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Acheulian
[CP]Lower Palaeolithic tool‐making tradition, found throughout Europe, western Asia, and Africa, which is closely associated with Homo erectus. The tradition was initially named, after the type‐site ...
biface
[De]General term referring to a stone core tool that is usually pointed at one end and flaked on both flat faces until thin and sharp‐edged. Mainly found in Palaeolithic tool industries, and the ...
cave
A large, natural, underground hollow, usually with a horizontal opening. Karst caves result from solution and corrosion; see Miller (2006) GSA Special Paper 404.
Cro-Magnon man
[De]A general and rarely used term that refers in a collective way to modern humans, Homo sapiens sapiens, of the period 35 000 to 10 000 years ago. The name comes from the type‐site of Cro‐Magnon in ...
early humans
Members of the family Hominidae, including our own species Homo sapiens, our presumed forebears Homo erectus and Homo habilis, and forms believed to be closely related called collectively the ...
Europe
The name originally stood for central Greece. It was soon extended to the whole Greek mainland and by 500 bc to the entire land mass behind it. The boundary between the European continent and Asia ...
Hodder Michael Westropp
(1820–85) [Bi]Irish archaeologist born in Co. Cork, the son of a moderately wealthy landowner. Educated at Trinity College, Dublin, he was a flamboyant student who regarded himself as English because ...
Holocene
The most recent geological epoch, stretching from 12 000 years ago to the present day. See Fisch in H. von Stoch et al., eds (2004).
Homo neanderthalensis
A species of hominid that lived between 150 000 and 30 000 years ago (the Middle Palaeolithic) in Europe and Western Asia. Once thought to be a geographical variant of Homo sapiens it is now regarded ...
Homo sapiens
[Sp]Modern humans. Although it is generally believed that this species emerged about 40 000 years ago, claims of exceptionally early finds dating back to between 130 000 and 70 000 years ago have ...
Kapova
The cave of Kapova in Bashkortostan, in the southern Ural Mountains of Russia, is, together with the nearby cave of Ignatiev, the easternmost example of Paleolithic cave art known in ...
Lascaux
The site of a cave in the Dordogne, France, which is richly decorated with Palaeolithic wall paintings of animals dated to the Magdalenian period. Discovered in 1940, the cave was closed in 1963 to ...
megafauna extinction
[Ge]All over the world the early Holocene period saw the decline and extinction of megafauna. The causes of this are a matter of some debate. Changing environmental and climatic conditions must have ...
Mesolithic
[CP]Literally the middle Stone Age, the period between the Palaeolithic and the Neolithic, often characterized by a microlithic flint industry. The transition from hunting, fishing, and fruit ...
microlith
[Ar]Very small implement, commonly of flint, regarded as characteristic of the Mesolithic period in Europe. Typically microliths are between 10 mm and 50 mm long and shaped into either a point or a ...
Neanderthal
A hominid, similar to but distinct from modern humans, that lived in Europe and western Asia between about 150 000 and 30 000 years ago.
Neolithic
The later part of the Stone Age, characterized by the Neolithic peoples' use of polished stone axes and simple pottery. The discovery of farming and the domestication of animals brought an end to the ...
Niger
A large, landlocked West African country surrounded by Algeria, Libya, Chad, Nigeria, Benin, Burkina Faso, and Mali.Physical.The River Niger flows through the country in the extreme south-west, and ...
Notation, Paleolithic
As with language, the ability to manipulate numbers and to systematically record sequences of events is thought to be a uniquely human capacity. Indeed, Noam Chomsky has suggested that the ...
Palaeolithic Quick reference
World Encyclopedia
Earliest stage of human history, from c.2 million years ago until between 40,000 and 10,000 years ago. It was
