Paleolithic period or Old Stone Age, the earliest period of human development and the longest phase of mankind's history. It is approximately coextensive with the Pleistocene geologic epoch, beginning about 2 million years ago and ending in various places between 40,000 and 10,000 years ago, when it was succeeded by the Mesolithic period. By far the most outstanding feature of the Paleolithic period was the evolution of the human species from an apelike creature, or near human, to true Homo sapiens (see human evolution). This development was exceedingly slow and continued through the three successive divisions of the period, the Lower, Middle, and Upper Paleolithic. The most abundant remains of Paleolithic cultures are a variety of stone tools whose distinct characteristics provide the basis for a system of classification containing several toolmaking traditions or industries.

The Lower Paleolithic Period

The oldest recognizable tools made by members of the family of man are simple stone choppers, such as those discovered at Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania. These tools may have been made over 1 million years ago by Australopithecus, ancestor of modern humans. Fractured stones called eoliths have been considered the earliest tools, but it is impossible to distinguish man-made from naturally produced modifications in such stones. Lower Paleolithic stone industries of the early species of humans called Homo erectus include the Choukoutienian of China and the Clactonian, Chellean-Abbevillian, Acheulian and Levalloisian represented at various sites in Europe, Africa, and Asia, from 100,000 to 500,000 years ago. Stone tools of this period are of the core type, made by chipping the stone to form a cutting edge, or of the flake type, fashioned from fragments struck off a stone. Hand axes were the typical tool of these early hunters and food-gatherers.

The Middle Paleolithic Period

The Middle Paleolithic period includes the Mousterian culture, often associated with Neanderthal man, an early form of humans, living between 100,000 and 40,000 years ago. Neanderthal remains are often found in caves with evidence of the use of fire. Neanderthals were hunters of prehistoric mammals, and their cultural remains, though unearthed chiefly in Europe, have been found also in N Africa, Palestine, and Siberia. Stone tools of this period are of the flake tradition, and bone implements, such as needles, indicate that crudely sewn furs and skins were used as body coverings. Since the dead were painted before burial, a kind of primitive religion may have been practiced.

The Upper Paleolithic Period

In the Upper Paleolithic period Neanderthal man disappears and is replaced by a variety of Homo sapiens such as Cro-Magnon man and Grimaldi man. This, the flowering of the Paleolithic period, saw an astonishing number of human cultures, such as the Aurignacian, Gravettian, Perigordian, Solutrean, and Magdalenian, rise and develop in the Old World. The beginnings of communal hunting and extensive fishing are found here, as is the first conclusive evidence of belief systems centering on magic and the supernatural. Pit houses, the first man-made shelters, were built, sewn clothing was worn, and sculpture and painting originated. Tools were of great variety, including flint and obsidian blades and projectile points. It is probable that the people of the Aurignacian culture migrated to Europe after developing their distinctive culture elsewhere, perhaps in Asia. Their stone tools are finely worked, and they made a typical figure eight-shaped blade. They also used bone, horn, and ivory and made necklaces and other personal ornaments. They carved the so-called Venus figures, ritual statuettes of bone, and made outline drawings on cave walls.

The hunters of the Solutrean phase of the Upper Paleolithic entered Europe from the east and ousted many of their Aurignacian predecessors. The Solutrean wrought extremely fine spearheads, shaped like a laurel leaf. The wild horse was their chief quarry. The Solutrean as well as remnants of the Aurignacian were replaced by the Magdalenian, the final, and perhaps most impressive, phase of the Paleolithic period. Here artifacts reflect a society made up of communities of fishermen and reindeer hunters. Surviving Magdalenian tools, which range from tiny microliths to implements of great length and fineness, indicate an advanced technique. Weapons were highly refined and varied, the atlatl first came into use, and along the southern edge of the ice sheet boats and harpoons were developed. However, the crowning achievement of the Magdalenian was its cave paintings, the culmination of Paleolithic art.

Paleolithic art, art of the most recent ice age. Present study and knowledge of this art is largely confined to works discovered at more than 150 sites in W Europe, particularly to the magnificent cave paintings in N Spain and the Dordogne valley of SW France.

Most of these works were produced during two vast, overlapping periods. The Aurignacio-Perigordian (c.14,000-c.13,500 B.C.) includes the powerful Lascaux paintings, the outdoor sculpture at Laussel, and the several small female figurines, known as Venuses, found at several sites. The second period, the Solutreo-Magdalenian (c.14,000-c.9500 B.C.), includes the murals at Rouffignac and Niaux and the ceiling of the cave at Altamira, Spain, the Magdalenian's crowning masterpiece. Both of the great cave complexes were discovered by accident—Altamira in 1879, Lascaux in 1940.

The painting styles, known as Franco-Cantabrian and ascribed to Cro-Magnon man, embrace a variety of techniques, including painting with fingers, sticks, and pads of fur or moss; daubing; dotting; sketching with colored materials and charcoal; and spray painting through hollow bone or by mouth. Several pigments were used, and foreshortening and shadowing were skillfully employed. Images were often crowded close to and on top of each other, sometimes with obvious respect for previously applied paintings. Irregular surfaces were decorated in relief. Separate styles, presumably from different eras, can be discerned, 13 at Lascaux alone.

In most Paleolithic caves animal figures (mainly horses, bison, cattle, and hinds) predominate, suggesting that the art may have had ritual significance related to hunting; there are few group or hunting scenes, however, and human figures are extremely rare. Drawn with vitality and the elegance of great simplicity, the animals are the masterworks of prehistoric art and are of an accuracy that provides invaluable evidence to paleozoologists. The Lascaux cave was closed when the paintings began to deteriorate. Some of Lascaux's painted rooms show no signs of human habitation and may have been used for ritual. Engravings on soft stone, bone, and ivory, as well as low reliefs and a few freestanding sculptures, have been found in or near many of these caves.

In 1994 and 1999 richly decorated limestone caves were discovered at Grotte Chauvet in SE France—again by accident. The stone engravings and more than 400 paintings are the most ancient on record, c.32,000 years old, and depict lions, rhinoceroses, bears, horses, and other creatures with bold realism. In addition, during the late 1990s and early 2000s more than 20 ivory figurines depicting animals and birds and dating from approximately the same period as the Grotte Chauvet paintings, were discovered at various sites in Swabia, SW Germany.

Another style predominates in E Spain and bears a strong resemblance to the rock carvings and paintings of N and S Africa. The pictures, drawn chiefly in silhouette, are found on the walls of shallow rock shelters and are usually small; they depict human as well as animal figures in scenes of hunting, fighting, ceremonial, ritual, and domestic activities. This art seems to have reached its peak in the Mesolithic period. A third style, largely of Aurignacian origin, ranges from France to W Siberia and consists almost entirely of small sculptured figures of animals and human beings. The latter are chiefly female, often abnormally voluptuous, and are generally regarded as fertility goddesses; one of the most famous is the Venus of Willendorf, Austria.

The damp climate of the British Isles is believed to have caused the destruction of most of the islands' Paleolithic art, but some examples have survived. In the first years of the 21st cent. archaeologists discovered the earliest extant works of prehistoric art in Great Britain, engravings of two birds (possibly a crane or swan and a bird of prey) and an ibex, in a cave at Creswell Crags, Derbyshire. They were carved some 12,000 years ago, and are done in a style similar to that of contemporary works on the continent. The engravings are neither as old nor as accomplished as continental examples.

See also African art and Paleolithic period.

or Old Stone Age

Ancient technological or cultural stage characterized by the use of rudimentary chipped stone tools. During the Lower Paleolithic (circa 2,500,000–200,000 years ago), simple pebble tools and crude stone choppers were made by the earliest humans. About 700,000 years ago, the first rough hand ax appeared; it was later refined and used with other tools in the Acheulean industry. A flake-tool tradition emerged in the Middle Paleolithic, as exemplified by implements of the Mousterian industry. The Upper Paleolithic (40,000–10,000 BC) saw the emergence of more complex, specialized, and diverse regional stone-tool industries, such as the Aurignacian, Solutrean, and Magdalenian. The two principal forms of Paleolithic art are small sculptures—such as the so-called Venus figurines and various carved or shaped animal and other figures—and monumental paintings, incised designs, and reliefs on the walls of caves such as Altamira (in Spain) and Lascaux Grotto (in France). The end of the Paleolithic is marked by the emergence of the settled agricultural villages of the Neolithic Period.

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