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Through most of the species, Homo sapiens history at the beginning of the wandering hunter and gathering wild plant foods. However, about 15,000 to 10,000 years ago, near the start of the Holocene, tribal domesticated animals and plants. Wear their own way learned that the tool is a completely unprecedented, fired clay objects. Food, from reliable sources, the development of permanent settlements. Personal efforts must continue, to find food, build their own culture and improve. Sign language and to improve writing. Era, and recorded history began.           The Age of the Philosopher     The Neandertals lived from about 125,000 to about 40,000 years ago. Their culture included chipped flint tools, crude carvings, the use of fire, and burial of their dead in carefully prepared graves. Some burial sites contain indications of religious beliefs. For example, consider the La Chapelle fossil site in southwestern France. It contains a Neandertal male, placed in ritual position within a shallow grave, with a bison leg on his chest. Flint tools also are in the grave, possibly in the belief that they could be used in an afterlife.   ... That Neandertals had a special attitude about death also is evident at a fossil site in Uzbekistan, near Russia. Anthropologists working there uncovered an array of goat horns surrounding the buried body of a 9-year-old child.   ... About 34,000 years ago… humans closely resembling modern Europeans moved from Africa into regions inhabited by the Neandertals. They quickly were assimilated or replaced the Neandertals through tribal warfare and competition for hunting grounds.   These early members of our own species are called Cro-Magnon people. They were mostly taller than Neandertals, had a more vertical brow, and had a decided chin projection. In short, Cro-Magnon's bones were modern, and anthropologists have recognized definite Cro-Magnon skull types among today's western and northern Europeans.   Cro-Magnon continued and further developed the cultural traditions of the Neandertals. Finely crafted spear points, awls, needles, scrapers, and other tools are found in Cro-Magnon caves. Handsome paintings and drawings were made on cave walls and ceilings. Engravings and sculptures include mammoths, horses, and women. These were produced from fragments of bone or ivory. The statues of women probably were used in fertility rites.   Evidence is that Cro-Magnon people enjoyed wearing body ornaments and frequently fashioned necklaces from pieces of ivory, shells, and teeth. Burial of the dead became an elaborate affair. Hunters were buried with their weapons and children with their ornaments. This apparent concern for an afterlife and the sense of self-awareness that resulted in art and complex ritual suggest that the beginning of the age of the philosopher had arrived.   Through most of the species' early history, Homo sapiens was a wandering hunter and gatherer of wild edible plants. However, about 15,000 to 10,000 years ago, near the beginning of the Holocene Epoch, tribes began to domesticate animals and cultivate plants. They learned to grind their tools to unprecedented perfection and to make utensils of fired clay. With more reliable sources of food, permanent settlements developed. Individuals were spared the continuous demand of searching for food, and so were able to build and improve their cultures. Languages improved, and symbols developed into forms of writing. The era of recorded history had begun.         — Harold L. Levin, The Earth Through Time, Chapter 17 – Human Origins                         Indexes/19