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The Stone Age was a broad prehistoric period during which stone was widely used to make stone tools with an edge, a point, or a percussion surface. The period lasted for roughly 3.4 million years [1] and ended between 4000 BC and 2000 BC, with the advent of metalworking. [2]
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 Copper Age features the use of copper, excluding bronze; moreover, stone continued to be used throughout both the Bronze Age and the Iron Age. The part -litica simply names the Stone Age as the point from which the transition began and is not another -lithic age. [6]
The Mesolithic (Greek: μέσος, mesos 'middle' + λίθος, lithos 'stone') or Middle Stone Age is the Old World archaeological period between the Upper Paleolithic and the Neolithic. The term Epipaleolithic is often used synonymously, especially for outside northern Europe, and for the corresponding period in the Levant and Caucasus .
The Middle Stone Age (or MSA) was a period of African prehistory between the Early Stone Age and the Late Stone Age. It is generally considered to have begun around 280,000 years ago and ended around 50–25,000 years ago. [ 1 ]
Archaeologists in Kenya have dug up some of the oldest stone tools ever found, but who used them is a mystery. In the past, scientists assumed that our direct ancestors were the only toolmakers.
Researchers reported on the excavation of well-preserved wood, thought to date back at least 476,000 years, at a site in Kalambo Falls, Zambia.
Widely dispersed, isolated finds of individual fossils of bone fragments (Atapuerca, Mauer mandible), stone artifacts or assemblages suggest that during the Lower Paleolithic, spanning from 3 million until 300,000 years ago, palaeo-human presence was rare and typically separated by thousands of years.