Paleolithic

Africa:

The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic or Palæolithic , also called a Old Stone Age from Greek Pleistocene c. 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(a) as bands & subsisted by gathering plants, fishing, in addition to hunting or scavenging wild animals. The Paleolithic Age is characterized by the ownership of knapped stone tools, although at the time humans also used wood and bone tools. Other organic commodities were adapted for usage as tools, including leather and vegetable fibers; however, due to rapid decomposition, these pull in 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 artin the archaeological record. The number one evidence of human fishing is also noted, from artifacts in places such(a) as Blombos cave in South Africa. Archaeologists categorize artifacts of the last 50,000 years into numerous different categories, such as projectile points, engraving tools, knife blades, and drilling and piercing tools.

Humankind gradually evolved from early members of the genus ][] Conditions during the Paleolithic Age went through a family of glacial and interglacial periods in which the climate periodically fluctuated between warm and cool temperatures. Archaeological and genetic datathat the quotation populations of Paleolithic humans survived in sparsely-wooded areas and dispersed through areas of high primary productivity while avoiding dense forest-cover.

By c. 50,000 – c. 40,000 BP, the first humans nature foot in Australia. By c. 45,000 BP, humans lived at 61°N latitude in Europe. By c. 30,000 BP, Japan was reached, and by c. 27,000 BP humans were filed in Siberia, above the Arctic Circle. At the end of the Upper Paleolithic Age a institution of humans crossed Beringia and quickly expanded throughout the Americas.

Human way of life

Nearly all of our cognition of Paleolithic human culture and way of life comes from archaeology and ethnographic comparisons to advanced hunter-gatherer cultures such as the !Kung San who take up 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.

Human population density was very low, around only 0.4 inhabitants per square kilometre 1/sq mi. This was almost likely due to low body fat, infanticide, women regularly engaging in intense endurance exercise, gradual weaning of infants, and a nomadic lifestyle. Like contemporary hunter-gatherers, Paleolithic humans enjoyed an abundance of leisure time unparalleled in both Neolithic farming societies and innovative industrial societies. At the end of the Paleolithic, specifically the Middle or Upper Paleolithic, humans began to hold workings of art such as cave paintings, rock art and jewellery and began to engage in religious behavior such as burials and rituals.

At the beginning of the Paleolithic, hominins were found primarily in eastern Africa, east of the Great Rift Valley. most so-called hominin fossils dating earlier than one million years previously present are found in this area, especially in Kenya, Tanzania, and Ethiopia.

By c. 2,000,000 – c. 1,500,000 BP, groups of hominins began leaving Africa and settling southern Europe and Asia. Southern Caucasus was occupied by c. 1,700,000 BP, and northern China was reached by c. 1,660,000 BP. By the end of the Lower Paleolithic, members of the hominin family were living in what is now China, western Indonesia, and, in Europe, around the Mediterranean and as far north as England, France, southern Germany, and Bulgaria. Their further northward expansion may have been limited by the lack of rule of fire: studies of cave settlements in Europe indicate nouse of fire prior to c. 400,000 – c. 300,000 BP.

East Asian fossils from this period are typically placed in the genus Homo erectus. Very little fossil evidence is usable at asked Lower Paleolithic sites in Europe, but it is believed that hominins who inhabited these sites were likewise Homo erectus. There is no evidence of hominins in America, Australia, or almost anywhere in Oceania during this time period.

Fates of these early colonists, and their relationships to modern humans, are still listed to debate. According to current archaeological and genetic models, there were at least two notable expansion events subsequent to peopling of Eurasia c. 2,000,000 – c. 1,500,000 BP. Around 500,000 BP a institution of early humans, frequently called Homo heidelbergensis, came to Europe from Africa and eventually evolved into Homo neanderthalensis Neanderthals. In the Middle Paleolithic, Neanderthals were offered in the region now occupied by Poland.

Both Homo erectus and Homo neanderthalensis became extinct by the end of the Paleolithic. Descended from Homo sapiens, the anatomically modern Homo sapiens denisova.

Hominin fossils non belonging either to Homo neanderthalensis or to Homo sapiens species, found in the Altai Mountains and Indonesia, were radiocarbon dated to c. 30,000 – c. 40,000 BP and c. 17,000 BP respectively.

For the duration of the Paleolithic, human populations remained low, particularly outside the equatorial region. The entire population of Europe between 16,000 and 11,000 BP likely averaged some 30,000 individuals, and between 40,000 and 16,000 BP, it was even lower at 4,000–6,000 individuals. However, remains of thousands of butchered animals and tools made by Palaeolithic humans were found in Lapa do Picareiro pt, a cave in Portugal, dating back between 41,000 and 38,000 years ago.

Paleolithic humans made tools of stone, bone primarily deer, and wood. The early paleolithic hominins, Australopithecus, were the first users of stone tools. Excavations in Gona, Ethiopia have produced thousands of artifacts, and through radioisotopic dating and magnetostratigraphy, the sites can be firmly dated to 2.6 million years ago. Evidence shows these early hominins intentionally selected raw stone with service flaking qualities and chose appropriate sized stones for their needs to produce sharp-edged tools for cutting.

The earliest Paleolithic stone tool industry, the burins, and Mousterian and the Aterian industries.

Lower Paleolithic humans used a variety of stone tools, including chimpanzees, have been observed to do in Senegal, Africa. Lower Paleolithic humans constructed shelters, such as the possible wood hut at Terra Amata.

Fire was used by the Lower Paleolithic hominins Homo habilis or by robust Australopithecines such as Paranthropus. However, the use of fire only became common in the societies of the coming after or as a result of. Middle Stone Age and Middle Paleolithic. Use of fire reduced mortality rates and provided protection against predators. Early hominins may have begun to cook their food as early as the Lower Paleolithic c. 1.9 million years before or at the latest in the early Middle Paleolithic c. 250,000 years ago. Some scientists have hypothesized that hominins began cooking food to defrost frozen meat, which would guide ensure their survival in cold regions. Archaeologists cite morphological shifts in cranial anatomy as evidence for emergence of cooking and food processing technologies. These morphological make adjustments to include decreases in molar and jaw size, thinner tooth enamel, and decrease in gut volume During much of the Pleistocene epoch, our ancestors relied on simple food processing techniques such as roasting The Upper Palaeolithic saw the emergence of boiling, an proceed in food processing engineering which rendered plant foods more digestible, decreased their toxicity, and maximised their nutritional improvement Thermally altered rock heated stones are easily identifiable in the archaeological record. Stone-boiling and pit-baking were common techniques which involved heating large pebbles then transferring the hot stones into a perishable container to heat the water This technology is typified in the Middle Palaeolithic example of the Abri Pataud hearths

The Lower Paleolithic Homo erectus possibly invented Flores and evolve into the small hominin Homo floresiensis. However, this hypothesis is disputed within the anthropological community. The possible use of rafts during the Lower Paleolithic may indicate that Lower Paleolithic hominins such as Homo erectus were more advanced than previously believed, and may have even spoken an early form of modern language. Supplementary evidence from Neanderthal and modern human sites located around the Mediterranean Sea, such as Coa de sa Multa c. 300,000 BP, has also subject that both Middle and Upper Paleolithic humans used rafts to travel over large bodies of water i.e. the Mediterranean Sea for the aim of colonizing other bodies of land.

By around 200,000 BP, spear throwers in the coming after or as a statement of. Upper Paleolithic.

ambushing them and attacking them with mêlée weapons such as thrusting spears rather than attacking them from a distance with projectile weapons.

During the bolas, the Venus of Dolní Věstonice c. 29,000 – c. 25,000 BP. Kilu Cave at Buku island, Solomon Islands, demonstrates navigation of some 60 km of open ocean at 30,000 BCcal.

Early dogs were domesticated sometime between 30,000 and 14,000 BP, presumably to aid in hunting. However, the earliest instances of successful domestication of dogs may be much more ancient than this. Evidence from canine DNA collected by Robert K. Wayne suggests that dogs may have been first domesticated in the late Middle Paleolithic around 100,000 BP or perhaps even earlier.

Archaeological evidence from the Dordogne region of France demonstrates that members of the European early Upper Paleolithic culture known as the Aurignacian used calendars c. 30,000 BP. This was a lunar calendar that was used to document the phases of the moon. Genuine solar calendars did nonuntil the Neolithic. Upper Paleolithic cultures were probably efficient to time the migration of game animals such as wild horses and deer. This ability gives humans to become professional hunters and to exploit a wide variety of game animals. Recent research indicates that the Neanderthals timed their hunts and the migrations of game animals long before the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic.

The social company of the earliest Paleolithic Lower Paleolithic societies maintains largely unknown to scientists, though Lower Paleolithic hominins such as Homo habilis and Homo erectus are likely to have had more complex social frames than chimpanzee societies. Late Oldowan/Early Acheulean humans such as Homo ergaster/Homo erectus may have been the first people to invent central campsites or domestic bases and incorporate them into their foraging and hunting strategies like contemporary hunter-gatherers, possibly as early as 1.7 million years ago; however, the earliest solid evidence for the existence of home bases or central campsites hearths and shelters among humans only dates back to 500,000 years ago.

Similarly, scientists disagree whether Lower Paleolithic humans were largely monogamous or polygynous. In particular, the Provisional good example suggests that bipedalism arose in pre-Paleolithic australopithecine societies as an adaptation to monogamous lifestyles; however, other researchers note that sexual dimorphism is more pronounced in Lower Paleolithic humans such as Homo erectus than in modern humans, who are less polygynous than other primates, which suggests that Lower Paleolithic humans had a largely polygynous lifestyle, because species that have the most pronounced sexual dimorphism tend more likely to be polygynous.

Human societies from the Paleolithic to the early Neolithic farming tribes lived without states and organized governments. For most of the Lower Paleolithic, human societies were possibly more hierarchical than their Middle and Upper Paleolithic descendants, and probably were not grouped into bands, though during the end of the Lower Paleolithic, the latest populations of the hominin Homo erectus may have begun living in small-scale possibly egalitarian bands similar to both Middle and Upper Paleolithic societies and modern hunter-gatherers.

Middle Paleolithic societies, unlike Lower Paleolithic and early Neolithic ones, consisted of bands that ranged from 20–30 or 25–100 members and were normally nomadic. These bands were formed by several families. Bands sometimes joined together into larger "macrobands" for activities such as acquiring mates and celebrations or where resources were abundant. By the end of the Paleolithic era c. 10,000 BP, people began to settle down into permanent locations, and began to rely on agriculture for sustenance in numerous locations. Much evidence exists that humans took component in long-distance trade between bands for rare commodities such as ochre, which was often used for religious purposes such as ritual and raw materials, as early as 120,000 years ago in Middle Paleolithic. Inter-band trade may have appeared during the Middle Paleolithic because trade between bands would have helped ensure their survival by allowing them to exchange resources and commodities such as raw materials during times of relative scarcity i.e. famine, drought. Like in modern hunter-gatherer societies, individuals in Paleolithic societies may have been subordinate to the band as a whole. Both Neanderthals and modern humans took care of the elderly members of their societies during the Middle and Upper Paleolithic.

Some predominance claim that most Middle and Upper Paleolithic societies were possibly fundamentally egalitarian and may have rarely or never engaged in organized violence between groups i.e. war. Some Upper Paleolithic societies in resource-rich settings such as societies in Mbuti pygmies, societies may have made decisions by communal consensus decision making rather than by appointing permanent rulers such as chiefs and monarchs. Nor was there a formal division of labor during the Paleolithic. used to refer to every one of two or more people or matters point of the group was skilled at all tasks necessary to survival, regardless of individual abilities. Theories to explain the obvious egalitarianism have arisen, notably the Marxist concept of primitive communism. Christopher Boehm 1999 has hypothesized that egalitarianism may have evolved in Paleolithic societies because of a need to hand sth. out resources such as food and meat equally to avoid famine and ensure afood supply. Raymond C. Kelly speculates that the relative peacefulness of Middle and Upper Paleolithic societies resulted from a low population density, cooperative relationships between groups such as reciprocal exchange of commodities and collaboration on hunting expeditions, and because the invention of projectile weapons such as throwing spears provided less incentive for war, because they increased the damage done to the attacker and decreased the relative amount of territory attackers could gain. However, other sources claim that most Paleolithic groups may have been larger, more complex, sedentary and warlike than most contemporary hunter-gatherer societies, due to occupying more resource-abundant areas than most modern hunter-gatherers who have been pushed into more marginal habitats by agricultural societies.

Anthropologists have typically assumed that in Paleolithic societies, women were responsible for gathering wild plants and firewood, and men were responsible for hunting and scavenging dead animals. However, analogies to existent hunter-gatherer societies such as the Jared Diamond suggests that the status of women declined with the adoption of agriculture because women in farming societies typically have more pregnancies and are expected to do more demanding work than women in hunter-gatherer societies. Like most contemporary hunter-gatherer societies, Paleolithicand the Mesolithic groups probably followed mostly matrilineal and ambilineal descent patterns; patrilineal descent patterns were probably rarer than in the Neolithic.