Stages of development of human society. The main stages of the development of the information society

As we said in previous lectures, the history of society is divided when considered into the following stages, stages:

1. The beginning of the process of the historical development of society, that is, the formation of the historical prerequisites of society, education social in the bowels biological, generally natural... At this stage, the prerequisites for the emergence of society appear, but the society itself does not yet exist.

2. The initial emergence of society. Here we include the primitive communal system.

3. Formation of society. The process of transformation of the inherited natural basis by the emerging society is underway. The formation of society includes all class antagonistic formations.

4. The maturity of society. The process of transforming the inherited natural basis (meaning earthly conditions, the "earthly bosom" of history) has been completed. The natural basis in a substantially transformed form is included as a moment in the development of society. A mature society is a communist formation.

These are the stages, stages of the ascending development of society as an "organic" whole. We have already covered the first two stages. We now proceed to the third stage - the stage of the formation of human society.

Due to the fact that we are considering the logic the whole history, to the formation of human society, we refer not only to the formation of a person as biological species, but also the formation of humanity in public relation.

At the stage of the formation of human society, the emerging mode of production of material goods is formed and transforms the inherited natural basis. Of course, already its initial appearance was at the same time a certain transformation of the natural basis. At the previous stage, the main components of labor, productive forces arose, production relations arose.

What, then, was the specificity of the formation of the method of production of material goods and the transformation of the inherited natural basis at the stage of the formation of society?

If at the stage of initial emergence, natural connections, natural conditions prevailed, and the mode of production, social sources of development arose as a leading, but not dominant factor of development, then at the stage of formation the gradual transformation of this leading factor into the dominant one. However, throughout the entire stage of formation, the natural basis inherited from pre-social development is not yet fully transformed by social development. The closer to the beginning of the stage, the less the inherited basis is transformed by social development. Conversely, the closer to the end of the stage, the more the natural basis is included in social development as its moment.

Already from the very beginning of the stage of formation, the operation of the mode of production as a leading factor in the development of society ceased, in general (that is, from the point of view of the history of all mankind), to depend on random circumstances and became mostly necessary.

The process of the formation of society from the point of view of the development of productive forces.

The period of formation of the productive forces (as opposed to their initial emergence), if we bear in mind product production starts from the stage when level productive forces allows you to produce a constant surplus in excess of what is absolutely necessary to maintain physical, biological existence, and continues until the level is reached when it becomes possible to produce an abundance of material goods. During this entire stage, the following contradiction exists.

On the one hand, production is already in place, it is developing, the means of subsistence are basically not mined, but produced. On the other hand, the means of livelihood are not enough for optimal satisfaction of biological needs, and throughout the entire stage there is a struggle between people for means of livelihood, for the satisfaction of biological needs. From this side, people still do not rise above the animal world, their struggle in this regard is fighting social animals.

If we mean the instruments of labor, production, then the stage of formation of productive forces is characterized, using the terminology of K. Marx and F. Engels, "naturally arising instruments of production."

“... Here,” they write, “there is a difference between the naturally arising instruments of production and the instruments of production created by civilization. Arable land (water, etc.) can be viewed as a naturally occurring instrument of production. In the first case, with naturally occurring instruments of production, individuals obey nature, in the second case they obey the product of labor "( K. Marx, F. Engels. Theses on Feuerbach).

In addition, the stage in the development of "tools created by civilization", that is, manufactured tools, when they begin to conquer dominance in production, even play the role of dominant, but when their dominance (the dominance of the automatic system) is not yet completely, that is, when the stage of development of these tools has not yet reached full maturity.

The formation of productive forces begins after their components have first appeared, and it consists in essence in the formation public nature labor. At the stage of the initial emergence of society, the social character of labor only emerges, and - with the domination of prey - it exists mainly in a concrete identity with the biological ties of people, with a natural relationship to nature.

The transition to the domination of production (to early cattle breeding and early agriculture) in the depths of the stage of the initial emergence of society led to the formation of a discrepancy between the productive forces and the relations that existed then between people, and ultimately, in the long term, to go beyond this stage.

The stage of formation of the productive forces corresponds to the social division of labor. The social character of labor exists here through its division, division, through its own, one might say, negation. The social nature of labor proper, the social nature of labor in positive relation, although it arises at the last (capitalist) stage of the formation of human society, but does not correspond to the production relations of capitalism.

At the stage of formation of the productive forces of society as social, there is already a distinction specifically public the relationship of people to nature from their natural relationship to nature, and this difference develops. (That is, nature is being more and more transformed by the instruments of labor produced, and not found in nature itself.) The specifically social relationship to nature is becoming more and more isolated from the natural relationship to nature and is transforming the latter more and more.

At the same time, within the framework of the connection between a specifically social and natural relationship to nature, the prerequisites for their unity are developing, and this is already on the basis of the dominance of a specifically social (and not natural) relationship to nature.

The formation of the social nature of labor begins to end when processes in which various people serve moments of a single production process. The formation of the social nature of production ends completely when the instruments of production produced come to undivided dominance and when the whole process of human production becomes internally dismembered.

At the stage of formation of productive forces, there is a transition from the predominant use of ready-made objects of labor found in nature to the predominant use artificial objects of labor, objects of labor with predetermined properties.

At the stage of formation of productive forces, mankind begins to move to a purposeful impact on all earthly natural conditions for the entire surrounding earthly natural environment. Finally, at this stage, a person is formed as a component specifically public productive relationship to nature.

All of the above transformations mean penetration into the essence of natural processes, therefore, suggest the beginning of the transition from the ordinary empirical level of knowledge development to the dominance of the theoretical.

The formation of a person as a productive force is not only his mastery of the "tools created by civilization", but also his transformation into an individual armed with theory, capable of all-round activity, the need for which is formed with the transition to the domination of manufactured tools.

The process of the formation of society from the point of view of the development of industrial relations.

The formation of society, if we bear in mind the development of industrial relations, ultimately takes place under the decisive influence of the emerging productive forces. But at the same time, the formation of production relations is a relatively independent process.

The productive forces are also something external in relation to the relations of production, but at the same time the productive forces and the relations of production form an internal unity, social mode of production ... Their inner unity and "struggle" and form internal source of self-development of society. Social mode of production, internal source of self-development society, is not something immutable, it also goes through the stage of formation.

The availability of the produced instruments of production determines the relations of production proper. The presence of "naturally arising instruments of production", the enslavement of man by the action of natural forces determine the preservation of this or that form of natural connection, the natural community of people. We will henceforth call them "Naturally occurring communities",« naturally arising connections. "

The development of industrial relations at the stage of formation of society occurs contradictory.

Namely, a contradiction is formed between the productive forces and production relations, which will ultimately lead to the elimination of both sides of this contradiction.

In addition, production relations are gradually detached from the natural ties of people, subordinate them to themselves and remove them. The relations of production proper, in comparison with the "naturally occurring ties" of people, are gradually turning into undividedly dominant ones.

The social division of labor and the struggle of people to satisfy biological needs determine the existence of classes and the struggle between them. Consequently, the stage of the formation of society is the stage of its antagonistic class development... This stage, in turn, is itself divided into several stages, which will be discussed later.

Industrial relations are relatively independent. Their relative independence is reflected in a certain discrepancy between the stage of formation of productive forces and the stage of formation of production relations:

• First, a new stage of the productive forces arises, which begins to not correspond to the previous stage of production relations and, in its further development, comes into conflict with the old stage of production relations.
• The contradiction is resolved by the transition either to a new stage of production relations, or, upon reaching maturity, to the creation of prerequisites for a significant change in the very dialectics of productive forces and production relations (in particular, by ousting a person from the sphere of direct production).

Thus, we have already seen that the producing economy goes through its early stage already at the stage of the initial emergence of society, and with the further development of cattle breeding and agriculture, a contradiction develops between them and the primitive communal structure of society. The resolution of this contradiction means a transition to the stage of the formation of society.

A similar process occurs with the relations of production and productive forces inherent in the entire stage of the formation of society. The productive forces corresponding to the stage of the formation of society begin to develop already in the depths of its initial emergence, and the productive forces corresponding to the stage of the maturity of society begin to develop at the stage of the formation of society.

The formation of society in relation primarily to the stage of its initial emergence is negation the previous development of society.

The main task of the modern era is the fight against capitalism, negation capitalism, the accomplishment of the socialist revolution - in the end subordinate to the task constructing communist society. And not only in terms of practical-political, but also in terms of the methodology of historical research, it must now be considered in the perspective of solving the problem of building a communist society.

In the light of the task of building a communist society, it is not the opposition of communism only to capitalism that comes to the fore, but the difference and connection between communism and the entire previous history of mankind as the prehistory of human society. At the same time, attention is fixed on the turn of the spiral:

1. the initial emergence of society - the primitive communal system - pre-class society;
2. antagonistic, class societies - the formation of society;
3. communism is a classless society, a mature human society.

The types of the historical process are segments of a spiral movement. Communism is, as it were, a return to the primitive communal system, but a return on a new basis and in a transformed form.

This turn of the spiral - let us note - clearly shows what tremendous tasks we face and what tremendous difficulties we have to overcome only on the path of denying the society of exploitation, under the yoke of which mankind has been for many thousands of years at the stage of the formation of society.

The formation of society as a segment of the spiral of the history of mankind is a process of overcoming, denying the primitive communal system. But the denial of something exists only as long as, to one degree or another, in one respect or another, that which is denied is preserved. Throughout the entire stage of the formation of society, there is not only a denial of the primitive communal system, but also in one way or another, in one way or another, the preservation of remnants, survivals of the primitive communal system. In addition, the denial of the primitive communal system by the system of private property is not only a denial, but also an affirmation, that is, the creation, within the framework of the denial, of the prerequisites for its removal, for the establishment of social property, the preconditions of communism, no longer clan-communal and not private, but public property.

We proceed from the premise that communism is the history of mankind, one with all previous history and different from it as from prehistory; we proceed from the problem constructing communism as the main task. Consequently, we must divide the stage of the formation of society into such stages, in the difference of which both sides would be taken into account: and preservation certain forms of relations of the primitive communal structure, and negation a primitive communal system with a system of private property.

Formation stages anything mainly determined by what formed. That, what is formed, determines and that does not disappear, but is preserved from the previous development. Therefore, with the emergence of private property (as a special set of production relations), with its action as a leading factor in development, the division of history should be carried out mainly according to the historical forms of private property, no matter how much the remnants of the primitive communal structure are preserved.

At the very essence of the formation process, what is formed, only by the end of the process completes the overcoming of the inherited basis. Throughout the formation process, what formed, exists not on its own, but on an alien inherited basis. The same is true with respect to historical forms of private property: they exist on an alien basis, on a basis inherited from the primitive communal system, and only at the end of the stage of formation is the overcoming of the basis inherited from the primitive communal system completed, and the formation of the basis corresponding to private property relations is completed. The complete predominance of private property relations occurs only at the stage of completion of the formation of society, that is, under capitalism.

Every formation process is divided into three stages or periods:

1. the initial period of formation, transformation of the inherited basis;
2. the emergence of an adequate, new basis;
3. completion of the formation of an adequate, new basis.

This is, for example, the process of the formation of capitalism:

1. manufacturing period (period home capitalist production);
2. transition to large-scale industry, to machine production (during this transition, the machines themselves were still created in a manufacturing, handicraft way);
3. completion of the transition, the period of large-scale industry itself (during this period, production already predominates machines by machines).

In the process of the formation of human society, three periods should also be distinguished.

1. The initial period of the formation of human society. This includes the slave-owning socio-economic formation. Private property has already arisen, but it exists and develops in general on the basis of naturally occurring means of production, on the basis of the direct relationship of people to the conditions of production and to each other, the relationship inherited from the previous stage. Private property remains subordinate to the communal, communal ownership of land. Therefore, in slave-owning societies, slave labor can quantitatively prevail over communal labor only in completely exceptional cases.

2. The period of transition to a basis adequate to private property , - feudalism. It is for the feudal socio-economic formation that the predominance of private property is characteristic, but private ownership of land, that is on naturally arising means of production. Consequently, private property continues to exist on an inadequate basis.

What is it transition to a basis adequate to private property? Iron tools appear and begin to spread even before feudalism. But agriculture based on widespread use of iron tools and, moreover, as the main type of production, it is feudal production relations that correspond.

In the slave-owning socio-economic formation, agriculture was carried out mainly on soft lands and could well occur mainly with the help of stone tools. But if a stone is by its nature such a material that can be widely used (as a means of labor) without preliminary processing, then iron is by its nature such a material that, with its more or less widespread use as a means of labor with the need presupposes preprocessing.

The widespread use of stone as a means of influence corresponds to the division into the production of funds mining, and application of funds mining, that is, the extraction of consumer goods with the produced means of extraction. But dismemberment into production of means of production and production of consumer goods, arising at the beginning when using a stone in business, becomes on an adequate basis for itself only with the use of gland(the use of copper and bronze can only be a transitional stage between the use of stone and iron). Only with the spread of the use of iron as a material for the means of labor, the division into the production of means of production and the production of consumer goods becomes internally necessary.

Widespread use, and therefore production iron tools - first mainly in agriculture - there is a transition to a basis adequate to private property.

3. The period of completion of the formation of the basis, adequate to private property - capitalism. Adequate framework of private property not naturally occurring, but produced means of influence. Feudal social (including production) relations correspond to the internally necessary division into the production of means of production and the production of consumer goods, but such a division in which the main role belongs to the use of means of labor for earth (naturally emerging education).

Capitalist social relations correspond to such an internally necessary division into the production of means of production and the production of consumer goods, when the main role the production of means of production (and not the production of consumer goods) plays a role, the application of the means of labor produced to the object of labor already produced in the past. Under capitalism for the first time dominated by private ownership produced means of production.

For the first time, the dominant type of production becomes industry rather than farming.

Industry as a determining type of production on the scale of the entire human society is necessarily industry on a large scale, large-scale industry. Before the formation of such an industry, handicrafts can determine the entire social order only within the limits of one or another separate community under exceptional conditions.

Human development proceeded in parallel and in inseparable connection with the strengthening of the human collective, the formation of society.

The evolutionary biological prototype of society is the Herd. The closest in the plan under consideration was a herd of monkeys. But, in general, many people differ in the collective herd, or group, way of life in nature: ants, bees, ducks, wolves, etc. Some researchers begin their account of this "grouping" or "social life" with fish. But this, it turns out, is not the limit. There are scientists who find "social life" even in plants. The modern scientist Yan Shchepansky, for example, defines a plant community as follows: “it is a set of organisms interconnected by mutual influence on each other’s life processes and influence on the common environment for them”. All living things exist in societies - so thought P.A. Kropotkin.

Sociogenesis also began with the herd, herd, i.e. the process of the formation of society. The primitive human herd was a small group of people (about 30-40 people), wandering from place to place in search of hunting prey and plant food. Labor was extremely primitive, barely going beyond the "animal" boundaries. Mainly sticks, clubs, and also stones were used as tools of labor - as a rule, in their original, unprocessed form. There was essentially no division of labor either. Women and men seem to have done the same job: hunting, gathering. Although by the end of the era under consideration, the era of the primitive herd, a natural (by sex and age) division of labor still emerged. Intergroup interactions, connections between individual herds were extremely unstable and sporadic. The herd-primitive people did not have settled settlements, permanent dwellings, but the camps to which they periodically returned after a “hard day” with prey, rich or poor, as luck would have it, had already appeared. Sexual relations in the primitive herd remained dishonest; there were no social norms (taboos, prohibitions) regulating them. The reality was the primitive community of women, group marriage, which did not exclude, however, the existence of temporary marriage couples.

The primitive herd is being replaced by the primitive community. Temporary camps are giving way to more or less long-term dwellings - the first, initial form of settlement. Large communal houses or groups of small dwellings appear. The natural division of labor, barely outlined in the primitive herd, receives its further development in the primitive community. Women begin to "specialize" in the collection of edible wild plants, roots, fruits of trees, men - in hunting, fishing, making tools. The teenagers and the elderly also contributed to the common cause. It is suggested that the side-scrapers and points characteristic of the period under consideration were female and male tools of labor, respectively. As economic life becomes more complex, the division of labor by sex and age becomes more fractional and deeper.

The main cell of the primitive community is the clan. The primitive herd disintegrated into genera, having developed and thus historically exhausted itself. A genus is a collective of blood relatives, in other words, a group of people united by blood ties and dependencies. In its development, the family went through two successive stages - matriarchy and patriarchy (towards the end of the era in question). Under matriarchy, kinship was counted along the maternal line, which reflected the important role of women in the life of the community and the natural disorder at the beginning of this stage (it is not clear who the father is) of marital sexual relations. However, it was not the fact of being born with a certain mother that mattered, but the bonds of cooperation that naturally connected the people living nearby, their joint activities. It is no coincidence that a child in some primitive cultures today is not considered a member of the genus until he undergoes a certain rite (initiation), proving that he can bring relatives the same benefits as adults. Unlike the primitive herd, which was endogamous (endon - inside, gamos - marriage), genus - community - exogamous. Exogamy, i.e. the prohibition of marriages within the clan, became an important stage in the development of the primitive community. Incest slowed down the development of the physical nature of a person, was the cause of quarrels, jealousy and other equally violent passions that distracted from economic affairs and the improvement of the culture of living together. Exogamy in the long term led to the emergence of a pair family.

Exogamy, as well as the obvious advantages of wider associations in the face of an ongoing struggle for survival - these and similar factors pushed for the establishment and development of intergeneric bonds. This is how the tribes appeared. The tribe had its own rather extensive territory in which it lived, hunted, roamed, and which it protected from encroachments from neighboring tribes.

The formation of a primitive community had one of its "lines" the emergence of the first religious beliefs, which, as a rule, were associated with the funeral rite, the cult of the dead (ancestors). They began to bury the dead in specially dug recesses; tools and other funeral offerings were often placed in the grave. As the primitive community developed, its religious life was also enriched - due to animism (ideas about the animality of everything that exists), totemism (belief in a supernatural connection and blood closeness of the genus with some animal or plant) and magic (belief in the ability with the help of certain ritual actions to influence in the right direction on nature, people and animals). Later, at a more "advanced" stage of development, as they say now, the idea of ​​the Creator appears, on which the life and well-being of the community depends.

At first, everything produced by the genus was barely enough to feed and survive. However, with the development of productive forces, the domestication of plants and animals, especially with the transition from hoe to plow farming, a surplus product appears that creates an economic opportunity for the emergence of such free from basic occupations as "professions" such as shamanism, trade, craft, for the existence some people at the expense of others, to accumulate wealth in the hands of individual families. Plow farming and livestock raising requires mostly male hands. A woman with her household (gathering, maintaining a home, raising children) begins to fade into the background. All this leads to the replacement of the maternal clan by the paternal clan, matriarchy - patriarchy. The account of kinship, as well as the transfer of the accumulated property, begins to be carried out on the paternal side.

The emergence of patriarchy marks the beginning of the disintegration of the primitive community and its historical replacement by society itself, without the addition of “primitive”. The primitive society is precisely the herd and the community. But since, nevertheless, we are talking about times very distant from us, then about the society characteristic of them we can say that it is ancient.

With the transition from community to society, all those characteristics that the concept of "society" possesses begin to gain a stabilizing force. Society is a historically developed, developing, complex system of social relations, including various ways of interaction and forms of interconnection between people. In a narrower sense, society is also understood as the largest group of people within which their life support and reproduction is carried out.

As for this stage, the transition from community to society, two processes can be distinguished in it. The first is the final approval and subsequent deepening of the social division of labor, i.e. differentiation (division) of joint activities into separate, relatively independent activities in accordance with social needs, abilities, skills and abilities of people. The second is institutionalization, i.e. organizational consolidation, objectification and formalization of traditional norms, values ​​and beliefs of people. Institutionalized religion is priests, "painted" rules of conduct, temples and other outwardly expressed sacredness.

The transition from community to society is a long-term process. And more complex than just a change from one historical form of human life to another. The community ceases to exist as a form of social structure, but the community remains in society, in the way of life of people, officially - as citizens, weakly connected throughout the country, but closely united in certain groups (castes, clans). The community is also preserved as a relic - in the consciousness, mentality of people.

HUMAN INFORMATION ACTIVITIES

Historical materialism believes that the development of society passes through the following socio-economic formations:

· Primitive communal system (primitive communism: it. Urkommunismus). The level of economic development is extremely low, the tools used are primitive, so there is no possibility of producing a surplus product. There is no class division. The means of production are publicly owned. Labor is universal, property is only collective.

· Asian way of production(other names - political society, state-communal system). In the later stages of the existence of primitive society, the level of production made it possible to create a surplus product. Communities were united into large formations with centralized administration. From them gradually emerged a class of people engaged exclusively in management. This class gradually became isolated, accumulated privileges and material wealth in its hands, which led to the emergence of private property, property inequality and led to the transition to slavery. The administrative apparatus, on the other hand, acquired an increasingly complex character, gradually transforming into a state.
The existence of the Asian mode of production as a separate formation is not generally recognized and has been a topic of discussion throughout the history of history; in the works of Marx and Engels, he is also not mentioned everywhere.

· Slavery(it. Sklavenhaltergesellschaft). There is private ownership of the means of production. Direct labor is occupied by a separate class of slaves - people deprived of freedom, owned by the slave owners and regarded as "talking tools." Slaves work but do not own the means of production. Slave owners organize production and appropriate the results of slave labor.

· Feudalism(it. Feudalismus). In society, there are classes of feudal lords - landowners - and dependent peasants who are personally dependent on the feudal lords. Production (mainly agricultural) is carried out by the labor of dependent peasants, exploited by the feudal lords. Feudal society is characterized by a monarchical type of government and an estate social structure.

· Capitalism... There is a universal right of private ownership of the means of production. There are classes of capitalists - owners of the means of production - and workers (proletarians) who do not own the means of production and work for capitalists for hire. The capitalists organize production and appropriate the surplus produced

· Workers. A capitalist society can have different forms of government, but the most characteristic for it are various variations of democracy, when power belongs to the elected representatives of society (parliament, president). The main mechanism that induces work is economic coercion - the worker has no opportunity to provide his life in any other way than receiving wages for the work performed.

· Communism. The theoretical (never existed in practice) structure of society, which should replace capitalism. Under communism, all means of production are publicly owned, and private ownership of the means of production is completely abolished. Labor is universal, there is no class division. It is assumed that a person works consciously, seeking to bring the greatest benefit to society and not needing external stimuli such as economic coercion. At the same time, society provides any available benefits to every person. Thus, the principle "Each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!" Is implemented. Commodity-money relations are abolished. The ideology of communism encourages collectivism and presupposes the voluntary recognition by each member of society of the priority of public interests over personal ones. Power is exercised by the whole society as a whole, on the basis of self-government. As a socio-economic formation, a transition from capitalism to communism, is considered socialism, in which the means of production are socialized, but commodity-money relations, economic compulsion to labor and a number of other features characteristic of capitalist society are preserved. Under socialism, the principle is realized: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his work."

The reference table contains the main stages of human development from primitive society to modern history, indicating the chronological framework, the duration of each of the stages and a brief description. This material will be useful for schoolchildren, students, when doing homework, exams and USE.

Stages (period) of history	Chronological framework	Period duration	a brief description of
	about 2 million years ago - 4th millennium BC	about 2 million years (20,000 centuries)	Formation of man, improvement of tools of labor, transition to agriculture and cattle breeding from hunting and gathering.
	4th millennium BC -the middle of the 1st millennium AD	about 4 thousand years (40 centuries)	The split of society into rulers and governed, the spread of slavery, cultural rise, the fall of the Roman Empire
	476g. - mid 17th century.	about 1200 years (12 centuries)	The beginning of the era of great geographical discoveries. Establishment of the estate system in Europe, religion, urbanization, the formation of large feudal states are of great importance.
	mid 17th century - the beginning of the 20th century.	about 300 years (3rd century)	The formation of an industrial capitalist civilization, the emergence of colonial empires, a bourgeois revolution, an industrial revolution, the development of the world market and its fall, production crises, social. contradictions, redivision of the world, the end of the First World War.
	1918 - the beginning of the 21st century.	about 100 years (less than a century)	Sovereign rivalry, World War II, invention of nuclear weapons, proliferation of computers, change in the nature of work, restoration of the integrity of the world market, formation of a global system of infocommunications

1. Terminology

A primitive society (also a prehistoric society) is a period in the history of mankind before the invention of writing, after which there is an opportunity for historical research based on the study of written sources. The term prehistoric came into use in the 19th century. In a broad sense, the word "prehistoric" applies to any period before the invention of writing, starting from the moment the universe began (about 14 billion years ago). Since writing appeared among different peoples at different times, the term prehistoric is either not applied to many cultures, or its meaning and time boundaries do not coincide with humanity as a whole. As sources about prehistoric times of cultures, until recently, without writing, there can be oral legends passed down from generation to generation.

The main social unit of the prehistoric era of mankind is archaeological culture. All terms and periodization of this era, such as Neanderthal or the Iron Age, are largely arbitrary, and their precise definition is a subject of discussion.

To designate the final stage of the prehistoric era of a culture, when it itself has not yet created its own written language, but is already mentioned in the written monuments of other peoples, the term "prohistory" (English protohistory, German Vorgeschichte) is often used in foreign literature. This term has not taken root in Russian literature.

In Marxism, the term primitive communal system was used, meaning the very first socio-economic formation. According to the Marxists, all members of society at that time were in the same relation to the means of production, and the method of obtaining a share of the social product, which they called "primitive communism", was the same for all. The primitive communal system differed from the following stages of social development by the absence of private property, classes and the state. Modern studies of primitive society refute the existence of such a device at least since the Neolithic.

2. Periods of development of primitive society

At different times, a different periodization of the development of human society was proposed. So, A. Ferguson and then Morgan used the periodization of history, which included three stages: savagery, barbarism and civilization, and the first two stages were broken by Morgan into three stages (lower, middle and higher) each. At the stage of savagery, human activity was dominated by hunting, fishing and gathering, there was no private property, there was equality. At the stage of barbarism, agriculture and cattle breeding appear, and private property appears. The third stage of civilization is associated with the emergence of the state, class society, cities, writing, etc.

Morgan considered the lowest stage of savagery to be the earliest stage in the development of human society, the middle stage of savagery, according to his classification, begins with the use of fire and the introduction of fish food, and the highest stage of savagery - with the invention of onions. The lowest stage of barbarism, according to his classification, begins with the emergence of pottery, the middle stage of barbarism - with the transition to agriculture and cattle breeding, and the highest stage of barbarism - with the beginning of the use of iron.

The most developed periodization is archaeological, which is based on a comparison of tools made by man, their materials, forms of dwellings, burials, etc. According to this principle, the history of mankind is mainly divided into the Stone Age, Copper Age, Bronze Age and Iron Age.

The emergence of the Neolithic is associated with the Neolithic revolution. At the same time, the earliest finds of ceramics, about 12,000 years old, appear in the Far East, although the European Neolithic period begins in the Middle East with the pre-ceramic Neolithic. New methods of farming appeared, instead of collecting and hunting (“appropriating”) - “producing” (agriculture, cattle breeding), which later spread to Europe. The Late Neolithic often passes into the next stage, the Copper Age, Chalcolithic or Eneolithic, without a break in cultural continuity. The latter is characterized by the second industrial revolution, the most important sign of which is the emergence of metal tools.

A) Stone Age

The Stone Age is the most ancient period in the history of mankind, when the main tools and weapons were made mainly of stone, but wood and bone were also used. At the end of the Stone Age, the use of clay (dishes, brick buildings, sculpture) became widespread.

Stone Age periodization:

Paleolithic:

The Lower Paleolithic is the period of the appearance of the most ancient species of people and the widespread distribution of Homo erectus.

The Middle Paleolithic is the period when erectus was displaced by evolutionarily more advanced species of people, including modern humans. In Europe, during the entire Middle Paleolithic, Neanderthals dominate.

The Upper Paleolithic is the period of the dominance of the modern species of people throughout the world during the era of the last glaciation.

Mesolithic and Epipaleolithic; the terminology depends on the extent to which the region has been affected by the extinction of the megafauna as a result of the melting of the glacier. The period is characterized by the development of the technology for the production of stone tools and the general culture of man. No ceramics.

Neolithic - the era of the emergence of agriculture. Tools and weapons are still made of stone, but their production is being brought to perfection, and ceramics are widely distributed.

Paleolithic

The period of the most ancient history of mankind, capturing the time period from the moment of the separation of man from the animal state and the emergence of the primitive communal system until the final retreat of the glaciers. The term was coined by archaeologist John Libbock in 1865. In the Paleolithic, man began to use stone tools in his daily life. The Stone Age covers most of human history (about 99% of the time) on earth and begins 2.5 or 2.6 million years ago. The Stone Age is characterized by the emergence of stone tools, agriculture, and the end of the Pliocene around 10,000 BC. e. The Paleolithic era ends with the onset of the Mesolithic, which in turn ended with the Neolithic revolution.

During the Paleolithic era, people lived together in small communities such as tribes and engaged in collecting plants and hunting wild animals. The Paleolithic is characterized by the use of predominantly stone tools, although wood and bone tools were also used. Natural materials were adapted by humans to use them as tools, so leather and plant fibers were used, but, given their fragility, they could not survive to this day. Humanity gradually evolved during the Paleolithic from the early representatives of the genus Homo, such as Homo habilis, who used simple stone tools, to anatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens sapiens). In the late Paleolithic, during the Middle and Upper Paleolithic, people began to create the first works of art and began to engage in religious and spiritual practices such as burial of the dead and religious rituals. The climate during the Paleolithic period included glacial and interglacial periods, in which the climate periodically changed from warm to cold temperatures.

Lower paleolithic

The period that began at the end of the Pliocene, in which the first use of stone tools by the ancestors of modern humans, Homo habilis, began. These were relatively simple tools known as cleavers. Homo habilis mastered stone tools during the Olduvai culture, which were used as choppers and stone cores. This culture gets its name from the place where the first stone tools were found - Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania. People living in this era lived mainly on the meat of dead animals and gathering wild plants, since hunting was not yet widespread at that time. About 1.5 million years ago, a more developed human species appeared - Homo erectus. Representatives of this species learned to use fire and created more sophisticated chopping tools from stone, and also expanded their habitat due to the development of Asia, which is confirmed by finds on the Zhoikudan plateau in China. About 1 million years ago, man mastered Europe and began to use stone axes.

Middle Paleolithic

The period began about 200 thousand years ago and is the most studied era during which the Neanderthals lived (120-35 thousand years ago). The most famous finds of Neanderthals belong to the Mosterian culture. In the end, the Neanderthals became extinct and were replaced by modern humans, who first appeared in Ethiopia about 100 thousand years ago. Despite the fact that the culture of the Neanderthals is considered primitive, there is evidence that they honored their old people and practiced burial rituals that were organized by the entire tribe. During this time, there was an expansion of the habitat of people and their settling in undeveloped territories, such as Australia and Oceania. The peoples of the Middle Paleolithic demonstrate irrefutable evidence that abstract thinking began to prevail among them, expressed, for example, in the organized burial of the dead. Recently, in 1997, based on the analysis of the DNA of the first Neanderthal man, scientists at the University of Munich concluded that the differences in genes are too great to consider Neanderthals to be the ancestors of Cro-Magnols (that is, modern people). These conclusions were confirmed by leading experts from Zurich, and later from all over Europe and America. For a long time (15-35 thousand years), Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons coexisted and feuded. In particular, at the sites of both Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons, gnawed bones of another species were found.

Upper Paleolithic

About 35-10 thousand years ago, the last ice age ended and modern people during this period settled throughout the Earth. After the appearance of the first modern people in Europe (Cro-Magnons), there was a relatively rapid growth of their cultures, the most famous of which are: Chatelperon, Aurignacian, Solutreyskaya, Gravette and Madeleine archaeological cultures.

North and South America were colonized by humans through the ancient Bering Isthmus, which was later flooded by rising sea levels and turned into the Bering Strait. The ancient people of America, the Paleo-Indians, most likely formed into an independent culture about 13.5 thousand years ago. In general, the planet began to be dominated by hunter-gatherer communities who used different types of stone tools depending on the region.

The period between the Paleolithic and the Neolithic, X-VI thousand years BC. The period began with the end of the last ice age and continued as the sea level rose, which caused the need for people to adapt to the environment and find new sources of food. In this period, microliths appeared - miniature stone tools, which significantly expanded the possibilities of using stone in the daily life of ancient people. However, the term "Mesolithic" is also used to refer to stone tools that were brought to Europe from the Ancient Near East. Microlithic tools significantly increased the efficiency of hunting, and in more developed settlements (for example, Lepensky Vir) they were also used for fishing. Probably, in this time era, the domestication of the dog as a hunting assistant took place.

The New Stone Age was characterized by the emergence of agriculture and animal husbandry during the so-called Neolithic Revolution, the development of pottery and the emergence of the first large human settlements such as Chatal Guyuk and Jericho. The first Neolithic cultures appeared around 7000 BC. e. in the zone of the so-called "fertile crescent". Agriculture and culture spread to the Mediterranean, the Indus Valley, China and the countries of Southeast Asia.

The increase in population led to an increase in the need for plant foods, which contributed to the rapid development of agriculture. When conducting agricultural work, stone tools began to be used for soil cultivation, and when harvesting, devices for harvesting, chopping and cutting plants began to be used. For the first time, large-scale stone structures such as the towers and walls of Jericho or Stonehenge began to be built, demonstrating the emergence of significant human and material resources in the Neolithic, as well as forms of collaboration between large groups of people that allowed work on large projects. In the Neolithic era, regular trade appeared between different settlements, people began to transport goods over considerable distances (many hundreds of kilometers). The Skara Brae settlement, located in the Orkney Islands near Scotland, is one of the finest examples of a Neolithic village. The settlement used stone beds, shelves, and even toilet facilities.

B) Copper Age

The Copper Age, the Copper-Stone Age, Chalcolithic (Greek chblkt "copper" + Greek LYAPT "stone") or Eneolithic (Latin aeneus "copper" + Greek LYAPT "stone") - a period in the history of primitive society, transitional the period from the Stone Age to the Bronze Age. Roughly covers the period 4-3 thousand BC. e., but in some territories it exists longer, and in some it is absent altogether. Most often, the Eneolithic is included in the Bronze Age, but sometimes it is considered a separate period. During the Chalcolithic times, copper tools were widespread, but stone tools were still prevalent.

B) Bronze Age

The Bronze Age is a period in the history of primitive society, characterized by the leading role of bronze products, which was associated with the improvement in the processing of metals such as copper and tin obtained from ore deposits, and the subsequent production of bronze from them. The Bronze Age is the second, late phase of the Early Metal Age, following the Copper Age and preceding the Iron Age. In general, the chronological framework of the Bronze Age: 35/33 - 13/11 centuries. BC e., but in different cultures they differ. In the Eastern Mediterranean, the end of the Bronze Age is associated with the almost synchronous destruction of all local civilizations at the turn of the 13th to 12th centuries. BC e., known as the bronze collapse, while in the west of Europe, the transition from the Bronze to the Iron Age is delayed for several more centuries and ends with the appearance of the first cultures of antiquity - ancient Greece and Ancient Rome.

Periods of the Bronze Age:

1.Early Bronze Age

2.Middle Bronze Age

3.Late Bronze Age

Early Bronze Age

The breakdown separating the Copper Age from the Bronze Age was the disintegration of the Balkan-Carpathian metallurgical province (1st half of the 4th millennium) and the formation of approx. 35/33 centuries. Circumpontic Metallurgical Province. Within the Circumpontic metallurgical province, which dominated during the Early and Middle Bronze Age, copper ore centers of the South Caucasus, Anatolia, the Balkan-Carpathian region, and the Aegean Islands were discovered and began to be exploited. To the west of it, the mining and metallurgical centers of the Southern Alps, the Iberian Peninsula, the British Isles functioned; to the south and southeast, metal-bearing cultures are known in Egypt, Arabia, Iran and Afghanistan, right up to Pakistan.

The place and time of the discovery of methods for obtaining bronze is not known for certain. It can be assumed that bronze was simultaneously discovered in several places. The earliest tinned bronze items were found in Iraq and Iran and date back to the end of the 4th millennium BC. e. But there is evidence of an earlier appearance of bronze in Thailand in the 5th. millennium d.n. e. Arsenic-containing bronze items were produced in Anatolia and on both sides of the Caucasus in the early 3rd. millennium BC e. And some bronze items of the Maikop culture date back to the middle of the 4th millennium BC. e. Although this question is controversial and other analysis results indicate that the same Maikop bronze items were made in the middle of the 3rd millennium BC. e.

With the beginning of the Bronze Age, two blocks of human communities in Eurasia took shape and began to actively interact. To the south of the central folded mountain belt (Sayano-Altai - Pamir and Tien Shan - Caucasus - Carpathians - Alps), societies with a complex social structure, an economy based on agriculture in combination with animal husbandry, have emerged, cities, written language, states have appeared here. To the north, in the Eurasian steppe, militant societies of mobile pastoralists were formed.

Middle Bronze Age

In the Middle Bronze Age (26/25 - 20/19 centuries BC), the zone occupied by metal-bearing cultures expanded (mainly to the north). The Circumpontic Metallurgical Province largely retains its structure and continues to be the central system of producing metallurgical centers in Eurasia.

Late Bronze Age

The beginning of the Late Bronze Age was the disintegration of the Circumpontic metallurgical province at the turn of the 3rd and 2nd millennia and the formation of a whole chain of new metallurgical provinces, which to varying degrees reflected the most important features of mining and metallurgical production that were practiced in the central centers of the Circumpontic metallurgical province.

Among the metallurgical provinces of the Late Bronze Age, the largest was the Eurasian steppe metallurgical province (up to 8 million square kilometers), which inherited the traditions of the Circumpontic metallurgical province. It was adjoined from the south by the Caucasian metallurgical province and the Iranian-Afghan metallurgical province, small in area, but distinguished by a special richness and variety of product shapes, as well as the nature of alloys. From Sayan-Altai to Indochina, the producing centers of the East Asian metallurgical province, which are complex in their nature, spread. The various forms of high-quality products of the European metallurgical province, stretching from the Northern Balkans to the Atlantic coast of Europe, are concentrated mainly in rich and numerous hoards. From the south, the Mediterranean metallurgical province adjoined it, which significantly differed from the European metallurgical province in production methods and forms of products.

In the 13th and 12th centuries. BC e. a catastrophe of the Bronze Age occurs: cultures disintegrate or mutate practically throughout the entire space from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, within several centuries - up to the 10th / 8th centuries. BC e. there are grandiose migrations of peoples. The transition to the Iron Age begins

D) Iron Age

The Iron Age is a period in the history of primitive society, characterized by the spread of iron metallurgy and the manufacture of iron tools. For civilizations of the Bronze Age, it goes beyond the history of primitive society, for other peoples, civilization takes shape in the era of the Iron Age.

The term "Iron Age" is usually applied to the "barbaric" cultures of Europe, which existed synchronously with the great civilizations of antiquity (Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, Parthia). The "barbarians" were distinguished from ancient cultures by the absence or rare use of writing, and therefore information about them came down to us either according to archeology data, or according to references in ancient sources

Following bronze, man masters a new metal - iron. The discovery of this metal of legend is attributed to the people of Asia Minor, the Khalibs: from their name comes the Greek. ЧЛхвбт - "steel", "iron". Aristotle left a description of the Chalib method of obtaining iron: the Chalibs washed the river sand of their country several times, added some kind of refractory substance to it, and smelted it in special furnaces; the metal obtained in this way had a silvery color and was stainless. As a raw material for smelting iron, magnetite sands were used, the reserves of which are found along the entire coast of the Black Sea - these magnetite sands consist of a mixture of small grains of magnetite, titanium-magnetite, ilmenite, and fragments of other rocks, so that the steel smelted by the Khalibs was alloyed, and, apparently had high qualities. Such a peculiar way of obtaining iron not from ore suggests that the Khalibs, rather, discovered iron as a technological material, but not a way of its ubiquitous industrial production. Apparently, their discovery served as an impetus for the further development of iron metallurgy, including from ore.

The fact that iron was actually discovered in Hittites is confirmed by both the Greek name and the fact that one of the first iron daggers was found in the tomb of the Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun (c. 1350 BC), clearly presented to him by the Hittites, and that already in the Book of Judges of Israel (c. 1200 BC) the use of whole iron chariots by the Philistines and Canaanites is described. Later, iron technology gradually spread to other countries.

Iron ores were more readily available. Swamp ores are found almost everywhere. Vast areas of the forest zone in the Bronze Age lagged behind in socio-economic development from the southern regions, but after the smelting of iron from local ores there began to improve agricultural technology. As a result, many forests of Western Europe disappeared during the Iron Age. But even in the regions where agriculture emerged earlier, the introduction of iron contributed to the improvement of irrigation systems and increased field productivity.

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