Paleolithic Europe
Encyclopedia
Paleolithic Europe refers to the Paleolithic
period of Europe
, a prehistoric
era distinguished by the development of the first stone tool
s and which covers roughly 99% of human technological history. It extends from the introduction of stone tools by hominids such as Homo habilis
2.5 or 2.6 million years ago, to the introduction of agriculture and the end of the Pleistocene
around 12,000 BP
.
Homo ergaster
and Homo heidelbergensis
evolved in Paleolithic Europe long before the emergence of modern humans traits . The bones of the earliest Europeans are found in Dmanisi
, Georgia
, dated at 1.8 million years before the present. West Europe was populated since c. 1.2 million ago (Atapuerca
, Spain
). The earliest appearance of European early modern humans has been dated to 34,000–36,000 14C BP. Evidence of permanent settlements dates from the 7th millennium BCE in the Balkans
.
technology (since c. 300,000 BP).
and Homo heidelbergensis
into the species Homo neanderthalensis (since c. 200,000 BP) associated with the Mousterian
technologies. It must be noted that our ancestors Homo sapiens also participated in this tool-making technique for a long time and they may have first settled Europe while this Mid-Paleolithic technique was still in use, though the issue is still unclear.
A possible flute from the Divje Babe
I cave reveals that the Middle Paleolithic Neanderthal inhabitants of Europe may have made and used musical instruments.
in the Southwest) use clearly Upper Paleolithic technologies at very early dates and there are doubts about who were their carriers: H. sapiens, Neanderthal or the interbred population.
Nevertheless, the definitive advance of these technologies is made by the Aurignacian
culture. The origins of this culture can be located in what is now Bulgaria (proto-Aurignacian) and Hungary (first full Aurignacian). By 35,000 BCE, the Aurignacian culture and its technology had extended through most of Europe. The last Neanderthals seem to have been forced to retreat during this process to the southern half of the Iberian Peninsula
.
The first but scarce works of art appear during this phase.
and Gravettian
. The Gravettian technology/culture has been theorized to have come with migrations of people from the Middle East, Anatolia, and the Balkans carrying the haplotype I y-chromosome. They might be linked with the transitional cultures mentioned before, because their techniques have some similarities and are both very different from Aurignacian ones but this issue is thus far very obscure.
Though both cultures seem to appear in the SW, the Gravettian soon disappears there, with the notable exception of the Mediterranean coasts of Iberia. Nevertheless, it finds its way to other regions of Europe (Italy, Central and Eastern Europe), reaching even the Caucasus and the Zagros mountains.
The Solutrean culture, extended from northern Spain to SE France, includes not only a beautiful stone technology but also the first significant development of cave painting, the use of the needle and possibly that of the bow and arrow.
The more widespread Gravettian culture is no less advanced, at least in artistic terms: sculpture (mainly venuses) is the most outstanding form of creative expression of these peoples.
, possibly rooted in the old Aurignacian one. This culture soon supersedes the Solutrean area and also the Gravetian of Central Europe. However, in Mediterranean Iberia, Italy and Eastern Europe, epi-Gravettian cultures continue evolving locally.
With the Magdalenian culture, Paleolithic development in Europe reaches its peak and this is reflected in the amazing art, owing to the previous traditions: basically paintings in the West and sculpture in Central Europe.
, in Spain and southern France, and Sauveterrian
, in northern France and Central Europe. Though there are some differences, both cultures share several traits: the creation of very small stone tools called microlith
s and the scarcity of figurative art, which seems to have vanished almost completely, being replaced by abstract decoration of tools. http://www.beloit.edu/~museum/logan/paleoexhibit/masdazil.htm#thumbnails
In the late phase of this epi-Paleolithic period, the Sauveterrean culture evolves into the so-called Tardenoisian
and influences strongly its southern neighbour, clearly replacing it in Mediterranean Spain and Portugal.
The recession of the glaciers allows human colonization in Northern Europe for the first time. The Maglemosian culture, derived from the Sauveterre-Tardenois culture but with a strong personality, colonizes Denmark and the nearby regions, including parts of Britain.
Paleolithic
The Paleolithic Age, Era or Period, is a prehistoric period of human history distinguished by the development of the most primitive stone tools discovered , and covers roughly 99% of human technological prehistory...
period of Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
, a prehistoric
Prehistory
Prehistory is the span of time before recorded history. Prehistory can refer to the period of human existence before the availability of those written records with which recorded history begins. More broadly, it refers to all the time preceding human existence and the invention of writing...
era distinguished by the development of the first stone tool
Stone tool
A stone tool is, in the most general sense, any tool made either partially or entirely out of stone. Although stone tool-dependent societies and cultures still exist today, most stone tools are associated with prehistoric, particularly Stone Age cultures that have become extinct...
s and which covers roughly 99% of human technological history. It extends from the introduction of stone tools by hominids such as Homo habilis
Homo habilis
Homo habilis is a species of the genus Homo, which lived from approximately at the beginning of the Pleistocene period. The discovery and description of this species is credited to both Mary and Louis Leakey, who found fossils in Tanzania, East Africa, between 1962 and 1964. Homo habilis Homo...
2.5 or 2.6 million years ago, to the introduction of agriculture and the end of the Pleistocene
Pleistocene
The Pleistocene is the epoch from 2,588,000 to 11,700 years BP that spans the world's recent period of repeated glaciations. The name pleistocene is derived from the Greek and ....
around 12,000 BP
Before Present
Before Present years is a time scale used in archaeology, geology, and other scientific disciplines to specify when events in the past occurred. Because the "present" time changes, standard practice is to use AD 1950 as the origin of the age scale, reflecting the fact that radiocarbon...
.
Homo ergaster
Homo ergaster
Homo ergaster is an extinct chronospecies of Homo that lived in eastern and southern Africa during the early Pleistocene, about 2.5–1.7 million years ago.There is still disagreement on the subject of the classification, ancestry, and progeny of H...
and Homo heidelbergensis
Homo heidelbergensis
Homo heidelbergensis is an extinct species of the genus Homo which may be the direct ancestor of both Homo neanderthalensis in Europe and Homo sapiens. The best evidence found for these hominins date between 600,000 and 400,000 years ago. H...
evolved in Paleolithic Europe long before the emergence of modern humans traits . The bones of the earliest Europeans are found in Dmanisi
Dmanisi
Dmanisi is a townlet and archaeological site in Kvemo Kartli region of Georgia approximately 93 km southwest of the nation’s capital Tbilisi in the river valley of Mashavera.- History :...
, Georgia
Georgia (country)
Georgia is a sovereign state in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the southwest by Turkey, to the south by Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan. The capital of...
, dated at 1.8 million years before the present. West Europe was populated since c. 1.2 million ago (Atapuerca
Atapuerca
The Atapuerca Mountains is an ancient karstic region of Spain, in the province of Burgos and near Atapuerca and Ibeas de Juarros. It contains several caves, where fossils and stone tools of the earliest known Hominins in West Europe have been found. The earliest hominids may have dated to 1.2...
, Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
). The earliest appearance of European early modern humans has been dated to 34,000–36,000 14C BP. Evidence of permanent settlements dates from the 7th millennium BCE in the Balkans
Prehistoric Balkans
The prehistory of Southeastern Europe , defined roughly as the territory of the wider Balkans peninsula covers the period from the Upper Paleolithic, beginning with the presence of Homo sapiens in the area some 44,000 years ago, until the...
.
Lower Paleolithic
Culture around 900,000 years ago is associated with the pebble-tools technology and later to the AcheuleanAcheulean
Acheulean is the name given to an archaeological industry of stone tool manufacture associated with early humans during the Lower Palaeolithic era across Africa and much of West Asia, South Asia and Europe. Acheulean tools are typically found with Homo erectus remains...
technology (since c. 300,000 BP).
Middle Paleolithic
Eventually these European Homo erectus evolved through a series of intermediate speciations including Homo antecessorHomo antecessor
Homo antecessor is an extinct human species dating from 1.2 million to 800,000 years ago, that was discovered by Eudald Carbonell, Juan Luis Arsuaga and J. M. Bermúdez de Castro. H. antecessor is one of the earliest known human varieties in Europe. Various archaeologists and anthropologists have...
and Homo heidelbergensis
Homo heidelbergensis
Homo heidelbergensis is an extinct species of the genus Homo which may be the direct ancestor of both Homo neanderthalensis in Europe and Homo sapiens. The best evidence found for these hominins date between 600,000 and 400,000 years ago. H...
into the species Homo neanderthalensis (since c. 200,000 BP) associated with the Mousterian
Mousterian
Mousterian is a name given by archaeologists to a style of predominantly flint tools associated primarily with Homo neanderthalensis and dating to the Middle Paleolithic, the middle part of the Old Stone Age.-Naming:...
technologies. It must be noted that our ancestors Homo sapiens also participated in this tool-making technique for a long time and they may have first settled Europe while this Mid-Paleolithic technique was still in use, though the issue is still unclear.
A possible flute from the Divje Babe
Divje Babe
The Divje Babe flute is a cave bear femur pierced by spaced holes that was found at the Divje Babe archeological park located near Cerkno in northwestern Slovenia. It has been suggested that it is the world's oldest known musical instrument, but this is in dispute...
I cave reveals that the Middle Paleolithic Neanderthal inhabitants of Europe may have made and used musical instruments.
Ancient Upper Paleolithic
The bearers of most or all Upper Paleolithic technologies were H. sapiens. Some locally developed transitional cultures (Szletian in Central Europe and ChatelperronianChâtelperronian
Châtelperronian was the earliest industry of the Upper Palaeolithic in central and south western France, extending also into Northern Spain. It derives its name from the site of la Grotte des Fées, in Châtelperron, Allier, France....
in the Southwest) use clearly Upper Paleolithic technologies at very early dates and there are doubts about who were their carriers: H. sapiens, Neanderthal or the interbred population.
Nevertheless, the definitive advance of these technologies is made by the Aurignacian
Aurignacian
The Aurignacian culture is an archaeological culture of the Upper Palaeolithic, located in Europe and southwest Asia. It lasted broadly within the period from ca. 45,000 to 35,000 years ago in terms of conventional radiocarbon dating, or between ca. 47,000 and 41,000 years ago in terms of the most...
culture. The origins of this culture can be located in what is now Bulgaria (proto-Aurignacian) and Hungary (first full Aurignacian). By 35,000 BCE, the Aurignacian culture and its technology had extended through most of Europe. The last Neanderthals seem to have been forced to retreat during this process to the southern half of the Iberian Peninsula
Iberian Peninsula
The Iberian Peninsula , sometimes called Iberia, is located in the extreme southwest of Europe and includes the modern-day sovereign states of Spain, Portugal and Andorra, as well as the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar...
.
The first but scarce works of art appear during this phase.
Middle Upper Paleolithic
Around 22,000 BCE, two new technologies/cultures appear in the southwestern region of Europe: SolutreanSolutrean
The Solutrean industry is a relatively advanced flint tool-making style of the Upper Palaeolithic, from around 22,000 to 17,000 BP.-Details:...
and Gravettian
Gravettian
thumb|right|Burins to the Gravettian culture.The Gravettian toolmaking culture was a specific archaeological industry of the European Upper Palaeolithic era prevalent before the last glacial epoch. It is named after the type site of La Gravette in the Dordogne region of France where its...
. The Gravettian technology/culture has been theorized to have come with migrations of people from the Middle East, Anatolia, and the Balkans carrying the haplotype I y-chromosome. They might be linked with the transitional cultures mentioned before, because their techniques have some similarities and are both very different from Aurignacian ones but this issue is thus far very obscure.
Though both cultures seem to appear in the SW, the Gravettian soon disappears there, with the notable exception of the Mediterranean coasts of Iberia. Nevertheless, it finds its way to other regions of Europe (Italy, Central and Eastern Europe), reaching even the Caucasus and the Zagros mountains.
The Solutrean culture, extended from northern Spain to SE France, includes not only a beautiful stone technology but also the first significant development of cave painting, the use of the needle and possibly that of the bow and arrow.
The more widespread Gravettian culture is no less advanced, at least in artistic terms: sculpture (mainly venuses) is the most outstanding form of creative expression of these peoples.
Late Upper Paleolithic
Around 17,000 BCE, Europe witnesses the appearance of a new culture, known as MagdalenianMagdalenian
The Magdalenian , refers to one of the later cultures of the Upper Paleolithic in western Europe, dating from around 17,000 BP to 9,000 BP...
, possibly rooted in the old Aurignacian one. This culture soon supersedes the Solutrean area and also the Gravetian of Central Europe. However, in Mediterranean Iberia, Italy and Eastern Europe, epi-Gravettian cultures continue evolving locally.
With the Magdalenian culture, Paleolithic development in Europe reaches its peak and this is reflected in the amazing art, owing to the previous traditions: basically paintings in the West and sculpture in Central Europe.
Epi-Paleolithic
Around 10,500 BCE, the Würm Glacial age ends. Slowly, through the following millennia, temperatures and sea levels rise, changing the environment of prehistoric people. Nevertheless, Magdalenian culture persists until circa 8000 BCE, when it quickly evolves into two microlithist cultures: AzilianAzilian
The Azilian is a name given by archaeologists to an industry of the Epipaleolithic in northern Spain and southern France.It probably dates to the period of the Allerød Oscillation around 10,000 years ago and followed the Magdalenian culture...
, in Spain and southern France, and Sauveterrian
Sauveterrian
The Sauveterrian is the name for an archaeological culture of the European Epipaleolithic which flourished around 7000-8000 years BC. The name is derived from the type site of Sauveterre-la-Lémance in the French of Lot-et-Garonne....
, in northern France and Central Europe. Though there are some differences, both cultures share several traits: the creation of very small stone tools called microlith
Microlith
A microlith is a small stone tool usually made of flint or chert and typically a centimetre or so in length and half a centimetre wide. It is produced from either a small blade or a larger blade-like piece of flint by abrupt or truncated retouching, which leaves a very typical piece of waste,...
s and the scarcity of figurative art, which seems to have vanished almost completely, being replaced by abstract decoration of tools. http://www.beloit.edu/~museum/logan/paleoexhibit/masdazil.htm#thumbnails
In the late phase of this epi-Paleolithic period, the Sauveterrean culture evolves into the so-called Tardenoisian
Tardenoisian
The Tardenoisian is an archaeological culture of the Epipaleolithic period from north-western France and Belgium. Similar cultures are known further east in central Europe and west across Spain....
and influences strongly its southern neighbour, clearly replacing it in Mediterranean Spain and Portugal.
The recession of the glaciers allows human colonization in Northern Europe for the first time. The Maglemosian culture, derived from the Sauveterre-Tardenois culture but with a strong personality, colonizes Denmark and the nearby regions, including parts of Britain.
See also
- Prehistoric EuropePrehistoric EuropePrehistoric Europe refers to the prehistorical period of Europe, usually taken to refer to human prehistory since the Lower Paleolithic, but in principle also extending to geological time scale - for which see Geological history of Europe....
- Neolithic EuropeNeolithic EuropeNeolithic Europe refers to a prehistoric period in which Neolithic technology was present in Europe. This corresponds roughly to a time between 7000 BC and c. 1700 BC...
- Chalcolithic EuropeChalcolithic EuropeChalcolithic Europe, the Chalcolithic period of Prehistoric Europe lasts roughly 3500 to 1700 BC.It is the period of Megalithic culture, the appearance of the first significant economic stratification, and probably the earliest presence of Indo-European speakers.The economy of the Chalcolithic,...
- Geological history of EuropeGeological history of EuropeThe formation of Europe as a coherent landmass dates to after the breakup of Pangaea, taking place during the Oligocene and completed by the early Neogene period, some 20 million years ago.- Pre-Pleistocene :...
External links
- Links to Paleolithic santuaries in France: