How long did the Paleolithic last?

It spans from the earliest stone tools, dated to around 3.3 million years ago, to the end of the last Ice Age roughly 11,700 years ago—by far the longest phase of human prehistory.

How is the Paleolithic divided?

It is conventionally split into the Lower, Middle, and Upper Paleolithic, defined chiefly by changes in stone-tool technology and the hominin species associated with them.

Paleolithic Archaeology

Paleolithic archaeology studies the longest and earliest phase of the human past, spanning the first stone-tool industries roughly 3.3 million years ago to the end of the last Ice Age, and the foraging hominins and humans who made them.

Definition

The branch of prehistoric archaeology concerned with the Pleistocene-era record of hominin and human foragers, conventionally divided into Lower, Middle, and Upper Paleolithic phases on the basis of stone-tool technology.

Scope

This area covers the material record of the Old Stone Age, from the earliest knapped tools of early Homo through the technological and behavioural florescence of anatomically modern humans. It integrates lithic analysis, faunal and palaeoenvironmental evidence, hominin fossils, and site formation studies to reconstruct subsistence, mobility, social organization, and cognition among Pleistocene foragers across Africa, Eurasia, and eventually the wider world.

Sub-topics

Core questions

How did early stone-tool technologies originate and change over millions of years?
What can lithic and faunal assemblages reveal about Paleolithic subsistence and social life?
When and how did distinctively modern human behaviour emerge?
How did Pleistocene environments shape hominin dispersals and adaptations?

Key theories

Technological mode sequence: The framework, refined from Grahame Clark's modes, that classifies Paleolithic lithic industries into successive technological modes (Oldowan, Acheulean, prepared-core Mousterian, blade-based Upper Paleolithic) used to structure the period.
Behavioural modernity: The debated proposition that a package of traits—blade technology, art, ornament, complex projectile weapons, and symbolic behaviour—marks the emergence of fully modern human cognition during the later Paleolithic.

History

Paleolithic archaeology emerged in the 19th century when antiquaries such as Boucher de Perthes and the acceptance of human antiquity established that stone tools were contemporary with extinct fauna. Twentieth-century typological systems, notably those of the Bordes school, gave way after the 1960s to processual approaches emphasizing ecology, site formation, and quantitative lithic analysis, and more recently to chaîne opératoire studies and the integration of palaeogenetics.

Debates

Revolution versus gradualism in modern behaviour: Scholars dispute whether modern human behaviour appeared abruptly as a 'human revolution' around 40,000 years ago in Europe, or accumulated gradually over a much longer span in Africa, as evidence from Middle Stone Age sites suggests.

Key figures

Richard G. Klein
Clive Gamble
Grahame Clark
François Bordes

Seminal works

klein2009
gamble1999
renfrewbahn2020

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Paleolithic last?: It spans from the earliest stone tools, dated to around 3.3 million years ago, to the end of the last Ice Age roughly 11,700 years ago—by far the longest phase of human prehistory.
How is the Paleolithic divided?: It is conventionally split into the Lower, Middle, and Upper Paleolithic, defined chiefly by changes in stone-tool technology and the hominin species associated with them.