( Gr. 'palaeos'=old + 'lithos'=stone) the oldest part of the Stone Age, dating from the first use of stone tools by hominids (approx. 2 million years ago) to the end of the Pleistocene. Subdivided into the Lower, Middle and Upper Palaeolithic periods.
is the epoch (“culture”) of manufactured stones tools in lithic industry, that correlates with Glacial Pleistocene; in the Republic of Moldova there are remains of Late Paleolithic culture, that existed here from 29,000 till 11,000 years B.P.
the period of the emergence of primitive man and the manufacture of unpolished chipped stone tools, about 2.5 million to 3 million years ago until about 12 000 b.C.
The term for the Old Stone Age, the immensely long period of hunter-gatherers extending from the time when humans first evolved until about 10,000 BC. In Britain, the earliest evidence of human activity dates from approximately 450,000 years ago, although there are long periods (of 100,000 years or more) when there appears to have been no human presence. The period has been divided by archaeologists into the Lower (the oldest), Middle and Upper Palaeolithic to indicate when social and technological developments – mainly increasingly sophisticated flint tools – occurred. Neanderthals were supplanted by Homo sapiens, modern humans, during this epoch. See also ages.
Old Stone Age during which men used crudestone implements and were food-gatherers. Commonly considered to have begun a half million or more years ago.
Earliest period of the Stone Age, characterised by the emergence of primitive people and the manufacture and use of crude (unpolished) chipped stone tools, about 2.5 to 3.5 million years ago.
second part of the Stone Age beginning about 750,00 to 500,000 years BC and lasting until the end of the last ice age about 8,500 years BC
of or relating to the second period of the Stone Age (following the eolithic); "paleolithic artifacts"
The time period covering the years before about 12,000 BC to three and a half million years ago. Palaeolithic literally means 'Old Stone Age' and is succeeded by the Mesolithic (Middle Stone Age). During the Palaeolithic much of Northern Europe was still covered with ice and sites of this period in North-East England are extremely rare. On Teesside we have records of finds of fossilised bones of Palaeolithic animals such as woolly rhino and mammoth but so far no evidence of human activity has been identified. Elsewhere human activity is recognised in the form of some of the earliest stone tools such as hand-axes and magnificent cave paintings such as those in southern France.
The earliest period of the human prehistoric past, starting with the first use of stone tools and finishing at the end of the last glaciation c. 10,000 BP. Sub-divisions of the Palaeolithic are based on the presence and appearance of different types of stone tools.
'Old stone age' spanning from the appearance of tool-using humans to c. 8.000 BC. (in the N. hemisphere).
Of or relating to the cultural period of the Stone Age beginning with the earliest chipped stone tools, about 750,000 years ago, until the beginning of the Mesolithic Age, about 15,000 years ago.