Paintings in the cave of Lascaux, France, a painting dating back to prehistoric times in the Paleolithic (Paléolithique)
The history of the world began about 6,000 years ago with the creation of writings to record historical events, but the story of our humanity began long before this written history, called prehistoric times.
Prior to the creation of the alphabet, we had only archeological documents to study the history of our ancestors, such as bones, tools, or paintings found through archeological excavations. Through all these archeological documents, it can be found that, in fact, prehistoric times are much longer than written history.
In terms of the history of our entire planet, we find that the planet was born more than 4 billion years ago. It is one of the eight planets in the solar system, but Earth is not too close to the sun, which leads to extreme heat, and not too far from the sun, which leads to extreme cold. But at a reasonable distance conducive to the growth of biodiversity, including our humanity.
Archaeological excavations have revealed that the first humans began to appear on the planet in East Africa near the present-day Middle East. But to the question of when did humans first appear on earth? The answer may vary, some as far as millions of years ago, some as 200,000 years ago or even 50,000 years ago, depending on different theories.
However, archaeologists and anthropologists generally agree that the first humans, unlike humans, appeared on Earth some 50,000 years ago. And the distinctive feature of humans and animals is not in the ability to walk, to use objects, or to be emotional. Human features are language.
Animals, although they have different sounds and cries that can make them understand each other, are not as advanced languages as humans. This lack of language allows animals to progress very slowly.
Old dogs, horses, tigers or lions have many lessons in life, but when these animals die, these experiences will be lost with all because there is no language to explain this experience and a new generation of animals must begin. Learn about life again from a purely zero point.
People are the opposite! Because people have a language that can tell a story, older people with life experience can relate their experiences to the younger generation so that they can learn from them. Based on the lessons and experiences learned from the older generation, the younger generation can learn, understand and discover new and more advanced experiences than the previous generation and then transfer these experiences to the next generation. More.
Thus, language, communication, sharing and transferring experiences, teacher-student communication are unique human characteristics that are not found among animals. It is because of this language that humans are able to move faster than animals. The evolution of an animal is a "natural" evolution. The evolution of human beings is the evolution of "culture", that is, evolution through knowledge, experience, science, art and technology.
Language helps people to develop knowledge and wisdom faster than animals, and because of this language, which creates another feature of human beings that is very different from animals is the concern for the future.
Animals may have memories of what they went through in the past, but they have no thoughts or anxieties for the future. Animals live one day for only one day. As long as he has enough food for the day, he can live happily ever after, never worrying or worrying that one day he will die.
Language makes people anxious about the future because through language people can talk to each other, tell each other what happened or what we think. We can imagine that in prehistoric times, people lived by hunting, when returning from hunting at night, people could talk to each other about hunting during the day. In this conversation, they also know that one of them is missing, never to return ... missing because of classy ... means to die.
Being able to talk about day-to-day hunting makes people realize that we can die while hunting. So tomorrow, when we go hunting, we too may die.
Knowing, understanding, and worrying about the future makes people think, prepare and plan for the future. Knowing that one day we will die gives us another important need that we always want to do in the present: to tell a story or a story that we have seen and told to others. The recounting of this story or event is historical, even if it is just an oral, unwritten story.
Thus, mankind in prehistoric times also had its own history, because people had languages that could tell stories to each other. People tell stories from the past to understand the present and prepare for the future. People who know that they will die one day also have the idea of sharing knowledge and experience to the next generation.
In short, language, conversation, storytelling, thinking about the future, sharing and transferring knowledge and experience are all characteristics of humanity. Features that are inherent in human birth from prehistoric times and continue to the present day.
The fact that I am describing the history of mankind, and that the listener who is following, listening, wanting to understand the story of the past of mankind, is also part of the human personality. It is a feature that is inherent in "nature" of man, or should be said to be inherent in "culture" of man, because man evolved in a "culture", not in "nature" like animals.
