Lower Paleolithic followed by Middle Paleolithic
The Lower Paleolithic (or Lower Palaeolithic) is the earliest subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age. It spans the time from around 3.3 million years ago when the first evidence for stone tool production and use by hominins appears in the current archaeological record, until around 300,000 years ago, spanning the Oldowan ("mode 1") and Acheulean ("mode 2") lithics industries.
In African archaeology, the time period roughly corresponds to the Early Stone Age, the earliest finds dating back to 3.3 million years ago, with Lomekwian stone tool technology, spanning Mode 1 stone tool technology, which begins roughly 2.6 million years ago and ends between 400,000 and 250,000 years ago, with Mode 2 technology.The Middle Paleolithic followed the Lower Paleolithic and recorded the appearance of the more advanced prepared-core tool-making technologies such as the Mousterian. Whether the earliest control of fire by hominins dates to the Lower or to the Middle Paleolithic remains an open question.Calabrian
Homo erectus moved from scavenging to hunting, developing the hunting-gathering lifestyle that would remain dominant throughout the Paleolithic into the Mesolithic.
The unlocking of the new niche of hunting-gathering subsistence drove a number of further behavioral and physiological changes leading to the appearance of Homo heidelbergensis by some 800,000-600,000 years ago. As such, Homo rose to the ranks of omnivorous predators (and possibly became hypercarnivores before Homo sapiens again transformed into hypocarnivores). As active hunters, they came in opposition to other, quadruped predators and started living in large groups.
Homo erectus migrated out of Africa and dispersed throughout Eurasia. Stone tools in Malaysia have been dated to be 1.83 million years old. The Peking Man fossil, discovered in 1929, is roughly 700,000 years old.
In Europe, the Olduwan tradition (known in Europe as Abbevillian) split into two parallel traditions, the Clactonian, a flake tradition, and the Acheulean, a hand-axe tradition.  The Levallois technique for knapping flint developed during this time.
The carrier species from Africa to Europe was undoubtedly Homo erectus. This type of human is more clearly linked to the flake tradition, which spread across southern Europe through the Balkans to appear relatively densely in southeast Asia. Many Mousterian finds in the Middle Paleolithic have been knapped using a Levallois technique, suggesting that Neanderthals evolved from Homo erectus (or, perhaps, Homo heidelbergensis; see below).
Monte Poggiolo, near Forlì, Italy, is the location of an Acheulian littoral handaxe industry dating from 1.8 to 1.1 million years ago.The advent of technology and both verbal and non-verbal communication due to transition to group hunting and gathering resulted in the expansion of the parts of the brain associated with these, as well as greater cognition due to it being interlinked with the two. Later, behavioral adaptations to further social life, uncertain food distribution (resulting in need to find and secure food and remember where it could be found) and ecological changes brought about by Homo led to the further expansion of the brain in the areas of problem-solving, memory etc., ultimately leading to the great behavioral flexibility, highly efficient communication, and ecological dominance of humanity. The biological pre-adaptations of the great apes and earlier primates allowed the brain to expand threefold within just 2 to 2.3 million years of the Pleistocene, in response to increasingly complex societies and changing habitats.