A Reflection on the "Time-awareness" of Humankind in the Paleolithic and Neolithic Eras

From the 1980s onwards, theoretical debates about time in archeology were formed, which finally led to discussions on"perspectivalism of time". In addition, the issues of epistemology and human perceptive abilities and social memory in the 1990s and 2000s caused the concept of time and how it was perceived by human groups in the past to be the focus of archaeologists, therefor various factors such as social memory and remembering the past and their role in strengthening the individual and collective identity of human groups were investigated. In the last three decades, various aspects of time, such as biography, memory and social memory, long-term history, narrative, non-linear systems, landscape, and archaeological records, have been studied, all of which express different perceptions and understandings of time.The main question of this research is how the people of the past understood, remembered, marked, and measured time. To answer this inquiry, the authors used archeological and anthropological data and investigated the "time-consciousness" of human groups in terms of marking time, learning, anticipation and foresightedness, remembering the past, and death awareness and time allocation in daily activities, which are discussed below.In the Paleolithic and Neolithic ages, we are more concerned with marking time than measuring it. From an anthropological perspective, a hunter/gatherer's life was initially prioritized according to opportunistic and appropriate needs, and these people marked the seasons and time by the growth of plants, rainfall, and other natural phenomena (Clark 1992: 39-59). In general, most archaeological sites have some evidence of time marking among the members of the society that inhabited that site. The life cycle (growth, birth, migration, etc.) of plant or animal species depends on certain seasons of the year, so plant and animal data provide us with information about the time dimension of activities. Among the archeological pieces of evidence which have been referred to in the discussion of human "time-awareness" in the Paleolithic and Neolithic eras are bone objects and stone plaques with a series of consecutive signs carved in the Neo-Paleolithic Era of Europe (Marshack 1972; d'Errico 1998) and stone monuments of the Neolithic age of Europe such as Stonehenge (Ruggles 1988).The concept of learning is one of the topics that show the understanding of time by prehistoric human groups. Hand tools such as old Paleolithic hand axes and hand tools made with Luluwa technology by Neanderthals show that learning to make them required considerable energy and time. Anthropological studies among contemporary sculptors indicate that this skill can only be learned with deliberate and purposeful practice, and it requires years of training to acquire the skill.In general, things like evidence of food sharing from the earliest times, the reliance of human groups on bilateral exchange with delayed returns, and rational planning for the organization of livelihood to facilitate the optimal use of food resources with the irregular seasonal distribution and the sequence of complex reduction in the production of stone artifacts such as Luvala technology in the Paleolithic era; And behaviors such as food storage, timing and time planning based on agriculture and animal husbandry and adjusting time to increase the efficiency of production activities in the Neolithic era are all signs of awareness of the future and foresight in the subject of "time". Consciousness is the human family.One of the most critical topics in "time awareness" is how prehistoric people remember the past. Remembering or forgetting past events in the present has been directly related to the social memory of human societies (Zerubavel 2003). Based on ritual activities, ritual buildings, structures, cultural materials with specific coded meanings, or even physical actions, societies communicate with the past and remember it. Anthropological studies show that the myths and traditions that today's food-gathering people present and implement play a vital role in validating their social structure (Clark 1992: 45). Remembering the past in the archaeological record can be well examined through the tradition of burial.The first evidence of official burial dates back to about 100 thousand years ago, which was reported from the caves of Tabun, Eskhol, Qafe, and Shanidar and related to Neanderthal and modern humans. Neanderthal burial evidences have been reported from sites such as Shanidar, Tishik-tash, Laquiena, Farasi, Amoud, and Dederiye, along with burial gifts such as hand stone tools, bone retouching, carved bones, and stone tablets with cups. (Pettitte 2011). All these evidences show that the Neanderthal man was well aware of death and had thought of measures to face it. However, the first burials of modern humans in Africa were simple and with the most minor complications, like the burials of Neanderthals (D'Errico and Vanhaeren 2016: 46), the burial traditions around 20,000-30,000 years ago. The highest level of complexity is reached in the Paleolithic age. Burial customs, in addition to the basic rules such as the use of ocher flowers, body decorations, and funeral gifts, include complex actions such as the secondary placement of the corpse, moving and removing the skull and some long bones, scattering the body parts on the cave floor, signs The cut is made on the skull, chest, and hand, which was done on the corpse after death.At the end of the Paleolithic period and the beginning of the Neolithic period, various and complex burial traditions such as primary and secondary burials, skull coverings, stone masks, and human statues with relatively natural size, deformation of the skull, separation of the skull after death, continuity between animal and human burials, ritual rooms in areas such as Chai Ono, Jericho, and Bostan-sur, home shrines in regions such as Malaha and Nawali Chori, ritual and burial areas such as Gobgli Tepe and Kafir Hahoresh all indicate the high status of the deceased and the role of death in people's daily lives.From an archaeological point of view, it is impossible to estimate the amount of time spent in production and subsistence activities, but based on anthropological studies, it has been determined that food-gathering groups can obtain subsistence necessities by spending a little time. Provide yourself several days. The change of life from foraging to settlement and the formation of the food production economy in the Neolithic period caused that, in addition to the fact that humans had to spend more time in the agricultural fields, to obtain a sufficient crop, domestic work Such as house repair and restoration, product storage, plant feed processing, herd treatment and care, etc. should also be added to the list of his numerous daily activities.The present research showed that prehistoric human groups and societies understood time in a circular way and based on their daily activities and seasonal rituals, and based on seasonal changes and natural phenomena, efforts were made to mark They have it. The temporal structure of the activities of prehistoric human groups highlights the crucial role of social memory and provides a critical path toward a social understanding of time in the form of continuity and change. Anthropological and archaeological studies show that in addition to the timeliness of social activities, remembering the past plays a vital role in the social status and identity of individuals and families within the community and property rights over resources (land, water, etc.) and serves the continuity and unity of the society. From an anthropological point of view, since the time of upright man, we have witnessed the complexity of the process of "time-consciousness" in the human species. Although the first signs of "time-awareness" in the upright man are limited to spending considerable time in learning to make stone tools or far-sighted livelihood, with the emergence of modern man, he witnessed fundamental changes in human cognitive processes, which shows the emergence of a new understanding and relationship of the concept of time, past, and future. The monogamous life and domestication of animals and plants caused fundamental changes in man's definition of himself, the world, and understanding of time.