The Upper Paleolithic (or Upper Palaeolithic) is the third and last subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age. Very broadly, it dates to between 50,000 and 12,000 years ago (the beginning of the Holocene), according to some theories coinciding with the appearance of behavioral modernity in humans. It is followed by the Mesolithic.
Anatomically modern humans (i.e. Homo sapiens) are believed to have emerged in Africa around 300,000 years ago. It has been argued by some that their ways of life changed relatively little from that of archaic humans of the Middle Paleolithic,<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> until about 50,000 years ago, when there was a marked increase in the diversity of artefacts found associated with modern human remains. This period coincides with the most common date assigned to expansion of modern humans from Africa throughout Asia and Eurasia, which may have contributed to the extinction of the Neanderthals.
The Upper Paleolithic has the earliest known evidence of organized settlements, in the form of campsites, some with storage pits. Artistic work blossomed, with cave painting, petroglyphs, carvings and engravings on bone or ivory. The first evidence of human fishing is also found from a 125,000 years old artefacts in Buya, Eritrea, and in other places such as Blombos cave in South Africa. More complex social groupings emerged, supported by more varied and reliable food sources and specialized tool types. This probably contributed to increasing group identification or ethnicity.<ref>Gilman, Antonio. 1996. "Explaining the Upper Palaeolithic Revolution". pp. 220–239 (Chap. 8) in Contemporary Archaeology in Theory: A Reader. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Blackwell</ref>
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Both Homo erectus and Neanderthals used the same crude stone tools. Archaeologist Richard G. Klein, who has worked extensively on ancient stone tools, describes the stone tool kit of archaic hominids as impossible to categorize. He argues that almost everywhere, whether Asia, Africa or Europe, before 50,000 years ago all the stone tools are much alike and unsophisticated.
Firstly among the artefacts of Africa, archeologists found they could differentiate and classify those of less than 50,000 years into many different categories, such as projectile points, engraving tools, knife blades, and drilling and piercing tools. These new stone-tool types have been described as being distinctly differentiated from each other; each tool had a specific purpose. The early modern humans who expanded into Europe, commonly referred to as the Cro-Magnons, left many sophisticated stone tools, carved and engraved pieces on bone, ivory and antler, cave paintings and Venus figurines.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name=ScienceDaily1998>Template:"'Modern' Behavior Began 40,000 Years Ago In Africa", Science Daily, July 1998</ref>
The Neanderthals continued to use Mousterian stone tool technology and possibly Châtelperronian technology. These tools disappeared from the archeological record at around the same time the Neanderthals themselves disappeared from the fossil record, about 40,000 cal BP.<ref name="nature.com">Template:Cite journal</ref>
Stone core for making fine blades, Boqer Tachtit, Negev, Israel, c. 40,000 BP
Settlements were often located in narrow valley bottoms, possibly associated with hunting of passing herds of animals. Some of them may have been occupied year round, though more commonly they appear to have been used seasonally; people moved between the sites to exploit different food sources at different times of the year. Hunting was important, and caribou/wild reindeer "may well be the species of single greatest importance in the entire anthropological literature on hunting".<ref name=Burch>"In North America and Eurasia the species has long been an important resource—in many areas the most important resource—for peoples' inhabiting the northern boreal forest and tundra regions. Known human dependence on caribou/wild reindeer has a long history, beginning in the Middle Pleistocene (Banfield 1961:170; Kurtén 1968:170) and continuing to the present. ... The caribou/wild reindeer is thus an animal that has been a major resource for humans throughout a tremendous geographic area and across a time span of tens of thousands of years." Ernest S. Burch, Jr. "The Caribou/Wild Reindeer as a Human Resource", American Antiquity, Vol. 37, No. 3 (July 1972), pp. 339–368.</ref>
The changes in human behavior have been attributed to changes in climate, encompassing a number of global temperature drops. These led to a worsening of the already bitter cold of the last glacial period (popularly but incorrectly called the last ice age). Such changes may have reduced the supply of usable timber and forced people to look at other materials. In addition, flint becomes brittle at low temperatures and may not have functioned as a tool.
Notational signs
Art of Lascaux, with painted animal, and four dots, a possible notation for Lunar months<ref name="10.1017/S0959774322000415"/>
Some notational signs, used next to images of animals, may have appeared as early as the Upper Palaeolithic in Europe circa 35,000 BCE, and may be the earliest proto-writing: several symbols were used in combination as a way to convey seasonal behavioural information about hunted animals.<ref name="10.1017/S0959774322000415">Template:Cite journal</ref> Lines (|) and dots (•) were apparently used interchangeably to denote lunar months, while the (Y) sign apparently signified "To give birth". These characters were seemingly combined to convey the breeding period of hunted animals.<ref name="10.1017/S0959774322000415"/>
The climate of the period in Europe saw dramatic changes, and included the Last Glacial Maximum, the coldest phase of the last glacial period, which lasted from about 26.5 to 19 kya, being coldest at the end, before relatively rapid warming (all dates vary somewhat for different areas, and in different studies). During the Maximum, most of Northern Europe was covered by an ice-sheet, forcing human populations into the areas known as Last Glacial Maximum refugia, including modern Italy and the Balkans, parts of the Iberian Peninsula and areas around the Black Sea.
This period saw cultures such as the Solutrean in France and Spain. Human life may have continued on top of the ice sheet, but we know next to nothing about it, and very little about the human life that preceded the European glaciers. In the early part of the period, up to about 30 kya, the Mousterian Pluvial made northern Africa, including the Sahara, well-watered and with lower temperatures than today; after the end of the Pluvial the Sahara became arid.
The Last Glacial Maximum was followed by the Allerød oscillation, a warm and moist global interstadial that occurred around 13.5 to 13.8 kya. Then there was a very rapid onset, perhaps within as little as a decade, of the cold and dry Younger Dryas climate period, giving sub-arctic conditions to much of northern Europe.
The Preboreal rise in temperatures also began sharply around 10.3 kya, and by its end around 9.0 kya had brought temperatures nearly to present day levels, although the climate was wetter.Template:Citation needed
This period saw the Upper Paleolithic give way to the start of the following Mesolithic cultural period.
As the glaciers receded sea levels rose; the English Channel, Irish Sea and North Sea were land at this time, and the Black Sea a fresh-water lake. In particular the Atlantic coastline was initially far out to sea in modern terms in most areas, though the Mediterranean coastline has retreated far less, except in the north of the Adriatic and the Aegean. The rise in sea levels continued until at least 7.5 kya (5500 BC), so evidence of human activity along Europe's coasts in the Upper Paleolithic is mostly lost, though some traces have been recovered by fishing boats and marine archaeology, especially from Doggerland, the lost area beneath the North Sea.Template:Citation needed
Numerous Aboriginal stone tools were found in gravel sediments in Castlereagh, Sydney, Australia. At first when these results were new they were controversial; more recently dating of the same strata has revised and corroborated these dates.<ref name=Attenbrow-2010>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name=Stockton-Nanson-2004>Template:Cite journal</ref>
Earliest evidence of modern humans found in Europe, in Southern Italy.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> These are indirectly dated.<ref name="HighamWesselinghHedgesBergmanDouka2013" />Template:Rp
Earliest mathematical artifact, the notched Lebombo bone, a possible tally stick or lunar calendar, dated to 44,000–43,000 BP in Eswatini (Swaziland), southern Africa.<ref>Francesco d'Errico et al. (2012) Early evidence of San material culture represented by organic artifacts from Border Cave, South Africa. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences109(33): 13214-13219. It is called a notched bone, illustrated in Fig. 1, 12Template:Cite journal</ref>
Oldest-known mining in archaeological record, the Ngwenya Mine in Swaziland, at about 43,000 years ago, where humans mined hematite to make the red pigment ochre.<ref>Swaziland Natural Trust Commission, "Cultural Resources – Malolotja Archaeology, Lion Cavern," Retrieved 27 August 2007, Template:Cite web.</ref><ref>Peace Parks Foundation, "Major Features: Cultural Importance." Republic of South Africa: Author. Retrieved 27 August 2007, [1].</ref>
Microlithic artefacts have been excavated from Kana, West Bengal, India.
Ornaments and skeletal remains of modern humans, at Ksar Akil in Lebanon. These are directly dated.<ref name="HighamWesselinghHedgesBergmanDouka2013" />Template:Rp
First human inhabitants in Perth, Australia, as evidenced by archaeological findings on the Upper Swan River.<ref>Template:Cite book Cited in Template:Cite web</ref>
During this time period, Melbourne, Australia was occupied by hunter-gatherers.<ref name="merrimerri">Isabel Ellender and Peter Christiansen, People of the Merri Merri. The Wurundjeri in Colonial Days, Merri Creek Management Committee, 2001 Template:ISBN</ref><ref>Gary Presland, The First Residents of Melbourne's Western Region (revised edition), Harriland Press, 1997. Template:ISBN. Presland says on page 1: "There is some evidence to show that people were living in the Maribyrnong River valley, near present day Keilor, about 40,000 years ago."</ref>
Examples of cave art in Spain are dated from around 40,000 BP, making them the oldest examples of cave art yet discovered in Europe (see: Caves of Nerja). Scientists theorise that the paintings may have been made by Neanderthals, rather than by modern humans.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
Wall painting with horses, rhinoceroses and aurochs is made at Chauvet Cave, Vallon-Pont-d'Arc, Ardéche gorge, France. Discovered in December 1994.
Evidence for continued Neanderthal presence in the Iberian Peninsula at 37,000 years ago was published in 2017.<ref name=Zilhao2017>Template:Cite journal</ref>
First ground stone tools appear in Japan.<ref>Keiji Imamura, Prehistoric Japan: New perspectives on insular East Asia University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, 1996 Template:ISBN</ref>
Artifacts suggests early human activity occurred at some point in Canberra, Australia.<ref>Template:Citation</ref> Archaeological evidence of settlement in the region includes inhabited rock shelters, rock art, burial places, camps and quarry sites, and stone tools and arrangements.<ref name="Gillespie84">Template:Cite book</ref>
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Last Glacial Maximum. Mean sea levels are believed to be Template:Convertlower than present,<ref>Sea level data from main article:Cosquer cave</ref> with the direct implication that many coastal and lower riverine valley archaeological sites of interest are today under water.
"Here we report on a case of inter-group violence towards a group of hunter-gatherers from Nataruk, west of Lake Turkana ... Ten of the twelve articulated skeletons found at Nataruk show evidence of having died violently at the edge of a lagoon, into which some of the bodies fell. The remains ... offer a rare glimpse into the life and death of past foraging people, and evidence that warfare was part of the repertoire of inter-group relations among prehistoric hunter-gatherers."
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For early depiction of interpersonal violence in rock art see:
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The Châtelperronian culture was located around central and south western France, and northern Spain. It appears to be derived from the Mousterian culture, and represents the period of overlap between Neanderthals and Homo sapiens. This culture lasted from approximately 45,000 BP to 40,000 BP.<ref name="nature.com"/>
The Aurignacian culture was located in Europe and south west Asia, and flourished between 43,000 and 26,000 BP. It may have been contemporary with the Périgordian (a contested grouping of the earlier Châtelperronian and later Gravettian cultures).
The Gravettian culture was located across Europe. Gravettian sites generally date between 33,000 and 20,000 BP.
The Solutrean culture was located in eastern France, Spain, and England. Solutrean artifacts have been dated c. 22,000 to 17,000 BP.
The Magdalenian culture left evidence from Portugal to Poland during the period from 17,000 to 12,000 BP.
40,000 BP, Whadjuk and Noongar culture (Perth, Australia)<ref>Mulvaney, D J and White, Peter, 1987, Australians to 1788, Fairfax, Syme & Weldon, Sydney</ref>
35,000 BP, Wurundjeri, Boonwurrung and Wathaurong culture (Melbourne, Australia)<ref>Gary Presland, Aboriginal Melbourne: The Lost Land of the Kulin People, Harriland Press (1985), Second edition 1994, Template:ISBN. This book describes in some detail the archaeological evidence regarding aboriginal life, culture, food gathering and land management, particularly the period from the flooding of Bass Strait and Port Phillip from about 7–10,000 years ago, up to the European colonisation in the nineteenth century.</ref>
Gilman, Antonio (1996). "Explaining the Upper Palaeolithic Revolution". Pp. 220–239 (Chap. 8) in Contemporary Archaeology in Theory: A Reader. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.
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