Unlike the more advanced stages for which various types of sources
are available the study of the initial stages of human history is based
entirely on the material remains left by early man. The period is referred
when man was primarily a food gatherer or had just begun a settled life
and for which no written records are available. The material remains of
early man is available mostly in the form of stone tools and sometimes
with the remains of animals that he hunted do not speak comprehensively
about his life.
The basic information provided by the tools of the early man, his habitat and observed facts about communities still in the initial stages of societal development have led to certain conclusions about variations even in the earliest cultures and the cultural zones.