esoteric proto-symbol is the churinga of the Australian aborigines. Churinga is a sacred object among Australian tribes, endowed, according to them, with supernatural properties and supposedly ensuring the well-being of a group or individual. In the book “Early Forms of Art” we read: “Churingas were deeply revered by Australians, the souls of ancestors and living members of the tribe were associated with them, churingas were like doubles, a second body, they depicted the actions of mythical heroes and totemic ancestors, they were kept in secret places and shown only to young men who had reached maturity and undergone initiation rites, and their loss was considered as the greatest misfortune for the tribe. Churinga is essentially a sacred image of a specific person, an image not of his appearance, but of his totemic essence. Australian society, with its magical thinking, did not know anything else. If you rub a churinga with fat or ocher, it will turn into a totemic animal - another form of a person.”

In the ancient and medieval periods in Belarus, sacred stones were considered cult stones, symbolizing the power of leaders and princes within the boundaries of certain territorial communities.

Totemism (from "ot-otem", a word from the Ojibwe Indian language meaning "his kind") is based on a person's belief in the existence of totems, i.e. any animals, less often - plants, in exceptional cases - inorganic objects, natural phenomena, considered his blood relatives (and later - ancestors). For Belarusians, one of the main totems was the bear. The totem is sacred, it is forbidden to kill and eat it (with the exception of cases of ritual killing and eating that entail “resurrection”), destroy it, or generally cause any damage to it. The holiness of the totem is symbolically reinforced in magical rituals of sacrifice, supposedly mystically influencing it and arousing directed good actions in it.

Mysterious reincarnations of totems and their supernatural effects on the living, purposeful wanderings in the earthly and sacred worlds, as a rule, are accompanied by various mythological stories.

Let us illustrate this using the material of the mystical experience of the Australian tribes, included in the book “Early Art Forms”. “The totemic myths of the Aranda and Loritya are built almost all according to the same pattern: the totemic ancestors, alone or in a group, return to their homeland - to the north (less often - to the west). The places covered, searches for food, organization of camps, and meetings along the way are listed in detail. Not far from the homeland, in the north, there is often a meeting with local “eternal people” of the same totem. Having reached the goal, the wandering heroes go into a hole, cave, spring, underground, turning into rocks, trees, churingas. Fatigue is often blamed for this. In places of parking, and especially in the place of death (more precisely, going into the ground), totemic centers are formed.

Sometimes we are talking about leaders leading a group of young men who have just undergone an initiation rite - initiation into full members of the tribe. The group performs cult ceremonies along the way in order to propagate their totem. It also happens that the journey has the character of flight and pursuit. For example, a large gray kangaroo runs from a person of the same totem; a man kills an animal with knives, but it is resurrected, then both turn into churing...” Behind the “war of the totems,” apparently, lie bloody clashes between tribes over fishing grounds.

The successes of the first civilizations of the East and the features of Greco-Roman culture

Early forms of culture. Main features of primitive culture.

The culture of primitive society (or archaic culture) existed for the longest period in human history. The emergence of culture is directly related to the origin of man, who, according to modern scientists, emerged from the animal world about 2.5 million years ago.

The duration of the primitive era in the history of different peoples has its own temporal variations. Its end corresponds to the appearance of the first state among each people, which arose approximately in the 4th - 1st millennium BC.

The entire history of primitive society is divided into three eras:

· stone Age

· Bronze Age

· Iron Age

The oldest of the three eras is the Stone Age. In turn, it is divided into three periods:

Ancient Stone Age (Paleolithic)

Middle Stone Age (Mesolithic)

New Stone Age (Neolithic)

Sometimes they also distinguish the Chalcolithic (Copper-Stone Age - the transition from stone to metal)

The chronological framework of the Bronze Age occupies the III - II millennium BC. And in the 1st millennium BC the Iron Age begins.

The initial form of organization of society in the ancient Stone Age was the so-called “primitive herd” or ancestral community. This was a very long period of human existence, when man began to stand out from the animal world, gradually accumulating experience in making and using tools. These tools were initially very primitive: hand axes made of flint, various scrapers, digging sticks, pointed points, etc. Gradually, during the Late Paleolithic period, man learned to make fire, which played a very important role in his life. Fire was used to cook food, ward off predators, and later to make the first metal products and pottery.

The primitive herd lived in the open air or used caves. Special dwellings that resembled dugouts or half-dugouts appeared only during the Mesolithic period. The farm had appropriating character. People were engaged in gathering or hunting and were therefore completely dependent on nature. This method of farming could not provide the required amount of food, so people spent all their free time searching for it. To do this, he had to lead a nomadic lifestyle. The population was small, life expectancy did not exceed 30 years.

An important factor in the life of primitive man should be considered the need for joint labor to obtain food, which required people to communicate, mutual understanding, cultivated the ability to live in a team, and contributed to overcoming zoological individualism. Over the course of thousands of years, there was a process of limiting the biological instincts of the primitive man, which was accompanied by the formation of norms of behavior mandatory for each member of the primitive herd. Thus, the unity of material and spiritual factors in the life of primitive society became characteristic of primitive culture as syncretic phenomenon(undifferentiated, complex, unified, characterizing the original, undeveloped state).

The development process was very slow, so the culture of primitive society is considered stable. Gradually, material culture improved (special tools appeared: chisels, knives, needles, an axe, a bow and arrows). Spiritual culture also developed - a language appeared.

One of the highest achievements of primitive society is considered to be the evolution from the primitive herd to the creation of a family and clan community. It is difficult to say how this evolution took place. It is only known that it took place for many thousands of years and ended during the Late Paleolithic period. The primitive herd is replaced by a clan - an association of blood relatives. This process occurred parallel to the formation of the modern type of man. 40 - 25 thousand years ago a new type of person was formed - homo sapiens (reasonable man). The most important prerequisite for the formation of a modern person was the regulation of marriage relations by family, the prohibition of mixing the blood of close relatives.

An important place in the life of primitive society also played art, which contributed to the transfer of experience and knowledge. The first drawings were images of animals, scenes of hunting them. The most famous drawings are from the caves of Lascaux (France), Altamira (Spain), Kapova (Russia).

Among the images on the walls of caves, Paleolithic man left drawings of horses, wild bulls, rhinoceroses, bison, lions, bears, and mammoths. These animals were painted, hunted, seen as the main source of their existence, and also feared as their potential enemies. Gradually, man conquered nature more and more. Therefore, in art, man began to occupy a central place, becoming the main subject of the image.

One of the first evidence of primitive man’s attention to himself and to the problems of his origin can be considered the “Paleolithic Venus”. This is how archaeologists named numerous female sculptures made of stone, bone or clay, which were found in different parts of Europe and Asia. These figures emphasized the features of female anatomy. They are associated with the cult of the mother - the ancestor.

Some researchers admit that primitive people did not understand the connection between sexual relations and the appearance of children. Therefore, the appearance of a newborn was perceived as a manifestation of a higher power. And the fact that this force acted through women gave them advantages in society, which led to the emergence of matriarchy. It is possible that in the conditions of a primitive herd, where marriage was polygamous, origin and kinship were established through the maternal line. Therefore, the sculptural representation of women could be associated with the cult of the common mother of the entire clan. In the early stages of development in society there was matriarchy(literally - the power of the mother) - an era in the development of primitive society, which is characterized by matrilineal clan, the equal role of women in the family, economic and social life.

Myths were of great importance in preserving the collective experience of ancestors. Myth (literally – word, legend, tradition). Mythology- a set of myths and legends that convey the beliefs of ancient peoples about the origin of the world and natural phenomena, about gods and legendary heroes. Myths were a form of reflection of reality; they were not questioned or verified. They often contained fantastic versions of reality.

Myth became the basis for the emergence of religion. The religious views of people appeared already at a relatively mature stage of development of primitive society.

Early forms of religion- totemism, animism, fetishism and magic. In primitive society they did not create a unified system.

I. Totemism- a form of religion, which is characterized by the belief in the existence of family relationships between a given group of people with a breed of animal, plant species or other element of the surrounding nature, the so-called totem. The totem is a “relative and friend” and can be influenced by magic.

II. Fetishism- a form of religion, which is characterized by belief in the supernatural capabilities of individual objects (the most common form is the wearing of amulets and talismans).

III. Magic- witchcraft, magic, a set of rituals associated with belief in a person’s ability to influence people, animals, nature, gods, etc. in a certain way.

IV. Animism- a form of religion, which is characterized by belief in the general spirituality of nature (anima - soul), belief in the existence of spirits, in the presence of souls in humans, animals, and plants. Ideas arise about the immortality of the soul and its existence separately from the body.

A large role in the organization of primitive society, in overcoming the animal, zoological principles in human behavior was played by various taboo- prohibitions. Violation of prohibitions was severely punished. However, punishment was expected primarily not from people, but from higher, secret forces in the form of instant death, serious illness or something terrible. The system of taboos among different peoples is complex and diverse, but two prohibitions should be considered the main ones:

· One of the first taboos concerned incest - marriage with blood relatives. The appearance of this taboo is associated with the Mesolithic era, when the transition to a sedentary lifestyle began to occur.

· Another important taboo was the prohibition of cannibalism (cannibalism). This ban was not as consistent and absolute as the first. Even in the recent past, cannibalism was found among some tribes.

With the development of humanity and the complication of knowledge and production processes, the complexity and rituals. One of the most important of them was the ritual initiation- initiation of young men into full-fledged adults. It was a ritual of testing a young man’s physical strength, endurance, ability to endure pain, and go without food for a long time.

Primitive culture reached its greatest development in the Neolithic era, when, with the emergence of agriculture, “ neolithic revolution" This term is commonly used to denote the transition of humanity from an appropriating to a producing form of economy.

With the transition of people to productive production, the cultural world is changing. Tools become more complex and more efficient, the number of utensils increases, knowledge in the field of construction is further developed, and the technology of processing wood and animal skins is improved. The problem of food preservation is becoming urgent, and the process of knowledge transfer is improving. Prerequisites for the emergence and development of writing appear: the volume of information increases, its nature becomes more complex.

One of the most important cultural consequences of the Neolithic Revolution was the rapid increase in population. Agricultural and pastoral tribes began to rapidly increase and actively populate neighboring territories. Under these conditions, individual nomadic groups were either assimilated or forced out into less suitable conditions for life. The tribal community begins to experience crisis phenomena. The tribal community is gradually being replaced by the neighboring community. Tribes and tribal unions arise.

Despite a noticeable dependence on the elemental forces of nature, primitive society followed the path from ignorance to knowledge, along the path of ever-increasing mastery of the forces of nature. Already in the Paleolithic era, the beginning of astronomy, mathematics, and the calendar was laid. The sun, moon and stars served as a compass and a clock.

Archaic culture is the longest, most mysterious and difficult for us to understand period of cultural development. Time has destroyed and covered with a thick veil many traces of the human past. And yet the facts indicate that these are millennia not of primitive, semi-wild existence, but of grandiose, intense spiritual work. Here the foundations of universal human culture were laid, spiritual potential was formed, which heralded the appearance of a qualitatively different creature on Earth. Here for the first time the light of aesthetic consciousness flashes.

Thus, the cultural achievements of the primitive era served as the basis for the further development of world culture.

Historians divide the early stages of the development of human society into the Stone Age (2.5 million - 4 thousand years BC), Bronze Age (III-II millennium BC) and Iron Age (1st millennium BC. ).

The Stone Age is divided into Paleolithic (2.5 million - 10 thousand years BC), Mesolithic (10-6 thousand years BC), Neolithic (6-4 thousand years BC .) and Chalcolithic (III - early II millennium BC). There are two main periods in the Paleolithic - the Lower Paleolithic (2.5 million - 40 thousand years BC), ending, according to experts, with the Mousterian era (approximately 90-40 thousand years BC), and Upper Paleolithic (40-10 thousand years BC). The early stage of the Upper Paleolithic is followed by the following periods: Aurignacian (30-19 thousand years BC), Solutre (19-15 thousand years BC), Madeleine (15-10 thousand years BC) .).

Already in the Lower Paleolithic era, tool and signaling activity of higher mammals (hominids) arose. In the period 300-40 thousand years BC. There was a transition from reflexive-instrumental activity (“instinctive labor” in K. Marx’s terminology) of hominids to conscious human labor. Man continued to use fire and built the first dwellings. Collective (community) ownership of extracted consumer goods and means of labor and a kind of “yoke of collectivity” took shape, associated with the complete subordination of the individual to the clan and strict regulation of all aspects of his life. As noted by historian B.F. Porshnev (“On the Beginning of Human History”), the initial forms of articulate speech and the second signaling system were formed in the process of regulating social relations on the principles of primitive communism. The first components of the primitive language that emerged from the linguistic complex were verbs that encouraged the fulfillment of the requirements of the morality of survival in critical conditions (“don’t consume it yourself - give it to the mother and cub”).

During the Upper Paleolithic period, articulate speech appeared as a specifically human form of communication. Articulate speech rose and differentiated in unity with the forms of thinking and art. A series of words, symbolic designations of artistic symbols were identified for isolating and typologizing natural phenomena, key moments of social life. A modern type of man emerged - homo sapiens (“reasonable man”). There was an intensive development of fine arts - sculpture, relief, graphics, painting.

During the Mesolithic era, man tamed the dog, invented the bow and arrows, the boat, and mastered the manufacture of baskets and fishing nets.

Let us define the fundamental formations of pre-logical thinking and ritualized behavior that characterize primitive culture.

In the ancient and medieval periods in Belarus, sacred stones were considered cult stones, symbolizing the power of leaders and princes within the boundaries of certain territorial communities.

Totemism (from "ot-otem", a word from the Ojibwe Indian language meaning "his kind") is based on a person's belief in the existence of totems, i.e. any animals, less often - plants, in exceptional cases - inorganic objects, natural phenomena, considered his blood relatives (and later - ancestors). For Belarusians, one of the main totems was the bear. The totem is holy, it is forbidden to kill and eat it (with the exception of cases of ritual killing and eating that entail “resurrection”), destroy it, or generally cause any damage to it. The holiness of the totem is symbolically reinforced in magical rituals of sacrifice, supposedly mystically influencing it and arousing directed good actions in it.

Mysterious reincarnations of totems and their supernatural effects on the living, purposeful wanderings in the earthly and sacred worlds, as a rule, are accompanied by various mythological stories.

Animism (from Latin anima - soul) is the belief in the existence of a “double” in a person - a soul or several souls; in addition, animism presupposes a belief in the animation of various natural and even cosmic objects. According to Ancient Slavic belief, the sun is a living, intelligently acting creature.

Magic (from the Greek mageia - witchcraft) arose in a mature primitive society. Being based on pre-logical forms of thinking, magic is not only a certain set of fantastic ideas and beliefs, but also a fictitious system of supernatural, miraculous practical techniques that provide an illusory and mystical effect on the world with the aim of completely subordinating to man vital natural, socio-cosmic processes and universal control them.

Some of the witchcraft techniques of primitive people are described in their works of art: an image of a bear pierced by spears, a drawing of a bull with a harpoon pierced into its heart, etc. Here we have the so-called homeopathic, or imitative, magic, based on the law of similarity. By “killing” the image of the beast, the primitive hunter sincerely hoped that this would definitely help him in the hunt for the real prototype. The second type of primitive magic is contagious magic, based on the direct interaction of the magician with the attributes of interest to him.

This, according to J. Frazer (“The Golden Bough”), is the main division of sympathetic magic. The goals of magical actions are varied: positive (with benevolent intentions, for example, to help others), protective and negative (destructive, destructive, with the aim of striking enemies with occult forces).

An example of a magical action given by J. Frazer makes you smile: “Serbian and Bulgarian women, who are irritated by the hardships of married life, apply a copper coin to the eyes of the deceased, wash it with wine or water and give their husbands to drink this liquid. After this, they allegedly become as blind to the sins of their wives as a dead man to whose eyes a coin was placed.”

Rudiments and relics of magic, magic-like quasi-theories and quasi-practices (occultism, parapsychology, spiritualism, hesmerism, telepathy, telekinesis, personal magnetism, etc.) exist in civilizational communities to this day. Therefore, J. Frazer’s division of magic into theoretical (magic as pseudoscience) and practical (magic as pseudo-art) still retains significance. The latter, in turn, is divided into “white” (positive) magic and “black” (negative), which includes different sets of taboos and methods of witchcraft. Neomagic as a parascience in some way stimulated the development of science proper (astrology-astronomy, alchemy-chemistry, occult mathematics-rational mathematics), but unlike the latter, it did not reveal the ability to test its assumptions in pure experiments.

It should be said about the relationship between magic and religion itself, which are sometimes incorrectly identified. Magic is a proto-religion.

According to J. Frazer, primitive magic, in contrast to mature religion, is based on forcing supernatural forces to perform the required action, and not on worship of them. He writes: “Magic often deals with spirits, that is, with personal agents, which makes it similar to religion. But magic treats them in exactly the same way as it treats inanimate forces, that is, instead of, like religion, propitiating and pacifying them, it coerces and compels them.

It must be said that the early forms of religion in the ancient societies of the East were still strongly influenced by the previous magical worldview. We read from J. Frazer: “Magic proceeds from the assumption that all personal beings, whether they are men or gods, are ultimately subject to impersonal forces that control everything, but from which he can nevertheless benefit who knows how to use them.” manipulate with the help of rituals and witchcraft spells. For example, in ancient Egypt, sorcerers believed that they could force even the highest gods to carry out their orders, and in case of disobedience they threatened them with death. Sometimes the sorcerer, without going to such extremes, declared in such cases that he would scatter the bones of Osiris on all four sides or, if he was stubborn, would divulge the sacred myth dedicated to him. In India, to this day, the great trinity of Hinduism - Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva - “submit” to the brahmans, who, with the help of their spells, exert such an influence on the most powerful deities that they are forced in heaven and on earth to humbly carry out the orders given to their sorcerer masters feel free to give it away. In India there is a saying: “The whole world is subordinate to the gods; the gods are subject to charms (mantras); and charms - to brahmanas; therefore the Brahmins are our gods.” Representatives of the more ancient Vedic religion believed that “gods are born from the air exhaled by a singer” (L. Mechnikov).

Indeed, from a psychological point of view, gods are nothing more than archetypes - universal ideas, prototypes (C.-G. Jung). The gods are personifications of the universal experiences of the Absolute, and their only visible abode is the human soul. The ontologization of gods and their fantastic projections into the transcendental world are carried out by religions not only for the purpose of convenience of sacred communication with them for believers, but mainly to elevate them above people and give them the status of omnipotent beings. However, some national religions at the stage of development of early civilizations showed obvious inconsistency in this matter. The ancient Greeks settled the gods on Olympus and treated them as their own. They believed that gods and goddesses are powerful, but not omnipotent and, like people, are in the power of impersonal Fate - Ananke (or Logos, World Law). Prometheus from Aeschylus's trilogy of the same name turns like a magician when confronted by Zeus. The hero knows the secret of the death of the supreme god and endures great suffering, not wanting to reveal it:

I will not give up my terrible execution

For the happiness of being sent by Zeus.

It's better to be a slave to my rock,

Than the kindly faithful servant of Zeus...

According to an artistically modified myth, Zeus reconciles with Prometheus and, through him, with European humanity, which is moving in an unknown direction not by the will of the demiurge, but by its own understanding (and, we add, unreasonableness).

Magic gave birth to mythology, the “illegitimate” daughter of which was religion. Unlike religion, mythology reduces the supernatural to the natural, the cosmic to the everyday, the unknowable to the knowable. Any religion, wishing to approach the level of human understanding, uses the services of transformed mythology. Thus, the Old and New Testaments are full of cosmic and other myths and miracles. This is also typical for the Belarusian version of Christianity, in which, with the help of popular religious experience and folklore, the doors are wide open to pagan mythology.

In the traditional folklore-mythological form of consciousness of modern man, the remains of a postprimitive paralogical view of the world are preserved in a modified form, in which, in addition to visible, observable phenomena, some mysterious transformations of wonderful forms and powerful energies are assumed, similar to those that were once dreamed of by Italian humanists and Renaissance artists. E. Garin notes that Giordano Bruno called the magician a sage who knows how to act. And yet, for the most part, over many centuries, magic and mythology have moved into the sphere of the artistic picture of the world (compare I. V. Goethe’s ode “Prometheus” and G. R. Derzhavin’s work “God”). Primitive man, a representative of archaic culture, without reasoning, believed in the boundless reality of magic and the mythological connection of “everything with everything,” the interflow of all visible and invisible phenomena. In modern man, a similar worldview for the most part fits within the framework of artistically created aesthetic harmony, poetic idealization and corresponds to the principle of “revitalizing apperception” (W. Wundt).

Myth is the highest form of archaic pre-logical thinking, intricately combining the fantastic and the real in the primordial picture of the world. Myth is the primary form of proto-understanding of the world, which includes rudimentary attempts to explain the processes occurring in it. The functions of myth in primitive society are multifaceted: a fantastic explanation of the original structure of the universe; sacred justification for the universal order in society, its foundations, moral norms; giving prestige to unshakable traditions; cultic reinforcement of the leadership of practical activities; the earliest form of knowledge accumulation. Myths mixed objective and illusory ideas about the “near” and “far” worlds. It was a way of sensually and visually expressing magical beliefs through the narration of key moments in historical life, about the glorious past. Myth is the illusory history of a community. Myth as an anthropophatic worldview, based on the principle of spiritualization of beings, was formed in inextricable connection with magic, influencing with it the genesis of art.

According to experts, magic and myth grow out of the syncretism of primitive thought, individual manifestations of which can be observed in children's playful creativity. Let us turn again to the already cited book “Early Forms of Art”: “The emergence and flowering of myth is characteristic precisely of the era of primitive syncretism. Magic is the practice of syncretic consciousness, while myth is its theory. Only as social development proceeds from this complex whole, reflecting the syncretic worldview of primitive society, will religion itself, ethics, art, science, and customary law gradually develop and differentiate...

The evolution of culture... to a certain extent comes down to differentiation, to the dismemberment of initially integrated forms and the development of differentiating functions. They are based, in the words of K.A. Timiryazev, “synthetic types”.

Syncretic thinking, which is being lost by humanity as a whole, is preserved in child psychology. Here, in the world of children's performances and games, one can still find traces of bygone eras. It is no coincidence that a child’s artistic creativity... has features that bring it closer to primitive art.” The child believes that simplicity reigns in the world!

The primitive “theater” was not only training for successful hunting, but also included specialized magical rituals, also adapted to hunting success. On the walls of the caves we see mainly images not of random animals, but of totems, or at least those animals that entered the mythological picture of the world as basic symbols. A female figurine from the Willendorf site (Austria) is a synthetic mythological symbol of the highest category, because, as A.D. notes. Joiner, this abstract-concrete female image personified the generic essence of a woman as the primary source of human lives and a mysterious magical connection with a commercial animal - the main source of existence. It is no coincidence that the symbolic images of the beast and the woman are closely correlated in primitive art and the early mythological picture of the world.

In primitive society, the most highly valued were magical ritual actions, iconic animals, objects with symbolic, totemic images, magicians, leaders, ancestors of family clans - everything that was included in the first mythological narratives and laid the foundation of culture. These became the main subjects of depiction in proto-symbolic primitive art.

primitiveness fetishism totemism religion

Primitive society arose approximately 40 thousand years ago and existed until the 4th millennium BC. It is worth noting that it covers several periods of the Stone Age - Late Paleolithic (40-10 thousand BC), Mesolithic (10-6 thousand BC) and Neolithic (6-4 thousand BC .) Although some elements of culture arise even before the establishment of primitive society (religious ideas, the beginnings of language, a hand ax), the development of human culture proper begins simultaneously with the completion of the process of formation of man, which became homosapiens, or "reasonable man."

Late Paleolithic era

During the Late Paleolithic period, many important components of material culture developed in primitive society. The tools used by man are becoming more and more complex and complete in form, which often takes on an aesthetic appearance. People organize hunts for large animals, build houses using wood, stones and bones, wear clothes, and process skins for this purpose.

Spiritual culture is becoming no less complex. First of all, primitive man already fully possesses the main human qualities: thinking, will, language. The first forms of religion are formed in society: magic, totemism, fetishism, animism.

Magic(witchcraft, sorcery) is at the origins of every religion and is a belief in the supernatural abilities of man to influence people and natural phenomena. Totemism associated with the belief in the kinship of the tribe with totems, which are usually certain types of animals or plants. Fetishism - belief in the supernatural properties of certain objects - fetishes (amulets, amulets, talismans) that can protect a person from harm. Animism associated with ideas about the existence of souls and spirits that influence people’s lives.

In the Late Paleolithic era it successfully developed art, especially fine art, which is represented by almost all types: paint drawing, relief and round sculpture, engraving. Various types of stone, clay, wood, horns and bone can be used as materials. As a paint - soot, multi-colored ocher, megrel.

It is important to know that most of the stories are dedicated to animals that people hunted: mammoth, deer, bull, bear, lion, horse. The person is rarely depicted. If this happens, then clear preference will be given to the woman. A magnificent monument in this regard can be the female sculpture found in Austria - “Venus of Willendorf”. By the way, this sculpture has remarkable features: a head without a face, the limbs are exclusively outlined, while the sexual characteristics are sharply emphasized. Excellent examples of primitive painting were discovered in the caves of Nio, Lascaux (France) Castilla, Dela Peña, Pasechya (Spain) In addition to images of animals on the walls, there are images of human figures in frightening masks: hunters performing magical dances or religious rituals.

At the final stage of the Paleolithic, art seemed to accelerate and reach its true flowering. Animals remain the main theme, but they are presented in motion, in dynamics, in various poses. Note that the entire image is now covered with paint using several colors of varying tones and intensities. True masterpieces of such painting can be found in the famous caves of Altamira (Spain) and Font-de-Rome (France), where some animals are given life-size. They are in no way inferior to the works of the Kapova Cave, which is in the Southern Urals, on the Belaya River, in which there are beautiful images of mammoths, horses, and rhinoceroses.

Mesolithic era

Together with the Mesolithic, the modern geological era begins - the Holocene, which began after the melting of glaciers. Mesolithic means the transition from Paleolithic to Neolithic. At this stage, primitive people widely use bows and arrows with flint inserts and begin to use a boat. The production of wooden and wicker utensils is growing, in particular, all kinds of baskets and bags are made from bast and reeds. A man tames a dog.

Culture continues to develop, religious ideas, cults and rituals become significantly more complex. In particular, the belief in the afterlife and the cult of ancestors is increasing. The burial ritual involves the burial of things and everything necessary for the afterlife; complex burial grounds are built.

There are also noticeable changes in the arts. Along with animals, man is also widely depicted; he even begins to possess. There will be some schematism in his depiction. With all this, the artists skillfully convey the expression of movements, the internal state and meaning of events. A significant place is occupied by multi-figure scenes of hunting, chalk collection, military struggle and battles. This, in particular, is evidenced by the paintings on the rocks. Do not forget that Valtorta (Spain)

Neolithic era

This era is characterized by deep and qualitative changes taking place in culture as a whole and in all its areas. It is important to note that one of them is essentially that culture ceases to be united and homogeneous: it breaks up into many ethnic cultures, each of which acquires unique characteristics and becomes distinctive. Therefore, the Neolithic of Egypt differs from the Neolithic of Mesopotamia or India.

Other important changes were brought about by the agrarian, or Neolithic, revolution in economics, i.e. the transition from an appropriating economy (gathering, hunting, fishing) to producing and transformative technologies (agriculture, cattle breeding), which meant the emergence of new areas of material culture. In addition to this, new crafts arose - spinning, weaving, pottery, and with it the use of pottery. When processing stone tools, drilling and grinding are used. The construction business is experiencing a significant boom.

The transition from matriarchy to patriarchy also had serious consequences for culture. This event is sometimes identified as a historical defeat for women. It is worth noting that it entailed a profound restructuring of the entire way of life, the emergence of new traditions, norms, stereotypes, values and value orientations.

As a result of these and other shifts and transformations, profound changes are taking place in the entire spiritual culture. Along with further complicating religion mythology will remain. The first myths were ritual ceremonies with dances, in which scenes from the life of distant totemic ancestors of a given tribe or clan, who were depicted as half-humans and half-animals, were played out. It is appropriate to note that descriptions and explanations of these rituals were passed down from generation to generation, gradually became isolated from the rituals themselves and turned into myths in the proper sense of the word - tales about the life of totemistic ancestors.

Later, the content of myths consists not only of the deeds of totemistic ancestors, but also the actions of real heroes who did something exceptional - they founded a new custom, warned against trouble, found a way out of a difficulty, and brought some other good. Along with the emergence of belief in demons and spirits, examples of which are protrusions,! and dray, water, goblin, little mermaids, elves, naiads, etc., begin to be created religious myths telling about the adventures and deeds of these deities.

In the Neolithic era, along with religious ideas, people already had a fairly broad knowledge about the world. It is worth noting that they were well versed in the area where they lived and had a good knowledge of the surrounding flora and fauna, which contributed to their success in hunting and finding food. They had accumulated certain astronomical knowledge, which helped them navigate the sky, highlighting the stars and constellations in it. Astronomical knowledge allowed them to draw up the first calendars and keep track of time. They also had medical knowledge and skills: they knew the healing properties of plants, they knew how to treat wounds, straighten dislocations and fractures. It is worth noting that they used pictographic writing and could count.

Profound changes in the Neolithic era also occurred in art. In addition to animals, it depicts the sky, earth, fire, and sun. In art, generalization and even schematism arise, which will also be the case when depicting a person. Plastics made from stone, bone, horn and clay are experiencing a real flourishing. In addition to fine art, there were other types and genres: music, songs, dances, pantomime. Initially they were closely associated with rituals, but over time they increasingly acquired an independent character.

Along with myths, verbal art also took other forms: fairy tales, stories, proverbs and sayings. Applied arts were widely developed, especially the production of various types of decorations for things and clothing.

Modern man looks at primitive culture somewhat downwardly, condescendingly. For this reason, the English historian J. Frazer notes that “the culture of primitive society too often suffers only contempt, ridicule and condemnation.” Such an attitude, of course, cannot be considered fair. The culture of primitive society laid the foundations and prerequisites for the subsequent development of all human culture. People just tend to forget to whom they owe everything that they are.