upper Paleolithic

{{See also|Hunter-gatherer|Aurignacian|Behavioral modernity}}

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.

File:Flint Knives, Ahmarian Culture, Nahal Boqer, 47000-40000 BP (detail).jpg, Nahal Boqer, Israel, 47,000–40,000 BP. Israel Museum.]]

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.{{cite web|url=http://www.accessexcellence.org/BF/bf02/klein/bf02e3.html|title=Klein: Behavioral and Biological Origins of Modern Humans 3 of 3|website=Access Excellence}}{{cite web|url=http://www.accessexcellence.org/BF/bf02/klein/bf02e1.html|title=Klein: Behavioral and Biological Origins of Modern Humans 1 of 3|website=Access Excellence}}[https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1998/07/980707073901.htm {{"'}}Modern' Behavior Began 40,000 Years Ago In Africa"], Science Daily, July 1998

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.{{cite journal|title=The timing and spatiotemporal patterning of Neanderthal disappearance|first1=Tom|last1=Higham|author-link1=Thomas Higham (archaeologist)|first2=Katerina|last2=Douka|first3=Rachel|last3=Wood|first4=Christopher Bronk|last4=Ramsey|first5=Fiona|last5=Brock|first6=Laura|last6=Basell|first7=Marta|last7=Camps|first8=Alvaro|last8=Arrizabalaga|first9=Javier|last9=Baena|first10=Cecillio|last10=Barroso-Ruíz|first11=Christopher|last11=Bergman|first12=Coralie|last12=Boitard|first13=Paolo|last13=Boscato|first14=Miguel|last14=Caparrós|first15=Nicholas J.|last15=Conard|first16=Christelle|last16=Draily|first17=Alain|last17=Froment|first18=Bertila|last18=Galván|first19=Paolo|last19=Gambassini|first20=Alejandro|last20=Garcia-Moreno|first21=Stefano|last21=Grimaldi|first22=Paul|last22=Haesaerts|first23=Brigitte|last23=Holt|first24=Maria-Jose|last24=Iriarte-Chiapusso|first25=Arthur|last25=Jelinek|first26=Jesús F.|last26=Jordá Pardo|first27=José-Manuel|last27=Maíllo-Fernández|first28=Anat|last28=Marom|first29=Julià|last29=Maroto|first30=Mario|last30=Menéndez|first31=Laure|last31=Metz|first32=Eugène|last32=Morin|first33=Adriana|last33=Moroni|first34=Fabio|last34=Negrino|first35=Eleni|last35=Panagopoulou|first36=Marco|last36=Peresani|first37=Stéphane|last37=Pirson|first38=Marco|last38=de la Rasilla|first39=Julien|last39=Riel-Salvatore|first40=Annamaria|last40=Ronchitelli|first41=David|last41=Santamaria|first42=Patrick|last42=Semal|first43=Ludovic|last43=Slimak|first44=Joaquim|last44=Soler|first45=Narcís|last45=Soler|first46=Aritza|last46=Villaluenga|first47=Ron|last47=Pinhasi|first48=Roger|last48=Jacobi|date=21 August 2014|journal=Nature|volume=512|issue=7514|pages=306–309|doi=10.1038/nature13621|pmid=25143113|bibcode=2014Natur.512..306H|hdl=1885/75138|s2cid=205239973|hdl-access=free}}

File:Stone Core for Making Blades - Boqer Tachtit, Negev, circa 40000 BP (detail).jpg, c. 40,000 BP]]

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"."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. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/278435 "The Caribou/Wild Reindeer as a Human Resource"], American Antiquity, Vol. 37, No. 3 (July 1972), pp. 339–368.

Technological advances included significant developments in flint tool manufacturing, with industries based on fine blades rather than simpler and shorter flakes. Burins and racloirs were used to work bone, antler and hides. Advanced darts and harpoons also appear in this period, along with the fish hook, the oil lamp, rope, and the eyed needle. Fishing of pelagic fish species and navigating the open ocean is evidenced by sites from Timor and Buka (Solomon Islands).{{cite web |title=The Middle to Upper Paleolithic Transition |url=https://www.trentu.ca/anthropology/faculty-research/neandertals-and-early-modern-humans-europe/middle-upper-paleolithic-transition}}

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.

File:Lascaux 04 (with circle).jpg, with painted animal, and four dots, a possible notation for Lunar months]]

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.{{cite journal |last1=Bacon |first1=Bennett |last2=Khatiri |first2=Azadeh |last3=Palmer |first3=James |last4=Freeth |first4=Tony |last5=Pettitt |first5=Paul |last6=Kentridge |first6=Robert |title= An Upper Palaeolithic Proto-writing System and Phenological Calendar |journal=Cambridge Archaeological Journal |date=5 January 2023 |volume=33 |issue=3 |pages=[https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/cambridge-archaeological-journal/article/an-upper-palaeolithic-protowriting-system-and-phenological-calendar/6F2AD8A705888F2226FE857840B4FE19 1–19] |doi=10.1017/S0959774322000415|s2cid=255723053 |doi-access=free }} 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.

File:Ice-core-isotope.png from 50,000 to 10,000 before present, until the warming of the Holocene. Ice core data from Antarctica and Greenland.]]

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.

File:Europe20000ya.png refuges, 20,000 BP:

{{legend|#c54b00|Solutrean and Proto Solutrean Cultures}}

{{legend|#ca00b0|Epigravettian Culture}}

]]

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|date=July 2017}}

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|date=July 2017}}

{{See also|Prehistoric Europe#Upper Paleolithic}}

File:Anatomically Modern Humans archaeological remains, Europe and Africa, directly dated, calibrated carbon dates as of 2013.jpgs: directly dated, calibrated carbon dates as of 2013{{Cite journal|last1=Higham|first1=Thomas F. G.|last2=Wesselingh|first2=Frank P.|last3=Hedges|first3=Robert E. M.|last4=Bergman|first4=Christopher A.|last5=Douka|first5=Katerina|date=11 September 2013|title=Chronology of Ksar Akil (Lebanon) and Implications for the Colonization of Europe by Anatomically Modern Humans|journal=PLOS ONE|language=en|volume=8|issue=9|doi=10.1371/journal.pone.0072931|issn=1932-6203|pmc=3770606|pmid=24039825|bibcode=2013PLoSO...872931D|doi-access=free}}{{rp|pages=e72931}}]]

File:Ksar Akil Fossils.jpg in the Levantine corridor, and discovery of two fossils of Homo sapiens, dated to 40,800 to 39,200 years BP for "Egbert",{{rp|pages=e72931}}and 42,400–41,700 BP for "Ethelruda"{{rp|pages=e72931}}]]

• 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.{{Cite book | last1= Attenbrow | first1= Val | year= 2010 | title= Sydney's Aboriginal Past: Investigating the Archaeological and Historical Records | location= Sydney | publisher= UNSW Press | isbn= 978-1-74223-116-7 | pages= 152–153 | url= https://books.google.com/books?id=TDxldj_SLcYC&q=inauthor%3A%22Val%20Attenbrow%22&pg=PA152 | access-date= 11 November 2013 }}{{Cite journal | last1= Stockton | first1= Eugene D. | last2= Nanson | first2= Gerald C. |date=April 2004 | title= Cranebrook Terrace Revisited | journal= Archaeology in Oceania | volume= 39 | issue= 1 | pages= 59–60 | jstor= 40387277 | doi= 10.1002/j.1834-4453.2004.tb00560.x}}
• Start of the Mousterian Pluvial in North Africa.
• Occupants of the Fa-Hien Lena cave, Sri Lanka had developed bow and arrow technology 48,000 BP (though the earliest known bow and arrow technology dates to about 65,000 BP from Sibudu Cave, South Africa{{cite journal | last1 = Backwell | first1 = L | last2 = d'Errico | first2 = F | last3 = Wadley | first3 = L | year = 2008 | title = Middle Stone Age bone tools from the Howiesons Poort layers, Sibudu Cave, South Africa | journal = Journal of Archaeological Science | volume = 35 | issue = 6 | pages = 1566–1580 | doi = 10.1016/j.jas.2007.11.006 | bibcode = 2008JArSc..35.1566B }}{{cite journal | last1 = Backwell | first1 = L | last2 = Bradfield | first2 = J | last3 = Carlson | first3 = KJ | last4 = Jashashvili | first4 = T | last5 = Wadley | first5 = L | last6 = d'Errico | first6 = F | year = 2018 | title = The antiquity of bow-and-arrow technology: evidence from Middle Stone Age layers at Sibudu Cave | journal = Journal of Archaeological Science | volume = 92 | issue = 362 | pages = 289–303 | doi = 10.15184/aqy.2018.11 | doi-access = free | hdl = 11336/81248 | hdl-access = free }}{{Cite journal|title=Indications of bow and stone-tipped arrow use 64,000 years ago in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa|journal=Antiquity|year=2010|doi = 10.1017/S0003598X00100134

|vauthors=Lombard M, Phillips L|volume=84|issue=325|pages=635–648|s2cid=162438490}}{{Cite journal|title=Quartz-tipped arrows older than 60 ka: further use-trace evidence from Sibudu, Kwa-Zulu-Natal, South Africa|journal=Journal of Archaeological Science|year=2011|doi = 10.1016/j.jas.2011.04.001

|vauthors=Lombard M|volume=38|issue=8|pages=1918–1930|bibcode=2011JArSc..38.1918L }}).

The first direct evidence for Neanderthals hunting cave lions. This is based on a cave lion skeleton found in Seigsdorf, Germany which has hunting lesions.{{Cite journal |last1=Russo |first1=Gabriele |last2=Milks |first2=Annemieke |last3=Leder |first3=Dirk |last4=Koddenberg |first4=Tim |last5=Starkovich |first5=Britt M. |last6=Duval |first6=M. |last7=Zhao |first7=J.-X. |last8=Darga |first8=Robert |last9=Rosendahl |first9=Wilfried |last10=Terberger |first10=Thomas |date=12 October 2023 |title=First direct evidence of lion hunting and the early use of a lion pelt by Neanderthals |journal=Scientific Reports |language=en |volume=13 |issue=1 |pages=16405 |doi=10.1038/s41598-023-42764-0 |issn=2045-2322|doi-access=free |pmid=37828055 |pmc=10570355 |bibcode=2023NatSR..1316405R }}

{{see also|Initial Upper Paleolithic}}

• Earliest evidence of modern humans found in Europe, in Southern Italy.{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/03/science/fossil-teeth-put-humans-in-europe-earlier-than-thought.html|title=Fossil Teeth Put Humans in Europe Earlier Than Thought|first=John Noble|last=Wilford|date=2 November 2011|newspaper=The New York Times}} These are indirectly dated.{{rp|page=6}}
• 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.Francesco d’Errico et al. (2012) Early evidence of San material culture represented by organic artifacts from Border Cave, South Africa. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 109(33): 13214-13219. It is called a notched bone, illustrated in Fig. 1, 12 {{cite journal |title=Early evidence of San material culture represented by organic artifacts from Border Cave, South Africa |doi=10.1073/pnas.1204213109 |volume=109 |issue=33 |journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences |pages=13214–13219 |year=2012 |last1=d'Errico |first1=F. |last2=Backwell |first2=L. |last3=Villa |first3=P. |last4=Degano |first4=I. |last5=Lucejko |first5=J. J. |last6=Bamford |first6=M. K. |last7=Higham |first7=T. F. G. |last8=Colombini |first8=M. P. |last9=Beaumont |first9=P. B. |pmc=3421171 |pmid=22847420|bibcode=2012PNAS..10913214D |doi-access=free }}
• 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.Swaziland Natural Trust Commission, "Cultural Resources – Malolotja Archaeology, Lion Cavern," Retrieved 27 August 2007, {{cite web|url=http://www.sntc.org.sz/cultural/malarch.asp |title=Swaziland National Trust Commission – Cultural Resources – Malolotja Archaeology, Lion Cavern |access-date=5 February 2016 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303221001/http://www.sntc.org.sz/cultural/malarch.asp |archive-date=3 March 2016 }}.Peace Parks Foundation, "Major Features: Cultural Importance." Republic of South Africa: Author. Retrieved 27 August 2007, [http://www.peaceparks.org/story.php?mid=168&pid=148].
• Earliest directly dated figurative cave art of mankind at Leang Bulu' Sipong in Sulawesi, Indonesia.{{Cite journal|last1=Brumm|first1=Adam|last2=Oktaviana|first2=Adhi Agus|last3=Burhan|first3=Basran|last4=Hakim|first4=Budianto|last5=Lebe|first5=Rustan|last6=Zhao|first6=Jian-xin|last7=Sulistyarto|first7=Priyatno Hadi|last8=Ririmasse|first8=Marlon|last9=Adhityatama|first9=Shinatria|last10=Sumantri|first10=Iwan|last11=Aubert|first11=Maxime|date=1 January 2021|title=Oldest cave art found in Sulawesi|journal=Science Advances|language=en|volume=7|issue=3|pages=eabd4648|doi=10.1126/sciadv.abd4648|pmid=33523879|pmc=7806210|bibcode=2021SciA....7.4648B|issn=2375-2548|doi-access=free}}

• Microlithic artefacts have been excavated from Kana, West Bengal, India.
• Ornaments and skeletal remains of modern humans, at Ksar Akil in Lebanon. These are directly dated.{{rp|page=6}}
• Denisova hominins live in the Altai Mountains (Russia, China, Mongolia, and Kazakhstan).

File:Floete Schwanenknochen Geissenkloesterle Blaubeuren.jpg, c. 35,000 BC]]

• First human inhabitants in Perth, Australia, as evidenced by archaeological findings on the Upper Swan River.{{cite book |first=Sandra |last=Bowdler |chapter=Human settlement |editor-first=D. |editor-last=Denoon |title=The Cambridge History of the Pacific Islanders |pages=41–50 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=Cambridge, England}} Cited in {{cite web |url=http://www.archaeology.arts.uwa.edu.au/staff/bowdler__research_interests/the_pleistocene_pacific |title=The Pleistocene Pacific |first=Sandra |last=Bowdler |publisher=University of Western Australia |access-date=26 February 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080216181223/http://www.archaeology.arts.uwa.edu.au/about/research/bowdler__research_interests/the_pleistocene_pacific |archive-date=16 February 2008}}
• During this time period, Melbourne, Australia was occupied by hunter-gatherers.Isabel Ellender and Peter Christiansen, People of the Merri Merri. The Wurundjeri in Colonial Days, Merri Creek Management Committee, 2001 {{ISBN|0-9577728-0-7}}Gary Presland, The First Residents of Melbourne's Western Region (revised edition), Harriland Press, 1997. {{ISBN|0-646-33150-7}}. 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."
• Early cultural centre in the Swabian Alps, oldest depiction of a human being (Venus of Hohle Fels), beginning of the Aurignacian.
• {{lang|de|Löwenmensch}} figure created in Hohlenstein-Stadel, one of the earliest figurative art. It is now in Ulmer Museum, Ulm, Germany.
• The first flutes appear in Germany.
• 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|above}}.{{cite news |title=Mysterious marks on Ice Age cave art may have been ancient records |url=https://www.sciencenews.org/article/mysterious-marks-ice-age-cave-art |access-date=15 February 2023 |work=Science News |date=27 January 2023 |archive-date=15 February 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230215212025/https://www.sciencenews.org/article/mysterious-marks-ice-age-cave-art |url-status=live }}
• Most of the giant vertebrates and megafauna in Australia became extinct.
• Fishing of pelagic fish species at Jerimalai shelter, Timor.File:Vestonicka venuse edit.jpg, the oldest surviving ceramic figurine in the world (29,000 – 25,000 BC)]]
• 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.{{cite news |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18449711 |work=BBC News |title=Red dot becomes 'oldest cave art'|date=15 June 2012|access-date=27 November 2022}}{{cite journal |first1=A. W. G. |last1=Pike |first2=D. L. |last2=Hoffmann |first3=M. |last3=García-Diez |first4=P. B. |last4=Pettitt |first5=J. |last5=Alcolea |first6=R. |last6=De Balbín |first7=C. |last7=González-Sainz |first8=C. |last8=de las Heras |first9=J. A. |last9=Lasheras |first10=R. |last10=Montes |first11=J. |last11=Zilhão |display-authors=6 |doi=10.1126/science.1219957 |journal=Science |volume=336 |issue=6087 |title=U-Series Dating of Paleolithic Art in 11 Caves in Spain|year=2012 |pages=1409–1413 |pmid=22700921 |bibcode=2012Sci...336.1409P |s2cid=7807664 }}
• 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.{{cite journal | last1 = Zilhão | first1 = João | display-authors = etal | year = 2017| title = Precise dating of the Middle-to-Upper Paleolithic transition in Murcia (Spain) supports late Neandertal persistence in Iberia | journal = Heliyon | volume = 3| issue = 11| page = e00435| doi = 10.1016/j.heliyon.2017.e00435 | doi-access = free | pmid = 29188235 | pmc = 5696381 | bibcode = 2017Heliy...300435Z }}
• Archaeological studies support human presence in the Chek Lap Kok area (now Hong Kong International Airport) from 35,000 to 39,000 years ago.{{cite web|url=http://www.hkarch.org/en_news.html |title=The Trial Excavation at the Archaeological Site of Wong Tei Tung, Sham Chung, Hong Kong SAR |publisher=Hong Kong Archaeological Society |date=January 2006 |access-date=21 August 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090303144015/http://www.hkarch.org/en_news.html |archive-date=3 March 2009 }}
• Zar, Yataghyeri, Damjili and Taghlar caves in Azerbaijan.
• First evidence of people inhabiting Japan.[http://www.t-net.ne.jp/~keally/preh.html "Prehistoric Archaeological Periods in Japan"]. Charles T. Keally.

• Kostenki XVII, a layer of the Kostenki (Kostyonki) site, on the middle Don River, was occupied by the early upper paleolithic Spitsyn culture.
• The Red Lady of Paviland (really a young man) lived around 33,600 years ago.{{cite book|last1=Pettitt|first1=Paul|last2=White|first2=Mark|title=The British Palaeolithic: hominin societies at the edge of the Pleistocene world|page=415|date=2012|publisher=Routledge|location=London|isbn=978-0415674546}}

• First ground stone tools appear in Japan.Keiji Imamura, Prehistoric Japan: New perspectives on insular East Asia University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, 1996 {{ISBN|0-8248-1853-9}}
• End of the Mousterian Pluvial in North Africa.
• The area of Sydney was occupied by Aboriginal Australians (specifically, the Eora and Dharug people) during this time period, as evidenced by radiocarbon dating.
• {{cite news|last=Macey|first=Richard|date=2007|url=http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/settlers-history-rewritten/2007/09/14/1189276983698.html|title=Settlers' history rewritten: go back 30,000 years|work=The Sydney Morning Herald|access-date=5 July 2014}}
• {{cite book |first=Geoffrey |last=Blainey |title=A Very Short History of the World |publisher=Penguin Books |year=2004 |isbn=978-0-14-300559-9}} In an archaeological dig in Parramatta, Western Sydney, it was found that the Aboriginals used charcoal, stone tools and possible ancient campfires.{{cite book |first=Geoffrey |last=Blainey |title=A Very Short History of the World |publisher=Penguin Books |year=2004 |isbn=978-0-14-300559-9}}
• First human settlement in Alice Springs, Northern Territory, Australia.{{cite web|url=http://aboriginalart.com.au/culture/arrernte.html |title=Arrernte Aboriginal Art and Culture Centre Alice Springs |access-date=30 May 2011| archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20110524150302/http://aboriginalart.com.au/culture/arrernte.html| archive-date= 24 May 2011 | url-status= live}}
• Kilu Cave at Buka in the Solomons is evidence for the first human settlement of an oceanic island and for navigating the open ocean.

File:Venus de Brassempouy.jpg is preserved in the Musée d'Archéologie Nationale at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, near Paris.]]

File:15 PanneauDesLion(PartieGauche).jpg and woolly rhinoceros painting found in the Chauvet Cave, France]]

• Eruption of the Ciomad volcano, the last volcanic eruption in the Carpathians.
• Venus of Dolní Věstonice (Czech Republic). It is the oldest known ceramic in the world.
• Venus of Willendorf, Austria, created. It is now at the Natural History Museum, Vienna.
• Human settlement in Beijing, China dates from about 27,000 to 10,000 years ago.{{cite web|url=http://www.unesco.org/ext/field/beijing/whc/pkm-site.htm|title=The Peking Man World Heritage Site at Zhoukoudian|date=14 November 2014}}
• Paintings of spotted horses, Pech Merle cave, Dordogne, date to c.25,000 years ago{{cite journal |author=Pruvost, M. |author2=Bellone, R. |author3=Benecke, N. |author4=Sandoval-Castellanos, E. |author5=Cieslak, M. |author6=Kuznetsova, T. |author7=Morales-Muniz, A. |author8=O'Connor, T. |author9=Reissmann, M. |author10=Hofreiter, M. |author11=Ludwig, A. |title=Genotypes of predomestic horses match phenotypes painted in Paleolithic works of cave art |journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences |date=7 November 2011 |volume=108 |issue=46 |pages=18626–18630 |doi=10.1073/pnas.1108982108 |pmid=22065780 |pmc=3219153 |doi-access=free|bibcode=2011PNAS..10818626P }}

• Start of the second Mousterian Pluvial in North Africa.

• Venus of Petřkovice is created at Petřkovice in Ostrava, Czech Republic. It is now in Archeological Institute, Brno.

• Last Glacial Maximum: Venus of Brassempouy, Grotte du Pape, Brassempouy, Landes, France, created. It is now at Musée des Antiquités Nationales, Saint-Germain-en-Laye.

• Artifacts suggests early human activity occurred at some point in Canberra, Australia.{{citation|last1=Flood|first1=J. M.|last2=David|first2=B.|last3=Magee|first3=J.|last4=English|first4=B.|year=1987|title=Birrigai: a Pleistocene site in the south eastern highlands|journal=Archaeology in Oceania|volume=22|pages=9–22|doi=10.1002/j.1834-4453.1987.tb00159.x}} Archaeological evidence of settlement in the region includes inhabited rock shelters, rock art, burial places, camps and quarry sites, and stone tools and arrangements.{{cite book|last=Gillespie|first=Lyall|title=Aborigines of the Canberra Region|publisher=Wizard (Lyall Gillespie)|location=Canberra|year=1984|pages=1–25|isbn=978-0-9590255-0-7}}
• End of the second Mousterian Pluvial in North Africa.

{{main|Epipaleolithic}}

• Last Glacial Maximum. Mean sea levels are believed to be {{convert|110 to 120|m}} lower than present,Sea level data from main article: Cosquer cave with the direct implication that many coastal and lower riverine valley archaeological sites of interest are today under water.

• Ibex-headed spear-thrower, from Mas-d'Azil cave, now at the Musée de la Préhistoire in the village of Le Mas-d'Azil.
• Mammoth-bone village in Mezhyrich, Ukraine

File:Lascaux painting.jpg, 15,000 BC, a UNESCO World Heritage Site]]

• Spotted human hands are painted at Pech Merle cave, Dordogne, France. Discovered in December 1994.
• Oldest Dryas stadial.
• Hall of Bulls at Lascaux in France is painted. Discovered in 1940. Closed to the public in 1963.
• Bird-Headed man with bison and Rhinoceros, Lascaux, is painted.
• Lamp with ibex design, from La Mouthe cave, Dordogne, France, is made. It is now at Musée des Antiquités Nationales, Saint-Germain-en-Laye.
• Paintings in Cosquer Cave are made, where the cave mouth is now under water at Cap Margiou, France.

• Bølling interstadial.
• Bison, Le Tuc d'Audoubert, Ariège, France.
• Paleo-Indians move across North America, then southward through Central America.
• Pregnant woman and deer (?), from Laugerie-Basse, France was made. It is now at Musée des Antiquités Nationales, St.-Germain-en-Laye.

14,000 BP

File:Wells Reindeer Age articles.png

• Older Dryas stadial, Allerød interstadial.
• Paleo-Indians searched for big game near what is now the Hovenweep National Monument.
• Bison, on the ceiling of a cave at Altamira, Spain, is painted. Discovered in 1879. Accepted as authentic in 1902.{{clarify|date=July 2017}}
• Younger Dryas stadial.
• Beginning of the Holocene extinction.

• Wooden buildings in South America (Chile).
• First pottery vessels in Japan.

• First evidence of human settlement in Argentina.
• The Arlington Springs Man dies on the island of Santa Rosa, off the coast of California, United States.
• Human remains deposited in caves which are now located off the coast of Yucatán, Mexico.{{cite web|url=https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna5955043|title=Divers find traces of ancient Americans|website=NBC News|date=9 September 2004}}
• Creswellian culture settlement on Hengistbury Head, England, dates from around this year.

• Evidence of a massacre near Lake Turkana, Kenya indicates upper paleolithic warfare.M. Mirazón Lahr et al., [https://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v529/n7586/full/nature16477.html "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."

{{cite web|publisher=University of Cambridge|date=20 January 2016|url=http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/evidence-of-a-prehistoric-massacre-extends-the-history-of-warfare |title=Evidence of a prehistoric massacre extends the history of warfare|access-date=20 March 2017}}.

For early depiction of interpersonal violence in rock art see:

{{cite journal|last1=Taçon|first1=Paul|last2=Chippindale|first2=Christopher|author-link1=Paul Taçon|author-link2=Christopher Chippindale|title=Australia's Ancient Warriors: Changing Depictions of Fighting in the Rock Art of Arnhem Land, N.T.|journal=Cambridge Archaeological Journal|date=October 1994|volume=4|issue=2|pages=211–48|doi=10.1017/S0959774300001086|s2cid=162983574}}.

File:Venus of Malta (Siberia, RUssia), cop, 076846.jpg, from the easternmost Upper Paleolithic culture, the Mal'ta–Buret' culture, Siberia]]

{{Paleolithic|Upper}}

The Upper Paleolithic in the Franco-Cantabrian region:

• 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.
• 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.
• Central and east Europe:
• 33,000 BP, Gravettian culture in southern Ukraine{{cite news | url = https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13846262 | title = Early human fossils unearthed in Ukraine | first = Jennifer | last = Carpenter |date = 20 June 2011 | publisher = BBC | access-date = 21 June 2011}}
• 30,000 BP, Szeletian culture
• 22,000 BP, Pavlovian, Aurignacian cultures
• 13,000 BP, Ahrensburg culture (Western Germany, Netherlands, England)
• 12,000 BP, Epigravettian
• North and west Africa, and Sahara:
• 32,000 BP, Aterian culture (Algeria, Libya)
• 12,000 BP, Ibero-Maurusian (a.k.a. Oranian, Ouchtatian), and Sebilian cultures
• 10,000 BP, Capsian culture (Tunisia, Algeria)
• Central, south, and east Africa:
• 50,000 BP, Fauresmith culture
• 30,000 BP, Stillbayan culture
• 12,000 BP, Lupembian culture
• 11,000 BP, Magosian culture (Zambia, Tanzania)
• 9,000 BP, Wiltonian culture
• West Asia (including Middle East):
• 50,000 BP, Jabroudian culture (Levant)
• 40,000 BP, Amoudian culture
• 30,000 BP, Emireh culture
• 20,000 BP, Aurignacian culture
• 12,000 BP, Kebarian, Athlitian cultures
• South, central and northern Asia:
• 30,000 BP, Angara culture
• 11,000 BP, Khandivili culture
• East and southeast Asia:
• 30,000 BP, Sen-Doki culture
• 16,000 BP, Jōmon period starts in Ancient Japan
• 12,000 BP, pre-Jōmon ceramic culture (Japan)
• 10,000 BP, Hoabinhian culture (Northern Vietnam)
• 9,000 BP, Jōmon culture (Japan)

• Oceania:
• 40,000 BP, Whadjuk and Noongar culture (Perth, Australia)Mulvaney, D J and White, Peter, 1987, Australians to 1788, Fairfax, Syme & Weldon, Sydney
• 35,000 BP, Wurundjeri, Boonwurrung and Wathaurong culture (Melbourne, Australia)Gary Presland, Aboriginal Melbourne: The Lost Land of the Kulin People, Harriland Press (1985), Second edition 1994, {{ISBN|0-9577004-2-3}}. 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.
• 30,000 BP, Eora and Darug{{cite web|url=http://www.ausanthrop.net/resources/ausanthrop_db/detail.php?id_search=76 |title=Daruk |work=AusAnthrop Australian Aboriginal tribal database |author=Dousset, Laurent |year=2005 |access-date=27 August 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110409035643/http://www.ausanthrop.net/resources/ausanthrop_db/detail.php?id_search=76 |archive-date=9 April 2011 }} culture (Sydney, Australia){{cite web|publisher=Sydney Barani|date=2013|url=http://www.sydneybarani.com.au/sites/aboriginal-people-and-place/|title=Aboriginal people and place|access-date=5 July 2014}}
• 30,000 BP, Arrernte culture (Alice Springs, Central Australia){{cite journal|last=Thorley|first=Peter|title=Rock-art and the archaeological record of Indigenous settlement in Central Australia|journal=Australian Aboriginal Studies|year=2004|issue=1|url=http://search.informit.com.au/fullText;dn=200409749;res=APAFT|access-date=18 June 2011}}

{{div col}}

• Last Glacial Maximum
• Mesolithic
• Neolithic
• Neolithic Europe
• Behavioral modernity
• Cro-Magnon 1
• Aurignacian
• Epigravettian
• Sungir
• Cultural universal
• Quaternary extinction event
• Early human migrations
• Dean R. Snow – A leading archeologist who has conducted extensive Paleolithic research.

{{end div col}}

• Gilman, Antonio (1996). "Explaining the Upper Palaeolithic Revolution". Pp. 220–239 (Chap. 8) in Contemporary Archaeology in Theory: A Reader. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.

{{Reflist}}

• [http://www.newarchaeology.com/articles/uprevolution.php The Upper Paleolithic Revolution]. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091113054944/http://www.newarchaeology.com/articles/uprevolution.php |date=13 November 2009 }}.
• [http://www.anthropark.wz.cz/aagalery.htm Picture Gallery of the Paleolithic (reconstructional palaeoethnology)] – Libor Balák at the Czech Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Archaeology in Brno, The Center for Paleolithic and Paleoethnological Research.

{{Prehistoric technology| state=expanded}}

{{Authority control}}

Category:Pleistocene

Category:Quaternary geochronology

Category:Historical eras