1.2. The transition from the appropriating economy to producing

Neolithic . This code name is applied to the last stage of the Stone Age, but it does not reflect either chronological or cultural uniformity: in the XI century. AD Novgorodians wrote about barter with the Neolithic (by type of economy) tribes of the North, and in the XVIII century. Russian scientist S. Krasheninnikov described the typical Neolithic life of the local residents of Kamchatka.

Nevertheless, the period VII-V millennium BC belongs to the Neolithic. Humanity settled in different landscape zones went in different ways and at a different pace. The tribes in the North, in harsh conditions, for a long time remained at the same level of development. But in the southern zones, evolution was faster.

A man already used ground and drilled tools with handles, a loom, knew how to sculpt clay dishes, process wood, build a boat, weave a net. A potter's wheel, which appeared in the 4th millennium BC, dramatically increased labor productivity and improved the quality of pottery. In IV millennium BC in the East, the wheel was invented, the animal power began to be used: the first wheeled carts appeared.

The art of the Neolithic is represented by petroglyphs (drawings on stones) in areas of the North, revealing in detail the hunt of skiers for elk, the hunt in large boats for whales.

One of the most important technical revolutions of antiquity, the transition to a productive economy (the Neolithic revolution), is connected with the Neolithic era. In the Neolithic era, the first social division of labor for agricultural and cattle breeding occurred, which contributed to the progress in the development of productive forces, and the second social division of labor — the separation of handicrafts from agriculture, which contributed to the individualization of labor.

Farming was very uneven. The first centers of agriculture were found in Palestine, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq. In Central Asia, artificial irrigation of fields with the help of canals appeared as early as the 4th millennium BC. For agricultural tribes characterized by large settlements of mud houses, sometimes numbering several thousand inhabitants. Dzheitunskaya archaeological culture in Central Asia and Bugo-Dniester in Ukraine represent the early agricultural cultures in the V-IV millennium BC.

Aneolithic Tripoli culture (VI-III thousand BC), located between the Carpathians and the Dnieper on fertile loess and chernozem soils, belongs to this epoch. During this period, primitive agricultural society reached its highest peak.

Aeneolite-copper-stone age, during this period there appeared separate products from pure copper, but the new material has not yet affected the forms of the economy. Tripoli (like other early farmers) developed the type of integrated farming that existed in the village up to the capitalist era: farming (wheat, barley, flax), cattle breeding (cow, pig, sheep, goat), fishing and hunting. Primitive matriarchal communities, apparently, did not yet know property and social inequality.

Of particular interest is the ideology of the Tripoli tribes, imbued with the idea of ​​fertility, which was expressed in the identification of land and women: the land giving birth to a new ear of cereal from the seed, as if equal to the woman giving birth to a new man. This idea underlies many religions, even Christianity.

Many trypolian cultures include clay figurines of women associated with matriarchal fertility cult. The painting of large earthen vessels of the Tripoli culture reveals the worldview of the ancient farmers, who took care of the irrigation of their fields with rain, their picture of the world. The world, in their view, consisted of three zones (tiers): an earth zone with plants, an area of ​​the Middle sky with the sun and rain, and a zone of the Upper sky, which holds above the sky water that may spill during the rain. The supreme ruler of the world was a female deity. The picture of the world of Tripol is very close to that which is reflected in the ancient hymns of the Indian Rig Veda 1 .

Human evolution has especially accelerated in connection with the discovery of metal — copper and bronze (an alloy of copper and tin). Tools, weapons, armor, jewelry and dishes from the III millennium BC they began to make not only stone and clay, but also from bronze. The exchange of products between the tribes - products and increased clashes between them. Deeper *** was the division of labor, there was a financial inequality within the genus.

In connection with the development of cattle breeding, the role of men in production increased. The era of patriarchy began. Within the clan, large patriarchal families arose, with a man at the head, leading an independent household. Then polygamy appeared.

In the Bronze Age, there were already large cultural communities that might have corresponded to linguistic families: Indo-Europeans, Finno-Finns, Turks, and Caucasian tribes.

Their geographical location was very different from modern. The ancestors of Finno-Finns moved, according to some scholars, from the Aral Sea region to the north and north-west, passing west of the Urals. The ancestors of the Turkic peoples housed the eastern Baikal and Altai.

In all likelihood, the main ancestral homeland of the Slavs was the area between the Dnieper, the Carpathians and the Vistula, but at different times the ancient homeland could have different outlines, then expand at the expense of Central European cultures, then move east or go to the south steppe from time to time.

The Proto-Slavonic neighbors were the ancestors of the Germanic tribes in the north-west, the ancestors of the Latvian-Lithuanian (Baltic) tribes in the north, the Daco-Thracian tribes in the south-west, and the Proto-Iranian (Scythian) tribes in the south and southeast; from time to time the Proto-Slavs came into contact with the northeastern Finno-Ugric tribes and far to the west with the Celtic-Italic ones.