About Paleolithic Period:
- It was the period ranging from 2.6 million years ago to 10,000 years ago.
- The name Paleolithic was coined by the famous archeologist John Lubbock in the year 1865.
- It began with the first use of stone tools by hominins (human-like creatures) and ended with the onset of the Mesolithic Period around 11,650 years ago.
- It has been classified into upper, middle, and lower Paleolithic periods due to the growth that was experienced by the human species over time.
- Lower or Early Palaeolithic: From 2.6 million-250,000 years ago, simple pebble tools and crude stone choppers were made by the earliest humans.
- Middle Palaeolithic: From 250,000 years ago, with a new focus on flake-tools, which continued to be popular in certain areas until as late as c. 30,000 years ago.
- Upper or Late Palaeolithic (40,000–10,000 BC): It saw a huge proliferation with regard to both tool shapes and source materials (now also a lot of bone, antler, and ivory).
- Social Organisation:
- The human societies of the Paleolithic age are recorded to have lived without any form of organized state or government.
- Palaeolithic is also more generally associated with the cultures and lifestyles of the hunter-gatherers.
- Middle and upper Paleolithic human societies lived together in groups of 25-100 members, and they were nomads.
- At the end of the Paleolithic age, families started to settle down to cultivate land and trade with neighbors.
- Religions and Beliefs:
- The development of any form of spiritual or religious belief in human evolution started during the Paleolithic age.
- The middle Paleolithic human species created burial sites, and defleshing rituals led anthropologists and archaeologists to conclude that they believed in an afterlife.
Key Facts about Mesolithic Period:
- It is also called the Middle Stone Age which existed between the Paleolithic (Old Stone Age) and the Neolithic (New Stone Age).
- Timeframe: This period is generally considered to have occurred between approximately 12,000-10,000 years ago.
- Lifestyle: During the Mesolithic period, human societies were predominantly hunter-gatherer communities.
- People relied on hunting, fishing, and gathering wild plant resources for their sustenance.
- Stone tools found during this period are generally tiny, and are called microliths.
- Microliths were probably stuck onto handles of bone or wood to make tools such as saws and sickles.
- At the same time, older varieties of tools continued to be in use.
