The clan society: Late Paleolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic

In the Late Paleolithic (40,000–12,000 BCE) people of modern appearance — Cro-Magnons — lived. They made cutting and sawing tools, ornaments and dwellings, sewed clothing from animal skins and learned to make fire artificially (by rubbing wood and striking flint). Relatives joined into clan communities, and several clans formed a tribe. Their sites have been found around Samarkand, at Kulbuloq and in the Fergana Valley. At the start of the Mesolithic (12,000–7,000 BCE) the Ice Age ended and the climate grew warmer. People made the bow and arrow and tamed the dog; the Obishir, Qoshilish and Machay sites and the rock paintings of Zarautsoy belong to this time. In the Neolithic (in Central Asia 6,000–4,000 BCE) people moved to farming and herding, a producing economy: pottery, grinding and drilling of stone, pottery-making and weaving appeared, along with settled life and adobe (paxsa) houses.