describe the cultural changes that occurred as humans developed into efficient hunters in organised cooperative groups
Humans developed into efficient hunters through cultural changes such as communication, social grouping and the use of tools. To hunt in organised groups there had to be communication. To develop their hunting skills and improve their techniques they had to have the ability to pass on information.
“Incidental tools” were the first tools to be used. These tools were stones, sticks and other such items that the early humans found lying around. This level of hunting would have not been very different from that used by some apes today and wouldn’t have involved complex social groups.
By about 100 000 years ago humans had developed the first stone tools to be fashioned. These included the stone and anvil which was used for breaking bones open to get to the marrow deep inside. They were also using bone and wood implements. As time went by, these modern humans made such specialised tools as bone needles, to sew animal skins together for clothing using sinews as the thread, bone fishhooks and nets, to catch fish, hand axes for cutting meat, stone chisels to carve and shape bone. Early humans participated in close range kills, meaning that they literally had to be within a metre of their prey when they attacked it. These more complex tools would have developed due to the people living together in social groups and communicating new ideas to others in the group.
The bow and arrow and the spear, which appeared after 20 000 BC, allowed the early humans to hunt and kill their prey from a distance. This would have made hunting safer and would have made it more difficult for herbivores to detect the hunters and flee before being killed. Rawhide and sinews were used to haft stone points to the spears and other implements such as axes and arrows. These more advanced tools would have developed due to the humans communicating ideas between each other and the desire to make hunting safer and more efficient. This ended in approximately 4000 BC, with the coming of agriculture and the domestication of animals.