Paleolithic
The Paleolithic is a prehistoric era distinguished by the development of stone tools. It covers virtually all of humanity's time on Earth, extending from 2.5 million years ago, with the introduction of stone tools by hominids such as Homo habilis, to the introduction of agriculture in around 10,000 BCE. The Stone Age is the first of Christian Jürgensen Thomsen’s “the three-age system of European antiquity”, following the Stone Age and preceding the Bronze Age and the Iron Age.
The term "Paleolithic", literally "Old Age of the Stone", was coined by archaeologist John Lubbock in 1865 and derives from the Greek παλαιός, paleos ("old") and λίθος, lithos, ("stone"). The Paleolithic era ended with the Mesolithic, or in areas with an early neolithisation, the Epipaleolithic.[1]
The Paleolithic is characterized by the utilization of knapped stone tools, although humans at the time also used wood and bone tools. Other organic commodities were synthesized as tools, including leather and vegetable fibers; however these have not been preserved to any great degree.
References
- ↑ In archaeology, the Epipalaeolithic or Epipaleolithic (sometimes Epi-paleolithic etc.) is a period occurring between the Upper Paleolithic and Neolithic during the Stone Age. The Neolithic Revolution, or the (First) Agricultural Revolution, was the wide-scale transition of many human cultures during the Neolithic period from a lifestyle of hunting and gathering to one of agriculture and settlement, making an increasingly large population possible.
