Stone Age
Upper Paleolithic Era

Topics covered in this section:

Introduction

The Upper Paleolithic covers a 30,000 year period, between 40,000 and 10,000 BP (before present).

The Upper Paleolithic is an interesting, perhaps even exciting, period. It's an era when Stone Age people became more "human." The primary cause of this evolution was undoubtedly related to the arrival of Cro-Magnon on the Continent.

Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon societies existed side-by-side for centuries, but eventually the Neanderthals suffered extinction and were replaced by the Cro-Magnons.

It was a period when new technology in the form of bone and antler tools replaced the old stone tools. And artistic creativity burst onto the scene in the form of cave paintings and miniature sculptures.

It was a period when hunting techniques had to be changed as the ice sheets retreated northward, leaving vast forests in their wake. Herd animals moved northward as well, and were replaced by small, dispersed groups of forest dwelling animals.

Archaeological Markers

Archaeologists have identified the typical characteristics of artifacts that are found at Upper Paleolithic sites, although there are many exceptions to these stereotypes.

New Blade Patterns

By the time we reach the Upper Paleolithic era, stone technology had advanced to its highest state thus far. Stone tools and blades were thinner, longer, and more regularly shaped. By far, these "new" blades dominate the artifact record of stone tool production.

Tool design seems to indicate the embryonic beginnings of an ethnic identity as tools from different regions take on characteristic local patterns.

Bone and Antler Tools

In addition to stone tools, we see a sudden burst in the production of bone and antler tools, as if they were discovered for the first time. In fact, bone tools are conspicuously absent in the earlier Paleolithic cultures.

It was as if Upper Paleolithic craftsmen finally noticed that bones and antlers could be "plastic" enough to be shaped into useful tools.

Making use of this new technology, we see a comparable increase in the variety and styles of bone tools. Bone and antler scrapers replaced the older stone scrapers. Bone and antler awls, which were nearly impossible to fashion from stone, suddenly appeared. Small bone pins and needles made their debut. And bone rings or tubes joined the artisan's new toolbox.

We also see a more diverse range of tools produced. We see bone skin-scraping tools, the so called "end scrapers," replace bulkier stone scrapers. We see new tool designs emerge to facilitate working with bones or antlers, notably gouges and chisels. We see bone and antler knives achieve a sharpness that's hard to match in stone knives. And we see production levels of spear tips surge as bone and antler tips replace those made of stone.

Art and Sculpture

We see an explosion in art forms during the Upper Paleolithic.

Some 33,000 to 35,000 years ago, art in the form of perforated animal teeth appeared. Most popular were the teeth of fur-bearing animals such as fox, bear and wolf. The teeth were strung into necklaces and other personal ornaments.

Then, between 30,000 and 32,000 years ago, the art consisted of engraved or sculpted bone and ivory. Archaeologists have found large numbers of animal statuettes carved from mammoth ivory, along with lion-headed human figures.

However, by far the most common figurines are the female "vulvar" symbols.

And of course, this is the period of time when people began to create cave paintings and to design elaborate clothing.

Campsites

Campsites contain well-built hearths. And mammoth skulls and reindeer antlers were used as hut foundations or as windbreaks for campfires.

European Weather

The moderation of European weather made survival less hazardous to the human population.

Maximum Glaciation

The maximum glaciation occured about 18,000 to 20,000 years ago, during which sea levels dropped by at least 100 m (about 328 feet).

During the most severe periods of glaciation, average year-round temperatures in most parts of Europe likely fell at least 10° C (50° F) below present-day levels.

During the interglacial period that followed the maximum glaciation, the weather would have been somewhat milder.

Winter and Summer Contrasts

Extremely cold ocean currents flowed year-round from the polar regions of the north Atlantic. A combination of these ocean curents and the associated wind circulation patterns would have created a European climate that had greater contrasts in temperature between summer and winter months.

Even if some of the summer temperatures weren't too dramatically different than today, the winters would have been bitterly cold, with local temperatures that could easily fall to below -10° C for weeks at a time.

Heavy snowfall would have posed major obstacles to the mobility of animals or human groups during the colder months of the year.

Land Bridges

Much of the ocean water collected into huge ice sheets near the poles. As the level of the oceans dropped, land bridges appeared between the continents, allowing Ice Age explorers to spread out into new territory.

Tundra and Steppe Hunters

The periglacial European environment was far from comfortable, at least during the winter months. However, the glaciers did provide one crucial benefit to humans and animals — tundra.

Open Landscape

The most direct effect of the glaciers upon the landscape was to eliminate significant tree growth from all regions except the most southerly zones of Europe. Because of this, Europe consisted of vast areas of open landscape, dominated by rich growths of grasses, mosses, and other herbaceous plants.

At first, this might not seem like a benefit for the human populations. But a moment's reflection will make the benefits clear.

For one thing, Upper Paleolithic people didn't have to worry about dense, impenetrable forests of the kind which posed a major obstacle to the hunting activities of later, Mesolithic communities.

Herd Migration Trails

The steppes and tundra provided ideal conditions for numerous species of cold-adapted herd animals such as reindeer, wild horse, and steppe bison, as well as the larger "pachyderm" species such as mammoth and woolly rhinoceros.

There are clear indications that Upper Paleolithic hunters relied less on scavenging, as was true of their Lower and Middle Paleolithic ancestors, and more on direct hunting techniques.

Herds followed more or less regular migration trails between summer and winter pastures, and they appeared at regular and largely predictable periods of the year. Therefore, most settlements were established along popular migration trails, which provided greater access to a single species. This fact alone allowed Upper Paleolithic hunters to simply wait for the herds to walk by.

Geographic Hunting Specialization

This resulted in a kind of geographic hunting specialization.

Thus, the geographic specialization in animal species hunted results in the following three generalizations:

Cro-Magnon Emerge

The Cro-Magnon were relatively late arrivals in Europe. Archaeological evidence places them in Israel some 90,000 to 100,000 years ago.

Then about 45,000 to 50,000 years ago, they spread out into parts of western Asia and Africa.

Finally, some 31,000 to 35,000 years ago, they arrived in Europe and lived there for another 15,000 years or so.

Disappearance of Neanderthals

Neanderthal settlements were often located directly astride major migration trails, sometimes on the open plains and other times in caves.

However, the era of the Neanderthal was about to come to a close. They completely disappeared from archaeological view all across Europe and Eurasia about 30,000 years ago.

Genocide?

Since this is approximately the same timeframe as the arrival of the Cro-Magnon, some archaeologists have suggested that they suffered mass genocide at the hands of the Cro-Magnon.

However, there is absolutely NO evidence to support the idea that they were wiped out by Cro-Magnon. More likely, they simply came to a natural end.

Neanderthals were thinly dispersed over fairly large areas of the continent in small, highly mobile social units. Due to the exreme distances between settlements, there was little chance to meet potential mates. A high death-to-birth ratio probably contributed to the elimination of most Neanderthals, without having to resort to theories of mass murder, or even direct contact between Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons.

In fact, in some cases such as a few sites in France, there are indications that Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon groups might have peacefully co-existed alongside each other for centuries. There are also indications at some sites that the two groups might have shared technology between them.

Complete Neanderthal Skeletons

Remember, no complete skeletons exist on the open plains at Lower and Middle Paleolithic burial sites.

In a few Upper Paleolithic burial sites, however, complete Neanderthal skeletons have been found buried on the open plains as well as in caves. This indicates that Neanderthals were now intentionally buried in well-dug graves, protecting their bodies from carnivores.

Population Explosion

The archaeological record indicates that a very substantial increase in overall population densities took place, coinciding at least broadly with the transition from Middle to Upper Paleolithic. Of course, this might also indicate that earlier sites were more scattered and that many of these sites haven't yet been found.

It's important to point out, though, that even with the population explosion, the European landscape was still relatively empty of humans.

However, compared to the rather long period of time of the prior Middle Paleolithic (about 60,000 years), the 25-30,000 years of the Upper Paleolithic is rather short (by about half).

Yet the number of recovered Upper Paleolithic sites is about equal to those of the Middle Paleolithic. This implies a much higher rate, per unit of time, of the formation of Upper Paleolithic sites.

Social and Economic Roles

Though difficult to verify archaeologically, the population increase probably encouraged, or perhaps required, a more complex level of separation and specialization in the social or economic roles occupied by particular individuals within the society.

When a cave painting needed to be done, for example, they might have called on the "community artist" to make the painting. And specialized or skilled craftsmen might have been called upon to manufacture unique tools for the entire community.

Leaders

Leaders would have been chosen to organize and coordinate community affairs.

In fact, elaborate Upper Paleolithic ceremonial burials recovered at sites such as Dolni Vestonice in former Czechoslovakia, Sungir in Russia, and Arene Candide in Italy might indicate an increased social "status" or "ranking" was now being accorded to particular individuals within the community.

Gender Specialization

In the past, both men and women appear to have been equally involved in the survival of the community.

Now there appears to be some evidence of a general specialization of the community's social roles based entirely on gender.

Communal Territory

An enhanced sense of communal territory and the defense of that territory against encroachment seems to have occured. However, there's almost no evidence of warfare at any of the sites.

Crowding Stress

Some sites from the period show various forms of "crowding stress" in the spatial relationships between living spaces or residential units.

Some archaeologists have argued that this crowding stress forced some kind of clear demarcation of discrete "social territories."

For example, in crowded conditions, it's necessary to decide which person or group is given the best access to various community resources such as water or game. This demarcation of territories might even have given rise to distinct classes or ethnic groups within the community.

Rapid Adoption of Technology

Suddenly — at least in terms of the extended time frames we're dealing with in the Paleolithic world — various types of steep, thin, nosed, and "carinated" scrapers appear in large quantities in the archaeological record.

We also see new technology being expressed in the small, continuous-edge, retouched blades.

And the appearance of technologically advanced bone and tooth pendants makes its debut.

Aurignacian Phenomenon

The Aurignacian phenomenon, as it's called, occurred about 35,000 to 40,000 years ago. It has to do with one of the "markers" of the Upper Paleolithic era mentioned above. That is, it refers to the sudden appearance of this new form of tool specialization.

Language

Although language is one of the archaeologically least "visible" aspects of human behavior, it's not too far-fetched to imagine that the creation of language played a part in this technological explosion. There's a remarkable uniformity of technology for some of the earliest stages of the Upper Paleolithic sequence, in areas ranging from southern Israel to the northwest coast of Spain.

This uniformity might indicate the emergence of a more complex and structured pattern of language. Perhaps vestiges of explicit symbolism is reflected in the tools and art of the period.

Controversy and Discussion

Some might ask: What might be responsible for such a rapid adoption of technology in the Upper Paleolithic world? This topic has caused quite a bit of lively discussion and controversy in archaeological circles.

Social Effectiveness Theory

One theory is that the technology reflects the development of new and more effective internal social organization among human groups. Perhaps people simply learned to organize themselves into patterns that could take advantage of economic exploitation. Effective leaders would designate who in the community should perform specific tasks.

Instead of having to teach all of the survival skills to the entire community, you could just teach those who were responsible for that particular skill. Not everyone needed to know how to make spear heads ... just the artisans who were assigned the responsibility for making spear heads.

The difficulty with this theory, however, is that it might explain how one or a few communities experienced a surge in technological innovations, but it doesn't explain the seemingly global surge that occurred everywhere on the continent.

Population Replacement Theory

Another theory, and perhaps the most likely one, is an idea that was proposed as far back as 1908. This theory proposes that there had been a major population replacement take place.

Perhaps, the theory proposes, earlier Paleolithic populations were replaced by people from the more advanced civilizations of Mesopotamia, Egypt, and the Levant.

The replacement theory is supported by studies of mitochondrial DNA in modern populations. The genetic data suggests that present-day populations throughout the world sprang from a single, common female ancestor who lived some 200,000 years ago.

Furthermore, the data indicates that Homo erectus and Neanderthals made little, if any, genetic contribution to Upper Paleolithic or modern Europeans.

And replacement of antiquated populations by more modern peoples explains very nicely how such a sudden, continent-wide technological transition might have taken place.

Settlements

There are many examples of Upper Paleolithic settlements, including massive rock shelters in southern France.

Plains Settlements

Equally extensive, if not more so, are the open air settlements found all across the European plains and prairies. But the best examples come from the open air settlements on the exposed, loess plains of central and eastern Europe. Places such as Pavlov and Dolni Vestonice in former Czechoslovakia, or Pushkari, Kostenki, Mezhirich, and Mezin in southern Russia.

Also, there's a much higher concentration of sites along rivers or directly astride major migration trails than found in earlier Paleolithic sites. This probably reflects a greater ability on the part of Upper Paleolithic peoples to reliably "predict" the movement of animals and to better anticipate these movements.

Multi-Family Groups

Upper Paleolithic settlements tend to be much larger than their predecessors. From this we can assume an aggregation of relatively large, multi-family groups. These groups number anywhere from tens to hundreds of individuals.

Transylvania, for example, was populated with groups of wanderers. Gradually they united into permanent tribes named Daii, Daoi, Dacs, or simply Dii — all of which are derived from daos, an ancient Greek word for wolf. Their social and religious centers were located in Transylvania.

Housing Complexity

Open air settlements contain signs of the construction of extensive housing. Many of the living spaces consist of major pit-like depressions, usually focused around a central hearth. Other living spaces contain clearly defined circular or oval arrangements of stone settings or post holes, which mark the foundations of substantial huts or other similar living structures.

In eastern Europe, hut foundations often incorporate large quantities of tusks, jaws, or leg bones of mammoths. These huge bones apparently served as the major architectural component of "homes" in regions where local supplies of wood were lacking.

Compared to earlier Paleolithic sites, the sheer size of Upper Paleolithic settlements, combined with the large amount of debris found, clearly indicates the beginning phases of communities. Similar evidence of communities does not exist at ANY of the documented pre-Upper Paleolithic sites in Europe.

Gathering Raw Materials

So where did they get the raw materials for the tools needed to build such large settlements? We clearly see the pattern of transporting raw materials from geological sources over much larger distances than in the Middle Paleolithic.

Distances traveled, of course, depend on the geographic region of the settlement. People traveled much larger distances in the continental regions and smaller distances in the northern or southwestern regions.

Trade Between Settlements

Along with the much larger communities, we see a surge in the amount of social correspondence and trade between communities. The need to feed and house the high populations probably brought frequent, but temporary hardship on a given community.

In addition, they had to deal with the short-term unpredictability of the environment. Fires might destroy the local forage resource of herds, forcing them to follow other migration paths. Prolonged snowfall or overgrazing might also change migration trails.

Survival required that communities share their resources with those who experienced these temporary hard times. And skilled craftsmen from one community undoubtedly found economic advantages in having a broader coverage of potential clients.

Extensive trade and exchange networks can now be documented in many Upper Paleolithic European sites. A few representative examples are:

These exchange networks existed throughout most of the stages of the Upper Paleolithic, but they become especially conspicuous during the last glacial maximum (around 15,000 to 25,000 years ago). During the glacial maximum, the degree of unpredictability and the relative insecurity of economic resources would probably have been at their most acute stage.

End of Ice Age

The Upper Paleolithic world ended fairly abruptly as a rapidly warming climate embraced Europe. The end of the most recent glacial period had transformed the environment of the Upper Paleolithic world in radical and irreversible ways.

Continental Warming

The initial stages of the continental warming process can be detected as early as 13,000 BP. The apex, however, occurred around 10,000 years ago when the overall rate of climatic change reached its peak. This peak defines the end of the Upper Paleolithic and the start of the ensuing Mesolithic stage.

Ice sheets retreated from their maximum positions and sea levels rose, flooding many of the former land bridges. Fresh water lakes formed in the lower land depressions. And forests replaced the open tundra and steppe landscape.

Appearance of Forests

The forests expanded northward behind the retreating ice sheets. The timing of forestation varies by geographic region. It occurred about 12,500 BP in the southern parts of the continent and about 10,000 BP in the northerly regions.

Hunting Techniques

The forests necessitated a profound change in hunting techniques. The pursuit of animals in heavily forested landscapes is very different than the techniques used on the former open, periglacial environment. It requires a different set of strategies and tactics, but more importantly, in the organization of hunting parties.

Not only did the forests change the migration paths of many of the migratory animals, but it also changed the overall biomass of the animals found in particular regions. Instead of the vast herds found on the plains, they consisted of smaller, more widely dispersed groups.

Human Response to Forests

The human groups responded to the advance of forests in one of two ways. Some retreated northward, following the herds at the edges of the retreating ice sheets. This group maintained their old steppe hunting skills and colonized northern Europe and Scandinavia. The other choice was to remain where they were and adapt to the new environment.

Decline in Population

At the end of the Ice Age, we see a dramatic decline in population. There are about half as many sites from this period as there are from the rest of the Upper Paleolithic. And there's a corresponding reduction in the size of settlements. Human groups lived in much smaller and more widely dispersed social units.

With fewer people in the group to choose from, specialists became generalists again, resulting in a return to the production of cruder tools and less finely crafted workmanship. Craftsmanship was only a pale reflection of that produced by earlier specialists in terms of size, morphological complexity, investment in workmanship, and degree of decoration.

Most striking of all was the general disappearance of artwork. Probably there was no time to hone artistic skills when mere survival was of paramount concern. Only a handful of incised representations of animal figures or enigmatic "painted pebbles," embellished with simple geometric designs in red ochre, have been recovered.

Romanian Archaeology

In eastern and northwestern Romania, archaeologists have uncovered implements reminiscent of earlier finds in the Don valley in Russia. In western Romania (Tincova) and in southern Romania (Malul Roşu), the implements bear little or no resemblance to those from the Don valley.

Peştera cu Oase

In 2002 archaeologists discovered a human mandible at the Peştera cu Oase ("cave with bones") in the southwestern Carpathian Mountains of Romania. Since the jaw bone was found at the entrance to the cave and the bones of cave bears were also found, it was thought that the jaw bone might have been moved from its original location.

In January 2007 a paper by Erik Trinkaus of Washington University in St. Louis and Joao Zilhao of the University of Bristol in England appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that discussed a skull found in the same cave. The skull features characteristics of both Neanderthals and modern humans.

It has roughly the same proportions as a modern human head and lacks the prominent brow ridge commonly found in Neanderthal skulls. At the same time it has features found in Neanderthals and other early hominids such as frontal flattening, exceptionally large upper molars, and a large bone behind the ear.

Radiocarbon dating indicates that it is at least 35,000 years old. The authors propose that it might suggest that the Neanderthals and modern humans may have interbred thousands of years ago.

Dr. Richard Potts of the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History in Washington DC stated that it represents the earliest modern human ever found in Europe. However, he disagrees with the authors that it postulates any form of interbreeding among the two populations.

Spirited debates are often the stuff of science.

Gura Chindiei

In Romania, an Upper Paleolithic site has been excavated at Gura Chindiei, near Caciulata in the Transylvanian Alps. At this site, we find mural paintings similar to those in Spain and France. The paintings depict scenes in the lives of Paleolithic hunters.

Pronunciation Help

To help American readers, the following pronunciation guide to Romanian words used above is provided. The sounds shown are only approximations, however.

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