The History of the World Podcast, written and presented by Chris Hasler.

Volume 1, the Pre-historic World

This is episode 13, Paleolithic, art and ritual. all. Let us explore previous references to art and ritual in our previous

podcasts and see what sense we can make of them and what other instances of these subjects we can find within

the prehistoric study of the world. During episode six regarding prehistoric speech and language we discovered engraved shells

possibly created by Java Man, a Homo erectus discovered intrinal on the island of Java in the modern country of Indonesia.

We believe that this could have been around half a million years old.

During both episodes 9 and 10 on the first Homo sapiens,

we discovered that humans were creating shell beads, possibly a jewelry item.

These were being created in the caves of Israel, but also South Africa. Some of the Israeli discovered beads date back over 100,000 years. Some of the beads were decorated with red oka.

Red oka is something that we have also discovered in previous episodes.

Not only was it used to decorate items such as shell beads, but it was also

used in symbolic burials, such as the Red Lady of Paviland, which we talked about in episode 11.

What does all of this mean in terms of our general story?

Let us try to put this all in some chronological context and try to

uncover the reasons behind it all. Leisure Time

Homo sapiens were such Leisure Time

Homosappians were such a successful animal that they were able to spare some time where their intelligence and self-consciousness was able to

unavoidably contemplate who they were. Humans

needed an outlet to be able to express themselves and they would have used art as one of those outlets.

With all of their cognitive ability, it must have been very important to be able to occupy their time in such a way that they could

stretch their imagination. Carving shapes into bones and shells was either for

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