Tools of lower paieolithic age

Pleistocene times there were huge herds of very large mammals. Bones of such large mammals were found associated with the human fossil finds and the contemporary fossil tools. It is even suggested that it is the large scale hunting by man that led to the eventual extinction of many of the large pleistocene mammals in Eurasia. Such animals included mammoths, mastodons, wooly rhinoceros, cave bears and giant deer. Initially the big game hunting was probably not carried out on a large scale and might have been cooperative venture. Here, several males surrounded a selected individual and killed it by the handiest method. The important point is that the whole process was a cooperative venture. It could be true that although the hunting was a cooperative venture, Homo erectus could not have detailed any specific plan in advance because of the lack of communication skills. But the cooperative venture served one big purpose namely it enabled the formation of multi-family groups and socializing tendencies. Also, it could be postulated that in such situations there was more than one male. And this could have led to the evolution of dominance hierarchies. The cooperative hunting also became necessary so that not only the hunting could be done together but also the sharing of the hunted food was possible. A mdstadon would contain more meat than could be consumed by a single family and therefore the sharing occurred. This tendency also favored the development of socialisation and formation of different families. Further, big game hunting appears to have excluded the females as they were involved in bearing and nursing children.

In other words, big game hunting could have been the reason for the development of different social roles for males and females. This means the division of labour was being established and the role of female was getting confined mostly to child bearing and rearing children along with gathering of vegetal matter and slow game.