TOP 10 STONE AGES / STONE AGE ICEBERG

 

It’s my Top 10 Stone Ages!

Wait – what? Wasn’t there only the one Stone Age?

Well, yes and no.

Yes, as in it’s another one of my (mostly) tongue in cheek top ten lists where I look at a subject which has a fundamental continuity or unity but which can also be broken up into distinct parts or perspectives. Alternatively, you can think of it as my Stone Age iceberg meme.

And no, as in when you have an “age” that is over 99% of human history (or more precisely prehistory) extending back 3 million years (and hence well before our present human species, homo sapiens) with a complexity and versatility to match its duration, it can readily be broken up or classified into smaller parts.

And indeed, it usually is, with one of the best known demarcations breaking it up into three parts – which account for my top three entries – albeit they are hardly equal parts with the first part as the overwhelming majority of the Stone Age.

Beyond that, I could have relied on further subdivisions of the traditional three-part division but I chose to get a little more creative instead with different perspectives to round out the balance of entries. I could also have relied on geographic divisions as the Stone Age persisted longer in different parts of the world, arguably even to what is otherwise the modern period of history elsewhere.

As such, like my other top ten lists for “ages”, this will be more one of my shallow dip top tens – with shorter entries – than my deep dive top tens on other subjects.