Stone Age

period of history in which man used stone tools and weapons (Bronze Age)

The Stone Age is part of the history of the world that encompasses the first widespread use of technology in human evolution and the spread of humanity from the savannas of East Africa to the rest of the world. It ends with the development of agriculture, the domestication of certain animals and the smelting of copper ore to produce metal. It is termed prehistoric, since humanity had not yet started writing - the traditional start of history, i.e. recorded history.
See more at Wikipedia.org...

Noun
1. (archeology) the earliest known period of human culture, characterized by the use of stone implements
(hypernym) time period, period of time, period
(part-holonym) prehistory, prehistoric culture
(part-meronym) Eolithic Age, Eolithic
(classification) archeology, archaeology

Stone Age According to current theories of human evolution, the comparatively recent time when man had found out how to make stone implements only, not having yet learnt the use of metals. Subdivided by scientific theorists into the Paleolithic and Neolithic (old and new stone ages). Though people in all ages have used such implements and still do in some places -- which fact does not place us all today in the Stone Age -- it is evident that the use of stone implements by savage peoples in no wise tends to establish a theory of human evolution. Races branch out like the limbs of a tree, so that different people may be in various stages of their racial evolution at the same time; also a degenerating race may revert to the use of stone implements.

<jargon> In computer folklore, an ill-defined period from ENIAC (ca. 1943) to the mid-1950s; the great age of electromechanical dinosaurs. Sometimes used for the entire period up to 1960-61 (see Iron Age); however, it is more descriptive to characterise the latter period in terms of a "Bronze Age" era of transistor-logic, pre-ferrite core memory machines with drum or CRT mass storage (as opposed to just mercury delay lines and/or relays).
More generally, the term is used pejoratively for ancient hardware or software, even by survivors from the Stone Age.
[Jargon File]
(2003-09-27)