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palaeolithic adj : of or relating to the second period of the Stone Age (following the eolithic); "paleolithic artifacts" [syn: paleolithic] n : second part of the Stone Age beginning about 750,00 to 500,000 years BC and lasting until the end of the last ice age about 8,500 years BC [syn: Paleolithic Age, Paleolithic]

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English

Pronunciation

pal·e·o·lith·ic
  • SAMPA: /pălēōlĭthīk/
PAH-lee-o-LITH-ik

Etymology

From Greek παλαιολιθικός (paleolithikos), from Ancient Greek prefix παλαιο- "paleo-", from παλαιός (paleos) "old" + λίθος (lithos) "stone".

Noun

palaeolithic
  1. A period that lasted from two million years ago to 10,000 BC, of or relating to the Old Stone Age.

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Extensive Definition

The Paleolithic (or Palaeolithic) (from Greek: παλαιός, palaios, "old"; and λίθος, lithos, "stone" lit. "old age of the stone"; was coined by archaeologist John Lubbock in 1865.) is a prehistoric era distinguished by the development of the first stone tools. It covers the greatest portion of humanity's time (roughly 99% of human history) on Earth, extending from 2.5 or 2.6 million years ago, with the introduction of stone tools by hominids such as Homo habilis, to the introduction of agriculture and the end of the Pleistocene around 10,000 BC. The Paleolithic era ended with the Mesolithic, in Western Europe, and in areas not affected by the Ice Age with the Epipaleolithic (such as Africa).
During the Paleolithic humans were grouped together in small scale societies such as bands and gained their subsistence from 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, given 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 engage 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 cool temperatures.

Chronology

The three-age system divides human technological prehistory into three periods: the Stone Age, the Bronze Age and the Iron Age. The modern periodization of the Stone Age stretches from the Paleolithic to the Neolithic in the following scheme (crossing an epoch boundary on the geologic time scale):
Traditionally, the Paleolithic is divided into three (somewhat overlapping) periods: the Lower Paleolithic, Middle Paleolithic, and the Upper Paleolithic. The three ages mark technological and cultural advances in different human communities.

Human evolution

Human evolution is the part of biological evolution concerning the emergence of humans as a distinct species. It is the subject of a broad scientific inquiry that seeks to understand and describe how this change and development occurred. The study of human evolution encompasses many scientific disciplines, most notably physical anthropology, paleoanthropology, paleontology, archeology, linguistics, and genetics. The term human, in the context of human evolution, refers to the genus Homo, but studies of human evolution usually include other hominids, such as the australopithecines.

Human evolution during the Paleolithic

The evolutionary history of humankind is traced back by paleoanthropologists to 5-7 million or 8-10 million years ago prior to the start of the Paleolithic when our closest hominid ancestors diverged from the shared common ancestor of humans, chimpanzees and bonobos. These early pre-Paleolithic hominids (such as Sahelanthropus tchadensis and Australopithecus) began to develop bipedalism (though bipedalism did not become fully developed until Homo erectus/Homo ergaster first appeared in the human fossil record) and eventually gave rise to the earliest member of the genus homo, Homo habilis, around 2.6 million years ago. Numerous explanations have been proposed by anthropologists and biologists to explain why bipedalism evolved in humans including the provisioning model, which states that bipedalism was an adaptation to a monogamous society; the postural feeding hypothesis, which proposes that bipedalism was invented to help obtain food; and the thermoregulatory model, which claims that human bipedalism arose to reduce body heat.
The earliest member of the genus homo, Homo habilis, appeared around 2.6 million years ago and was responsible for the beginning of the Paleolithic era and the creation of the Oldowan tool case. Most experts assume the intelligence and social organization of H. habilis were more sophisticated than typical australopithecines or chimpanzees. In the Early Pleistocene, 1.5–1 mya, in Africa, Asia, and Europe, some populations of Homo habilis evolved larger brains and made more elaborate stone tools; these differences and others are sufficient enough for anthropologists to conclude that they had given rise to a new species, H. erectus. Although Homo habilis coexisted with other Homo-like bipedal primates, such as Paranthropus boisei, some of which prospered for many millennia, H. habilis, possibly because of its early tool innovation and a less specialized diet, became the precursor of an entire line of new species, whereas Paranthropus boisei and its robust relatives disappeared from the fossil record.
Homo ergaster was the first hominid to stand fully upright and migrate out of Africa (c. 2 million years ago). Homo ergaster may also have been the first hominid to control fire. Homo ergaster is often considered to be the primogenitor of the later species Homo erectus, though H. ergaster is sometimes categorized as a subspecies of Homo erectus. Homo erectus (along with Homo ergaster) was probably the first early human species to fit squarely into the category of a hunter-gatherer society. Homo erectus was the first hominid certain to have used controlled fire (c. 300,000 BP). Earlier (disputed) evidence for controlled fire also exists at sites such as the Zhoukoudian Caves in China, which contain possible evidence for controlled fire as early as 1.5 million years ago. It is unknown who was the ancestor of Homo rhodesiensis, the primitive hominid species that humans are likely to have descended from, though many current paleoanthropologists postulate that Homo rhodesiensis was the same species as Homo heidelbergensis, also the immediate ancestor of the Neanderthals.
Although the first members of the species Homo sapiens, the Archaic Homo sapiens, may have existed as long as 300,000 years ago, Homo sapiens only became completely behaviorally modern during the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic (c. 50,000 BP). After 50,000 BP, what Jared Diamond, author of The Third Chimpanzee, and other anthropologists characterize as a "Great Leap Forward," human culture apparently started to change at much greater speed: "modern" humans started to bury their dead with more elaborate burials, made clothing out of hides, developed sophisticated hunting techniques (such as pitfall traps, or driving animals to fall off cliffs), and made cave paintings. This speed-up of cultural change seems connected with the arrival of behaviorally modern humans, Homo sapiens. As human culture advanced, different populations of humans began to create novelty in existing technologies. Artifacts such as fish hooks, buttons and bone needles begin to show signs of greater variation among different populations of humans, than prior to 50,000 or 40,000 BP. Typically, neanderthalensis populations are found with technology similar to other contemporary neanderthalensis populations.
Theoretically, modern human behavior is taken to include four ingredient capabilities: abstract thinking (concepts free from specific examples), planning (taking steps to achieve a further goal), innovation (finding new solutions), and symbolic behaviour (such as images, or rituals). Among concrete examples of modern human behaviour, anthropologists include specialization of tools, use of jewelry and images (such as cave drawings), organization of living space, rituals (for example, burials with grave gifts), more specialized hunting techniques, exploration of less hospitable geographical areas, and more extensive barter trade networks. Debate continues whether there was indeed a "revolution" leading to modern humans ("the big bang of human consciousness"), or a more gradual evolution.
The driving force behind human evolution during the Paleolithic is a matter of significant debate amongst anthropologists. The hunting hypothesis suggests that human evolution was primarily shaped by the hunting of other animals, however it is currently known that humans during most of the Paleolithic period gained the majority of their meat from scavenging dead animals, rather than hunting, and were often prey for larger large carnivores such as the saber-toothed cat, Dinofelis, and hyenas which apparently preyed on the hominid Homo habilis. It is also currently understood by anthropologists that even Middle Paleolithic populations such as the Neanderthals, who hunted large game just as frequently and successfully as modern Upper Paleolithic humans, intermittently (and sometimes unsuccessfully) competed with carnivores such as hyenas for shelter in caves and food.
Several contending theories also exist including the somewhat related killer ape theory, which proposes that warfare and violence were the driving forces behind human evolution. The killer ape theory was first described by Raymond Dart in the 1950s and was further developed by the anthropologist Robert Ardrey (who also supported the hunting hypothesis) in his book African Genesis (1961). The killer ape theory is no longer supported by the majority of the anthropological community. Some anthropologists, such as Adrienne L. Zihlman, propose a reverse version of the hunting hypothesis in which gathering was the driving force behind evolution and female primates played a significant part in human evolution. The aquatic ape hypothesis is another theory that seeks to uncover the driving force behind human evolution. In contrast to the two previously mentioned theories, the hunting hypothesis and the killer ape theory, the aquatic ape theory claims that life in aquatic or semi-aquatic settings was responsible for the development of many of the characteristics of Homo that are not seen in other primates. However, like the killer ape theory, it is not widely accepted by the scientific community. Although the modern Aquatic ape hypothesis was only developed during the 20th century the concept of humankind arising from an aquatic or semi-aquatic environment is much more ancient, the theories of the Ancient Greek philosopher Anaximander who is widely considered to be evolution's most ancient proponent bare some similarity with the contemporary Aquatic ape hypothesis as he theorized that humans evolved from fish or fish like animals. Richard Wrangham of Harvard University argues that cooking of plant foods may have triggered brain expansion by allowing complex carbohydrates in starchy foods to become more digestible and in effect allow humans to absorb more calories.

Simplified human genealogy

The timeline below shows a simplified genealogy of Paleolithic humanity, although other ideas of human genealogy exist for the same period:
DateFormat = yyyy ImageSize = width:800 height:auto barincrement:18 PlotArea = left:20 right:20 bottom:20 top:10 Colors = id:white value:rgb(1,1,1) id:black value:black id:canvas value:gray(0.98) id:holocene value:rgb(1,0.984,0.941) id:pleisto value:rgb(1,0.968,0.690) id:pliocene value:rgb(1,1,0.6) id:miocene value:rgb(1,1,0) id:paleo value:rgb(0.651,0.875,0.616) id:gray value:gray(0.80) id:darkblue value:rgb(0.3,0.3,0.7) id:blue value:rgb(0.45,0.45,0.80) id:lightblue value:rgb(0.65,0.65,0.90) id:red value:rgb(0.8,0.30,0.30) id:rougemoy value:rgb(0.88,0.45,0.45) id:lightred value:rgb(0.92,0.64,0.64) id:lightred2 value:rgb(0.95,0.84,0.84) id:orange value:rgb(1,0.7,0.3) id:orangesom value:rgb(0.9,0.45,0.25) id:or value:rgb(1,0.9,0) id:grilleMajor value:gray(0.7) id:grilleMinor value:gray(0.9)
Period = from:-3000 till:1 TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal format:yyyy AlignBars = justify ScaleMinor = unit:year increment:100 start:-3000 gridcolor:grilleMinor ScaleMajor = unit:year increment:500 start:-3000 gridcolor:grilleMajor BackgroundColors = canvas:canvas bars:canvas BarData= bar:evenement1 bar:espace1 bar:evenement2 bar:espace2 bar:evenement3 bar:espace3 bar:evenement4 bar:espace4 bar:evenement5 bar:espace5 bar:evenement6 bar:espace6
  1. barset:evenement
bar:ages0 bar:ages
Define $center = anchor:from align:center Define $left = anchor:from align:left shift:( 4,-4) Define $right = anchor:till align:right shift:(-4,-4) Define $left2 = anchor:from align:left shift:( 4, 3) Define $right2 = anchor:till align:right shift:(-4, 3)
PlotData=
bar:evenement1 color:black width:20 $left from:-3000 till:-1950 color:gray at:-2650 textcolor:black text:" Australopithecus"
bar:espace1 width:12 at:-2556 mark:(line, blue)
bar:evenement2 color:black width:20 $left from:-2556 till:-1700 color:or at:-2300 textcolor:black text:" Homo habilis"
bar:espace2 width:12 at:-2043 mark:(line, blue)
bar:evenement3 color:black width:20 $left from:-2043 till:-1000 color:darkblue at:-1650 textcolor:black text:" Homo ergaster" from:-700 till:-300 color:blue textcolor:black text:"Homo rhodesiensis" from:-200 till:0 color:lightblue at:-300 textcolor:black text:" Homo sapiens" at:-880 textcolor:black text:"?"
bar:espace3 width:12 at:-1121 mark:(line, blue) bar:espace3 width:36 at:-1750 mark:(line, blue)
bar:evenement4 color:black width:20 $left from:-1121 till:-800 color:lightred at:-1125 textcolor:black text:"Homo antecessor" from:-700 till:-201 color:rougemoy at:-675 textcolor:black text:"Homo heidelbergensis" from:-199 till:-35 color:red at:-225 textcolor:black text:"Neanderthal" at:-1750 mark:(line, darkblue) at:-770 textcolor:black text:"?" bar:espace4 width:12 at:-1750 mark:(line, darkblue)
bar:evenement5 color:black width:20 bar:evenement5 color:black width:20 $left from:-1750 till:-100 color:orange at:-1000 textcolor:black text:" Homo erectus"
bar:espace5 width:12 at:-100 mark:(line, blue)
bar:evenement6 color:black width:20 $left from:-100 till:-27 color:orangesom at:-315 textcolor:black text:" Homo soloensis"
bar:ages0 from:-2600 till:-10 width:10 color:paleo textcolor:white at:-1600 text:"Paleolithic"
bar:ages fontsize:9 from:-3000 till:-1806 color:pliocene at:-2400 text:"Pliocene" from:-1806 till:-11 color:pleisto at:-1000 text:"Pleistocene" from:-11 till:0 color:holocene at:-100 text:"H->" at:-3000 mark:(line, black) at:-1806 mark:(line, black) at:-11 mark:(line, black) at:0 mark:(line, black)
Timeline scale is in thousands of years.

Paleogeography and climate

The climate of the Paleolithic Period spanned two geologic epochs known as the Pliocene and the Pleistocene. Both of these periods experienced important geographic and climatic changes that affected human Paleolithic societies such as the beginning and the end of the world wide ice age that occurred during the Pleistocene. These changes are described below in greater depth.
During the Pliocene Continents continued to drift toward their present positions, moving from positions possibly as far as 250 km from their present locations to positions only 70 km from their current locations. South America became linked to North America through the Isthmus of Panama during the Pliocene, bringing a nearly complete end to South America's distinctive marsupial fauna. The formation of the Isthmus had major consequences on global temperatures, since warm equatorial ocean currents were cut off and an Atlantic cooling cycle began, with cold Arctic and Antarctic waters dropping temperatures in the now-isolated Atlantic Ocean. Africa's collision with Europe formed the Mediterranean Sea, cutting off the remnants of the Tethys Ocean. Also Central America completely formed during the Pliocene, allowing flora from North and South America to leave their native habitats and colonize new areas. The modern continents were essentially at their present positions during the Plestocene, the plates upon which they sit probably having moved no more than 100 km relative to 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 during the Pliocene. The formation of an Arctic ice cap around 3 mya is signaled by an abrupt shift in oxygen isotope ratios and ice-rafted cobbles in the North Atlantic and North Pacific ocean beds (Van Andel 1994 p. 226). Mid-latitude glaciation was probably underway 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 1500–3000 m thick, resulting in temporary sea level drops of 100 m or more over the entire surface of the Earth. During interglacial times, such as at present, drowned coastlines were common, mitigated by isostatic or other emergent motion of some regions.
The effects of glaciation were global. Antarctica was ice-bound throughout the Pleistocene as well as the preceding Pliocene. The Andes were covered in the south by the Patagonian ice cap. There were glaciers in New Zealand and Tasmania. The current 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 east was covered by the Laurentide. The Fenno-Scandian ice sheet rested on northern Europe, including Great Britain; the Alpine ice sheet on the Alps. Scattered domes stretched across Siberia and the Arctic shelf. The northern seas were frozen. During the late Upper Paleolithic/Latest Pleistocene c. 18,000 BCE the Landbridge between Asia and North America known as Beringa was blocked by ice and the ice covering Beringa may have prevented early Paleo-Indians such as the Clovis culture from directly crossing Beringa to reach the Americas.
According to Mark Lynas (through collected data), 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.
At the end of the Paleolithic era, both the ice age and the Pleistocene epoch ended, and the world's climate became warmer. The climate change at the end of the Pleistocene may have caused or contributed to the extinction of the Pleistocene megafauna though it is also possible that the late Pleistocene extinctions were (at least in part) caused by other factors such as disease and over hunting by humans. New research suggests that the extinction of the Woolly mammoth may have been caused by the combined effect of both climatic change and human hunting. Scientists suggest that climate change during the end of the Pleistocene caused the mammoths' habitat to shrink in size, resulting in a drop in population. Paleolithic humans then delivered the final blow to the Woolly mammoths through hunting. The global warming that occurred during the end of the Pleistocene and the beginning of the Holocene melted ice and may have also assisted humans in over hunting the woolly mammoth by allowing them to gain accesses to more mammoth habitats than previously possible.

Way of life

Due to a lack of written records from this time period, nearly all of our knowledge of Paleolithic humans culture and way of life comes from archaeology and ethnographic comparisons to the cultures of modern hunter gatherers such as the !Kung San who partake in lifestyles similar to those of their Paleolithic predecessors. The economy of a typical Paleolithic society was a hunter-gatherer economy. Paleolithic humans hunted wild animals for meat and gathered food, firewood, and materials for their tools, clothes, or shelters. The human population density in the Paleolithic was very small and numbered around only one person per square mile. The low population density during the Paleolithic was most likely due to low body fat, Infanticide, women regularly engaging in intense endurance exercise, late 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 modern industrial societies. At the end of the Paleolithic specifically the Middle and or Upper Paleolithic humans began to produce works of art such as cave paintings, rock art and jewelry and began to engage in religious behavior such as burial and ritual.

Technology

During this time period people made tools of stone, bone, and wood. The most ancient Paleolithic stone tool industry the Oldowan was developed by the earliest members of the genus Homo such as Homo habilis around 2.6 million years ago. and contained tools such as choppers, burins and awls though it completely disappeared around 250,000 years ago and was followed by the more complex Acheulean industry which was first conceived by Homo ergaster around 1.8 or 1.65 million years ago. The most recent Lower Paleolithic (Acheulean) implements completely vanished from the archeological record around 100,000 years ago and were replaced by more complex Middle Paleolithic/Middle Stone Age tool kits such as the Mousterian and the Aterian industries.
Lower Paleolithic humans are known to have used a variety of stone tools, including hand axes and choppers. Although Lower Paleolithic Hominids appear to have used handaxes frequently there is no consensus about their use. Interpretations range from cutting and chopping tools to digging implements, flake cores, the use in traps and a purely ritual significance, maybe in courting behaviour. An interpretation from William H. Calvin maintains that some of the rounder examples could have served as "killer frisbees" meant to be thrown at a herd of animals at a water hole so as to stun one of them. There are no indications of hafting, and indeed some artifacts are far too large for that. Thus a thrown hand axe would not usually have penetrated deeply enough to cause very serious injuries. Nevertheless it could have been an effective weapon for defence against predators. Choppers and scrappers were likely used for the purpose of skinning and butchering scavenged animals and sharp ended sticks were often procured for the purpose of digging up edible roots. Early hominids presumably have been using wooden spears as early as 5 million years ago to hunt small animals, much like our close relatives the common chimpanzee have recently been observed doing in Senegal, Africa. Lower Paleolithic humans additionally known to have constructed shelters such as the possible wood hut at Terra Amata. Fire was used by the Lower Paleolithic hominid Homo erectus/Homo ergaster as early as 300,000 or 1.5 million years ago and possibly even earlier by the early Lower Paleolithic (Oldowan) hominid Homo habilis and/or by robust australopithecines such as Paranthropus however the use of fire only became common in the societies of the following Middle Stone Age/Middle Paleolithic Period. The invention of fire reduced mortality rates and provided protection against predators. In addition early hominids may have began to cook their food as early as the Lower Paleolithic (c. 1.9 million years ago) or at the very latest in the early Middle Paleolithic (c. 250,000 years ago). Some scientists have hypothesized that Hominids began cooking food to defrost frozen meat which would help ensure their survival in cold regions.
The Lower Paleolithic hominid Homo erectus possibly invented rafts (c. 800,000 or 840,000 BP) to travel over large bodies of water which may have allowed a group of Homo erectus to reach the island of Flores and evolve into the small hominid Homo floresiensis. However, it must also be noted that this hypothesis is disputed within the anthropological community. The possible use of rafts during the Lower Paleolithic may indicate that Lower Paleolithic Hominids 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 BCE) has also indicated that both Middle and Upper Paleolithic humans used rafts to travel over large bodies of water (I.e. the Mediterranean sea) for the purpose of colonizing other bodies of land.
Around 200,000 BP Middle Paleolithic Stone tool manufacturing spawned a tool making technique known as the prepared-core technique, that was more elaborate than previous Acheulean techniques. This method increased efficiency by permitting the creation of more controlled and consistent flakes. This method allowed Middle Paleolithic humans to correspondingly create stone tipped spears which were the earliest composite tools by hafting sharp, pointy stone flakes onto wooden shafts. In addition to improving tool making methods the Middle Paleolithic also saw an improvement of the tools themselves which allowed access to a wider variety and amount of food sources, for example microliths or small stone tools or points were invented around 70,000 or 65,000 BP and were essential to the invention of bows and spear throwers in the following Upper Paleolithic period. Harpoons were invented and used for the first time during the late Middle Paleolithic (c.90,000 years ago), the invention of these devices allowed fish to become part of human diets which provided a hedge against starvation and a more abundant food supply. As a result of both their technology and their advanced social social structures Paleolithic groups such as the Neanderthals who possessed a Middle Paleolithic level of technology appear to have hunted large game just as well as Upper Paleolithic modern humans and the Neanderthals in particular may have likewise hunted with projectile weapons. Nonetheless Neanderthal usage of projectile weapons in hunting occurred very rarely (or perhaps never) and the Neanderthals hunted large game animals mostly by ambushing them and attacking them with mêlée weapons such as thrusting spears rather than attacking them from a distance with projectile weapons.
During the Upper Paleolithic further technological advances were made such as the invention of Nets,(c. 22,000 or 29,000 BP) bolas, the spear thrower (c.30,000 BP) the bow and arrow (c. 25,000 or 30,000 BP) and the creation of the world's oldest example of ceramic art, the Venus of Dolní Věstonice (c. 29,000–25,000 BP). Early dogs were also domesticated during the end of the Paleolithic, sometime between 30,000 BP 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 late Middle Paleolithic around 100,000 BP or perhaps even earlier Archeological evidence from the Dordogne region of France demonstrates that members of the European early Upper Paleolithic culture known as the Aurignacian were the first people to use calendars (c. 30,000 BP). This early calendar was a lunar calendar that was used to document the phases of the moon. Genuine solar calendars did not appear until the following Neolithic period. It is almost certain that Upper Paleolithic cultures were capable of precisely timing the migration of game animals such as wild horses and deer. This ability allowed humans to become efficient hunters and to exploit a wide variety of game animals. Moreover recent research indicates that the Neanderthals timed their hunts and the migrations of game animals long before the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic.

Social organization

The social organization of the earliest Paleolithic (Lower Paleolithic) societies remains largely unknown to scientists though Lower Paleolithic hominids such as Homo habilis and Homo erectus are likely to have had more complex social structures 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 home 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/central campsites (hearths and shelters) amongst humans only dates back to 500,000 years ago.
Similarity it is disputed amongst scientists whether Lower Paleolithic humans were largely monogamous or polygamous, the Provisional model in particular 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 polygamous than other primates which would provide evidence that Lower Paleolithic humans had a largely polygamous lifestyle because species which have the most pronounced Sexual dimorphism tend to be more likely to be polygamous.
For most of the Lower Paleolithic human societies were possibly more hierarchical than their Middle and Upper Paleolithic decedents and probably were not grouped into bands, though during the end of the Lower Paleolithic the latest populations of the Hominid Homo erectus began living in small scale (possibly egalitarian) bands similar to both Middle and Upper Paleolithic societies and modern hunter-gatherers.
Middle and Upper Paleolithic humans like Lower Paleolithic humans and early Neolithic farming tribes lived without states and organized governments and instead unlike both Lower Paleolithic humans, early Neolithic farmers and complex agricultural Civilizations were grouped in (usually nomadic) bands that ranged from 20 to 30 or 25 to 100 members. These bands were formed by several families. However 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—which ended about 10,000 BP—people began to settle down into permanent locations and agriculture began to be relied upon for sustenance in many locations. A large body of scientific evidence exists to suggest that humans took part 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 recourses and commodities such as raw materials during times of relative scarcity (i.e. famine, drought). Middle and Upper Paleolithic society was communal and collectivistic and individuals were 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.
Like the societies of our closest existent relative the Bonobo most Middle and Upper Paleolithic societies were fundamentally egalitarian and infrequently or never engaged in organized violence between groups (i.e. war), though some Upper Paleolithic societies such as the Paleolithic inhabitants of Sungir (in what is now Russia) that lived in resource rich environments may have demonstrated more complex and hierarchical organization (such as Tribes with a pronounced hierarchy and a somewhat formal division of labor) and may have engaged in Endemic warfare. There was no formal leadership during the Middle and Upper Paleolithic and Middle and Upper Paleolithic societies (like contemporary egalitarian hunter-gatherers such as the Mbuti pygmies) were likely to 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 each member of the group was skilled at all tasks essential to survival, regardless of individual abilities. Theories to explain the apparent egalitarianism of Paleolithic societies 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 distribute recourses such as food and meat equally to avoid famine and ensure a stable food 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 lastly because the invention of projectile weapons such as throwing spears provided less incentive for war because they increased the amount of damage that is done to the attacker and decreased the relative amount of territory aggressors could gain.
It has Typically been assumed by anthropologists that women were responsible for gathering wild plants and firewood and men were responsible for hunting and scavenging dead animals amongst Paleolithic humans. However analogies to the sexual divisions of labor in existent hunter-gatherer societies such as the Hadza people and the Australian aborigines suggest that the sexual division of labor in the Paleolithic was relatively flexible, men may have participated in gathering plants, firewood and insects and women may have procured small game animals for consumption and assisted men in driving herds of large game animals (such as woolly mammoths and deer) off cliffs. Additionally according to recent archeological research carried out by anthropologist and archaeologist Steven Kuhn from the University of Arizona this division of labor did not exist prior to the Upper Paleolithic and was invented relatively recently in human pre-history. The sexual division of labor may have been developed to allow humans to acquire food and other resources more efficiently. There was approximate parity between men and women during both the Middle and the Upper Paleolithic and the end of the Paleolithic (the Middle and Upper Paleolithic) was the most gender-equal time in human history. Indeed archeological evidence from art and funerary rituals indicates that a number of individual women enjoyed seemingly high status in their communities and it is likely that both sexes participated in decision making. Additional scientific research of Paleolithic society has also revealed that the earliest known Paleolithic shaman (c. 30,000 BP) was female. 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 then women in hunter-gatherer societies. Like most contemporary hunter-gatherer societies Paleolithic groups probably followed mostly Matrilineal and Ambilineal descent patterns, and Patrilineal decent patterns were likely to have been rarer during the Paleolithic and the Mesolithic than in the following Neolithic period.

Paleolithic Art and Music

The earliest undisputed evidence of art during the Paleolithic period comes from Middle Paleolithic/Middle Stone Age sites such as Blombos Cave in the form of bracelets, beads, rock art, ochre used as body paint and perhaps in ritual, though earlier examples of artistic expression such as the Venus of Tan-Tan and the patterns found on elephant bones from Bilzingsleben in Thuringia may have been produced by Acheulean tool users such as Homo erectus prior to the start of the Middle Paleolithic period and undisputed evidence of art only becomes common in the following Upper Paleolithic period.
According to Robert G. Bednarik Lower Paleolithic Acheulean tool users began to engage in symbolic behavior such as art around 850,000 BP and decorated themselves with beads and collected exotic stones for aesthetic rather than utilitarian qualities. According to Robert G. Bednarik traces of the pigment ochre from late Lower Paleolithic Acheulean archeological sites suggests that Acheulean societies like later Upper Paleolithic societies collected and used the pigment ochre to create rock art nevertheless, it is also possible that the ochre traces found at Lower Paleolithic sites is naturally occurring.
Vincent W. Fallio interprets Lower and Middle Paleolithic marking on rocks at sites such as Bilzingsleben (such as zig zagging lines) as accounts or representation of altered states of consciousness though some other scholars either interpret them as simple doodling or as the result of natural processes.
Upper Paleolithic humans produced works of art such as cave paintings, Venus figurines, animal carvings and rock paintings. Upper Paleolithic art can be divided into two broad categories Figurative art such as cave paintings which clearly depicts Animals (or more rarely humans) and nonfigurative which consists of shapes and symbols. Cave paintings have been interpreted in a number of ways by modern archeologists, the earliest explanation of the Paleolithic cave paintings first proposed by the physical anthropologist Abbe Breuil interpreted the paintings as a form of magic designed to ensure a successful hunt, although this hypothesis falls short of explaining the existence of animals such as saber-toothed cats and lions which were not hunted for food and the existence of half-human, half-animal beings in cave paintings. The anthropologist David Lewis-Williams have suggested that Paleolithic cave paintings were indications of shamanistic practices as the paintings of half-human, half-animal paintings and the remoteness of the caves are reminiscent of modern hunter-gatherer shamanistic practices. Symbol like images are more common in Paleolithic cave paintings than depictions of animals or humans and unique Paleolithic symbolic patterns are thought to have possibly been trademarks that represent different Upper Paleolithic ethnic groups. The Venus figurines have evoked similar controversy amongst archeologists and have been described at various times and by various archeologists and anthropologists as representations of goddesses, pornographic imagery, apotropaic amulets used for sympathetic magic, and even as self-portraits of women themselves.
R. Dale Guthrie has studied not only the most artistic and publicized paintings but also a variety of lower quality art and figurines, and he identifies a wide range of skill and ages among the artists. He also points that the main themes in the paintings and other artifacts (powerful beasts, risky hunting scenes and the over-sexual representation of women in the Venus figurines) are to be expected in the fantasies of adolescent males during the Upper Paleolithic.
The existence of abundant female imagery such as the Venus figurines which have sometimes been interpreted as representations of a Mother goddess has led some such as the archeologist Marija Gimbutas and the Feminist scholar Merlin Stone who was the author of the 1978 book When God Was a Woman to believe Upper Paleolithic (and later Neolithic) societies possessed a female centered religion and a female dominated society. Various other explanations for the purpose of the figurines have been proposed, such as Catherine McCoid and LeRoy McDermott’s hypothesis that the figurines were created as self portrats of actual women and R.Dale Gutrie's hypothesis that the venus figurines represented a kind of "stone age pornography". The origins of music during the Paleolithic are unknown, since the earliest forms of music probably did not use musical instruments but instead used the human voice and or natural objects such as rocks which leave no trace in the archaeological record however, the anthropological and archeological designation suggests that music first arose (amongst humans) when language, art and other modern behaviors were developed in the Middle or the Upper Paleolithic period. It is possible that music may have developed from rhythmic sounds produced by daily activities such as cracking nuts by hitting them with stones because maintaining a rhythm while working may have helped people to become more efficient at daily activities. An alternative theory originally proposed by Charles Darwin explains that music may have began as a hominid mating strategy as many birds and some other animals produce music like calls to attract mates. This hypothesis is generally less accepted than the previous hypothesis, but it nonetheless provides a possible alternative.
Upper Paleolithic (and possibly Middle Paleolithic) humans used flute-like bone pipes as musical instruments, It is possible that Music may have played a large role in the religious lives of Upper Paleolithic hunter gatherers. Like in modern hunter gatherer societies music may have been used in ritual or to help induce trances. It appears that animal skin drums in particular may have been used in religious events by Upper Paleolithic Shamans as shown by the remains of drum like instruments from some Upper Paleolithic graves of shamans and the ethnographic record of contemporary hunter-gatherer shamanic and ritual practices..

Religion and beliefs

A controversial scholar of prehistoric religion and anthropology James Harrod and Vincent W. Fallio have recently proposed that religion and spirituality (and art) may have first arose in Pre-Paleolithic chimpanzee and or Early Lower Paleolithic (Oldowan) societies, however the established anthropological view holds that it is more probable that humankind first developed religious and spiritual beliefs during the Middle Paleolithic or Upper Paleolithic. According to Vincent W. Fallio the common ancestor of chimpanzees and humans experienced altered states of consciousness and partook in ritual, and ritual was used in their societies to strengthen social bonding and group cohesion.
Middle Paleolithic humans use of burials at sites such as Krapina, Croatia (c. 130,000 BP) and Qafzeh, Israel (c. 100,000 BP) have led some anthropologists and archeologists such as Philip Lieberman to believe that Middle Paleolithic humans may have possessed a belief in an afterlife and a "concern for the dead that transcends daily life". Cut marks on Neanderthal bones from various sites such as Combe-Grenal and Abri Moula in France may imply that the Neanderthals like some contemporary human cultures may have practiced ritual defleshing for (presumably) religious reasons. According to recent archeological findings from H. heidelbergensis sites in Atapuerca humans may have begun burying their dead much earlier during the late Lower Paleolithic but this theory is widely questioned in the scientific community.
Likewise some scientists have proposed that Middle Paleolithic societies such as Neanderthal societies may also have practiced the earliest form of totemism or animal worship in addition to their (presumably religious) burial of the dead. Emil Bächler in particular suggested (based on archeological evidence from Middle Paleolithic caves) that a widespread Middle Paleolithic Neanderthal bear cult existed. Additional (Possible) evidence in support of Middle Paleolithic animal worship originates from the Tsodilo Hills (c. 70,000 BCE) in the African Kalahari desert where a giant rock resembling a python that is accompanied by large amounts of colored broken spear points and a secret chamber has been discovered inside a cave. The Broken spear points were most likely sacrificial offerings and the python is also important to and worshipped by contemporary !Kung san hunter-gatherers who are the descendants of the of the people who devised the ritual at the Tsodilo Hills and may have inherited their worship of the python from their distant Middle Paleolithic ancestors. Animal cults in the following Upper Paleolithic period such as the bear cult may have had their origins in these hypothetical Middle Paleolithic animal cults. Animal worship during the Upper Paleolithic was intertwined with hunting rites. For instance archeological evidence from art and bear remains reveals that the Bear cult apparently had involved a type of sacrificial bear ceremonialism in which a bear was shot with arrows and then was finished off by a shot in the lungs and ritualistically buried near a clay bear statue covered by a bear fur with the skull and the body of the bear buried separately. Barbara Ehrenreich controversially theorizes that the sacrificial hunting rites of the Upper Paleolithic (and by extension Paleolithic cooperative big-game hunting) gave rise to war or warlike raiding during the following Epi-Paleolithic/Mesolithic or late Upper Paleolithic period.
The existence of anthropomorphic images and half-human, half-animal images in the Upper Paleolithic period may further indicate that Upper Paleolithic humans were the first people to believe in a pantheon of gods or supernatural beings, though the half-human, half-animal images may have also been indicative of shamanistic practices similar to those practiced by contemporary tribal societies. The earliest known undisputed burial of a shaman (and by extension the earliest undisputed evidence of shamans and shamanic practices) dates back to the early Upper Paleolithic era (c. 30,000 BC) in what is now the Czech Republic. However, it was probably more common during the early Upper Paleolithic for religious ceremonies to receive equal and full participation from all members of the band, in contrast to the religious traditions of later periods when religious authorities and part-time ritual specialists such as shamans, priests and medicine men were relatively common and integral to religious life. Additionally it is also possible that Upper Paleolithic religions like contemporary and historical Animistic and Polytheistic religions believed in the existence of a single creator deity in addition to other supernatural beings such as Animistic spirits.
Vincent W. Fallio writes that Ancestor cults first emerged in complex Upper Paleolithic societies. Vincent W. Fallio argues that the elites of complex Upper Paleolithic societies (like the elites of many more contemporary complex hunter-gatherers such as the Tlingit) may have used special rituals and ancestor worship to solidify control over their societies by convincing their subjects that they possess a link to the spirit world that gives them control over both the earthly realm and access to the spiritual realm. Secret societies may have served a similar function in these complex quasi-theocratic societies by dividing the religious practices of these cultures into the separate spheres of Popular Religion and Elite Religion.
Religion was possibly apotropaic; specifically, it may have involved sympathetic magic. The Venus figurines which are abundant in the Upper Paleolithic archeological record provide an example of possible Paleolithic sympathetic magic, as they may have been used for ensuring success in hunting and to bring about fertility of the land and women. The Upper Paleolithic Venus figurines have been sometimes explained as depictions of an earth goddess similar to Gaia or as representations of a goddess who is the ruler or mother of the animals. Additionally, they have described by James Harrod as representative of female (and male) shamanistic spiritual transformation processes.

Diet and nutrition

The diet of the Paleolithic hunting and gathering peoples consisted primarily of meat, fish, shellfish, leafy vegetables, fruit, nuts and insects in varying proportions. However, there is little direct evidence of the relative proportions of plant and animal foods in the diets of Paleolithic humans. According to some anthropologists and advocates of the modern Paleolithic diet, Paleolithic hunter-gatherers consumed a significant amount of meat and possibly obtained the majority of their food from hunting. Competing hypotheses suggest that Paleolithic humans may have consumed a plant-based diet in general, or that hunting and gathering possibly contributed equally to their diet. However the relative proportions of plant and animal foods in the diets of Paleolithic peoples probably varied between regions (for instance Paleolithic hunter gatherers in tropical regions such as Africa probably consumed a plant based diet while by contrast, Paleolithic populations in colder regions such as Northern Europe most likely obtained the majority of their food from meat).
Overall they experienced less famine and malnutrition than the Neolithic farming tribes that followed them. This was due in part to the fact that Paleolithic hunter-gatherers had access to a wider variety of plants and other foods than Neolithic farmers did, which allowed Paleolithic hunter-gatherers to have a more nutritious diet along with a decreased risk of famine. Many of the famines experienced by Neolithic (and some modern) farmers were caused or amplified by their dependence on a small number of crops. The greater amount of meat obtained from hunting big game animals in Paleolithic diets than in Mesolithic and Neolithic diets may have also allowed Paleolithic Hunter-gatherers to enjoy a more nutritious diet than both Epipaleolithic/Mesolithic hunter-gatherers and Neolithic agriculturalists. Furthermore, it is also unlikely that Paleolithic hunter-gatherers were affected by modern diseases of affluence such as Type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease and cerebrovascular disease because Paleolithic hunter-gatherers ate mostly lean meats and plants and frequently engaged in intense physical activity. The Paleolithic diet (also known as the paleodiet or the caveman diet) is a modern diet that seeks to eliminate these diseases of affluence from contemporary industrial society by replicating the dietary habits of Paleolithic hunter-gatherers.
Large seeded legumes were part of the human diet long before the Neolithic agricultural revolution as evident from archaeobotanical finds from the Mousterian layers of Kebara Cave, in Israel. Moreover, recent evidence indicates that humans processed and consumed wild cereal grains as far back as 23,000 years ago in the Upper Paleolithic. However, seeds, such as grains and beans, were rarely eaten and never in large quantities on a daily basis. Recent archeological evidence also indicates that winemaking had its origins in the Paleolithic when early humans drank the juice of naturally fermented wild grapes from animal-skin pouches. Paleolithic humans consumed animal organ meats, including the livers, kidneys and brains. Upper Paleolithic cultures appear to have had significant knowledge about plants and herbs and may have, albeit very rarely, practiced rudimentary forms of horticulture. Figs in particular may have been cultivated as early as 11,400 BP during the late Upper Paleolithic in the Near East. Late Upper Paleolithic societies also appear to have occasionally practiced Pastoralism and animal husbandry presumably for dietary reasons, for instance some European late Upper Paleolithic cultures domesticated and raised Raindeer presumably for their meat or milk as early as 14,000 BP. Humans also probably consumed hallucinogenic plants during the Paleolithic period.
People during the Middle Paleolithic such as the Neanderthals and Middle Paleolithic Homo sapiens in Africa began to catch shellfish for food as revealed by shellfish cooking in Neanderthal sites in Italy about 110,000 years ago and Middle Paleolithic Homo sapiens sites at Pinnacle Point, in Africa around 164,000 BP. Although fishing only became common during the Upper Paleolithic, fish have been part of human diets long before the dawn of the Upper Paleolithic era and have certainly have been consumed by humans since at least the Middle Stone Age/Middle Paleolithic. For example the Middle Stone Age/Middle Paleolithic Homo sapiens in the region now occupied by the Democratic Republic of the Congo hunted large 6 foot long catfish with specialized barbed fishing points as early as 90,000 years ago. The invention of fishing during the Paleolithic affected the social structures of some Upper Paleolithic and post Paleolithic hunter-gatherer societies by allowing these hunter-gatherer communities in the Upper Paleolithic and the following Mesolithic period (for example, Lepenski Vir) as well as some contemporary hunter-gatherers such as the Tlingit to become sedentary or semi-nomadic. In some instances (at least in the case of the Tlingit) they were able to develop social stratification, slavery and complex social structures such as chiefdoms.
Anthropologists such as Tim White suggest that cannibalism was common in human societies prior to the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic, based on the large amount of “butchered human" bones found in Neanderthal and other Lower/Middle Paleolithic sites. Cannibalism in the Lower and Middle Paleolithic may have occurred because of food shortages. However it is also possible that Lower and Middle Paleolithic cannabalism occurred for religious reasons which would coincide with the development of religious practices thought to have occurred during the Upper Paleolithic. Nonetheless it remains possible that Paleolithic societies never practiced cannibalism and that the damage to recovered human bones was either the result of ritual post-mortem bone cleaning or predation by carnivores such as Saber tooth cats, Lions and Hyenas.

See also

Footnotes

References

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