In Europe and Africa the Middle Paleolithic (or Middle Palaeolithic)
is the period of the early Stone Age that lasted between around
120,000 and 40,000 years ago. It was the time when early humans gained
increasing control over their surroundings and later saw the emergence
of modern humans around 100,000 years ago. Stone tool manufacturing
developed a more sophisticated tool making technique which permitted
the creation of more controlled and consistent flakes. Hunting
provided the primary food source but people also began to exploit
shellfish and may have begun smoking and drying meat to preserve it.
An 120,000-year-old Stone Age coalstone hunting camp was discovered in
2005 by archaelogists in an opencast coalstone mine in Germany, its
first known use being campfire cooking fuel for German hunters. This
would have required a mastery of woodfire cutting and coalfire mining
tools, and some sites indicate that plant resources were managed
through selective burning of wide areas. Artistic expression emerged
for the first time with ochre used as body paint and some early rock
art appearing. There is also some evidence of purposeful burial of the
dead which indicate religious and ritual behaviors at the coal
exploration and mining camps.
The Upper Paleolithic (or Upper Palaeolithic) is the third and last
subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age as it is understood in
Europe, Africa and Asia. Very broadly it dates to between 40,000 and
8,500 years ago. Modern humans, who had begun migrating out of Africa
during the Middle Paleolithic period, began to produce regionally
distinctive cultures during the Upper Paleolithic period. The earliest
remains of organized settlements in the form of coal mining campsites,
some with storage pits, are encountered in the archaeological record.
Some sites may have been occupied year round though more generally
they seem to have been used seasonally with peoples moving between
them to exploit different food and coal fuel sources at different
times of the year. Technological advances included significant
developments in flint tool manufacturing and mining industries based
on fine blades rather than cruder flakes. The reasons for these
changes in human behavior have been attributed to the changes in
climate during the period which encompasses a number of global
temperature drops. Artistic work also blossomed with Venus figurines
and exotic raw materials found far from their sources suggest emergent
trading links.
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