The History of the Peoples of Hungary from the Palaeolithic to the Hungarian Conquest [antikvár]

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN - THE PALAEOLITHIC The last three millión years constitute a brief but rather important period in the history of the Earth, when man appeared and, as a result of an accelerating evolution, his physical structure and the volume of his brain reached the present level somé 30-40 thousand years ago. The first room of the exhibition presents that section of the evolutionary process whose lower limit is the appearance of the predecessor of man and the upper one is the development of food production. In Hungary the events of this period took place mainly under the climatic and geological conditions created by the Pleistocene. The period between the appearance of too-l m-a king man and the end of the ice-ages is the Old Stone Age or the Palaeolithic (3 millión - 8000 years). The period from the end of the glacial epoch (Pleistocene) till the evolution of food producing societies is the Middle Stone Age or the Mesolithic. Common characteristic of the two periods is the way of obtaining food, i. e. prey. In the Early Palaeolithic food gathering was almost exclusive, while by the Middle and Late Palaeolithic hunted game was alsó an important source of food. In the Mesolithic fish became important in the diet. CHRONOLOGICAL SURVEY Thé bone finds that are the remains of the predecessors of Man originate from the second half of the Quaternary from 10-15 millión years ago. Three millión years ago Early Man was already making primitive tools. One millión years ago the glacial epoch or the Pleistocene began. During this epoch cool (glacial) and warm (interglacial) periods, each lasting for tens of thous-