Paleolithic

The Paleolithic or Old Stone Age is a period in human prehistory distinguished by the original development of stone tools. It represents almost the entire period of human prehistoric technology, extending from the earliest known use of stone tools by hominins, 3.3 million years ago, to the end of the Pleistocene, 11,650 cal BP.
The Paleolithic Age in Europe preceded the Mesolithic Age, although the date of the transition varies geographically by several thousand years. During the Paleolithic Age, hominins grouped together in small societies such as bands and subsisted by gathering plants, fishing, and hunting or scavenging wild animals. The Paleolithic Age is characterized by the use of knapped stone tools, although at the time humans also used wood and bone tools. Other organic commodities were adapted for use as tools, including leather and vegetable fibers; however, due to rapid decomposition, these have not survived to any great degree.
About 50,000 years ago, a marked increase in the diversity of artifacts occurred. In Africa, bone artifacts and the first art appear in the archaeological record. The first evidence of human fishing is also noted, from artifacts in places such as Blombos Cave in South Africa. Archaeologists classify artifacts of the last 50,000 years into many different categories, such as projectile points, engraving tools, sharp knife blades, and drilling and piercing tools.
Humankind gradually evolved from early members of the genus Homo—such as Homo habilis, who used simple stone tools—into anatomically modern humans as well as behaviourally modern humans by the Upper Paleolithic. During the end of the Paleolithic Age, specifically the Middle or Upper Paleolithic Age, humans began to produce the earliest works of art and to engage in religious or spiritual behavior such as burial and ritual. Conditions during the Paleolithic Age went through a set of glacial and interglacial periods in which the climate periodically fluctuated between warm and cool temperatures.
By BP, the first humans set foot in Australia. By BP, humans lived at 61°N latitude in Europe. By BP, Japan was reached, and by BP humans were present in Siberia, above the Arctic Circle. By the end of the Upper Paleolithic Age humans had crossed Beringia and expanded throughout the Americas continents.

Etymology

The term "Palaeolithic" was coined by archaeologist John Lubbock in 1865. It derives from Greek: παλαιός, palaios, "old"; and λίθος, lithos, "stone", meaning "old age of the stone" or "Old Stone Age".

Paleogeography and climate

The Paleolithic overlaps with the Pleistocene epoch of geologic time. Both ended 12,000 years ago although the Pleistocene started 2.6 million years ago, 700,000 years after the Paleolithic's start. This epoch experienced important geographic and climatic changes that affected human societies.
During the preceding Pliocene, continents had continued to drift from possibly as far as from their present locations to positions only from their current location. South America became linked to North America through the Isthmus of Panama, bringing a nearly complete end to South America's distinctive marsupial fauna. The formation of the isthmus had major consequences on global temperatures, because warm equatorial ocean currents were cut off, and the cold Arctic and Antarctic waters lowered temperatures in the now-isolated Atlantic Ocean.
Most of Central America formed during the Pliocene to connect the continents of North and South America, allowing fauna from these continents to leave their native habitats and colonize new areas. Africa's collision with Asia created the Mediterranean, cutting off the remnants of the Tethys Ocean. During the Pleistocene, the continents were essentially at their modern positions; the tectonic plates on which they sit have probably moved at most from each other since the beginning of the period.
Climates during the Pliocene became cooler and drier, and seasonal, similar to modern climates. Ice sheets grew on Antarctica. The formation of an Arctic ice cap around 3 million years ago is signaled by an abrupt shift in oxygen isotope ratios and ice-rafted cobbles in the North Atlantic and North Pacific Ocean beds. Mid-latitude glaciation probably began before the end of the epoch. The global cooling that occurred during the Pliocene may have spurred on the disappearance of forests and the spread of grasslands and savannas.
The Pleistocene climate was characterized by repeated glacial cycles during which continental glaciers pushed to the 40th parallel in some places. Four major glacial events have been identified, as well as many minor intervening events. A major event is a general glacial excursion, termed a "glacial". Glacials are separated by "interglacials". During a glacial, the glacier experiences minor advances and retreats. The minor excursion is a "stadial"; times between stadials are "interstadials". Each glacial advance tied up huge volumes of water in continental ice sheets deep, resulting in temporary sea level drops of or more over the entire surface of the Earth. During interglacial times, drowned coastlines were common, mitigated by isostatic or other emergent motion of some regions.
File:Ice age fauna of northern Spain - Mauricio Antón.jpg|thumb|left|Many giant mammals such as woolly mammoths, woolly rhinoceroses, and cave lions inhabited the mammoth steppe during the Pleistocene.|253x253px
The effects of glaciation were global. Antarctica was ice-bound throughout the Pleistocene and the preceding Pliocene. The Andes were covered in the south by the Patagonian ice cap. There were glaciers in New Zealand and Tasmania. The decaying glaciers of Mount Kenya, Mount Kilimanjaro, and the Ruwenzori Range in east and central Africa were larger. Glaciers existed in the mountains of Ethiopia and to the west in the Atlas Mountains. In the northern hemisphere, many glaciers fused into one. The Cordilleran Ice Sheet covered the North American northwest; the Laurentide covered the east. The Fenno-Scandian ice sheet covered northern Europe, including Great Britain; the Alpine ice sheet covered the Alps. Scattered domes stretched across Siberia and the Arctic shelf. The northern seas were frozen. During the late Upper Paleolithic BP, the Beringia land bridge between Asia and North America was blocked by ice, which may have prevented early Paleo-Indians such as the Clovis culture from directly crossing Beringia to reach the Americas.
According to Mark Lynas, the Pleistocene's overall climate could be characterized as a continuous El Niño with trade winds in the south Pacific weakening or heading east, warm air rising near Peru, warm water spreading from the west Pacific and the Indian Ocean to the east Pacific, and other El Niño markers.
The Paleolithic is often held to finish at the end of the ice age, and Earth's climate became warmer. This may have caused or contributed to the extinction of the Pleistocene megafauna, although it is also possible that the late Pleistocene extinctions were caused by other factors such as disease and overhunting by humans. New research suggests that the extinction of the woolly mammoth may have been caused by the combined effect of climatic change and human hunting. Scientists suggest that climate change during the end of the Pleistocene caused the mammoths' habitat to shrink, resulting in a drop in population. The small populations were then hunted out by Paleolithic humans. The global warming that occurred during the end of the Pleistocene and the beginning of the Holocene may have made it easier for humans to reach mammoth habitats that were previously frozen and inaccessible. Small populations of woolly mammoths survived on isolated Arctic islands, Saint Paul Island and Wrangel Island, until BP and BP respectively. The Wrangel Island population became extinct around the same time the island was settled by prehistoric humans. There is no evidence of prehistoric human presence on Saint Paul island.

Age	America	Atlantic Europe	Maghreb	Mediterranean Europe	Central Europe
10,000 years	Flandrian interglacial	Flandriense	Mellahiense	Versiliense	Flandrian interglacial
80,000 years	Wisconsin	Devensiense	Regresión	Regresión	Wisconsin Stage
140,000 years	Sangamoniense	Ipswichiense	Ouljiense	Tirreniense II y III	Eemian Stage
200,000 years	Illinois	Wolstoniense	Regresión	Regresión	Wolstonian Stage
450,000 years	Yarmouthiense	Hoxniense	Anfatiense	Tirreniense I	Hoxnian Stage
580,000 years	Kansas	Angliense	Regresión	Regresión	Kansan Stage
750,000 years	Aftoniense	Cromeriense	Maarifiense	Siciliense	Cromerian Complex
1,100,000 years	Nebraska	Beestoniense	Regresión	Regresión	Beestonian stage
1,400,000 years	interglacial	Ludhamiense	Messaudiense	Calabriense	Donau-Günz

Paleolithic people

Nearly all of our knowledge of Paleolithic people and way of life comes from archaeology and ethnographic comparisons to modern hunter-gatherer cultures such as the !Kung San who live similarly to their Paleolithic predecessors. The economy of a typical Paleolithic society was a hunter-gatherer economy. Humans hunted wild animals for meat and gathered food, firewood, and materials for their tools, clothes, or shelters.
The population density was very low, around only. This was most likely due to low body fat, infanticide, high levels of physical activity among women, late weaning of infants, and a nomadic lifestyle. In addition, even a large area of land could not support many people without being actively farmed – food was difficult to come by and so groups were prevented from growing too large by the amount of food they could gather. Like contemporary hunter-gatherers, Paleolithic humans enjoyed an abundance of leisure time unparalleled in both Neolithic farming societies and modern industrial societies. At the end of the Paleolithic, specifically the Middle or Upper Paleolithic, people began to produce works of art such as cave paintings, rock art and jewellery and began to engage in religious behavior such as burials and rituals.