The
Paleolithic Age is a prehistoric era distinguished by the development of the
first stone tools, and covers roughly 99% of human technological history. It
extends from the introduction of stone tools by hominids such as Australopithecines
2.5 or 2.6 million years ago, to the introduction of agriculture and the end of
the Pleistocene around 12,000 BP. The Paleolithic era is followed by the
Mesolithic period.
During the
Paleolithic, humans grouped together in small societies such as bands or tribes,
and subsisted by gathering plants and hunting or scavenging wild animals. The
Paleolithic 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 their nature, these have not been preserved to any great degree. Surviving
artifacts of the Paleolithic era are known as Paleoliths.
Humankind
gradually evolved from early members of the genus Homo such as Homo habilis —
who used simple stone tools — into fully behaviorally and anatomically modern
humans (Homo sapiens sapiens) during the Paleolithic era. During the end of the
Paleolithic, specifically the Middle and or Upper Paleolithic, humans began to
produce the earliest works of art and they engaged in religious and spiritual
behavior such as burial and ritual. The climate during the Paleolithic
consisted of a set of glacial and interglacial periods in which the climate periodically
fluctuated between warm and cold temperatures.
The term
Paleolithic was coined by archaeologist John Lubbock in 1865. It derives from
Greek: palaios, "old"; and lithos, "stone", literally
meaning "old age of the stone" or "Old Stone Age."
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