2.

5 mya – 200, 000

 Early Acheulean Handaxe
Acheulean tools, named for an archaeological site in Saint-
Acheul, France, were first developed about 1.5 million years
ago. This Acheulean hand axe comes from Olduvai Gorge,
Tanzania, and is about 700,000 years old. Like almost all
Acheulean tools, the axe has a symmetrical design.
 Late Acheulean Handaxe
The style of toolmaking known as Acheulean developed in Africa over 1.5 million
years ago. It spread to Europe and Asia and continued for well over a million
years, the longest period of any toolmaking tradition. Some of the most common
Acheulean tools were large, symmetrical, teardrop-shaped handaxes, such as
these two found in southeast England.
 • The Upper Paleolithic extends from
approximately 40,000 years ago until the end
of the last ice age, about 10,000 years ago.
 Mastodon Hunt
More than 10,000 years ago early inhabitants of the Americas, known as Paleo-Indians, hunted
large mammals such as bison, mammoth, and mastodon. The hunting of such large prey was a
late development in human prehistory, as it required sophisticated stone weaponry and a kind of
planning and coordination possible only with an elaborate system of communication, such as
language. This diorama from the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City depicts
Mesoamerican Paleo-Indians killing a mastodon.
 Clovis Point
Clovis spearpoints, such as this one from northeastern Utah, are among the oldest stone tools known
in the Americas. The oldest Clovis spearpoints in North America date to about 11,500 years ago.
Native Americans attached such points to shafts, making spears that could either be thrust directly at
animal prey or thrown using atlatls (spear-throwers). Archaeologists believe the spearpoints were
also used as multipurpose cutting tools.
 Folsom Point
The Folsom culture, known from its stone tools, developed in North America about 11,000 years ago. This
Folsom point comes from the New Mexico site of Blackwater Draw, where archaeologists also found the
first artifacts of the Clovis, an older Native American culture. Folsom points were fluted (concave in the
center) along their entire length and were attached to shafts for use as spears.
 Skara Brae
Skara Brae, a Stone Age settlement in the Orkney Islands off the northern coast of Scotland,
lay hidden beneath a sand dune for 5000 years until a severe storm revealed the ruins in 1850.
Australian-born archaeologist Vere Gordon Childe directed the first excavations at the site in
the 1920s. Although originally built well away from the shore
• The Mesolithic (also known as the Epipaleolithic) extends from the
end of the Pleistocene Ice Age, about 10,000 years ago, until the
period when farming became central to a peoples’ livelihood, which
occurred at different times around the world. The term Mesolithic is
generally applied to the period of post-Pleistocene hunting and
gathering in Europe and, sometimes, parts of Africa and Asia. In the
Americas, the post-glacial hunter-gatherer stage that predates the
dominance of agriculture is usually called the Archaic. In the rest of
the world, Mesolithic sites are usually characterized by microliths.
 Jōmon Pottery
Japan’s Jōmon people, who thrived from
10,000 to 300 BC, made distinctive
pottery for boiling, steaming, and storing
food. The pots were made with coils of
clay and then decorated by rolling carved
sticks, plant fibers, or braided cords over
the outer surface. This cord-marked
(jōmon) pottery gave the culture its
name.
During the Mesolithic, human populations in many areas began to exploit a much wider
range of foodstuffs, a pattern of exploitation known as broad spectrum economy. Intensively
exploited foods included wild cereals, seeds and nuts, fruits, small game, fish, shellfish,
aquatic mammals and birds, tortoises, and invertebrates such as snails. Dogs were
domesticated in this period, probably for use in hunting. Some Mesolithic hunter-gatherers,
such as the Natufian of the Near East, appear to have lived in small settlements based on an
economy involving gazelle hunting and the harvesting of wild cereals using sickles with flint
blade segments inset in bone handles.

The development of broad spectrum economies in the post-glacial Mesolithic/Archaic

period laid the foundations for the domestication of plants and animals, which in turn
led to the rise of farming communities in some parts of the world. This development
marked the beginning of the Neolithic.
• Farming originated at different times in different places—as early as about
9,000 years ago in some parts of the world. In some regions, farming arose
through indigenous developments, and in others it spread from other areas.
The domestication of plants and animals led to profound social change
during the Neolithic. Surpluses of food, such as stored grain or herds of
livestock, could become commodities of wealth for some individuals, leading
to social differentiation within farming communities. Trade of raw materials
and manufactured products between different areas increased markedly
during the Neolithic.