Paleolithic age murals decorate cave walls in Spain and France.
The Paleolithic period, or Old Stone Age, began about 1.5 million years ago and lasted until around 8,000 B.C. During this time, human technology was based on stone. Changes in the cultural evolution of these early hunting-gathering humans was slow. During the Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, human beings began to practice agriculture and domesticate animals. The era ended with the appearance of metal tools in the Copper Age.
Cave Paintings
Large-scale cave paintings in Europe are one of the most well-known things associated with Paleolithic people. During an ice age around 30,000 B.C., artists painted pictures on the walls of Spain's Altimira cave and France's Lascaux cave. Large-scale murals of animals, found deep within the caves, featured a detailed, realistic style. Horses, bison, deer and elk were favorite subjects. The artists used mineral-based pigments to adorn the white, gypsum-covered walls.
Neolithic Megaliths
Megaliths are monumental forms made up of giant stones assembled in circles. The largest of the stones were up to 17 feet tall and weighed 45 to 50 tons apiece. It is not known exactly how Neolithic people transported the stones and stood them upright in holes in the ground. Stonehenge on England's Salisbury Plain is the most famous megalith left standing. It features a post and lintel style of construction, in which two vertical stones support a horizontal capstone.
Farming
Neolithic people brought about one of the most important lifestyle changes in the history of humanity. They transformed a nomadic existence of hunting and gathering into a sedentary life based on agriculture. Animals bred and raised in captivity provided food and leather. Neolithic people domesticated wild plants and improved them by selective breeding. Permanent shelters and villages spawned a new social order that replaced the old tribal system of the Paleolithic migratory hunters. Economic systems arose to allow trading between far-flung settlements.
Tools
Stone Age tools made of easily worked stone such as flint or obsidian were used worldwide. With a technique known as knapping, a person used a stone tool to strike thin parallel flakes from a blade cores, or a larger piece of flint or obsidian. The resulting blade flakes were refined into knifes, spear points, scrapers and drills. Pressure flaking with antler or wooden tools put a sharp edge on the artifacts. Some tools were put onto wooden handles, while others such as burins and awls were handheld.
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