Paleolithic Period, also spelled Palaeolithic Period, also called Old Stone Age, ancient cultural stage, or level, of human development, characterized by the use of rudimentary chipped stone tools.

The onset of the Paleolithic Period has traditionally coincided with the first evidence of tool construction and use by Homo some 2.58 million years ago, near the beginning of the Pleistocene Epoch (about 2.58 million to 11,700 years ago). In 2015, however, researchers excavating a dry riverbed near Kenya’s Lake Turkana discovered primitive stone tools embedded in rocks dating to 3.3 million years ago—the middle of the Pliocene Epoch (some 5.3 million to 2.58 million years ago).

The Paleolithic Period is often divided into three parts: Lower, Middle, and Upper. However, anthropologists resist placing hard time boundaries on each subdivision and the stages within them, because technologies characteristic of different industries emerged at different times in different regions. In addition, there is some level of overlap between stages and subdivisions because it took time for new technologies to spread, which created the circumstance in which some groups of people had access to higher levels of technology earlier than their contemporaries. The Lower Paleolithic is traditionally divided into the Oldowan Stage (about 2.6 million to 1 million years ago), which saw the development of pebble (chopping) tools, and the Acheulean Stage (1.7–1.5 million years ago to about 250,000–200,000 years ago), in which more sophisticated hand axes and cleaving tools emerged. With the discovery of the tools excavated at Lake Turkana, some anthropologists have suggested adding a third stage, the Lomekwian Stage, to account for 700,000 years of early hammering and other rock-chipping tools that predated the Oldowan Stage. The Middle Paleolithic, which was characterized by flake tools and the widespread use of fire, lasted from about 250,000 to 30,000 years ago. The Upper Paleolithic, which saw the emergence of more sophisticated tools, lasted from about 50,000–40,000 years ago until about 10,000 years ago.

Paleolithic toolmaking

At sites dating from the Lower Paleolithic Period, simple pebble tools have been found in association with the remains of what may have been some of the earliest human ancestors. A somewhat more-sophisticated Lower Paleolithic tradition, known as the Chopper chopping-tool industry, is widely distributed in the Eastern Hemisphere, and it is thought to have been the work of the hominin species named Homo erectus. It is believed that H. erectus probably made tools of wood and bone, although no such fossil tools have yet been found, as well as of stone.

About 700,000 years ago a new Lower Paleolithic tool, the hand ax, appeared. The earliest European hand axes are assigned to the Abbevillian industry, which developed in northern France in the valley of the Somme River; a later, more-refined hand-ax tradition is seen in the Acheulean industry, evidence of which has been found in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. Some of the earliest known hand axes were found at Olduvai Gorge (Tanzania) in association with remains of H. erectus.

The Upper Paleolithic Period was characterized by the emergence of regional stone tool industries, such as the Perigordian, Aurignacian, Solutrean, and Magdalenian of Europe as well as other localized industries of the Old World and the oldest known cultures of the New World. Principally associated with the fossil remains of such anatomically modern humans as Cro-Magnons, Upper Paleolithic industries exhibit greater complexity, specialization, and variety of tool types, such as those made of bone, ivory, and antlers, and the emergence of distinctive regional artistic traditions involving paintings and sculpture and musical instruments.

Paleolithic art

Two main forms of Paleolithic art are known to modern scholars: small sculptures; and monumental paintings, incised designs, and reliefs on the walls of caves. Such works were produced throughout the Mediterranean region and other scattered parts of Eurasia and Africa but survived in quantity only in eastern Europe and parts of Spain and France.

Small sculptured pieces evidently dominated the Upper Paleolithic artistic traditions of eastern Europe; typical were small, portable clay figurines and bone and ivory carvings. The works from this area include simple but realistic stone and clay animal figurines, as well as carved stone statuettes of women, referred to by scholars as Venus figures.

Monumental arts flourished in western Europe, the province of the so-called Franco-Cantabrian school, where limestone caves—such as those of Chauvet–Pont d’Arc and Lascaux Grotto—provided a sheltered surface for paintings, incised designs, and relief carvings. These caves have preserved much small carving of fine quality and an abundant and varied sample of prehistoric graphic art, from simple finger tracings in clay to sophisticated polychrome paintings, generally depicting animals, of dynamic naturalism and exquisite design.

Humanity 100,000 Years Ago - Life In The Paleolithic :monke-return:

Paleolithic Art :og-hex-bear:

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