Upper Paleolithic


Paleolithic sites from the " width="400", height="300">

The Upper Paleolithic 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, according to some theories coinciding with the appearance of behavioral modernity in humans. It is followed by the Mesolithic.
Anatomically modern humans are believed to have emerged in Africa around 300,000 years ago. It has been argued by some that their ways of life changed relatively little from that of archaic humans of the Middle Paleolithic, until about 50,000 years ago, when there was a marked increase in the diversity of artefacts found associated with modern human remains. This period coincides with the most common date assigned to expansion of modern humans from Africa throughout Asia and Eurasia, which may have contributed to the extinction of the Neanderthals.
The Upper Paleolithic has the earliest known evidence of organized settlements, in the form of campsites, some with storage pits. Artistic work blossomed, with cave painting, petroglyphs, carvings and engravings on bone or ivory. The first evidence of human fishing is also found from a 125,000 years old artefacts in Buya, Eritrea, and in other places such as Blombos cave in South Africa. More complex social groupings emerged, supported by more varied and reliable food sources and specialized tool types. This probably contributed to increasing group identification or ethnicity.
The peopling of Australia most likely took place before c. 60 ka. Europe was peopled after c. 45 ka.
Anatomically modern humans are known to have expanded northward into Siberia as far as the 58th parallel by about 45 ka.
The Upper Paleolithic is divided by the Last Glacial Maximum, from about 25 to 15 ka. The peopling of the Americas occurred during this time, with East and Central Asia populations reaching the Bering land bridge after about 35 ka, and expanding into the Americas by about 15 ka.
In Western Eurasia, the Paleolithic eases into the so-called Epipaleolithic or Mesolithic from the end of the LGM, beginning 15 ka. The Holocene glacial retreat begins 11.7 ka, falling well into the Old World Epipaleolithic, and marking the beginning of the earliest forms of farming in the Fertile Crescent.

Lifestyle and technology

Both Homo erectus and Neanderthals used the same crude stone tools. Archaeologist Richard G. Klein, who has worked extensively on ancient stone tools, describes the stone tool kit of archaic hominids as impossible to categorize. He argues that almost everywhere, whether Asia, Africa or Europe, before 50,000 years ago all the stone tools are much alike and unsophisticated.
File:Flint Knives, Ahmarian Culture, Nahal Boqer, 47000-40000 BP.jpg|thumb|upright|left|Flint Knives, Ahmarian Culture, Nahal Boqer, Israel, 47,000–40,000 BP. Israel Museum.
Firstly among the artefacts of Africa, archeologists found they could differentiate and classify those of less than 50,000 years into many different categories, such as projectile points, engraving tools, knife blades, and drilling and piercing tools. These new stone-tool types have been described as being distinctly differentiated from each other; each tool had a specific purpose. The early modern humans who expanded into Europe, commonly referred to as the Cro-Magnons, left many sophisticated stone tools, carved and engraved pieces on bone, ivory and antler, cave paintings and Venus figurines.
The Neanderthals continued to use Mousterian stone tool technology and possibly Châtelperronian technology. These tools disappeared from the archeological record at around the same time the Neanderthals themselves disappeared from the fossil record, about 40,000 cal BP.
Settlements were often located in narrow valley bottoms, possibly associated with hunting of passing herds of animals. Some of them may have been occupied year round, though more commonly they appear to have been used seasonally; people moved between the sites to exploit different food sources at different times of the year. Hunting was important, and caribou/wild reindeer "may well be the species of single greatest importance in the entire anthropological literature on hunting".
Technological advances included significant developments in flint tool manufacturing, with industries based on fine blades rather than simpler and shorter flakes. Burins and racloirs were used to work bone, antler and hides. Advanced darts and harpoons also appear in this period, along with the fish hook, the oil lamp, rope, and the eyed needle. Fishing of pelagic fish species and navigating the open ocean is evidenced by sites from Timor and Buka.
The changes in human behavior have been attributed to changes in climate, encompassing a number of global temperature drops. These led to a worsening of the already bitter cold of the last glacial period. Such changes may have reduced the supply of usable timber and forced people to look at other materials. In addition, flint becomes brittle at low temperatures and may not have functioned as a tool.

Notational signs

Some notational signs, used next to images of animals, may have appeared as early as the Upper Palaeolithic in Europe circa 35,000 BCE, and may be the earliest proto-writing: several symbols were used in combination as a way to convey seasonal behavioural information about hunted animals. Lines and dots were apparently used interchangeably to denote lunar months, while the sign apparently signified "To give birth". These characters were seemingly combined to convey the breeding period of hunted animals.

Changes in climate and geography

The climate of the period in Europe saw dramatic changes, and included the Last Glacial Maximum, the coldest phase of the last glacial period, which lasted from about 26.5 to 19 kya, being coldest at the end, before relatively rapid warming. During the Maximum, most of Northern Europe was covered by an ice-sheet, forcing human populations into the areas known as Last Glacial Maximum refugia, including modern Italy and the Balkans, parts of the Iberian Peninsula and areas around the Black Sea.
This period saw cultures such as the Solutrean in France and Spain. Human life may have continued on top of the ice sheet, but we know next to nothing about it, and very little about the human life that preceded the European glaciers. In the early part of the period, up to about 30 kya, the Mousterian Pluvial made northern Africa, including the Sahara, well-watered and with lower temperatures than today; after the end of the Pluvial the Sahara became arid.
The Last Glacial Maximum was followed by the Allerød oscillation, a warm and moist global interstadial that occurred around 13.5 to 13.8 kya. Then there was a very rapid onset, perhaps within as little as a decade, of the cold and dry Younger Dryas climate period, giving sub-arctic conditions to much of northern Europe.
The Preboreal rise in temperatures also began sharply around 10.3 kya, and by its end around 9.0 kya had brought temperatures nearly to present day levels, although the climate was wetter.
This period saw the Upper Paleolithic give way to the start of the following Mesolithic cultural period.
As the glaciers receded sea levels rose; the English Channel, Irish Sea and North Sea were land at this time, and the Black Sea a fresh-water lake. In particular the Atlantic coastline was initially far out to sea in modern terms in most areas, though the Mediterranean coastline has retreated far less, except in the north of the Adriatic and the Aegean. The rise in sea levels continued until at least 7.5 kya, so evidence of human activity along Europe's coasts in the Upper Paleolithic is mostly lost, though some traces have been recovered by fishing boats and marine archaeology, especially from Doggerland, the lost area beneath the North Sea.

Timeline

50,000–40,000 BP

50,000 BP

The first direct evidence for Neanderthals hunting cave lions. This is based on a cave lion skeleton found in Seigsdorf, Germany which has hunting lesions.

45,000–43,000 BP

  • Earliest evidence of modern humans found in Europe, in Southern Italy. These are indirectly dated.
  • Earliest mathematical artifact, the notched Lebombo bone, a possible tally stick or lunar calendar, dated to 44,000–43,000 BP in Eswatini, southern Africa.
  • Oldest-known mining in archaeological record, the Ngwenya Mine in Swaziland, at about 43,000 years ago, where humans mined hematite to make the red pigment ochre.
  • Earliest directly dated figurative cave art of mankind at Leang Bulu' Sipong in Sulawesi, Indonesia.

    43,000–41,000 BP

  • Microlithic artefacts have been excavated from Kana, West Bengal, India.
  • Ornaments and skeletal remains of modern humans, at Ksar Akil in Lebanon. These are directly dated.
  • Denisova hominins live in the Altai Mountains.

    40,000–30,000 BP

40,000–35,000 BP

  • First human inhabitants in Perth, Australia, as evidenced by archaeological findings on the Upper Swan River.
  • During this time period, Melbourne, Australia was occupied by hunter-gatherers.
  • Early cultural centre in the Swabian Alps, oldest depiction of a human being, beginning of the Aurignacian.
  • Lion-human figure created in Hohlenstein-Stadel, one of the earliest examples of figurative art. It is now in Ulmer Museum, Ulm, Germany.
  • The first flutes appear in Germany.
  • Notational signs in caves, apparently conveying calendaric meaning about the behaviour of animal species drawn next to them, are the first known writing in history.
  • Most of the giant vertebrates and megafauna in Australia became extinct.
  • Fishing of pelagic fish species at Jerimalai shelter, Timor.
  • Examples of cave art in Spain are dated from around 40,000 BP, making them the oldest examples of cave art yet discovered in Europe. Scientists theorise that the paintings may have been made by Neanderthals, rather than by modern humans.
  • Wall painting with horses, rhinoceroses and aurochs is made at Chauvet Cave, Vallon-Pont-d'Arc, Ardéche gorge, France. Discovered in December 1994.
  • Evidence for continued Neanderthal presence in the Iberian Peninsula at 37,000 years ago was published in 2017.
  • Archaeological studies support human presence in the Chek Lap Kok area from 35,000 to 39,000 years ago.
  • Zar, Yataghyeri, Damjili and Taghlar caves in Azerbaijan.
  • First evidence of people inhabiting Japan.