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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 ...
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]
The control of fire by early humans was a critical technology enabling the evolution of humans. Fire provided a source of warmth and lighting, protection from predators (especially at night), a way to create more advanced hunting tools, and a method for cooking food. These cultural advances allowed human geographic dispersal, cultural ...
The evolution of eukaryotes, and possibly sex, is thought to be related to the GOE, as it probably pressured two or three lineages of prokaryotes (including an aerobe one, which later became mitochondria) to depend on each other, leading to endosymbiosis. Early eukaryotes lost their cell walls and outer membranes.
The first wave of modern humans in Europe (Initial Upper Paleolithic) left no genetic legacy to modern Europeans; [1] however, from 37,000 years ago a second wave succeeded in forming a single founder population, from which all subsequent Cro-Magnons descended and which contributes ancestry to present-day Europeans.
One of the most important changes (the date of which is unknown) was the development of syntactic language, which dramatically improved the human ability to communicate. [23] Signs of early artistic expression can be found in the form of cave paintings and sculptures made from ivory, stone, and bone, implying a form of spirituality generally ...
The linear view of human evolution began to be abandoned in the 1970s as different species of humans were discovered that made the linear concept increasingly unlikely. In the 21st century with the advent of molecular biology techniques and computerization, whole-genome sequencing of Neanderthal and human genome were performed, confirming ...
Initial Upper Paleolithic sites are considered as forming the earliest culture of modern humans in Europe. [ 6 ] [ 7 ] However, these people do not appear to have been the ancestors of later Europeans as the very few ancient DNA (aDNA) samples recovered from this period are not related to later samples. [ 8 ]