Environmental factors in the development of primitive society in the prehistory

Abstract

The paper considers the problem of interaction between nature and primitive society in early prehistory in terms of an adaptive model. In Ukrainian historical science there was not enough attention to studying the problems of cultural adaptation to the environment. The authors offer the model of development of the behavior of hunters-gathered on the example of neighboring geographic regions, which were under pressure from various natural and climatic conditions: Central Europe during the last interglacial and territory of modern Ukraine during the last glacial. During the last interglacial of the Pleistocene in the Palaeolithic sites of Central Europe the characteristic features of cultural adaptation of Homo Sapiens are traced. First of all, they are found in the choice of place of residence, in the specialization of animal hunting, in the use of raw materials and in separate manifestations of material and spiritual culture. On the Upper Palaeolithic sites of the territory of Ukraine during the last glacial the composition of faunal remains reflects not so much the environment as the direction of its economic activity. The richness of the fauna, on the one hand, opened opportunities for progress in the extensive development of the economy, and on the other - specialized hunting contributed to a fuller exploitation of the surrounding area, the use of ancient ecological niches. The nature of the interaction of economic and cultural type and historical and ethnographic community determines the specific features of the material culture of Paleolithic society. The following actual materials are indicated on the flexibility of hominins in various natural and geographical conditions of Central and Eastern Europe, which eventually provided in the historical prospect of the widespread settlement of humanity throughout the world. Keywords: cultural adaptation, primitive society, environmental, hunter-gatherers, glacial, interglacial.