Most animals come together in groups. They do it for protection, to raise their young, and to find food. People are no different. They, too, form groups. Long ago, this was to help them survive. Today, most of us join groups for the fun of it or because of our beliefs. For example, you might belong to a sports team. Or, you and your family might be members of a church, mosque, or synagogue.

Early humans joined together for one main reason. It helped them survive. Yet, by creating groups, they also began developing cultures.

The Human Cultural Experience

Culture is a set of ideas, beliefs, and practices. It is created or learned by members of a group. For early humans living in the Paleolithic Era, life was hard. The Paleolithic Era is also known as the Old Stone Age. It started around 2.6 million years ago. It ended around 11,700 years ago.

The purpose of human culture during this time was survival. Banding together made people safer. It also made it easier to find food and shelter and to make tools. Culture was a way to deal with the challenges humans faced. These challenges included:

• How to produce and distribute food and find or make shelter
• How to deal with nature
• How to communicate with other group members
• How to manage conflicts between group members and with strangers
• How to design and use tools
• How to organize to do work

Paleolithic humans organized themselves into family groups. These groups usually had no more than 25 people. Making group decisions was easy when a group was that small.

However, different family groups often joined together. The new, bigger group could have as many as 100 people. It then became harder to make group decisions. It also was harder to get people to work together. Groups had to organize themselves. Only then would they remain safe and find enough food.

Shared human experiences

All Paleolithic peoples hunted and gathered for food. Farming did not exist yet. But archeological evidence does not always tell us who had what job. Paleolithic men are often shown as hunters. They drove animals to cliffs. Nets were thrown over large herds. But in more recent eras, we know women hunted in these ways too.

There are hunting and gathering cultures still around today. These groups can tell us much about the past. Both men and women raise children. It is considered a highly important task. Therefore, Paleolithic men and women may have shared the job as well.

Hunting and gathering made language necessary. People needed names for different animals and plants. They needed to tell others where to find and hunt certain animals. They needed to tell others which plants were poisonous.

Sometimes, culture spread from one group to another. The Venus of Willendorf statue is an example of this. You can see it in the picture below. Statues that look very much like it have been found all across Afro-Eurasia. That shows that Paleolithic peoples shared ideas and ways of doing things.

The farther apart two groups were, the greater the differences between them. Far-apart areas had very different plants and animals. They had different geography and weather. As a result, the people in these places developed different cultures.

For example, a group living in the rainforests of central Africa would pass down information about local plants and animals. The tools they developed would be made of the materials found around them. Their stories about nature would be very different from those from a group living in the mountains of Mesoamerica. Their language would be completely different, too.

Today, there are still major differences between cultures. People in different parts of the world have very different beliefs and practices. Sometimes this leads to hate. It can even lead to war.

Still, cultural differences are a good thing. They make the world a far more interesting place. Every culture is both special and precious.