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Stone Age or Lower and Middle Paleolithic Period
The Stone Age begins in Africa with the first anatomically modern humans, perhaps as early as 200,000 years ago; and the first Stone Age sites outside of Africa begins in the middle east about 100,000 years ago; these are followed (fairly arbitrarily) by the Upper Paleolithic of about 40,000 years ago.
Desert Kites
One of the earliest methods of communal hunting are desert kites, an ancient hunting technique of building stone walls to herd animals to slaughter.
Qesem Cave and the Lower-Middle Paleolithic Transition
This photo essay explains the importance of Qesem Cave in Israel, in understanding the Middle to Lower Paleolithic transition in the Levant, and the spread of humans throughout the world.
Acheulo-Yabrudian Cultural Complex
The Acheulo-Yabrudian Cultural Complex (also known as Acheulo-Yabrudian or AYCC) is what archaeologists call the period between the Lower and Middle Paleolithic periods in the Levant.
Shell Beads and Behavioral Modernity
The transition to human behavioral modernity took many hundreds of thousands of years. One of the key pieces of evidence for the blossoming of human intelligence and creativity is shell beads. This photo essay examines the human transition, and the role that shell beads played in that transition.
Homo Wanderensis
The results of ten years of nuclear DNA research on Africans, collected by University of Maryland professor Sarah Tishkoff and colleagues, and intended to learn about the origins and migration patterns of all of us, was presented in an article in Science on May 1, 2009.
Homo: a brief description of our family
A genus (not necessarily a genius) of animal.
Hominin
Over the last few years, the word ‘hominin’ has crept into the public news stories about our human ancestors. This is not a misspelling for hominid; this reflects an evolutionary change in the understanding of what it means to be human.
Hominid
Hominid is a general term used consistently by archaeologists and paleontologists for humans and any member of the species of animal we are most closely evolved from.
Stone Age or Paleolithic Age
A definition and chronology of the Stone Age (more commonly known to scholars as the Paleolithic era), which in human prehistory is the name given to the period between about 1.5 million and 20,000 years ago.
Jabrudian Industries
The name given by archaeologists to a stone flake technology produced by Near Eastern hominids between the Lower and Middle Paleolithic (Mousterian) period, ca. 180,000 BP
James Helmer's Bibliography
James Helmer's bibliography of Hunter-Gatherer archaeology.
SARC: Stone Age Reference Collection
Developed at the University of Oslo, this is a teaching collection of information about stone-tool production technology. (under reconstruction July 2010)
Qesem Cave (Israel)
Qesem Cave is a karst cave located 12 km from the Mediterranean Sea in Israel. Its deposits include artifacts dated to the Acheulo-Yabrudian Cultural Complex, transitional between the Lower and Middle Paleolithic.
Yatsugatake Palaeolithic Research Group
Conducts research on paleolithic sites throughout Japan. Information on several past and present investigations.