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The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic (c. 3.3 million – c. 11,700 BC) (/ ˌ p eɪ l i oʊ ˈ l ɪ θ ɪ k, ˌ p æ l i-/ PAY-lee-oh-LITH-ik, PAL-ee-), also called the Old Stone Age (from Ancient Greek παλαιός (palaiós) 'old' and λίθος (líthos) 'stone'), is a period in human prehistory that is distinguished by the original development of stone tools, and which represents almost the ...
The Middle Paleolithic (or Middle Palaeolithic) is the second subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age as it is understood in Europe, Africa and Asia. The term Middle Stone Age is used as an equivalent or a synonym for the Middle Paleolithic in African archeology. [1] The Middle Paleolithic broadly spanned from 300,000 to 50,000 years ago.
The Stone Age of Europe is characteristically in deficit of known transitions. The 19th and early 20th-century innovators of the modern three-age system recognized the problem of the initial transition, the "gap" between the Paleolithic and the Neolithic. Louis Leakey provided something of an answer by proving that man evolved in Africa. The ...
Often the field focuses on ages such as the Stone Age, Bronze Age and Iron Age, although it also encompasses periods such as the Neolithic. The study of prehistoric archaeology reflects the cultural concerns of modern society by showing interpretations of time between economic growth and political stability. [2]
An artist's rendering of a temporary wood house, based on evidence found at Terra Amata (in Nice, France) and dated to the Lower Paleolithic (c. 400,000 BP) [5]. The oldest evidence of human occupation in Eastern Europe comes from the Kozarnika cave in Bulgaria where a single human tooth and flint artifacts have been dated to at least 1.4 million years ago.
The transition to the Middle Paleolithic in South Asia has been uniquely informed by Attirampakkam, an open-air site with evidence of lithic industry spanning over a millennium. This quarry site has preserved not only the earliest Acheulean assemblages in South Asia (1.5 Ma), but also the earliest Middle Paleolithic assemblages, dated to 385 Ka.
The Awash Valley. The term "Middle Stone Age" (MSA) was proposed to the African Archaeological Congress by Goodwin and Van Riet Lowe in 1929. The use of these terms was officially abandoned in 1965, [8] although the term remains in use in the context of sub-Saharan Africa, beginning with a transitional late Acheulean period known as the Fauresmith industry.
The Lower Paleolithic (or Lower Palaeolithic) is the earliest subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age.It spans the time from around 3.3 million years ago when the first evidence for stone tool production and use by hominins appears in the current archaeological record, [1] until around 300,000 years ago, spanning the Oldowan ("mode 1") and Acheulean ("mode 2") lithics industries.