Anatomically modern humans (i.e. Homo sapiens) are believed to have emerged in Africa around 300,000 years ago. It has been argued by some that their ways of life changed relatively little from that of
archaic humans of the
Middle Paleolithic,[2] until about 50,000 years ago, when there was a marked increase in the diversity of
artefacts found associated with modern human remains.
This period coincides with the most common date assigned to
expansion of modern humans from Africa throughout Asia and Eurasia, which contributed to the
extinction of the Neanderthals.
The Upper Paleolithic has the earliest known evidence of organized
settlements, in the form of campsites, some with storage pits.
Artistic work blossomed, with cave painting,
petroglyphs, carvings and engravings on bone or ivory. The first evidence of human fishing is also found, from artefacts in places such as
Blombos cave in South Africa. More complex
social groupings emerged, supported by more varied and reliable food sources and specialized
tool types. This probably contributed to increasing group identification or
ethnicity.[3]
The
peopling of Australia most likely took place before c. 60
ka.
Europe was peopled after c. 45 ka.
Anatomically modern humans are known to have expanded northward into
Siberia as far as the
58th parallel by about 45 ka (
Ust'-Ishim man).
The Upper Paleolithic is divided by the
Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), from about 25 to 15 ka. The
peopling of the Americas occurred during this time, with East and Central Asia populations reaching the
Bering land bridge after about 35 ka, and expanding into the Americas by about 15 ka.
In Western Eurasia, the Paleolithic eases into the so-called
Epipaleolithic or
Mesolithic from the end of the LGM, beginning 15 ka. The
Holocene glacial retreat begins 11.7 ka (
10th millennium BC), falling well into the Old World Epipaleolithic, and marking the beginning of the earliest forms of
farming in the
Fertile Crescent.
Both Homo erectus and
Neanderthals used the same crude stone tools. Archaeologist
Richard G. Klein, who has worked extensively on ancient stone tools, describes the stone tool kit of archaic
hominids as impossible to categorize. He argues that almost everywhere, whether
Asia, Africa or
Europe, before 50,000 years ago all the stone tools are much alike and unsophisticated.
Firstly among the artefacts of Africa, archeologists found they could differentiate and classify those of less than 50,000 years into many different categories, such as projectile points, engraving tools, knife blades, and drilling and piercing tools. These new stone-tool types have been described as being distinctly differentiated from each other; each tool had a specific purpose. The early modern humans who expanded into Europe, commonly referred to as the
Cro-Magnons, left many sophisticated stone tools, carved and engraved pieces on bone,
ivory and
antler,
cave paintings and
Venus figurines.[4][5][1]
The Neanderthals continued to use
Mousterian stone tool technology and possibly
Châtelperronian technology. These
tools disappeared from the archeological record at around the same time the Neanderthals themselves disappeared from the fossil record, about 40,000 cal BP.[6]
Settlements were often located in narrow valley bottoms, possibly associated with hunting of passing
herds of animals. Some of them may have been occupied year round, though more commonly they appear to have been used seasonally; people moved between the sites to exploit different food sources at different times of the year. Hunting was important, and
caribou/wild reindeer "may well be the species of single greatest importance in the entire
anthropological literature on hunting".[7]
The changes in human behavior have been attributed to changes in climate, encompassing a number of global
temperature drops. These led to a worsening of the already bitter cold of the
last glacial period (popularly but incorrectly called the last
ice age). Such changes may have reduced the supply of usable
timber and forced people to look at other materials. In addition, flint becomes brittle at low temperatures and may not have functioned as a tool.
Notational signs
Some notational signs, used next to images of animals, may have appeared as early as the
Upper Palaeolithic in Europe circa 35,000 BCE, and may be the earliest
proto-writing: several symbols were used in combination as a way to convey seasonal behavioural information about hunted animals.[9] Lines (|) and dots (•) were apparently used interchangeably to denote lunar months, while the (Y) sign apparently signified "To give birth". These characters were seemingly combined to convey the breeding period of hunted animals.[9]
Changes in climate and geography
The climate of the period in Europe saw dramatic changes, and included the
Last Glacial Maximum, the coldest phase of the
last glacial period, which lasted from about 26.5 to 19 kya, being coldest at the end, before relatively rapid warming (all dates vary somewhat for different areas, and in different studies). During the Maximum, most of Northern Europe was covered by an
ice-sheet, forcing human populations into the areas known as
Last Glacial Maximum refugia, including modern Italy and the
Balkans, parts of the
Iberian Peninsula and areas around the
Black Sea.
This period saw cultures such as the
Solutrean in France and Spain. Human life may have continued on top of the ice sheet, but we know next to nothing about it, and very little about the human life that preceded the European glaciers. In the early part of the period, up to about 30 kya, the
Mousterian Pluvial made northern Africa, including the
Sahara, well-watered and with lower temperatures than today; after the end of the Pluvial the Sahara became arid.
The Last Glacial Maximum was followed by the
Allerød oscillation, a warm and moist global
interstadial that occurred around 13.5 to 13.8 kya. Then there was a very rapid onset, perhaps within as little as a decade, of the cold and dry
Younger Dryas climate period, giving
sub-arctic conditions to much of northern Europe.
The
Preboreal rise in temperatures also began sharply around 10.3 kya, and by its end around 9.0 kya had brought temperatures nearly to present day levels, although the climate was wetter.[citation needed]
This period saw the Upper Paleolithic give way to the start of the following
Mesolithic cultural period.
As the glaciers receded sea levels rose; the
English Channel,
Irish Sea and
North Sea were land at this time, and the Black Sea a fresh-water lake. In particular the Atlantic coastline was initially far out to sea in modern terms in most areas, though the Mediterranean coastline has retreated far less, except in the north of the
Adriatic and the
Aegean. The rise in sea levels continued until at least 7.5 kya (
5500 BC), so evidence of human activity along Europe's coasts in the Upper Paleolithic is mostly lost, though some traces have been recovered by fishing boats and
marine archaeology, especially from
Doggerland, the lost area beneath the North Sea.[citation needed]
Numerous Aboriginal stone tools were found in
gravel sediments in
Castlereagh, Sydney, Australia. At first when these results were new they were controversial; more recently dating of the same strata has revised and corroborated these dates.[12][13]
Earliest evidence of modern humans found in Europe, in Southern Italy.[19] These are indirectly dated.[20]
Earliest mathematical artifact, the notched
Lebombo bone, a possible tally stick or lunar calendar, dated to 44,000–43,000 BP in
Eswatini (Swaziland), southern Africa.[21]
Oldest-known mining in archaeological record, the
Ngwenya Mine in Swaziland, at about 43,000 years ago, where humans mined
hematite to make the red pigment
ochre.[22][23]
Notational signs in caves, apparently conveying
calendaric meaning about the behaviour of animal species drawn next to them, are
the first known (proto-)
writing in history (see
above).[28][9]
Most of the giant vertebrates and
megafauna in Australia became extinct.
Examples of
cave art in Spain are dated from around 40,000 BP, making them the oldest examples of cave art yet discovered in Europe (see:
Caves of Nerja). Scientists theorise that the paintings may have been made by
Neanderthals, rather than by modern humans.[29][30]
Wall painting with horses, rhinoceroses and aurochs is made at
Chauvet Cave,
Vallon-Pont-d'Arc, Ardéche gorge, France. Discovered in December 1994.
Evidence for continued Neanderthal presence in the Iberian Peninsula at 37,000 years ago was published in 2017.[31]
Artifacts suggests early human activity occurred at some point in
Canberra, Australia.[39] Archaeological evidence of settlement in the region includes inhabited
rock shelters,
rock art, burial places, camps and quarry sites, and stone tools and arrangements.[40]
Last Glacial Maximum. Mean
sea levels are believed to be 110 to 120 metres (360 to 390 ft) lower than present,[41] with the direct implication that many coastal and lower riverine valley archaeological sites of interest are today under water.
18,000 BP
Spotted Horses,
Pech Merle cave,
Dordogne, France are painted. Discovered in December, 1994.
The
Châtelperronian culture was located around central and south western France, and northern Spain. It appears to be derived from the
Mousterian culture, and represents the period of overlap between
Neanderthals and Homo sapiens. This culture lasted from approximately 45,000 BP to 40,000 BP.[6]
The
Aurignacian culture was located in Europe and south west Asia, and flourished between 43,000 and 26,000 BP. It may have been contemporary with the
Périgordian (a contested grouping of the earlier Châtelperronian and later Gravettian cultures).
The
Gravettian culture was located across Europe. Gravettian sites generally date between 33,000 and 20,000 BP.
The
Solutrean culture was located in eastern France, Spain, and England. Solutrean artifacts have been dated c. 22,000 to 17,000 BP.
The
Magdalenian culture left evidence from Portugal to Poland during the period from 17,000 to 12,000 BP.
Dean R. Snow – A leading archeologist who has conducted extensive Paleolithic research.
References
Gilman, Antonio (1996). "Explaining the Upper Palaeolithic Revolution". Pp. 220–239 (Chap. 8) in Contemporary Archaeology in Theory: A Reader. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.
^Gilman, Antonio. 1996. "Explaining the Upper Palaeolithic Revolution". pp. 220–239 (Chap. 8) in Contemporary Archaeology in Theory: A Reader. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Blackwell
^"In North America and Eurasia the species has long been an important resource—in many areas the most important resource—for peoples' inhabiting the northern
boreal forest and
tundra regions. Known human dependence on caribou/wild reindeer has a long history, beginning in the
Middle Pleistocene (Banfield 1961:170; Kurtén 1968:170) and continuing to the present. ... The caribou/wild reindeer is thus an animal that has been a major resource for humans throughout a tremendous geographic area and across a time span of tens of thousands of years." Ernest S. Burch, Jr.
"The Caribou/Wild Reindeer as a Human Resource", American Antiquity, Vol. 37, No. 3 (July 1972), pp. 339–368.
^Backwell, L; d'Errico, F; Wadley, L (2008). "Middle Stone Age bone tools from the Howiesons Poort layers, Sibudu Cave, South Africa". Journal of Archaeological Science. 35 (6): 1566–1580.
Bibcode:
2008JArSc..35.1566B.
doi:
10.1016/j.jas.2007.11.006.
^Lombard M, Phillips L (2010). "Indications of bow and stone-tipped arrow use 64,000 years ago in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa". Antiquity. 84 (325): 635–648.
doi:
10.1017/S0003598X00100134.
S2CID162438490.
^Lombard M (2011). "Quartz-tipped arrows older than 60 ka: further use-trace evidence from Sibudu, Kwa-Zulu-Natal, South Africa". Journal of Archaeological Science. 38 (8): 1918–1930.
Bibcode:
2011JArSc..38.1918L.
doi:
10.1016/j.jas.2011.04.001.
^Bowdler, Sandra. "Human settlement". In Denoon, D. (ed.). The Cambridge History of the Pacific Islanders. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. pp. 41–50. Cited in Bowdler, Sandra.
"The Pleistocene Pacific".
University of Western Australia. Archived from
the original on 16 February 2008. Retrieved 26 February 2008.
^Isabel Ellender and Peter Christiansen, People of the Merri Merri. The Wurundjeri in Colonial Days, Merri Creek Management Committee, 2001
ISBN0-9577728-0-7
^Gary Presland, The First Residents of Melbourne's Western Region (revised edition), Harriland Press, 1997.
ISBN0-646-33150-7. Presland says on page 1: "There is some evidence to show that people were living in the
Maribyrnong River valley, near present day
Keilor, about 40,000 years ago."
^Flood, J. M.; David, B.; Magee, J.; English, B. (1987), "Birrigai: a Pleistocene site in the south eastern highlands", Archaeology in Oceania, 22: 9–22,
doi:
10.1002/j.1834-4453.1987.tb00159.x
^Gillespie, Lyall (1984). Aborigines of the Canberra Region. Canberra: Wizard (Lyall Gillespie). pp. 1–25.
ISBN978-0-9590255-0-7.
^M. Mirazón Lahr et al.,
"Inter-group violence among early Holocene hunter-gatherers of West Turkana, Kenya", Nature 529, 394–398 (21 January 2016),
doi:
10.1038/nature16477.
"Here we report on a case of inter-group violence towards a group of hunter-gatherers from Nataruk, west of Lake Turkana ... Ten of the twelve articulated skeletons found at Nataruk show evidence of having died violently at the edge of a lagoon, into which some of the bodies fell. The remains ... offer a rare glimpse into the life and death of past foraging people, and evidence that warfare was part of the repertoire of inter-group relations among prehistoric hunter-gatherers."
"Evidence of a prehistoric massacre extends the history of warfare". University of Cambridge. 20 Jan 2016. Retrieved 20 Mar 2017..
For early depiction of interpersonal violence in rock art see:
Taçon, Paul;
Chippindale, Christopher (October 1994). "Australia's Ancient Warriors: Changing Depictions of Fighting in the Rock Art of Arnhem Land, N.T.". Cambridge Archaeological Journal. 4 (2): 211–48.
doi:
10.1017/S0959774300001086.
S2CID162983574..
^Mulvaney, D J and White, Peter, 1987, Australians to 1788, Fairfax, Syme & Weldon, Sydney
^Gary Presland, Aboriginal Melbourne: The Lost Land of the Kulin People, Harriland Press (1985), Second edition 1994,
ISBN0-9577004-2-3. This book describes in some detail the archaeological evidence regarding aboriginal life, culture, food gathering and land management, particularly the period from the flooding of Bass Strait and Port Phillip from about 7–10,000 years ago, up to the European colonisation in the nineteenth century.
^Dousset, Laurent (2005).
"Daruk". AusAnthrop Australian Aboriginal tribal database. Archived from
the original on April 9, 2011. Retrieved 27 August 2012.