Paleolithic Timeline

Lower Paleolithic Period - First Signs of Culture

3300 BCE

The first instance of human culture recorded was shown in Africa about 3.3 million years ago in Lomekwi 3, West Turkana, Kenya by using evidence of stone tools being used in the area. Cores, hammers, anvil stones, and flakes were key items found in the area with the suspected hominid being Australopithecus afarensis and Australopithecus africanus.

Lower Paleolithic Period - Oldowan Industry

2600 BCE

Stone tools start popping up more frequently 2.6 million years ago where a new tradition for stone tools called Oldowan where they utilized cores, choppers, scrapers, utilized flakes, and hammerstone. Homo habilis is the hominin group that are most often credited for the Oldowan tool production but as of recently another candidate called Australopithecus sediba is speculated with their dates being close to the sprouting of Oldowan tools (1.95 to 1.78 mya)

Lower Paleolithic Period - Age of Ice

2000 BCE

The Pleistocene epoch starts around 2.6 million years ago and leads to a change in climate around the world where cold and warmer period fluctuate. Sea levels lowered during this time and helped early hominins migrate using land along coastlines that are currently buried underwater today. (The 2000 BC is the 2.6 mya)

Lower Paleolithic Period - Homo Genus

1800 BCE

A brand new species of genus Homo becomes more prevalent in the fossil record of Africa, Homo erectus. Homo Erectus emerges in Africa 1.8 mya and this new species holds a much larger brain comparatively to its predecessors and are thought to be a primary migrant of the Pleistocene epoch where they brought along Oldowan tools with them into southwest Asia and Eurasia by 1.7 million years ago.

Lower Paleolithic Period - Acheulean Industry

1700 BCE

Around 1.7 million years ago, a shift is made from Oldowan tools into a new stone tools industry named the Acheulean. This new industry is mostly present in Africa for hundreds of thousands of years before it appears in other parts of the world. These tools consisted of bifaces, handaxes, and cleavers and were multi-purpose and required much greater effort to create due the process of flintknapping and stylization.

Lower Paleolithic Period - Controlled Use of Fire

1000 BCE

The earliest evidence for controlled use of fire dates to 1 million years ago at Wonderwerk Cave in South Africa where there is shown remains of burned bones and ashes of plant material with Acheulean tools nearby. This use of controlled fire was beneficial in many ways such as: light, protection from wild animals and predators, and most importantly cooking.

Middle Paleolithic Period - Neanderthals

600 BCE

Around 600,000 years ago, we start to see a massive change in the fossil record, we see a brain size expansion and appear, morphologically, more modern than older hominin species. The group of these newer hominins are named premodern Homo sapiens, containing a prominent sub-species of humans, Neanderthals. These Neanderthals lived in southwest Asia and Europe about 130,000 to 40,000 years ago and had a robust, somewhat short, with powerful muscular development structure and a large brain size.

Middle Paleolithic Period - Levallois Industry

300 BCE

This stone tool technology of the Middle Paleolithic (300,000 ya) contained a specially prepared core for the production of uniform and consistently shaped flakes for the use of flake tools, instead of a previously used core tool. Levallois tools were detail oriented and were crucial to creating a variety of handy tools.

Middle Paleolithic Period - Mousterian Industry

200 BCE

This stone tool technology, developed about 200,000 ya, was a Neanderthals refinement of the Levallois technique which were much smaller and more precisely made than the older Levallois flakes. These tools were shaped and sized in a manner needed for the predesignated purpose, where there are a dozen different task-specific tools made.

Middle Paleolithic Period - Ornamentation and Adornment Items

130 BCE

Many items were found possessing traits of symbolic expression such as grooved or perforated bones, perforated animal teeth, polished ivory, and geometrically-incised pieces of bone and ivory. Some perforated objects may have been used into beads or pendant that were worked into clothes, necklaces, or bracelets. The meanings are unknown but they represent recognition of identity. Sites: Krapina, Croatia - Perfortated Eagle Talons (130,00 ya), Aviones Cave, Spain - Painted Shells (115,000 ya)

Middle Paleolithic Period - Diet and Subsistence Behaviors for Neanderthals

100 BCE

Neanderthal diet was mainly a meat diet, containing most extinct large animals, and some even eating smaller game in addition to the larger animals. We interpret this based on microwear on their teeth, isotope studies of their bones, and animal DNA from tartar buildup. The way they acquired food was using Levallois pointed spears and thrusting or throwing into their prey. Sites: Cotte de St. Brelade (100,000 ya) where they found a mass kill and communal hunting site with butchered bones.

Middle Paleolithic Period - Diet and Subsistence Behaviors for Neanderthals (CONT.)

75 BCE

Site: Maruan, France (75,000 ya), where they found a seasonal hunting with the remains of 136 steppe bison were found also proving that it was specialized hunting site where Neanderthals studied the migration of bison through the area to hunt every season. This is also seen in the Salzgitter-Lebenstedt, Germany site.

Upper Paleolithic Period - Anatomically Modern Humans

45 BCE

We see at the dawn of Europe's Upper Paleolithic Period (45,000 - 40,000 ya), Anatomically Modern Humans were the sole surviving hominids. The reason being due to being capable of complex cognition and may have been more flexible to changing environmental conditions with cultural behaviors.

Upper Paleolithic Period - New and Improved Stone Tool Technologies

43 BCE

Many innovations take place in the Upper Paleolithic Period such as a new and improved Stone Tool technology (43,000 ya) with the incorporation of bone and ivory and the production of blades. Blade tools became more advanced than their predecessors due to a greater number of steps in preparation, more usable edges, and became more sharper and/or aerodynamic.

Upper Paleolithic Period - Traditions and Tools

40 BCE

We have the main cultural groups at the forefront of innovation with Aurignacian - Split-base point blade (43,000 - 27,000 ya), Gravettian - Smaller blades and knives (27,000 - 21,000 ya), Solutrean - Leaf-shaped point (21,000 - 16,000 ya), Magdalenian - Array of bone, antler, ivory tools such as harpoons, awls, and sewing needles (16,000 - 11,000 ya).

Upper Paleolithic Period - New Hunting Technologies

30 BCE

About 30,000 ya, we see a new emergence of new hunting technologies such as a bow and arrow where it might have been developed in South Africa, a main tool that was used was a spear-thrower or an atlatl, where it basically is an extension of their arm and increases the distance thrown exponentially and gives more strength into the throw as well with the velocity

Upper Paleolithic Period - Abundance of Non-utilitarian Objects

20 BCE

Non-utilitarian objects were rare in the earlier phases of the Paleolithic Period but during the Upper Paleolithic Period (spanning from 35,000 ya - 15,000 ya) we see a massive increase in these items, such as items of personal adornment, decorative clothing elements, musical instruments, figurines, statues, and other mobiliary art pieces