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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 ...
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.
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]
Several expansions of populations of archaic humans (genus Homo) out of Africa and throughout Eurasia took place in the course of the Lower Paleolithic, and into the beginning Middle Paleolithic, between about 2.1 million and 0.2 million years ago (Ma).
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]
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 ...
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]
Solutrean tools created using bifacial percussion flaking. The most important and distinctive characteristic of Solutrean lithic techniques is the bifacial percussion-flaked points present in most Solutrean artifacts. This characteristic provides the primary foundation for evidence in support of the Hypothesis, as Solutrean and Clovis points ...