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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 oldest human skeletal remains are the 40ky old Lake Mungo remains in New South Wales, but human ornaments discovered at Devil's Lair in Western Australia have been dated to 48 kya and artifacts at Madjedbebe in Northern Territory are dated to at least 50 kya, and to 62.1 ± 2.9 ka in one 2017 study. [26] [27] [28] [29]
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.
Archaeologists study artifacts, monuments, and other remains to get a better sense of human history. What they discover often rewrites humans' past and changes the way we think about our species.
This change from the nomadic lifstyle meant that humans started building walls and forming cities. [6] In addition to living in caves and using rock shelters, the first buildings were simple tents, like the Inuit's tupiq, and huts. Huts were built as protection from the elements like pit-houses, and as fortifications for safety like crannog.
The Initial Upper Paleolithic corresponds to the spread of a particular techno-complex in Eurasia, [6] to which possibly relates the European Châtelperronian. [17] But the Aurignacian complex (Protoaurignacian and Early Aurignacian) with its famous Cave art seems to correspond to another, later, human wave which spread through the Levant area. [6]
During the Paleolithic period, humans evolved dramatically from early homo sapiens to anatomically modern humans. [5] During the latter stages of the Paleolithic humans began to create the earliest art and became involved in religious and spiritual realms, such as funerals and rituals. [4] [5] [6] Reconstruction of Peking Man at the American ...
The Upper Paleolithic developed in Europe some time after the Levant, where the Emiran period and the Ahmarian period form the first periods of the Upper Paleolithic, corresponding to the first stages of the expansion of Homo sapiens out of Africa. [4] They then migrated to Europe and created the first European culture of modern humans, the ...