View source for Paleolithic

{{short description|Prehistoric period, first part of the Stone Age}}
{{pp-semi-indef|small=yes}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=November 2025}}
[[File:Glyptodon old drawing.jpg|thumb|Hunting a ''[[Glyptodon]]''. Painting by [[Heinrich Harder]] {{Circa|1920}}.]]
[[File:Lubang Jeriji Saléh cave painting of Bull.jpg|thumb|The oldest known figurative painting is a depiction of a bull that was discovered in the [[Lubang Jeriji Saléh]] cave in [[Indonesia]]. It was painted 40,000–52,000 years ago or earlier.]]
{{Paleolithic}}
The '''Paleolithic''' or '''Palaeolithic''' ({{circa|3.3 million|11,700}} years ago) ({{IPAc-en|ˌ|p|eɪ|l|i|oʊ|ˈ|l|ɪ|θ|ɪ|k|,_|ˌ|p|æ|l|i|-|audio=LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-Paleolithic.wav}} {{respell|PAY|lee|oh|LITH|ik |,_|PAL|ee|-}}), also called the '''Old [[Stone Age]]''' ({{etymology|grc|''{{Wikt-lang|grc|παλαιός}}'' ([[wikt:palaeo-|{{grc-transl|παλαιός}}]])|old||''{{Wikt-lang|grc|λίθος}}'' ([[wikt:litho-|{{grc-transl|λίθος}}]])|stone}}), is a period in human [[prehistory]] that is distinguished by the original development of [[stone tool]]s, and which represents almost the entire period of human [[prehistoric technology]]. It extends from the earliest known use of stone tools by [[Hominini|hominins]], {{circa}}&nbsp;3.3&nbsp;million years ago, to the end of the [[Pleistocene]], {{circa}}&nbsp;11,650 [[Before Present#Radiocarbon calibration|cal]] [[Before Present|BP]].<ref name="Thoth&Schick">{{cite book |doi=10.1007/978-3-540-33761-4_64 |title= Handbook of Paleoanthropology |pages=1943–1963 |year=2007 |last1=Toth |first1=Nicholas |last2=Schick |first2=Kathy |chapter=21 Overview of Paleolithic Archeology |isbn=978-3-540-32474-4 |editor1-last=Henke |editor1-first=H. C. Winfried |editor2-last=Hardt |editor2-first=Thorolf |editor3-last=Tatersall |editor3-first=Ian |volume=3 |location=Berlin; Heidelberg; New York |publisher=[[Springer Science+Business Media|Springer]]}}</ref>

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 [[band society|bands]] and subsisted by gathering plants, fishing, and hunting or scavenging wild animals.<ref name="McClellan">{{cite book|author=McClellan |title=Science and Technology in World History: An Introduction |location=Baltimore |publisher=[[Johns Hopkins University Press]] |year=2006 |isbn=978-0-8018-8360-6 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aJgp94zNwNQC |pages=6–12}}</ref> The Paleolithic Age is characterized by the use of [[Knapping|knapped]] stone tools,{{Not verified in body|date=November 2024}} although at the time humans also used wood and bone tools. Other organic commodities were adapted for use as tools, including [[leather]] and vegetable [[fiber]]s; 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 [[Artifact (archaeology)|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 point]]s, 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]].<ref name="encarta.msn.com">{{cite encyclopedia |url=http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761566394/Human_Evolution.html |title=Human Evolution |encyclopedia=Microsoft Encarta Online Encyclopedia 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091028041106/http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761566394/Human_Evolution.html |archive-date=28 October 2009 |author=Richard B. Potts |access-date=12 March 2008 }}</ref> 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 practice|spiritual]] behavior such as [[burial]] and [[ritual]].<ref name=Lieberman>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3tS2MULo5rYC&q=Uniquely+Human+cognitive-linguistic+base&pg=PA162 |title=Uniquely Human |first=Philip |last=Lieberman |isbn=978-0-674-92183-2 |year=1991 |publisher=[[Harvard University Press]] |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts |author-link=Philip Lieberman}}</ref>{{page needed|date=January 2020}}<ref name="Kusimba 2003 285">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xCa5zfefWVUC&q=Middle+Paleolithic |title=African Foragers: Environment, Technology, Interactions |last=Kusimba |first=Sibel |year=2003 |publisher=Rowman Altamira |isbn=978-0-7591-0154-8 |page=285}}</ref>{{request quotation|date=January 2020}} Conditions during the Paleolithic Age went through a set of glacial and [[interglacial period]]s in which the [[climate]] periodically fluctuated between warm and cool temperatures.

By {{c.|50,000|40,000|lk=on}}&nbsp;BP, the first humans set foot in [[Australia]]. By {{c.|45,000}}&nbsp;BP, humans lived at 61°N latitude in [[Europe]].<ref name="Sami">{{cite web|url=http://www.utexas.edu/courses/sami/dieda/hist/SamiPrehistRevisitNew.htm |title=Sami Prehistory Revisited: transactions, admixture and assimilation in the phylogeographic picture of Scandinavia |first=John |last=Weinstock |publisher=[[University of Texas]]}}</ref> By {{c.|30,000|lk= no}}&nbsp;BP, [[Japan]] was reached, and by {{c.|27,000|lk= no}}&nbsp;BP humans were present in [[Siberia]], above the [[Arctic Circle]].<ref name="Sami" /> By the end of the Upper Paleolithic Age humans had crossed [[Beringia]] and expanded throughout the [[Americas]] continents.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Goebel |first1=Ted |last2=Waters |first2=Michael R. |last3=O'Rourke |first3=Dennis H. |date=14 March 2008 |title=The Late Pleistocene Dispersal of Modern Humans in the Americas |journal=[[Science (journal)|Science]] |language=en |volume=319 |issue=5869 |pages=1497–502 |doi=10.1126/science.1153569 |issn=0036-8075 |pmid=18339930 |bibcode=2008Sci...319.1497G |s2cid=36149744 |url=http://www.unl.edu/rhames/courses/current/readings/GoebelsHumansinAmericas2008.pdf |access-date=24 September 2019 |archive-date=22 September 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170922212528/http://www.unl.edu/rhames/courses/current/readings/GoebelsHumansinAmericas2008.pdf }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|last1=Bennett |first1=Matthew R. |last2=Bustos |first2=David |last3=Pigati |first3=Jeffrey S. |last4=Springer |first4=Kathleen B. |last5=Urban |first5=Thomas M. |last6=Holliday |first6=Vance T. |last7=Reynolds |first7=Sally C. |last8=Budka |first8=Marcin |last9=Honke |first9=Jeffrey S. |last10=Hudson |first10=Adam M. |last11=Fenerty |first11=Brendan |last12=Connelly |first12=Clare |last13=Martinez |first13=Patrick J. |last14=Santucci |first14=Vincent L. |last15=Odess |first15=Daniel |date=23 September 2021|title=Evidence of humans in North America during the Last Glacial Maximum |journal=[[Science (journal)|Science]] |language=en |volume=373 |issue=6562 |pages=1528–1531 |doi=10.1126/science.abg7586 |pmid=34554787 |bibcode=2021Sci...373.1528B |s2cid=237616125 |issn=0036-8075 |url=https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abg7586|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

== Etymology ==
The term "[[wikt:Paleolithic|Palaeolithic]]" was coined by archaeologist [[John Lubbock, 1st Baron Avebury|John Lubbock]] in 1865.<ref>{{cite book |last=Lubbock |first=John |author-link=John Lubbock, 1st Baron Avebury |orig-date=1872 |year=2005 |title=Pre-Historic Times, as Illustrated by Ancient Remains, and the Manners and Customs of Modern Savages |publisher=Williams and Norgate |page=75 |via=Elibron Classics |chapter=4 |chapter-url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc2.ark:/13960/t7vm4dg4c;view=1up;seq=87 |isbn=978-1-4212-7039-5}}</ref> It derives from Greek: [[wikt:παλαιός|παλαιός]], ''palaios'', "old"; and [[wikt:λίθος|λίθος]], ''lithos'', "stone", meaning "old age of the stone" or "Old [[Stone Age]]".

== Paleogeography and climate ==
{{Main|Pleistocene#Paleogeography and climate|Pliocene climate|Pliocene#Paleogeography}}
{{Human timeline}}
[[File:Homo heidelbergensis. Museo de Prehistoria de Valencia.jpg|thumb|left|upright=0.7|A skull of early ''[[Homo neanderthalensis]]'', [[Miguelón]] from the [[Lower Paleolithic]] dated to 430,000&nbsp;BP.]]
[[File:20191021 Temperature from 20,000 to 10,000 years ago - recovery from ice age.png|thumb|290px |right |Temperature rise in Antarctica marking the end of the Paleolithic, as derived from ice core data.]]
<!--[[File:AntarcticaDomeCSnow.jpg|thumb|left|The Paleolithic climate consisted of a set of glacial and interglacial periods.]]-->
The Paleolithic overlaps with the [[Pleistocene]] epoch of geologic time. Both ended 12,000 years ago although the Pleistocene started 2.6&nbsp;million years ago, 700,000 years after the Paleolithic's start.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/quaternary/pleistocene.php |title=The Pleistocene Epoch |publisher=[[University of California Museum of Paleontology]] |access-date=22 August 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140824111711/http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/quaternary/pleistocene.php |archive-date=24 August 2014 }}</ref> This epoch experienced important geographic and climatic changes that affected human societies.

During the preceding [[Pliocene]], continents had continued to [[plate tectonics|drift]] from possibly as far as {{cvt|250|km|lk=on|abbr=off}} from their present locations to positions only {{cvt|70|km}} 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 [[equator]]ial 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.<ref name=UCMPPliocene>{{cite web|url=http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/tertiary/pli.html |title=University of California Museum of Paleontology website the Pliocene epoch |publisher=[[University of California Museum of Paleontology]] |access-date=31 January 2010}}</ref> Africa's collision with Asia created the Mediterranean, cutting off the remnants of the [[Tethys Ocean]]. During the [[Pleistocene]], the [[continent]]s were essentially at their modern positions; the [[tectonic plate]]s on which they sit have probably moved at most {{cvt|100|km}} from each other since the beginning of the period.<ref name=Scotese>{{cite web|url=http://www.scotese.com/lastice.htm |first=Christopher |last=Scotese |title=Paleomap project |access-date=23 March 2008 |work=The Earth has been in an Ice House Climate for the last 30 million years |author-link=Christopher Scotese}}</ref>

Climates during the Pliocene became cooler and drier, and seasonal, similar to modern climates. [[Ice sheet]]s grew on [[Antarctica]]. The formation of an Arctic ice cap around 3&nbsp;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.<ref name="Andel">{{cite book|last=Van Andel |first=Tjeerd H. |title=New Views on an Old Planet: A History of Global Change |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |year=1994 |location=Cambridge |page=[https://archive.org/details/newviewsonoldpla00vana/page/454 454] |isbn=978-0-521-44243-5 |url=https://archive.org/details/newviewsonoldpla00vana/page/454}}</ref> Mid-latitude [[glacier|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 [[grassland]]s and [[savanna]]s.<ref name=UCMPPliocene/>

The [[Pleistocene]] climate was characterized by repeated glacial cycles during which [[continental glacier]]s pushed to the 40th [[parallel (latitude)|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 {{cvt|1500–3000|m|ft|lk=on|abbr=off}} deep, resulting in temporary sea level drops of {{cvt|100|m}} 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 mammoth]]s, [[woolly rhinoceros]]es, and [[Panthera leo fossilis|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 [[Patagonia]]n 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 (Latest Pleistocene) {{c.|18,000}}&nbsp;BP, the [[Beringia]] land bridge between Asia and North America was blocked by ice,<ref name=Scotese/> which [[Clovis culture#Evidence of human habitation before Clovis|may have prevented]] early [[Paleo-Indian]]s such as the [[Clovis culture]] from directly crossing [[Beringia]] 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 Ocean|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.<ref>{{cite AV media|publisher=[[National Geographic Channel]] |title=Six Degrees Could Change The World Mark Lynas interview}} <!--|access-date=14 February 2008--></ref>

The Paleolithic is often held to finish at the end of the ice age (the end of the Pleistocene epoch), 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 [[Quaternary extinction event|Pleistocene extinctions]] were (at least in part) caused by other factors such as disease and overhunting by humans.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/quaternary/ple.html |title=University of California Museum of Paleontology website the Pleistocene epoch(accessed March 25) |publisher=[[University of California Museum of Paleontology]] |access-date=31 January 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100207061412/http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/quaternary/ple.html |archive-date=7 February 2010 }}</ref><ref name=Johnson>{{cite web|url=http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/04/080401-mammoth-extinction.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080405041532/http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/04/080401-mammoth-extinction.html |archive-date=5 April 2008 |first=Kimberly |last=Johnson |work=[[National Geographic]] news |access-date=4 April 2008 |title=Climate Change, Then Humans, Drove Mammoths Extinct from National Geographic}}</ref> New research suggests that the extinction of the [[woolly mammoth]] may have been caused by the combined effect of climatic change and human hunting.<ref name=Johnson/> 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.<ref name=Johnson/> 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.<ref name=Johnson/> Small populations of woolly mammoths survived on isolated Arctic islands, [[Saint Paul Island (Alaska)|Saint Paul Island]] and [[Wrangel Island]], until {{c.|3700}}&nbsp;BP and {{c.|1700|lk=no}}&nbsp;BP respectively. The Wrangel Island population became extinct around the same time the island was settled by prehistoric humans.<ref>{{cite book |title=Walker's Mammals of the World |url=https://archive.org/details/walkersmammalsof0001nowa |url-access=registration |last=Nowak |first=Ronald M. |year=1999 |publisher=[[Johns Hopkins University Press]] |location=Baltimore |isbn=978-0-8018-5789-8}}</ref> There is no evidence of prehistoric human presence on Saint Paul island (though early human settlements dating as far back as 6500 BP were found on the nearby [[Aleutian Islands]]).<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~wsoon/HoloceneClimate+Optimum10-d/Enketal09-midHoloceneMammothStPaulIslandAlaska.pdf |title=Phylogeographic Analysis of the mid-Holocene Mammoth from Qagnax Cave, St. Paul Island, Alaska |publisher=[[Harvard University]]}}{{Dead link|date=February 2025}}</ref>

{| class="wikitable" style="margin:0.5em auto; text-align:center;"
|+ Classifications of Paleolithic geoclimatic episodes<ref>{{cite book|last=Gamble |first=Clive |date=1990 |title=El poblamiento Paleolítico de Europa |language=es |trans-title=The Paleolithic settlement of Europe |location=Barcelona |publisher=Editorial Crítica|isbn=84-7423-445-X}}</ref>
|- valign="top"
!Age <br />(before)!![[North America|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 glaciation|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 glaciation|Kansan Stage]]'''
|-
|| 750,000 years ||Aftoniense ||Cromeriense ||''Maarifiense'' ||''Siciliense'' ||[[Cromer Forest Bed|Cromerian Complex]]
|-
|| 1,100,000 years ||'''Nebraska''' ||'''Beestoniense''' ||Regresión ||Regresión ||'''[[Beestonian stage]]'''
|-
|| 1,400,000 years ||interglacial ||Ludhamiense ||''Messaudiense'' ||''Calabriense'' ||Donau-Günz
|}

== Paleolithic people  ==
[[File:Terra-Amata-Hut.gif|thumb|right|An artist's rendering of a temporary wood house, based on evidence found at [[Terra Amata (archaeological site)|Terra Amata]] (in [[Nice, France]]) and dated to the Lower Paleolithic ({{c.|400,000}}&nbsp;BP)<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.musee-terra-amata.org/musee/le-site-acheuleen-de-terra-amata/ |title=Le site acheuléen de Terra Amata |language=fr |trans-title=The Acheulean site of Terra Amata |author=Musée de Préhistoire Terra Amata |website=Musée de Préhistoire Terra Amata |access-date=10 June 2022}}</ref>]]

Nearly all of our knowledge of Paleolithic people and way of life comes from [[archaeology]] and [[ethnography|ethnographic]] comparisons to modern hunter-gatherer cultures such as the [[!Kung people|!Kung San]] who live similarly to their Paleolithic predecessors.<ref name="Leften Stavrianos"/> The economy of a typical Paleolithic society was a [[hunter-gatherer]] economy.<ref name="Stavrianos">{{cite book |first=Leften Stavros |last=Stavrianos |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MKhe6qNva10C&q=paleolithic+society |title=A Global History from Prehistory to the Present |location=New Jersey |publisher=[[Prentice Hall]] |year=1991 |isbn=978-0-13-357005-2 |pages=[https://books.google.com/books?id=MKhe6qNva10C&q=paleolithic+society 9–13]}}</ref> Humans hunted wild animals for meat and gathered food, firewood, and materials for their tools, clothes, or shelters.<ref name="Stavrianos"/>

The population density was very low, around only {{convert|1|PD/sqmi|PD/km2|order=flip|1}}.<ref name="McClellan"/> This was most likely due to low body fat, [[infanticide]], high levels of physical activity among women,<ref name="Schultz">{{cite web |title=The Consequences of Domestication and Sedentism by Emily Schultz, et al |url=http://www.primitivism.com/sedentism.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090715184334/http://www.primitivism.com/sedentism.htm |archive-date=15 July 2009 |access-date=31 January 2010 |publisher=Primitivism.com}}</ref> late weaning of infants, and a [[nomad]]ic lifestyle.<ref name="McClellan"/> 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.<ref name="Stavrianos"/><ref>{{cite book |first=Felipe Fernandez |last=Armesto |title=Ideas that changed the world |publisher=Dorling Kindersley limited |location=New York |year=2003 |pages=[https://books.google.com/books?id=tFIAAAAACAAJ&q=Ideas+that+changed+the+world+by+Felipe+Fernandez+Armesto 10], [https://archive.org/details/ideasthatchanged0000fern_a2p4/page/400 400] |isbn=978-0-7566-3298-4 |url=https://archive.org/details/ideasthatchanged0000fern_a2p4/page/400}}</ref> At the end of the Paleolithic, specifically the Middle or Upper Paleolithic, people began to produce works of art such as [[cave painting]]s, [[rock art]] and [[jewellery]] and began to engage in religious behavior such as burials and rituals.<ref name="Hillary Mayell">{{cite web |url=http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/02/0220_030220_humanorigins2_2.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050813013143/http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/02/0220_030220_humanorigins2_2.html |archive-date=13 August 2005 |title=When Did "Modern" Behavior Emerge in Humans? |work=[[National Geographic]] News |author= Hillary Mayell |access-date=5 February 2008}}</ref>

=== Homo erectus ===
At the beginning of the Paleolithic, hominins were found primarily in eastern Africa, east of the [[Great Rift Valley]]. Most known hominin fossils dating earlier than one million years before present are found in this area, particularly in [[Kenya]], [[Tanzania]], and [[Ethiopia]].

By {{c.|2,000,000|1,500,000}}&nbsp;BP, groups of hominins began leaving Africa, settling southern Europe and Asia. The [[South Caucasus]] was occupied by {{c.|1,700,000|lk=no}}&nbsp;BP, and northern China was reached by {{c.|1,660,000|lk=no}}&nbsp;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 control of fire: studies of cave settlements in Europe indicate no regular use of fire prior to {{c.|400,000|300,000|lk=no}}&nbsp;BP.<ref>{{cite journal|title=On the earliest evidence for habitual use of fire in Europe |first1=Wil |last1=Roebroeks |first2=Paola |last2=Villa |journal=[[PNAS]] |date=14 March 2011 |volume=108 |issue=13 |pages=5209–5214
 |doi=10.1073/pnas.1018116108|pmid=21402905 |pmc=3069174 |bibcode=2011PNAS..108.5209R |doi-access=free }}</ref>

East Asian fossils from this period are typically placed in the genus ''[[Homo erectus]]''. Very little fossil evidence is available at known 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 subject 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|1,500,000}}&nbsp;BP. Around 500,000&nbsp;BP a group of early humans, frequently called ''[[Homo heidelbergensis]]'', came to Europe from Africa and eventually evolved into ''Homo neanderthalensis'' ([[Neanderthal]]s). In the Middle Paleolithic, Neanderthals were present in the region now occupied by Poland.

Both ''Homo erectus'' and ''Homo neanderthalensis'' became extinct by the start of the Upper Paleolithic. Descended from ''Homo sapiens'', the anatomically modern ''[[Homo sapiens sapiens]]'' emerged in eastern Africa {{c.|300,000}}&nbsp;BP, left Africa around 50,000&nbsp;BP, and expanded throughout the planet. Multiple hominid groups coexisted for some time in certain locations. ''Homo neanderthalensis'' were still found in parts of Eurasia {{c.|40,000}}&nbsp;BP years, and engaged in an unknown degree of interbreeding with ''Homo sapiens sapiens''. DNA studies also suggest an unknown degree of interbreeding between ''Homo sapiens sapiens'' and ''[[Denisovan|Homo sapiens denisova]]''.<ref>{{cite journal |first=Callaway |last=Ewen |date=22 September 2011 |title=First Aboriginal genome sequenced |journal=[[Nature News]] |doi=10.1038/news.2011.551}}</ref>

Hominin fossils not belonging either to ''Homo neanderthalensis'' or to ''Homo sapiens'' species, found in the [[Altai Mountains]] and Indonesia, were radiocarbon dated to {{c.|30,000|40,000}}&nbsp;BP and {{c.|17,000|lk=no}}&nbsp;BP respectively.

For the duration of the Paleolithic, human populations remained low, especially outside the equatorial region. The entire population of Europe between 16,000 and 11,000&nbsp;BP likely averaged some 30,000 individuals, and between 40,000 and 16,000&nbsp;BP, it was even lower at 4,000–6,000 individuals.<ref>{{cite journal|url=http://www.evolhum.cnrs.fr/bocquet/jas2005.pdf |title=Estimates of Upper Palaeolithic meta-population size in Europe from archaeological data |first=Jean-Pierre |last=Bocquet-Appel |year=2005 |journal=[[Journal of Archaeological Science]] |doi=10.1016/j.jas.2005.05.006 |volume=32 |issue=11 |pages=1656–1668 |bibcode=2005JArSc..32.1656B |display-authors=etal |access-date=9 October 2012 |archive-date=20 October 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171020081349/http://www.evolhum.cnrs.fr/bocquet/jas2005.pdf }}</ref> However, remains of thousands of butchered animals and tools made by Palaeolithic humans were found in [[Lapa do Picareiro]], a cave in [[Portugal]], dating back between 41,000 and 38,000 years ago.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://cosmosmagazine.com/history/archaeology/more-surprises-about-palaeolithic-humans/ |title=More surprises about Palaeolithic humans |website=[[Cosmos Magazine]] |date=29 September 2020}}</ref>

== Technology and crafts ==
[[File:Bifaz de Atapuerca (TG10).jpg|thumb|left|[[Lower Paleolithic]] [[biface]] viewed from both its superior and inferior surface|alt=photograph]]

Some researchers have noted that science, limited in that age to some early ideas about [[astronomy]] (or [[cosmology]]),{{citation needed|date=January 2023}}<!-- is there any actual evidence for this, or is it just somebody's guess? --> had limited impact on Paleolithic technology. Making fire was widespread knowledge, and it was possible without an understanding of chemical processes. These types of practical skills are sometimes called crafts. Religion, superstitution or appeals to the supernatural may have played a part in the cultural explanations of phenomena like [[combustion]].<ref>{{cite book|last1=McClellan|first1=James E.|last2=Dorn |first2=Harold |title=Science and Technology in World History|date=2006|publisher=The Johns Hopkins University Press |location=United States |page=13}}</ref>

=== Tools ===
Paleolithic humans made tools of stone, bone (primarily of deer), and wood.<ref name="Stavrianos"/> 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&nbsp;million years ago. Evidence shows these early hominins intentionally selected raw stone with good flaking qualities and chose appropriately sized stones for their needs to produce sharp-edged tools for cutting.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Semaw |first1=Sileshi |title=The World's Oldest Stone Artefacts from Gona, Ethiopia: Their Implications for Understanding Stone Technology and Patterns of Human Evolution Between 2.6–1.5 Million Years Ago |journal=[[Journal of Archaeological Science]] |date=2000 |volume=27 |issue=12 |pages=1197–214 |doi=10.1006/jasc.1999.0592 |bibcode=2000JArSc..27.1197S |s2cid=1490212 }}</ref>

The earliest Paleolithic stone tool industry, the [[Oldowan]], began around 2.6&nbsp;million years ago.<ref name=Klein>{{cite book |last=Klein |first=R. |year=1999 |title=The Human Career |url=https://archive.org/details/humancareerhuman00klei_0 |url-access=registration |publisher=[[University of Chicago Press]] |isbn=978-0-226-43963-1}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Oldowan Stone Tools |url=https://www.bradshawfoundation.com/origins/oldowan_stone_tools.php}}</ref> It produced tools such as [[Chopper (archaeology)|chopper]]s, [[Burin (lithic flake)|burins]], and [[stitching awl]]s. It was completely replaced around 250,000 years ago by the more complex [[Acheulean]] industry, which was first conceived by ''[[Homo ergaster]]'' around 1.8–1.65&nbsp;million years ago.<ref>{{cite journal|first1=Hélène |last1=Roche |first2=Jean-Philip |last2=Brugal |first3=Anne |last3=Delagnes |first4=Craig |last4=Feibel |first5=Sonia |last5=Harmand |first6=Mzalendo |last6=Kibunjia |first7=Sandrine |last7=Prat |first8=Pierre-Jean |last8=Texier |title=Les sites archéologiques plio-pléistocènes de la formation de Nachukui, Ouest-Turkana, Kenya: bilan synthétique 1997-2001 |language=fr |trans-title=The Plio-Pleistocene archaeological sites of the Nachukui formation, West-Turkana, Kenya: summary report 1997-2001 |pages=663–673 |journal=Palevol Reports |volume=2 |issue=8 |date=2003|doi=10.1016/j.crpv.2003.06.001 |bibcode=2003CRPal...2..663R |url=https://shs.hal.science/halshs-00134898/file/Rocheetal2003.pdf }}</ref> The Acheulean implements completely vanish from the archaeological record around 100,000 years ago and were replaced by more complex Middle Paleolithic tool kits such as the [[Mousterian]] and the [[Aterian]] industries.<ref>[[John Desmond Clark|Clark, JD]], ''Variability in primary and secondary technologies of the Later Acheulian in Africa'' in Milliken, S and Cook, J (eds), 2001</ref>

Lower Paleolithic humans used a variety of stone tools, including [[hand axe]]s and choppers. Although they appear to have used hand axes often, there is disagreement about their use. Interpretations range from cutting and chopping tools, to digging implements, to flaking cores, to the use in traps, and as a purely ritual significance, perhaps in [[Courtship display|courting behavior]]. [[William H. Calvin]] has suggested that some hand axes could have served as "killer [[frisbees]]" meant to be thrown at a herd of animals at a waterhole so as to stun one of them. There are no indications of [[hafting]], and 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 defense against predators. Choppers and [[Scraper (archaeology)|scrapers]] were likely used for skinning and butchering scavenged animals and sharp-ended sticks were often obtained for digging up edible roots. Presumably, early humans used wooden spears as early as 5&nbsp;million years ago to hunt small animals, much as their relatives, [[Common chimpanzee|chimpanzees]], have been observed to do in [[Senegal]], Africa.<ref>{{cite news|first=Rick |last=Weiss |url= https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/22/AR2007022201007.html |title=Chimps Observed Making Their Own Weapons |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] |date=22 February 2007}}</ref> Lower Paleolithic humans constructed shelters, such as the possible wood hut at [[Terra Amata (archaeological site)|Terra Amata]].

{{Further|List of earliest tools}}

=== Fire use ===
[[File:Font-de-Gaume.jpg|thumb|[[Charles R. Knight]]'s 1920 reconstruction of Magdalenian painters at [[Font-de-Gaume]], France]]
Fire was used by the Lower Paleolithic hominins ''[[Homo erectus]]'' and ''[[Homo ergaster]]'' as early as 300,000 to 1.5&nbsp;million years ago and possibly even earlier by the early Lower Paleolithic (Oldowan) hominin ''[[Homo habilis]]'' or by robust ''[[Australopithecine]]s'' such as ''[[Paranthropus]]''.<ref name="McClellan"/> However, the use of fire only became common in the societies of the following [[Middle Stone Age]] and [[Middle Paleolithic]].<ref name="Thoth&Schick"/> Use of fire reduced mortality rates and provided protection against predators.<ref name=MarloweFW22>{{cite journal |last=Marlowe |first=F.W. |title=Hunter-gatherers and human evolution |journal=[[Evolutionary Anthropology (journal)|Evolutionary Anthropology]] |volume=14 |issue=2 |page=15294 |year=2005 |url=http://www.anthro.fsu.edu/people/faculty/marlowe_pubs/hunter-gatherers%20and%20human%20evolution.pdf |doi=10.1002/evan.20046 |s2cid=53489209 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080527230019/http://www.anthro.fsu.edu/people/faculty/marlowe_pubs/hunter-gatherers%20and%20human%20evolution.pdf |archive-date=27 May 2008 |access-date=11 April 2008 }}</ref> Early hominins may have begun to cook their food as early as the Lower Paleolithic ({{c.|1.9}}&nbsp;million years ago) or at the latest in the early Middle Paleolithic ({{c.|250,000}} years ago).<ref name=Wrangham>{{cite journal |vauthors=Wrangham R, Conklin-Brittain N |title=Cooking as a biological trait |journal=Comp Biochem Physiol A |volume=136 |issue=1 |pages=35–46 |date=September 2003 |pmid=14527628 |doi=10.1016/S1095-6433(03)00020-5 |url=http://anthropology.tamu.edu/faculty/alvard/anth630/reading/Week%208%20Diet%20tubers/Wrangham%20and%20Conklin-Brittain%202003.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050519215539/http://anthropology.tamu.edu/faculty/alvard/anth630/reading/Week%208%20Diet%20tubers/Wrangham%20and%20Conklin-Brittain%202003.pdf |archive-date=19 May 2005}}</ref> Some scientists have hypothesized that hominins began cooking food to defrost frozen meat, which would help ensure their survival in cold regions.<ref name=Wrangham/>
Archaeologists cite morphological shifts in cranial anatomy as evidence for emergence of cooking and [[food processing]] technologies. These morphological changes include decreases in [[molar (tooth)|molar]] and jaw size, thinner tooth [[Tooth enamel|enamel]], and decrease in gut volume.<ref>Wrangham, R.W. 2009. Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human. Basic Books, New York.</ref>
During much of the [[Pleistocene]] epoch, our ancestors relied on simple [[food processing]] techniques such as [[roasting]].<ref>Johns, T.A., Kubo, I. 1988. A survey of traditional methods employed for the detoxification of plant foods. Journal of Ethnobiology 8, 81–129.</ref>
The [[Upper Palaeolithic]] saw the emergence of boiling, an advance in [[food processing]] technology which rendered plant foods more digestible, decreased their toxicity, and maximised their nutritional value.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Speth | first=J.D. | year=2015 | title=When did humans learn to boil | journal=PaleoAnthropology | pages=54–67}}</ref> 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.<ref>Mousterian Brace 1997: 545</ref> This technology is typified in the [[Middle Palaeolithic]] example of the [[Abri Pataud]] hearths.<ref>{{cite journal| last=Movius Jr | first=H.L. | year=1966 | title=The hearths of the Upper Perigordian and Aurignacian horizons at the Abri Pataud, Les Eyzies (Dordogne), and their possible significance | journal=American Anthropologist | pages=296–325}}</ref>

=== Rafts ===
The Lower Paleolithic ''Homo erectus'' possibly invented [[raft]]s ({{c.|840,000|800,000}}&nbsp;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 hominin ''[[Homo floresiensis]]''. However, this hypothesis is disputed within the anthropological community.<ref name="vicnet1">{{cite web |url=http://mc2.vicnet.net.au/home/mariners/web/mariner1.html |title=First Mariners Project Photo Gallery 1 |publisher=Mc2.vicnet.net.au |access-date=31 January 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091025085331/http://mc2.vicnet.net.au/home/mariners/web/mariner1.html |archive-date=25 October 2009 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://mc2.vicnet.net.au/home/mariners/web/ng2004.html |title=First Mariners – National Geographic project 2004 |publisher=Mc2.vicnet.net.au |date=2 October 2004 |access-date=31 January 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091026043820/http://mc2.vicnet.net.au/home/mariners/web/ng2004.html |archive-date=26 October 2009}}</ref> 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.<ref name="vicnet1"/> Supplementary evidence from Neanderthal and modern human sites located around the Mediterranean Sea, such as Coa de sa Multa ({{c.|300,000|lk=no}}&nbsp;BP), 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.<ref name="vicnet1"/><ref name="Miller2006">{{cite book |title=Anthropology |last1=Miller |first1=Barbra |first2=Bernard |last2=Wood |first3=Andrew |last3=Balansky |first4=Julio |last4=Mercader |first5=Melissa |last5=Panger |year=2006 |publisher=Allyn and Bacon |location=Boston |isbn=978-0-205-32024-0 |page=768}}</ref>

=== Advanced tools ===
By around 200,000&nbsp;BP, Middle Paleolithic [[stone tool]] manufacturing spawned a tool-making technique known as the [[prepared-core technique]], which was more elaborate than previous [[Acheulean]] techniques.<ref name="encarta.msn.com"/> This technique increased efficiency by allowing the creation of more controlled and consistent [[Lithic flake|flakes]].<ref name="encarta.msn.com"/> It allowed [[Middle Paleolithic]] humans to create stone-tipped [[spear]]s, 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 that allowed access to a wider variety and amount of food sources. For example, [[microlith]]s or small stone tools or points were invented around 70,000–65,000&nbsp;BP and were essential to the invention of bows and [[Spear-thrower|atlatls]] (spear throwers) in the following Upper Paleolithic.<ref name=MarloweFW22/>

[[Harpoon]]s were invented and used for the first time during the late Middle Paleolithic ({{c.|90,000}}&nbsp;BP); the invention of these devices brought fish into the human diets, which provided a hedge against starvation and a more abundant food supply.<ref name="Miller2006"/><ref name="ReferenceA-1">[http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761566394_12/human_evolution.html "Human Evolution," Microsoft Encarta Online Encyclopedia 2007] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080408032236/http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761566394_12/human_evolution.html |date=8 April 2008 }} Contributed by Richard B. Potts, B.A., Ph.D.</ref> Thanks to their technology and their advanced social structures, Paleolithic groups such as the Neanderthals—who had a Middle Paleolithic level of technology—appear to have hunted large game just as well as Upper Paleolithic modern humans,<ref name=Parson2006>{{cite web |url=http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/01/0125_060125_neanderthal.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060217152429/http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/01/0125_060125_neanderthal.html |archive-date=17 February 2006 |title=Neanderthals Hunted as Well as Humans, Study Says |work=National Geographic News |author=Ann Parson |access-date=1 February 2008}}</ref> and the Neanderthals in particular may have likewise hunted with projectile weapons.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Boëda |first1=E. |last2=Geneste |first2=J.M. |last3=Griggo |first3=C. |last4=Mercier |first4=N. |last5=Muhesen |first5=S. |last6=Reyss |first6=J.L. |last7=Taha |first7=A. |last8=Valladas |first8=H. |year=1999 |title=A Levallois point embedded in the vertebra of a wild ass (Equus africanus): Hafting, projectiles and Mousterian hunting |journal=[[Antiquity (journal)|Antiquity]] |volume=73 |issue=280 |pages=394–402 |doi=10.1017/S0003598X00088335 |s2cid=163560577}}</ref> Nonetheless, Neanderthal use of projectile weapons in hunting occurred very rarely (or perhaps never) and the Neanderthals hunted large game animals mostly by [[ambush]]ing them and attacking them with handheld weapons such as thrusting spears rather than attacking them from a distance with projectiles.<ref name="Hillary Mayell"/><ref>{{cite news |url=https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4251299.stm |title= The icy truth behind Neanderthals |work=[[BBC News]] |first=Cameron |last=Balbirnie |access-date=1 April 2008 |date=10 May 2005}}</ref>

=== Other inventions ===
During the [[Upper Paleolithic]], further inventions were made, such as the [[net (device)|net]] ({{c.|22,000}} or {{c.|29,000|lk=no}}&nbsp;BP)<ref name=MarloweFW22/> [[bolas]],<ref>J. Chavaillon, D. Lavallée, « Bola », in ''Dictionnaire de la Préhistoire'', PUF, 1988.</ref> the [[spear thrower]] ({{c.|30,000|lk=no}}&nbsp;BP), the bow and arrow ({{c.|25,000|lk=no}} or {{c.|30,000|lk=no}}&nbsp;BP)<ref name="McClellan"/> and the oldest example of ceramic art, the [[Venus of Dolní Věstonice]] ({{c.|29,000|25,000|lk=no}}&nbsp;BP).<ref name="McClellan"/> [[Kilu Cave]] at [[Buka Island|Buku island]], [[Solomon Islands (archipelago)|Solomon Islands]], demonstrates navigation of some 60&nbsp;km of open ocean at 30,000 BCcal.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Wickler |first=Stephen |title=Prehistoric Melanesian Exchange and Interaction: Recent Evidence from the Northern Solomon Islands. |url=https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/bitstream/handle/10125/16987/AP-v29n2-135-154.pdf |journal=Asian Perspectives |volume=29 |issue=2 |pages=135–154}}</ref>

Early dogs were domesticated sometime between 30,000 and 14,000&nbsp;BP, presumably to aid in hunting.<ref name="TheBookofGeneralIgnorance">[[John Lloyd (producer)|Lloyd, J]] & [[John Mitchinson (researcher)|Mitchinson, J]]: "[[The Book of General Ignorance]]". Faber & Faber, 2006.</ref> However, the earliest instances of successful domestication of dogs may be much more ancient than this. Evidence from [[canidae|canine]] [[DNA]] collected by Robert K. Wayne suggests that dogs may have been first domesticated in the late Middle Paleolithic around 100,000&nbsp;BP or perhaps even earlier.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.sciencenews.org/pages/pdfs/data/1997/151-26/15126-11.pdf |title=Stalking the ancient dog |work=Science news |first=Christine |last=Mellot |access-date=3 January 2008}}</ref>

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}}&nbsp;BP). This was a lunar calendar that was used to document the phases of the moon. Genuine solar calendars did not appear until the Neolithic.<ref name="Felipe Fernandez Armesto 2003 400"/> Upper Paleolithic cultures were probably able to time the migration of game animals such as wild horses and deer.<ref name="ReferenceA-2">[http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761555928_4/Stone_Age.html "Stone Age," Microsoft Encarta Online Encyclopedia 2007] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091101033259/http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761555928_4/Stone_Age.html |date=1 November 2009 }} Contributed by Kathy Schick, B.A., M.A., Ph.D. and Nicholas Toth, B.A., M.A., Ph.D.</ref> This ability allowed humans to become efficient hunters and to exploit a wide variety of game animals.<ref name="ReferenceA-2"/> Recent research indicates that the Neanderthals timed their hunts and the migrations of game animals long before the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic.<ref name=Parson2006/>

== Diet and nutrition ==<!-- linked from article "Paleolithic diet" -->
{{See also|Pleistocene human diet}}
[[File:Wine grapes03.jpg|upright|thumb|People may have first fermented grapes in animal skin pouches to create [[wine]] during the Paleolithic age.<ref name="William Cocke">{{cite web |author=William Cocke |title=First Wine? Archaeologist Traces Drink to Stone Age |url=http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/07/0721_040721_ancientwine.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040724052540/http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/07/0721_040721_ancientwine.html |archive-date=24 July 2004 |access-date=3 February 2008 |work=National Geographic News}}</ref>]]

Paleolithic hunting and gathering people ate varying proportions of vegetables (including tubers and roots), fruit, seeds (including nuts and wild grass seeds) and insects, meat, fish, and shellfish.<ref>{{cite journal |author=Gowlett JAJ |year=2003 |title=What actually was the Stone Age Diet? |url=http://pcwww.liv.ac.uk/~gowlett/GowlettCJNE_13_03_02.pdf |journal=J Nutr Environ Med |volume=13 |issue=3 |pages=143–47 |doi=10.1080/13590840310001619338}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |vauthors=Weiss E, Wetterstrom W, Nadel D, Bar-Yosef O |date=29 June 2004 |title=The broad spectrum revisited: Evidence from plant remains |journal=Proc Natl Acad Sci USA |volume=101 |issue=26 |pages=9551–55 |bibcode=2004PNAS..101.9551W |doi=10.1073/pnas.0402362101 |pmc=470712 |pmid=15210984 |doi-access=free}}</ref> However, there is little direct evidence of the relative proportions of plant and animal foods.<ref>{{cite journal |author=Richards, MP |date=December 2002 |title=A brief review of the archaeological evidence for Palaeolithic and Neolithic subsistence |journal=Eur J Clin Nutr |volume=56 |issue=12 |pages=1270–78 |doi=10.1038/sj.ejcn.1601646 |pmid=12494313 |doi-access=free}}</ref> Although the term "[[paleolithic diet]]", without references to a specific timeframe or locale, is sometimes used with an implication that most humans shared a certain diet during the entire era, that is not entirely accurate. The Paleolithic was an extended period of time, during which multiple technological advances were made, many of which had impact on human dietary structure. For example, humans probably did not possess the control of fire until the Middle Paleolithic,<ref>{{cite book |last1=Johanson |first1=Donald |url=https://archive.org/details/fromlucytolangua2006joha |title=From Lucy to Language: Revised, Updated, and Expanded |last2=Blake |first2=Edgar |date=2006 |publisher=[[Simon & Schuster]] |isbn=978-0-7432-8064-8 |location=Berlin |pages=[https://archive.org/details/fromlucytolangua2006joha/page/96 96–97] |url-access=registration}}</ref> or tools necessary to engage in extensive [[fishing]].{{citation needed|date=March 2013}} On the other hand, both these technologies are generally agreed to have been widely available to humans by the end of the Paleolithic (consequently, allowing humans in some regions of the planet to rely heavily on fishing and hunting). In addition, the Paleolithic involved a substantial geographical expansion of human populations. During the Lower Paleolithic, ancestors of modern humans are thought to have been constrained to Africa east of the [[Great Rift Valley, Kenya|Great Rift Valley]]. During the Middle and Upper Paleolithic, humans greatly expanded their area of settlement, reaching ecosystems as diverse as [[New Guinea]] and [[Alaska]], and adapting their diets to whatever local resources were available.

Another view is that until the Upper Paleolithic, humans were [[frugivore]]s (fruit eaters) who supplemented their meals with carrion, eggs, and small prey such as baby birds and [[mussel]]s, and only on rare occasions managed to kill and consume big game such as [[antelope]]s.<ref name="HartSussman">{{cite book |last1=Hart |first1=Donna |url=https://archive.org/details/manhuntedprimate00hart |title=Man the Hunted |last2=Sussman |first2=Robert W. |publisher=Basic Books |year=2005 |isbn=978-0-8133-3936-8}}</ref> This view is supported by studies of higher apes, particularly [[Common chimpanzee|chimpanzees]]. Chimpanzees are the closest to humans genetically, sharing more than 96% of their DNA code with humans, and their digestive tract is functionally very similar to that of humans.<ref name="nationalgeographic_com">{{cite news |last=Lovgren |first=Stefan |date=31 August 2005 |title=Chimps, Humans 96 Percent the Same, Gene Study Finds |url=http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/08/0831_050831_chimp_genes.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050905010617/http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/08/0831_050831_chimp_genes.html |archive-date=5 September 2005 |access-date=23 December 2013 |work=[[National Geographic]]}}</ref> Chimpanzees are primarily [[frugivore]]s, but they could and would consume and digest animal flesh, given the opportunity. In general, their actual diet in the wild is about 95% [[Plant-based diet|plant-based]], with the remaining 5% filled with insects, eggs, and baby animals.<ref>{{cite web |title=Chimp hunting and flesh-eating |url=http://www.ecologos.org/chimphunt.htm}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |date=22 February 2007 |title=Chimpanzees 'hunt using spears' |url=https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6387611.stm |work=[[BBC News]]}}</ref> In some ecosystems, however, chimpanzees are predatory, forming parties to hunt monkeys.<ref>{{cite web |title=The Predatory Behavior and Ecology of Wild Chimpanzees |url=http://www-bcf.usc.edu/~stanford/chimphunt.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130606110247/http://www-bcf.usc.edu/%7Estanford/chimphunt.html |archive-date=6 June 2013 |access-date=13 June 2014}}</ref> Some comparative studies of human and higher primate digestive tracts do suggest that humans have evolved to obtain greater amounts of calories from sources such as animal foods, allowing them to shrink the size of the gastrointestinal tract relative to body mass and to increase the brain mass instead.<ref name="meateating">{{cite journal |last=Milton |first=Katharine |year=1999 |title=A hypothesis to explain the role of meat-eating in human evolution |url=http://nature.berkeley.edu/miltonlab/pdfs/meateating.pdf |journal=[[Evolutionary Anthropology (journal)|Evolutionary Anthropology]] |volume=8 |issue=1 |pages=11–21 |doi=10.1002/(SICI)1520-6505(1999)8:1<11::AID-EVAN6>3.0.CO;2-M |s2cid=86221120}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Aiello |first1=Leslie C. |last2=Wheeler |first2=Peter |year=1995 |title=The expensive-tissue hypothesis |url=http://references.260mb.com/Paleontologia/Aiello1995.pdf |journal=[[Current Anthropology]] |volume=36 |issue=2 |pages=199–221 |doi=10.1086/204350 |s2cid=144317407 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190517135907/http://references.260mb.com/Paleontologia/Aiello1995.pdf |archive-date=17 May 2019 |access-date=13 June 2014}}</ref>

Anthropologists have diverse opinions about the proportions of plant and animal foods consumed. Just as with still existing hunters and gatherers, there were many varied "diets" in different groups, and also varying through this vast amount of time. Some paleolithic hunter-gatherers consumed a significant amount of meat and possibly obtained most of their food from hunting,<ref>{{cite book |last=Cordain |first=L. |title=Early Hominin Diets: The Known, the Unknown, and the Unknowable |date=2006 |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |editor-last=Ungar |editor-first=P. |location=Oxford |pages=363–383 |chapter=Implications of Plio-Pleistocene Hominin Diets for Modern Humans |chapter-url=http://www.thepaleodiet.com/articles/2006_Oxford.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080227122833/http://www.thepaleodiet.com/articles/2006_Oxford.pdf |archive-date=27 February 2008}}</ref> while others were believed to have a primarily plant-based diet.<ref name="Dahlberg" /> Most, if not all, are believed to have been opportunistic omnivores.<ref>Nature's Magic: Synergy in Evolution and the Fate of Humankind By [[Peter Corning]]</ref> One hypothesis is that carbohydrate [[tuber]]s (plant underground [[storage organ]]s) may have been eaten in high amounts by pre-agricultural humans.<ref name="pmid16085279">{{cite journal |vauthors=Laden G, Wrangham R |date=October 2005 |title=The rise of the hominids as an adaptive shift in fallback foods: plant underground storage organs (USOs) and australopith origins |url=http://www.tc.umn.edu/~laden002/Laden_Wrangham_Roots.pdf |journal=[[Journal of Human Evolution]] |volume=49 |issue=4 |pages=482–98 |bibcode=2005JHumE..49..482L |doi=10.1016/j.jhevol.2005.05.007 |pmid=16085279 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080911010449/http://www.tc.umn.edu/~laden002/Laden_Wrangham_Roots.pdf |archive-date=11 September 2008}}</ref><ref name="pmid10539941">{{cite journal |vauthors=Wrangham RW, Jones JH, Laden G, Pilbeam D, Conklin-Brittain N |date=December 1999 |title=The Raw and the Stolen. Cooking and the Ecology of Human Origins |url=https://www.scribd.com/doc/255939/The-raw-and-the-stolen-Cooking-and-the-ecology-of-human-origins |journal=[[Current Anthropology]] |volume=40 |issue=5 |pages=567–94 |doi=10.1086/300083 |pmid=10539941 |s2cid=82271116|url-access=subscription }}{{Dead link|date=July 2018|bot=InternetArchiveBot|fix-attempted=yes}}</ref><ref name="pmid17472915">{{cite journal |vauthors=Yeakel JD, Bennett NC, Koch PL, Dominy NJ |date=July 2007 |title=The isotopic ecology of African mole rats informs hypotheses on the evolution of human diet |url=http://people.ucsc.edu/~njdominy/publications/pdf/Proc_R_Soc_B.pdf |journal=Proc Biol Sci |volume=274 |issue=1619 |pages=1723–1730 |doi=10.1098/rspb.2007.0330 |pmc=2493578 |pmid=17472915 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080911010452/http://people.ucsc.edu/~njdominy/publications/pdf/Proc_R_Soc_B.pdf |archive-date=11 September 2008 |access-date=10 August 2008}}</ref><ref name="pmid18032604">{{cite journal |vauthors=Hernandez-Aguilar RA, Moore J, Pickering TR |date=December 2007 |title=Savanna chimpanzees use tools to harvest the underground storage organs of plants |journal=Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A |volume=104 |issue=49 |pages=19210–19213 |doi=10.1073/pnas.0707929104 |pmc=2148269 |pmid=18032604 |doi-access=free}}</ref> It is thought that the Paleolithic diet included as much as {{cvt|1.65–1.9|kg|lk=on|abbr=off}} per day of fruit and vegetables.<ref>{{cite conference |last1=Eaton |first1=S. Boyd |url=http://www.direct-ms.org/pdf/EvolutionPaleolithic/Long%20chain%20fatty%20acids.pdf |title=Dietary intake of long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids during the Paleolithic |last2=Eaton III |first2=Stanley B. |last3=Sinclair |first3=Andrew J. |last4=Cordain |first4=Loren |last5=Mann |first5=Neil J. |year=1998 |isbn=978-3-8055-6694-0 |book-title=The Return of ω3 Fatty Acids Into the Food Supply: Land-Based Animal Food Products and Their Health Effects |pages=12–23 |citeseerx=10.1.1.691.6953 |doi=10.1159/000059672 |pmid=9648501 |access-date=14 June 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150509034221/http://www.direct-ms.org/pdf/EvolutionPaleolithic/Long%20chain%20fatty%20acids.pdf |archive-date=9 May 2015 }}</ref> The relative proportions of plant and animal foods in the diets of Paleolithic people often varied between regions, with more meat being necessary in colder regions (which were not populated by anatomically modern humans until {{c.|30,000|50,000}}&nbsp;BP).<ref name="Gowlet">{{cite journal |last=Gowlet |first=J. A. J. |date=September 2003 |title=What actually was the stone age diet? |url=http://pcwww.liv.ac.uk/~gowlett/GowlettCJNE_13_03_02.pdf |journal=[[Journal of Environmental Medicine]] |volume=13 |issue=3 |pages=143–147 |doi=10.1080/13590840310001619338 |access-date=4 May 2008}})</ref> It is generally agreed that many modern hunting and fishing tools, such as fish hooks, nets, bows, and poisons, were not introduced until the Upper Paleolithic and possibly even Neolithic.<ref name="MarloweFW22" /> The only hunting tools widely available to humans during any significant part of the Paleolithic were hand-held spears and harpoons. There is evidence of Paleolithic people killing and eating [[Pinniped|seals]] and [[Taurotragus|elands]] as far as {{c.|100,000|lk=no}}&nbsp;BP. On the other hand, [[African Buffalo|buffalo]] bones found in African caves from the same period are typically of very young or very old individuals, and there is no evidence that pigs, elephants, or rhinos were hunted by humans at the time.<ref>{{cite book |last=Diamond |first=Jared |url=https://archive.org/details/thirdchimpanzee00jare_0 |title=The third chimpanzee: the evolution and future of the human animal |publisher=HarperCollins |year=1992 |isbn=978-0-06-098403-8 |url-access=registration}}</ref>

Paleolithic peoples suffered less [[famine]] and [[malnutrition]] than the Neolithic farming tribes that followed them.<ref name="Leften Stavrianos" /><ref name="Russel">{{cite book |last=Russell |first=Sharman Apt |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8CjOdT4LqYC&q=paleolithic+history+malnutrition&pg=PA2 |title=Hunger an unnatural history |publisher=[[Basic books]] |year=2006 |isbn=978-0-465-07165-4}}{{Dead link|date=September 2021|bot=InternetArchiveBot|fix-attempted=yes}} [https://books.google.com/books?id=8C-jOdT4LqYC p. 2]</ref> This was partly because Paleolithic hunter-gatherers accessed a wider variety of natural foods, which allowed them a more nutritious diet and a decreased risk of famine.<ref name="Leften Stavrianos" /><ref name="Schultz" /><ref name="jareddiamond" /> Many of the famines experienced by Neolithic (and some modern) farmers were caused or amplified by their dependence on a small number of crops.<ref name="Leften Stavrianos" /><ref name="Schultz" /><ref name="jareddiamond" /> It is thought that wild foods can have a significantly different nutritional profile than cultivated foods.<ref name="isbn0-89789-736-6">{{cite book |last=Milton |first=Katharine |title=Human Diet: Its Origins and Evolution |publisher=[[Bergin and Garvey]] |year=2002 |isbn=978-0-89789-736-5 |editor-last1=Ungar |editor-first1=Peter S. |location=Westport, CN |pages=111–22 |chapter=Hunter-gatherer diets: wild foods signal relief from diseases of affluence (PDF) |editor-last2=Teaford |editor-first2=Mark F. |chapter-url=http://nature.berkeley.edu/miltonlab/pdfs/humandiet.pdf}}</ref> The greater amount of meat obtained by hunting big game animals in Paleolithic diets than Neolithic diets may have also allowed Paleolithic hunter-gatherers to enjoy a more nutritious diet than Neolithic agriculturalists.<ref name="Russel" /> It has been argued that the shift from hunting and gathering to agriculture resulted in an increasing focus on a limited variety of foods, with meat likely taking a back seat to plants.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Larsen |first=Clark Spencer |date=1 November 2003 |title=Animal source foods and human health during evolution |journal=[[Journal of Nutrition]] |volume=133 |issue=11, Suppl 2 |pages=3893S–97S |doi=10.1093/jn/133.11.3893S |pmid=14672287 |doi-access=free}}</ref> 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 they ate mostly lean meats and plants and frequently engaged in intense physical activity,<ref name="pmid15699220">{{cite journal |vauthors=Cordain L, Eaton SB, Sebastian A, Mann N, Lindeberg S, Watkins BA, O'Keefe JH, Brand-Miller J |year=2005 |title=Origins and evolution of the Western diet: health implications for the 21st century |journal=[[The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition]] |volume=81 |issue=2 |pages=341–354 |doi=10.1093/ajcn.81.2.341 |pmid=15699220 |doi-access=free}}</ref><ref name="pmid3541565">{{cite journal |vauthors=Thorburn AW, Brand JC, Truswell AS |date=1 January 1987 |title=Slowly digested and absorbed carbohydrate in traditional bushfoods: a protective factor against diabetes? |url=http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/abstract/45/1/98 |journal=[[The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition]] |volume=45 |issue=1 |pages=98–106 |doi=10.1093/ajcn/45.1.98 |pmid=3541565|url-access=subscription }}</ref> and because the average lifespan was shorter than the age of common onset of these conditions.<ref name="kaplanetal2000">{{cite journal |last1=Kaplan |first1=Hillard |last2=Hill |first2=Kim |last3=Lancaster |first3=Jane |last4=Hurtado |first4=A. Magdalena |name-list-style=amp |year=2000 |title=A Theory of Human Life History Evolution: Diet, Intelligence and Longevity |url=http://www.unm.edu/~hkaplan/KaplanHillLancasterHurtado_2000_LHEvolution.pdf |journal=[[Evolutionary Anthropology (journal)|Evolutionary Anthropology]] |volume=9 |issue=4 |pages=156–85 |doi=10.1002/1520-6505(2000)9:4<156::AID-EVAN5>3.0.CO;2-7 |s2cid=2363289 |access-date=12 September 2010}}</ref><ref name="Casparie&Lee2004">{{cite journal |last1=Caspari |first1=Rachel |last2=Lee |first2=Sang-Hee |name-list-style=amp |date=27 July 2004 |title=Older age becomes common late in human evolution |journal=[[Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences]] |volume=101 |issue=20 |pages=10895–900 |doi=10.1073/pnas.0402857101 |pmc=503716 |pmid=15252198 |doi-access=free}}</ref>

Large-seeded [[legume]]s were part of the human diet long before the [[Neolithic Revolution]], as evident from archaeobotanical finds from the [[Mousterian]] layers of [[Kebara Cave]], in Israel.<ref name="doi10.1016/j.jas.2004.11.006">{{cite journal |last1=Lev |first1=Efraim |author-link1=Efraim Lev |last2=Kislev |first2=Mordechai E. |last3=Bar-Yosef |first3=Ofer |date=March 2005 |title=Mousterian vegetal food in Kebara Cave, Mt. Carmel |journal=[[Journal of Archaeological Science]] |volume=32 |issue=3 |pages=475–84 |bibcode=2005JArSc..32..475L |doi=10.1016/j.jas.2004.11.006}}</ref> There is evidence suggesting that Paleolithic societies were gathering wild cereals for food use at least as early as 30,000 years ago.<ref name="oldflour">{{cite journal |last1=Revedin |first1=Anna |last2=Aranguren |first2=B. |last3=Becattini |first3=R. |last4=Longo |first4=L. |last5=Marconi |first5=E. |last6=Lippi |first6=M.M. |last7=Skakun |first7=N. |last8=Sinitsyn |first8=A. |last9=Spiridonova |first9=E. |last10=Svoboda |first10=J. |display-authors=8 |year=2010 |title=Thirty thousand-year-old evidence of plant food processing |journal=[[Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America|Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A]] |volume=107 |issue=44 |pages=18815–19 |bibcode=2010PNAS..10718815R |doi=10.1073/pnas.1006993107 |pmc=2973873 |pmid=20956317 |doi-access=free}}</ref> However, seeds—such as grains and beans—were rarely eaten and never in large quantities on a daily basis.<ref name="doi:10.1080/11026480510032043">{{cite journal |last=Lindeberg |first=Staffan |date=June 2005 |title=Palaeolithic diet ("stone age" diet) |url=http://journals.sfu.ca/coaction/index.php/fnr/article/viewFile/1526/1394 |journal=Scandinavian Journal of Food & Nutrition |volume=49 |issue=2 |pages=75–77 |doi=10.1080/11026480510032043 |doi-access=free}}</ref> Recent archaeological evidence also indicates that [[winemaking]] may have originated in the Paleolithic, when early humans drank the juice of naturally fermented wild grapes from animal-skin pouches.<ref name="William Cocke" /> Paleolithic humans consumed animal [[organ (anatomy)|organ]] meats, including the [[liver]]s, [[kidney]]s, and [[brain]]s. Upper Paleolithic cultures appear to have had significant knowledge about plants and herbs and may have sometimes practiced rudimentary forms of [[horticulture]].<ref>{{cite book |author=Academic American Encyclopedia By Grolier Incorporated |title=Academic American Encyclopedia By Grolier Incorporated |publisher=Grolier Academic Reference |year=1994 |location=[[University of Michigan]]}}; [https://books.google.com/books?id=7eKy64bqc2AC&q=paleolithic+horticulture p 61]</ref> In particular, [[banana]]s and [[tuber]]s may have been cultivated as early as 25,000&nbsp;BP in [[southeast Asia]].<ref name="Kiefer" /> In the Paleolithic Levant, 23,000 years ago, cereals cultivation of [[emmer wheat|emmer]], [[barley]], and [[oats]] has been observed near the [[Sea of Galilee]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Snir |first1=Ainit |last2=Nadel |first2=Dani |last3=Groman-Yaroslavski |first3=Iris |last4=Melamed |first4=Yoel |last5=Sternberg |first5=Marcelo |last6=Bar-Yosef |first6=Ofer |last7=Weiss |first7=Ehud |date=22 July 2015 |title=The Origin of Cultivation and Proto-Weeds, Long Before Neolithic Farming |journal=PLOS ONE |language=en |volume=10 |issue=7 |article-number=e0131422 |bibcode=2015PLoSO..1031422S |doi=10.1371/journal.pone.0131422 |issn=1932-6203 |pmc=4511808 |pmid=26200895 |doi-access=free}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=First evidence of farming in Mideast 23,000 years ago: Evidence of earliest small-scale agricultural cultivation |url=https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/07/150722144709.htm |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220423041305/https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/07/150722144709.htm |archive-date=23 April 2022 |access-date=23 April 2022 |website=ScienceDaily |language=en}}</ref>

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 [[reindeer]], presumably for their meat or milk, as early as 14,000&nbsp;BP.<ref name="TheBookofGeneralIgnorance" /> Humans also probably consumed [[hallucinogenic]] plants during the Paleolithic.<ref name="McClellan" /> The [[Aboriginal Australians]] have been consuming a variety of native animal and plant foods, called [[bushfood]], for an estimated 60,000 years, since the [[Middle Paleolithic]].

In February 2019, scientists reported evidence, based on [[isotope]] studies, that at least some Neanderthals may have eaten meat.<ref name="PNAS-20190210">{{cite journal |last=Jaouen |first=Klervia |display-authors=etal |date=19 February 2019 |title=Exceptionally high δ15N values in collagen single amino acids confirm Neandertals as high-trophic level carnivores |journal=[[Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America]] |volume=116 |issue=11 |pages=4928–4933 |bibcode=2019PNAS..116.4928J |doi=10.1073/pnas.1814087116 |pmc=6421459 |pmid=30782806 |doi-access=free}}</ref><ref name="PHY-20190219">{{cite news |last=Yika |first=Bob |date=19 February 2019 |title=Isotopes found in bones suggest Neanderthals were fresh meat eaters |url=https://phys.org/news/2019-02-isotopes-bones-neanderthals-fresh-meat.html |access-date=20 February 2019 |work=Phys.org}}</ref><ref name="SD-20190219">{{cite news |author=Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology |author-link=Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology |date=19 February 2019 |title=Neanderthals' main food source was definitely meat – Isotope analyses performed on single amino acids in Neanderthals' collagen samples shed new light on their debated diet |url=https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/02/190219111704.htm |access-date=21 February 2019 |work=[[Science Daily]]}}</ref> 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 in Middle Paleolithic ''Homo sapiens'' sites at [[Pinnacle Point]], South Africa around 164,000&nbsp;BP.<ref name="Miller2006" /><ref name="NYTIMES/10/08/07">{{cite news |last=Wilford |first=John Noble |date=18 October 2007 |title=Key Human Traits Tied to Shellfish Remains |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/18/science/18beach.html?_r=1&ref=science&oref=slogin |access-date=11 March 2008 |work=[[The New York Times]]}}</ref> Although fishing only became common during the [[Upper Paleolithic]],<ref name="Miller2006" /><ref>{{cite news |title=African Bone Tools Dispute Key Idea About Human Evolution |url=http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/11/1108_bonetool_2.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060117013632/http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/11/1108_bonetool_2.html |archive-date=17 January 2006 |work=[[National Geographic]] News}}</ref> [[fish]] have been part of human diets long before the dawn of the Upper Paleolithic and have certainly been consumed by humans since at least the Middle Paleolithic.<ref name="ReferenceA-2" /> For example, the Middle Paleolithic ''Homo sapiens'' in the region now occupied by the [[Democratic Republic of the Congo]] hunted large {{cvt|6|ft|m|adj=on}}-long [[catfish]] with specialized barbed fishing points as early as 90,000 years ago.<ref name="Miller2006" /><ref name="ReferenceA-2" /> The invention of fishing allowed some Upper Paleolithic and later hunter-gatherer societies to become sedentary or semi-nomadic, which altered their social structures.<ref name="Bahn, Paul 1996" /> Example societies are the [[Lepenski Vir]] as well as some contemporary hunter-gatherers, such as the [[Tlingit people|Tlingit]]. In some instances (at least the Tlingit), they developed [[social stratification]], [[slavery]], and complex social structures such as [[chiefdom]]s.<ref name="MarloweFW22" />

Anthropologists such as Tim White suggest that [[Human cannibalism|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.<ref>{{cite book |author=Tim D. White |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-TVHr_XtDJcC&q=paleolithic+cannibalism&pg=PA338 |chapter=Once were Cannibals |title=Evolution: A Scientific American Reader |publisher=University of Chicago Press |year=2006 |isbn=978-0-226-74269-4 |access-date=14 February 2008}}</ref> Cannibalism in the Lower and Middle Paleolithic may have occurred because of food shortages.<ref>{{cite web |last=Owen |first=James |title=Neandertals Turned to Cannibalism, Bone Cave Suggests |url=http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/12/061205-cannibals.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061208001007/http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/12/061205-cannibals.html |archive-date=8 December 2006 |access-date=3 February 2008 |work=[[National Geographic]] News}}</ref> However, it may have been for religious reasons, and would coincide with the development of religious practices thought to have occurred during the Upper Paleolithic.<ref name="Narr" /><ref>{{cite journal |last=Pathou-Mathis |first=M. |year=2000 |title=Neanderthal subsistence behaviours in Europe |journal=International Journal of Osteoarchaeology |volume=10 |issue=5 |pages=379–395 |doi=10.1002/1099-1212(200009/10)10:5<379::AID-OA558>3.0.CO;2-4 |doi-access=free}}</ref> Nonetheless, it remains possible that Paleolithic societies never practiced cannibalism, and that the damage to recovered human bones was either the result of [[excarnation]] or [[predation]] by carnivores such as [[saber-toothed cat]]s, [[lion]]s, and [[hyena]]s.<ref name="Narr" />

A modern-day diet known as the [[Paleolithic diet]] exists, based on restricting consumption only to those foods presumed to be available to anatomically modern humans prior to the advent of settled [[agriculture]].<ref>{{cite web |date=22 April 2014 |title=Prehistoric Dining: The Real Paleo Diet |url=http://theplate.nationalgeographic.com/2014/04/22/prehistoric-dining-the-real-paleo-diet/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170804014549/http://theplate.nationalgeographic.com/2014/04/22/prehistoric-dining-the-real-paleo-diet/ |archive-date=4 August 2017 |access-date=3 August 2017 |website=[[National Geographic]]}}</ref>

== Social organization ==
{{Unreliable sources|date=February 2010}}

[[File:Arrowhead.jpg|thumb|Humans may have taken part in long-distance trade between [[band society|bands]] for rare commodities and raw materials (such as stone needed for making tools) as early as 120,000 years ago in Middle Paleolithic.]]
The social organization of the earliest Paleolithic ([[Lower Paleolithic]]) societies remains largely unknown to scientists, though Lower Paleolithic hominins such as ''Homo habilis'' and ''Homo erectus'' are likely to have had more complex social structures than chimpanzee societies.<ref name=White>{{cite web |url=http://www.indiana.edu/~arch/saa/matrix/ia/ia03_mod_10.html |title=Intro to archeology The First People and Culture |access-date=20 March 2008 |author=Nancy White |work=Introduction to archeology |archive-date=9 October 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121009153844/http://www.indiana.edu/~arch/saa/matrix/ia/ia03_mod_10.html }}</ref> 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;<ref name="encarta.msn.com"/> 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.<ref name="encarta.msn.com"/>

Similarly, scientists disagree whether Lower Paleolithic humans were largely [[monogamous]] or [[polygynous]].<ref name=White/> In particular, the Provisional model 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.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6937476.stm |title=Finds test human origins theory |work=[[BBC News]] |first=James |last=Urquhart |access-date=20 March 2008 |date=8 August 2007}}</ref>

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 [[band society|bands]],<ref name=Bohem198-208>Christopher Boehm (1999) [https://books.google.com/books?id=ljxS8gUlgqgC&dq=Paleolithic&pg=PA197 "Hierarchy in the Forest: The Evolution of Egalitarian Behavior" pp. 198–208] Harvard University Press</ref> 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.<ref name=Bohem198-208/>

Middle Paleolithic societies, unlike Lower Paleolithic and early Neolithic ones, consisted of bands that ranged from 20 to 30 or 25–100 members and were usually nomadic.<ref name="McClellan"/><ref name=Bohem198-208/> These bands were formed by several families. Bands sometimes joined into larger "macrobands" for activities such as acquiring mates and celebrations or where resources were abundant.<ref name="McClellan"/> By the end of the Paleolithic era ({{c.|10,000}}&nbsp;BP), people began to settle down into permanent locations, and began to rely on agriculture for sustenance in many locations. Much evidence exists 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<ref name=Henahan>{{cite web |url=http://www.accessexcellence.org/WN/SU/caveart.html |title=Blombos Cave art |access-date=12 March 2008 |first=Sean |last=Henahan |work=Science News}}</ref><ref name="Felipe Fernandez Armesto 2003 400">{{cite book |last=Armesto |first=Felipe Fernandez |url=https://archive.org/details/ideasthatchanged0000fern_a2p4/page/400 |title=Ideas that changed the world |publisher=[[Dorling Kindersley]] limited |year=2003 |isbn=978-0-7566-3298-4 |location=New York |page=[https://archive.org/details/ideasthatchanged0000fern_a2p4/page/400 400]}}; [https://books.google.com/books?id=tFIAAAAACAAJ&q=Ideas+that+changed+the+world+by+Felipe+Fernandez+Armesto]{{Dead link|date=May 2023|bot=InternetArchiveBot|fix-attempted=yes}}</ref>) and raw materials, as early as 120,000 years ago in Middle Paleolithic.<ref name="Hillary Mayell" /> 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).<ref name="Hillary Mayell"/> Like in modern hunter-gatherer societies, individuals in Paleolithic societies may have been subordinate to the band as a whole.<ref name="Leften Stavrianos">{{cite book |first=Leften Stavros |last=Stavrianos |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eamHPkIkE1UC&q=paleolithic+society&pg=PA23 |title=Lifelines from Our Past: A New World History |location=New Jersey |publisher=M.E. Sharpe |year=1997 |isbn=978-0-13-357005-2}} [https://books.google.com/books?id=eamHPkIkE1UC&dq=paleolithic+society&pg=PA23 pp. 9–13] [https://books.google.com/books?id=9H6oqN3Q-GoC&dq=Paleolithic+egalitarianism&pg=PA55 p. 70]</ref><ref name="Stavrianos"/> Both Neanderthals and modern humans took care of the elderly members of their societies during the Middle and Upper Paleolithic.<ref name="Hillary Mayell"/>

Some sources claim that most Middle and Upper Paleolithic societies were possibly fundamentally [[egalitarianism|egalitarian]]<ref name="McClellan"/><ref name="Stavrianos"/><ref name="Miller2006"/><ref name=Bohem198>Christopher Boehm (1999) [https://books.google.com/books?id=ljxS8gUlgqgC&dq=Paleolithic&pg=PA197 "Hierarchy in the Forest: The Evolution of Egalitarian Behavior" p. 198] Harvard University Press</ref> and may have rarely or never engaged in organized violence between groups (i.e. war).<ref name="Miller2006"/><ref name="Gutrie">{{cite book |first=R. Dale |last=Gutrie |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3u6JNwMyMCEC&q=Paleolithic+religions&pg=PA428 |title=The Nature of Paleolithic art |location=Chicago |publisher=[[University of Chicago Press]] |year=2005 |isbn=978-0-226-31126-5}} [https://books.google.com/books?id=3u6JNwMyMCEC&dq=Paleolithic+religions&pg=PA428 pp. 420–422]</ref><ref name="Barbara Ehrenreich">{{cite book |first=Barbara |last=Ehrenreich |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nFuDltu509YC |title=Blood Rites: Origins and History of the Passions of War |location=London |publisher=Macmillan |year=1997 |isbn=978-0-8050-5787-4}} [https://books.google.com/books?id=nFuDltu509YC p. 123]</ref><ref name="Kelly">{{cite journal |last=Kelly |first=Raymond |title=The evolution of lethal intergroup violence |doi=10.1073/pnas.0505955102 |journal=[[PNAS]]
|volume=102 |date=October 2005 |pmid=16129826 |issue=43 |pmc=1266108 |pages=15294–98 |bibcode=2005PNAS..10215294K |doi-access=free}}</ref>

Some Upper Paleolithic societies in resource-rich environments (such as societies in [[Sungir]], in what is now Russia) may have had more complex and hierarchical organization (such as [[tribe]]s with a pronounced hierarchy and a somewhat formal [[division of labor]]) and may have engaged in [[endemic warfare]].<ref name="Miller2006"/><ref>Kelly, Raymond C. Warless societies and the origin of war. Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press, 2000.</ref> Some argue that there was no formal leadership during the Middle and Upper Paleolithic. Like contemporary egalitarian hunter-gatherers such as the [[Mbuti#Political structure|Mbuti]] pygmies, societies may have made decisions by communal [[consensus decision making]] rather than by appointing permanent rulers such as chiefs and [[monarch]]s.<ref name="Kusimba 2003 285"/> 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 have arisen, notably the [[Marxism|Marxist]] concept of [[primitive communism]].<ref>{{cite book |title=The Communist Manifesto |first1=Karl |last1=Marx |author-link1=Karl Marx |first2=Friedrich |last2=Engels |author-link2=Friedrich Engels |orig-date=1848 |date=2005 |publisher=Filiquarian Publishing |pages=71, 87 |isbn=978-1-59986-995-7}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Rigby |first=Stephen Henry |date=1999 |title=Marxism and History: A Critical Introduction |pages=111, 314 |publisher=[[Manchester University Press]] |isbn=0-7190-5612-8}}</ref> Christopher Boehm (1999) has hypothesized that egalitarianism may have evolved in Paleolithic societies because of a need to distribute resources such as food and meat equally to avoid famine and ensure a stable food supply.<ref name=Bohem192>Christopher Boehm (1999) [https://books.google.com/books?id=ljxS8gUlgqgC&dq=Paleolithic&pg=PA197 "Hierarchy in the Forest: The Evolution of Egalitarian Behavior" p. 192] Harvard university press</ref> 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.<ref name="Kelly"/> 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.<ref name=Kiefer>{{cite web |url=http://www.suluarchipelago.com/E20Website2002/default.htm |title=Anthropology E-20 |access-date=11 March 2008 |first=Thomas M. |last=Kiefer |date=Spring 2002 |work=Lecture 8 Subsistence, Ecology and Food production |publisher=[[Harvard University]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080410021259/http://www.suluarchipelago.com/E20Website2002/default.htm |archive-date=10 April 2008 |url-status=usurped }}</ref>

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.<ref name="McClellan"/><ref name="Miller2006"/> However, analogies to existent hunter-gatherer societies such as the [[Hadza people]] and the [[Aboriginal Australians]] 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.<ref name="Miller2006"/><ref name="Barbara Ehrenreich"/> Additionally, recent research by anthropologist and archaeologist Steven Kuhn from the University of Arizona is argued to support that this division of labor did not exist prior to the [[Upper Paleolithic]] and was invented relatively recently in human pre-history.<ref name="Dahlberg">{{cite book |author=Dahlberg, Frances |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eTPULzP1MZAC&q=Gathering+and+Hominid+Adaptation&pg=PA120 |title=Woman the Gatherer |location=London |publisher=Yale University Press |year=1975 |isbn=978-0-300-02989-5}}</ref><ref name="NG2006/12/061207">{{cite web |url=http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/12/061207-sex-humans.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061210022722/http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/12/061207-sex-humans.html |archive-date=10 December 2006 |title=Sex-Based Roles Gave Modern Humans an Edge, Study Says |work=National Geographic News |author=Stefan Lovgren |access-date=3 February 2008}}</ref> Sexual division of labor may have been developed to allow humans to acquire food and other resources more efficiently.<ref name="NG2006/12/061207"/> Possibly there was approximate parity between men and women during the Middle and Upper Paleolithic, and that period may have been the most [[gender equality|gender-equal]] time in human history.<ref name="Gutrie"/><ref>{{cite book |first=Leften Stavros |last=Stavrianos |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MKhe6qNva10C&q=paleolithic+society |title=A Global History from Prehistory to the Present |location=New Jersey |publisher=[[Prentice Hall]] |year=1991 |isbn=978-0-13-357005-2 |quote=the sexes were more equal during Paleolithic millennia than at any time since.}} [https://books.google.com/books?id=MKhe6qNva10C&q=paleolithic+society p. 9]</ref><ref name=MuseumofAntiquites>[http://museums.ncl.ac.uk/flint/miscon.html Museum of Antiquites web site] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071121095952/http://museums.ncl.ac.uk/flint/miscon.html |date=21 November 2007 }} . Retrieved 13 February 2008.</ref> Archaeological 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.<ref name="MuseumofAntiquites"/> The earliest known Paleolithic [[shaman]] ({{c.|30,000}}&nbsp;BP) was female.<ref name=Tedlock>Tedlock, Barbara. 2005. The Woman in the Shaman's Body: Reclaiming the Feminine in Religion and Medicine. New York: Bantam.</ref> [[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.<ref name=jareddiamond>{{cite web |url=http://discovermagazine.com/1987/may/02-the-worst-mistake-in-the-history-of-the-human-race |title=The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race |work=Discover |author=Jared Diamond |access-date=14 January 2008}}</ref> Like most modern hunter-gatherer societies, Paleolithic and Mesolithic groups probably followed a largely ambilineal approach. At the same time, depending on the society, the residence could be virilocal, uxorilocal, and sometimes the spouses could live with neither the husband's relatives nor the wife's relatives at all. Taken together, most likely, the lifestyle of hunter-gatherers can be characterized as multilocal.<ref name=MarloweFW22/>

== Sculpture and painting ==
[[File:Wien NHM Venus von Willendorf.jpg|thumb|The [[Venus of Willendorf]] is one of the most famous Venus figurines.]]

Early examples of artistic expression, such as the [[Venus of Tan-Tan]] and the patterns found on [[elephant]] bones from [[Bilzingsleben (Paleolithic site)|Bilzingsleben]] in [[Thuringia]], may have been produced by Acheulean tool users such as ''[[Homo erectus]]'' prior to the start of the [[Middle Paleolithic]] period. However, the earliest undisputed evidence of art during the Paleolithic comes from [[Middle Paleolithic]]/[[Middle Stone Age]] sites such as [[Blombos Cave]]–South Africa–in the form of [[bracelet]]s,<ref>{{cite news |url=https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3629559.stm |title=Cave yields 'earliest jewellery'|work=BBC News |author=Jonathan Amos|access-date=12 March 2008 | date=15 April 2004}}</ref> [[bead]]s,<ref>{{cite web |url=http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/04/0415_040415_oldestjewelry.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040416062817/http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/04/0415_040415_oldestjewelry.html |archive-date=16 April 2004 |title=Oldest Jewelry? "Beads" Discovered in African Cave |work=National Geographic News |author=Hillary Mayell |access-date=3 March 2008}}</ref> [[rock art]],<ref name=Henahan/> and [[ochre]] used as body paint and perhaps in ritual.<ref name="Miller2006"/><ref name=Henahan/> Undisputed evidence of art only becomes common in the Upper Paleolithic.<ref>[http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761566394_13/Human_Evolution.html "Human Evolution," Microsoft Encarta Online Encyclopedia 2007] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091031235302/http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761566394_13/Human_Evolution.html |date=31 October 2009 }} Contributed by Richard B. Potts, B.A., Ph.D.</ref>

Lower Paleolithic [[Acheulean]] tool users, according to Robert G. Bednarik, began to engage in symbolic behavior such as art around 850,000&nbsp;BP. They decorated themselves with beads and collected exotic stones for aesthetic, rather than utilitarian qualities.<ref name=Bednarik>{{cite web |url=http://www.semioticon.com/frontline/bednarik.htm |title=Beads and the origins of symbolism |author=Robert G. Bednarik |access-date=5 April 2008 |archive-date=26 October 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181026143154/https://semioticon.com/frontline/bednarik.htm }}</ref> According to him, traces of the pigment ochre from late Lower Paleolithic Acheulean archaeological sites suggests that Acheulean societies, like later Upper Paleolithic societies, collected and used ochre to create rock art.<ref name=Bednarik/> Nevertheless, it is also possible that the ochre traces found at Lower Paleolithic sites is naturally occurring.<ref>{{cite book|first=Richard G. |last=Klein |title=The Dawn of Human Culture |date=22 March 2002 |publisher=Wiley |isbn=0-471-25252-2}}</ref>

[[Upper Paleolithic]] humans produced works of art such as cave paintings, Venus figurines, animal carvings, and rock paintings.<ref name="ReferenceA-3">{{cite encyclopedia |url=http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761578676/Paleolithic_Art.html |title=Paleolithic Art |encyclopedia=Microsoft Encarta Online Encyclopedia |date=2007 |access-date=20 March 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080314202447/http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761578676/paleolithic_art.html |archive-date=14 March 2008 }}</ref> Upper Paleolithic art can be divided into two broad categories: figurative art such as cave paintings that clearly depicts animals (or more rarely humans); and nonfigurative, which consists of shapes and symbols.<ref name="ReferenceA-3"/> Cave paintings have been interpreted in a number of ways by modern archaeologists. The earliest explanation, by the prehistorian [[Abbe Breuil]], interpreted the paintings as a form of magic designed to ensure a successful hunt.<ref name=Clottes>{{cite web |url=http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/clottes/page7.php |title=Shamanism in Prehistory |first=Jean |last=Clottes |access-date=11 March 2008 |work=Bradshaw foundation |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080430093540/http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/clottes/page7.php |archive-date=30 April 2008 }}</ref> However, this hypothesis fails to explain the existence of animals such as [[saber-toothed cat]]s and [[lion]]s, which were not hunted for food, and the existence of half-human, half-animal beings in cave paintings. The anthropologist [[David Lewis-Williams]] has suggested that Paleolithic cave paintings were indications of [[shaman]]istic practices, because the paintings of half-human, half-animal figures and the remoteness of the caves are reminiscent of modern hunter-gatherer shamanistic practices.<ref name=Clottes/> Symbol-like images are more common in Paleolithic cave paintings than are depictions of animals or humans, and unique symbolic patterns might have been trademarks that represent different [[Upper Paleolithic]] ethnic groups.<ref name="ReferenceA-3" /> [[Venus figurines]] have evoked similar controversy. Archaeologists and anthropologists have described the figurines as representations of [[goddess]]es, [[pornography|pornographic]] imagery, apotropaic amulets used for sympathetic magic, and even as self-portraits of women themselves.<ref name="Miller2006"/><ref name=McDeroy>{{cite journal |last1=McDermott |first1=LeRoy |year=1996 |title=Self-Representation in Upper Paleolithic Female Figurines |journal=[[Current Anthropology]] |volume=37 |issue=2 |pages=227–275 |jstor=2744349 |doi=10.1086/204491 |s2cid=144914396}}</ref>

R. Dale Guthrie<ref name="Guthrie">R. Dale Guthrie, ''The Nature of Paleolithic Art''. University of Chicago Press, 2006. {{ISBN|978-0-226-31126-5}}. [http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/311260.html Preface].</ref> 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 out that the main themes in the paintings and other artifacts (powerful beasts, risky hunting scenes and the over-sexual representation of women) are to be expected in the fantasies of adolescent males during the Upper Paleolithic.
[[File:Bradshaw rock paintings.jpg|thumb|upright=1.1|[[Gwion Gwion rock paintings]] found in the north-west [[Kimberley region of Western Australia]].]]
The "Venus" figurines have been theorized, not universally, as representing a [[mother goddess]]; the abundance of such female imagery has inspired the theory that religion and society in Paleolithic (and later Neolithic) cultures were primarily interested in, and may have been directed by, women. Adherents of the theory include archaeologist [[Marija Gimbutas]] and [[feminist]] scholar [[Merlin Stone]], the author of the 1976 book ''[[When God Was a Woman]]''.<ref name=Merlinstone>{{cite book |title=When God Was a Woman |first=Merlin |last=Stone |year=1978 |publisher=Harcourt Brace Jovanovich |isbn=978-0-15-696158-5 |page=265 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=l44AAAAACAAJ&q=When+God+Was+a+Woman}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|first=Marija |last=Gimbutas |date=1991 |title=The Civilization of the Goddess |publisher=HarperSanFrancisco |isbn=978-0-06-250804-1}}</ref> Other explanations for the purpose of the figurines have been proposed, such as Catherine McCoid and LeRoy McDermott's hypothesis that they were self-portraits of woman artists<ref name="McDeroy"/> and R.Dale Gutrie's hypothesis that served as "Stone Age [[pornography]]".

== Music ==
The origins of music during the Paleolithic are unknown. The earliest forms of music probably did not use musical instruments other than the human voice or natural objects such as rocks. This early music would not have left an archaeological footprint. Music may have developed from rhythmic sounds produced by daily chores, for example, cracking open nuts with stones. Maintaining a rhythm while working may have helped people to become more efficient at daily activities.<ref>{{cite book|first=Karl |last=Bücher |author-link=Karl Bücher |title=Trabajo y ritmo |language=es |trans-title=Work and rhythm |publisher=Biblioteca Científico-Filosófica |location=Madrid}}</ref> An alternative theory originally proposed by [[Charles Darwin]] explains that music may have begun as a hominin mating strategy. Bird and other animal species produce music such as calls to attract mates.<ref>{{cite book|first=Charles |last=Darwin |author-link=Charles Darwin |title=[[The origin of man]] |date=May 1998 |publisher=Edimat books, S.A. |isbn=84-8403-034-2}}</ref> This hypothesis is generally less accepted than the previous hypothesis, but nonetheless provides a possible alternative.

[[Upper Paleolithic]] (and possibly [[Middle Paleolithic]])<ref name="BoneAge">Nelson, D.E., ''Radiocarbon dating of bone and charcoal from Divje babe I cave'', cited by Morley, p. 47</ref> humans used [[flute]]-like bone pipes as musical instruments,<ref name="Miller2006"/><ref name="Bahn, Paul 1996">Bahn, Paul (1996) "The atlas of world archeology" Copyright 2000 The Brown Reference Group PLC</ref> and music may have played a large role in the religious lives of Upper Paleolithic hunter-gatherers. As with modern hunter-gatherer societies, music may have been used in ritual or to help induce [[trance]]s. In particular, it appears that animal skin [[drum]]s 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 [[ethnography|ethnographic]] record of contemporary hunter-gatherer shamanic and ritual practices.<ref name=Tedlock/><ref name="ReferenceA-3"/>

== Religion and beliefs ==
{{Main|Paleolithic religion}}
[[File:Gabillou Sorcier.png|thumb|Picture of a half-human, half-animal being in a Paleolithic [[cave painting]] in [[Dordogne]]. France. Some archaeologists believe that cave paintings of half-human, half-animal beings may be evidence for early shamanic practices during the Paleolithic.]]

According to James B. Harrod humankind first developed [[religion|religious]] and [[spirituality|spiritual]] beliefs during the [[Middle Paleolithic]] or [[Upper Paleolithic]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.originsnet.org/aboutornet1.html |title=About OriginsNet by James Harrod |publisher=Originsnet.org |access-date=31 January 2010}}</ref> Controversial scholars of prehistoric religion and anthropology, James Harrod and Vincent W. Fallio, have recently proposed that religion and spirituality (and art) may have first arisen in Pre-Paleolithic chimpanzees<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.originsnet.org/chimpspiritdatabase.pdf |title=Appendices for chimpanzee spirituality by James Harrod |access-date=31 January 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080527230019/http://www.originsnet.org/chimpspiritdatabase.pdf |archive-date=27 May 2008 }}</ref> or Early [[Lower Paleolithic]] ([[Oldowan]]) societies.<ref name="V.Fallio">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-kJHI9MdxNwC&q=Paleolithic+religions&pg=PA108 |title=New Developments in Consciousness Research |first=Vincent W. |last=Fallio |publisher=[[Nova Publishers]] |year=2006 |isbn=978-1-60021-247-5 |location=New York |pages=[https://books.google.com/books?id=-kJHI9MdxNwC&dq=Paleolithic+religions&pg=PA108 98–109]}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.originsnet.org/mindold.html |title=Oldowan Art, Religion, Symbols, Mind by James Harrod |publisher=Originsnet.org |access-date=31 January 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100310011922/http://www.originsnet.org/mindold.html |archive-date=10 March 2010 }}</ref> According to 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.<ref name="V.Fallio"/>

Middle Paleolithic humans' use of burials at sites such as [[Krapina]], Croatia ({{c.|130,000}}&nbsp;BP) and [[Qafzeh]], Israel ({{c.|100,000|lk=no}}&nbsp;BP) have led some anthropologists and archaeologists, 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".<ref name=Lieberman/> Cut marks on Neanderthal bones from various sites, such as Combe-Grenal and Abri Moula in France, suggest that the [[Neanderthal#Cannibalism|Neanderthals]]—like some contemporary human cultures—may have practiced [[excarnation|ritual defleshing]] for (presumably) religious reasons. According to recent archaeological findings from ''Homo heidelbergensis'' sites in [[Archaeological Site of Atapuerca|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. In particular, Emil Bächler suggested (based on archaeological evidence from Middle Paleolithic caves) that a [[Bear worship|bear cult]] was widespread among Middle Paleolithic [[Neanderthal]]s.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Wunn |first=Ina |date=2000 |title=Beginning of Religion |journal=Numen |volume=47 |issue=4 |pages=434–435|doi=10.1163/156852700511612 }}</ref> A claim that evidence was found for [[Middle Paleolithic]] animal worship {{c.|70,000}}&nbsp;BCE originates from the [[Tsodilo Hills]] in the African Kalahari desert has been denied by the original investigators of the site.<ref name="Robbins et al">{{cite journal |last1=Robbins |first1=Lawrence H. |first2=Alec C. |last2=Campbell |first3=George A. |last3=Brook |first4=Michael L. |last4=Murphy |title=World's Oldest Ritual Site? The "Python Cave" at Tsodilo Hills World Heritage Site, Botswana |journal=NYAME AKUMA, the Bulletin of the Society of Africanist Archaeologists |date=June 2007 |issue=67 |url=http://cohesion.rice.edu/CentersAndInst/SAFA/emplibrary/Robbins.pdf |access-date=1 December 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110928023109/http://cohesion.rice.edu/CentersAndInst/SAFA/emplibrary/Robbins.pdf |archive-date=28 September 2011 }}</ref> Animal cults in the Upper Paleolithic, such as the bear cult, may have had their origins in these hypothetical Middle Paleolithic animal cults.<ref name=Narr>{{cite encyclopedia |url=http://concise.britannica.com/oscar/print?articleId=109434&fullArticle=true&tocId=52333 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080409074119/http://concise.britannica.com/oscar/print?articleId=109434&fullArticle=true&tocId=52333 |archive-date=9 April 2008 |first=Karl J. |last=Narr |title=Prehistoric religion |access-date=28 March 2008 |encyclopedia=Britannica online encyclopedia 2008}}</ref> Animal worship during the Upper Paleolithic was intertwined with hunting rites.<ref name="Narr"/> For instance, archaeological evidence from art and bear remains reveals that the bear cult apparently involved a type of sacrificial bear ceremonialism, in which a bear was shot with [[arrow]]s, finished off by a shot or thrust in the [[lung]]s, and ritually worshipped near a clay bear statue covered by a bear fur with the skull and the body of the bear buried separately.<ref name="Narr"/> 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 [[Epipaleolithic]] and [[Mesolithic]] or late Upper Paleolithic.<ref name="Barbara Ehrenreich"/>

The existence of anthropomorphic images and half-human, half-animal images in the Upper Paleolithic may further indicate that [[Upper Paleolithic]] humans were the first people to believe in a [[Polytheism|pantheon of gods or supernatural beings]],<ref name="mithen">{{cite book| author-link=Steve Mithen| isbn=978-0-500-05081-1| title=The Prehistory of the Mind: The Cognitive Origins of Art, Religion and Science| year=1996| publisher=Thames & Hudson| author=Steven Mithen| url=https://archive.org/details/prehistoryofmind00mith}}</ref> though such images may instead indicate shamanistic practices similar to those of contemporary tribal societies.<ref name="Clottes"/> 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}}&nbsp;BP) in what is now the [[Czech Republic]].<ref name=Tedlock/> However, during the early Upper Paleolithic it was probably more common for all members of the band to participate equally and fully in religious ceremonies, 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.<ref name="Stavrianos"/>

Religion was possibly [[Apotropaic magic|apotropaic]]; specifically, it may have involved [[sympathetic magic]].<ref name="Miller2006"/> The [[Venus figurines]], which are abundant in the Upper Paleolithic archaeological 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.<ref name="McClellan"/> The Upper Paleolithic Venus figurines have sometimes been explained as depictions of an [[earth goddess]] similar to [[Gaia (mythology)|Gaia]], or as representations of a goddess who is the ruler or mother of the animals.<ref name=Narr/><ref>Christopher L. C. E. Witcombe, "[http://witcombe.sbc.edu/willendorf/willendorfwomen.html Women in the Stone Age] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100801065954/http://witcombe.sbc.edu/willendorf/willendorfwomen.html |date=2010-08-01 }}", in the essay "The Venus of Willendorf" . Retrieved 13 March 2008.</ref> James Harrod has described them as representative of female (and male) shamanistic spiritual transformation processes.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.originsnet.org/mindup.html |title=Upper Paleolithic Art, Religion, Symbols, Mind By James Harrod |publisher=Originsnet.org |access-date=31 January 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100308130503/http://www.originsnet.org/mindup.html |archive-date=8 March 2010 }}</ref>

== See also ==
{{div col|colwidth=27em}}
* [[Abbassia Pluvial]]
* [[Bontnewydd Palaeolithic site]]
* [[Caveman]]
* [[Japanese Paleolithic]]
* [[Lascaux]]
* [[Last Glacial Maximum]]
* [[Luzia Woman]]
* [[Mousterian Pluvial]]
* [[Origins of society]]
* [[Palaeoarchaeology]]
* [[Peopling of the Americas]]
* [[Turkana Boy]]
{{div col end}}

== References ==
{{Reflist}}

== External links ==
{{EB1911 poster|Britain/Pre-Roman}}
* [http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/human-evolution-timeline-interactive Human Timeline (Interactive)] – [[Smithsonian Institution|Smithsonian]], [[National Museum of Natural History]] (August 2016).
* [http://donsmaps.com/ Donsmaps: a vast repository of Paleolithic resources]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20161123052918/http://www.miotas.org/timemap/paleolithic.cfm Interactive Timeline Simile/Timemap index of Eurasian sites]

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