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The first three million years of this timeline concern Sahelanthropus, the following two million concern Australopithecus and the final two million span the history of the genus Homo in the Paleolithic era. Many traits of human intelligence, such as empathy, theory of mind, mourning, ritual, and the use of symbols and tools, are somewhat ...
The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic (c. 3.3 million – c. 11,700 years ago) (/ 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 era typically associated with the archetype is the Paleolithic Era, sometimes referred to as the Stone Age, though the Paleolithic is but one part of the Stone Age. This era extends from more than 2 million years into the past until between 40,000 and 5,000 years before the present (i.e., from around 2,000 kya to between 40 and 5 kya).
Expansion of early modern humans from Africa. The Upper Paleolithic (or Upper Palaeolithic) is the third and last subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age.Very broadly, it dates to between 50,000 and 12,000 years ago (the beginning of the Holocene), according to some theories coinciding with the appearance of behavioral modernity in early modern humans.
Overview map of the peopling of the world by early humans during the Upper Paleolithic, following the Southern Dispersal paradigm. The so-called "recent dispersal" of modern humans took place about 70–50,000 years ago. [60] [61] [62] It is this migration wave that led to the lasting spread of modern humans throughout the world.
Map showing the extent of Mesopotamia. The Civilization of Mesopotamia ranges from the earliest human occupation in the Paleolithic period up to Late antiquity.This history is pieced together from evidence retrieved from archaeological excavations and, after the introduction of writing in the late 4th millennium BC, an increasing amount of historical sources.
Human history is the record of humankind from prehistory to the present. Modern humans evolved in Africa around 300,000 years ago and initially lived as hunter-gatherers . They migrated out of Africa during the Last Ice Age and had spread across Earth's continental land except Antarctica by the end of the Ice Age 12,000 years ago.
Paleolithic Europe, or Old Stone Age Europe, encompasses the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age in Europe from the arrival of the first archaic humans, about 1.4 million years ago until the beginning of the Mesolithic (also Epipaleolithic) around 10,000 years ago. This period thus covers over 99% of the total human presence on the European continent. [1]