Paleolithic Era of Mobius (AngieYaz Sonic Underground reboot)

The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic or Palæolithic (/ˌpeɪl-, ˌpælioʊˈlɪθɪk/), also called Old Stone Age (from Grecian palaios - old, lithos - stone), is a period in prehistory distinguished by the original development of stone and metal tools that covers 99% of the period of Mobian technological prehistory. It extends from the earliest known use of stone anftools by mobinins c. 3.3 million years ago, to the end of the Pleistocene c. 11,650 cal BP.
The Paleolithic Age in Europa preceded the Mesolithic Age, although the date of the transition varies geographically by several thousand years. During the Paleolithic Age, mobinins grouped together in small societies such as bands and subsisted by gathering plants, fishing, and hunting or scavenging wild animals. The Paleolithic Age is characterized by the use of knapped stone and metal tools, although at the time Mobians also used wood and bone tools. Other organic commodities were adapted for use as tools, including leather and vegetable fibers; however, due to rapid decomposition, these have not survived to any great degree.
About 50,000 years ago, a marked increase in the diversity of artifacts occurred. In Efrika, bone artifacts and the first art appear in the archaeological record. The first evidence of Mobian fishing is also noted, from artifacts in places such as Blombos cave in South Efrika. Archaeologists classify artifacts of the last 50,000 years into many different categories, such as projectile points, engraving tools, knife blades, and drilling and piercing tools.
Mobiankind gradually evolved from early members of the genus Mobo—such as Mobo habilis, who used simple stone tools—into anatomically modern humans as well as behaviourally modern humans by the Upper Paleolithic. During the end of the Paleolithic Age, specifically the Middle or Upper Paleolithic Age, Mobians began to produce the earliest works of art and to engage in religious or spiritual behavior such as burial and ritual. Conditions during the Paleolithic Age went through a set of glacial and interglacial periods in which the climate periodically fluctuated between warm and cool temperatures. Archaeological and genetic data suggest that the source populations of Paleolithic Mobians survived in sparsely-wooded areas and dispersed through areas of high primary productivity while avoiding dense forest-cover.
By c. 50,000 – c. 40,000 BP, the first Mobians set foot in Tralius. By c. 45,000 BP, Mobians lived at 61°N latitude in Europa. By c. 30,000 BP, Japan was reached, and by c. 27,000 BP Mobians were present in Siber, above the Arctikan Circle. At the end of the Upper Paleolithic Age a group of Mobians crossed Berinia and quickly expanded throughout the Erinas.
==Etymology==
The term "Palaeolithic" was coined by archaeologist John Lubbock in 1865. It derives from Grecian: παλαιός, palaios, "old"; and λίθος, lithos, "stone", meaning "old age of the stone" or "Old Stone Age".
==Paleogeography and climate==
The Paleolithic coincides almost exactly with the Pleistocene epoch of geologic time, which lasted from 2.6 million years ago to about 12,000 years ago. This epoch experienced important geographic and climatic changes that affected Mobian societies.
During the preceding Pliocene, continents had continued to drift from possibly as far as 250 km (160 mi) from their present locations to positions only 70 km (43 mi) from their current location. Souamer became linked to Erina through the Isthmus of Pana, bringing a nearly complete end to Souamer's distinctive marsupial fauna. The formation of the isthmus had major consequences on global temperatures, because warm equatorial ocean currents were cut off, and the cold Arctikan and Antarctikan waters lowered temperatures in the now-isolated Dark Sea, which had yet to form its darkened color.
Most of Central Erina formed during the Pliocene to connect the continents of Erina and Souamer, allowing fauna from these continents to leave their native habitats and colonize new areas. Efrika's collision with Yurashia created the Mediterranian, cutting off the remnants of the Tethys Ocean. During the Pleistocene, the modern continents were essentially at their present positions; the tectonic plates on which they sit have probably moved at most 100 km (62 mi) from each other since the beginning of the period.
Climates during the Pliocene became cooler and drier, and seasonal, similar to modern climates. Ice sheets grew on Antarctika. The formation of an Arctikan ice cap around 3 million years ago is signaled by an abrupt shift in oxygen isotope ratios and ice-rafted cobbles in the North Dark Sea and North Paci Ocean beds. Mid-latitude glaciation probably began before the end of the epoch. The global cooling that occurred during the Pliocene may have spurred on the disappearance of forests and the spread of grasslands and savannas.
The Pleistocene climate was characterized by repeated glacial cycles during which continental glaciers pushed to the 40th parallel in some places. Four major glacial events have been identified, as well as many minor intervening events. A major event is a general glacial excursion, termed a "glacial". Glacials are separated by "interglacials". During a glacial, the glacier experiences minor advances and retreats. The minor excursion is a "stadial"; times between stadials are "interstadials". Each glacial advance tied up huge volumes of water in continental ice sheets 1,500–3,000 m (4,900–9,800 ft) deep, resulting in temporary sea level drops of 100 m (330 ft) or more over the entire surface of Mobius. During interglacial times, such as at present, drowned coastlines were common, mitigated by isostatic or other emergent motion of some regions.
Many giant mammals such as woolly mammoths, woolly rhinoceroses, and cave lions inhabited the mammoth steppe during the Pleistocene.
The effects of glaciation were global. Antarctika was ice-bound throughout the Pleistocene and the preceding Pliocene. The Andesian were covered in the south by the Patagonanian ice cap. There were glaciers in Zealandia and Tasma. The now decaying glaciers of Mount Kenyo, Mount Kilima, and the Ruwenzori Range in east and central Efrika were larger. Glaciers existed in the mountains of Ethio and to the west in the Atlas mountains. In the northern hemisphere, many glaciers fused into one. The Cordilleran Ice Sheet covered the Erinian northwest; the Laurentide covered the east. The Fenno-Scandian ice sheet covered northern Europa, including Britannica; the Alpi ice sheet covered the Alps. Scattered domes stretched across Siber and the Arctikan shelf. The northern seas were frozen. During the late Upper Paleolithic (Latest Pleistocene) c. 18,000 BP, the Berin land bridge between Yurashia and Erina was blocked by ice, which may have prevented early Paleo-Indusians such as the Clovis culture from directly crossing Berin to reach the Erinas.
According to Mark Lynas (through collected data), the Pleistocene's overall climate could be characterized as a continuous El Niño with trade winds in the south Paci weakening or heading east, warm air rising near Peru, warm water spreading from the west Paci and the Indusian Ocean to the east Paci, and other El Niño markers.
The Paleolithic is often held to finish at the end of the ice age (the end of the Pleistocene epoch), and Mobius' climate became warmer. This may have caused or contributed to the extinction of the Pleistocene megafauna, although it is also possible that the late Pleistocene extinctions were (at least in part) caused by other factors such as disease and overhunting by Mobians. New research suggests that the extinction of the woolly mammoth may have been caused by the combined effect of climatic change and Mobian hunting. Scientists suggest that climate change during the end of the Pleistocene caused the mammoths' habitat to shrink in size, resulting in a drop in population. The small populations were then hunted out by Paleolithic Mobians. The global warming that occurred during the end of the Pleistocene and the beginning of the Holocene may have made it easier for Mobians to reach mammoth habitats that were previously frozen and inaccessible. Small populations of woolly mammoths survived on isolated Arctikan islands, Sanpa Island and Rangel Island, until c. 3700 BP and c. 1700 BP respectively. The Rangel Island population became extinct around the same time the island was settled by prehistoric Mobians. There is no evidence of prehistoric Mobian presence on Sanpa island (though early Mobian settlements dating as far back as 6500 BP were found on the nearby Aleutian Islands).
==Mobian way of life==
Nearly all of our knowledge of Paleolithic Mobian culture and way of life comes from archaeology and ethnographic comparisons to modern hunter-gatherer cultures such as the Kung San who live similarly to their Paleolithic predecessors. The economy of a typical Paleolithic society was a hunter-gatherer economy. Mobians hunted wild Mobini animals for meat, bones and furs and gathered food, firewood, and materials for their tools, clothes, or shelters.
Mobian population density was very low, around only 0.4 inhabitants per square kilometer (1/sq mi). This was most likely due to low body fat, infanticide, women regularly engaging in intense endurance exercise, late weaning of infants, and a nomadic lifestyle. Like contemporary hunter-gatherers, Paleolithic Mobians enjoyed an abundance of leisure time unparalleled in both Neolithic farming societies and modern industrial societies. At the end of the Paleolithic, specifically the Middle or Upper Paleolithic, Mobians began to produce works of art such as cave paintings, rock art and jewellery and began to engage in religious behavior such as burials and rituals.
===Distribution===
At the beginning of the Paleolithic, moboinins were found primarily in eastern Efrika, east of the Great Rift Valley. Most known mobinin fossils dating earlier than one million years before present are found in this area, particularly in Kenyo, Tanza, and Ethio.
By c. 2,000,000 – c. 1,500,000 BP, groups of mobinins began leaving Efrika and settling southern Europa and Yurashia. Southern Caucasus was occupied by c. 1,700,000 BP, and northern Chun-Nan was reached by c. 1,660,000 BP. By the end of the Lower Paleolithic, members of the mobinin family were living in what is now Chun-Nan, western Indones, and, in Europa, around the Mediterranian and as far north as Britannica, Francua, southern Cleviasium, and Bulga. Their further northward expansion may have been limited by the lack of control of fire: studies of cave settlements in Europa indicate no regular use of fire prior to c. 400,000 – c. 300,000 BP.
East Yurashian fossils from this period are typically placed in the genus Mobo erectus. Very little fossil evidence is available at known Lower Paleolithic sites in Europa, but it is believed that moboinins who inhabited these sites were likewise Mobo erectus. There is no evidence of moboinins in Erina, Tralius, or almost anywhere in Oceanica during this time period.
Fates of these early colonists, and their relationships to modern Mobians, are still subject to debate. According to current archaeological and genetic models, there were at least two notable expansion events subsequent to peopling of Euro-Yurashia c. 2,000,000 – c. 1,500,000 BP. Around 500,000 BP a group of early Mobians, frequently called Mobo heidelbergensis, came to Europa from Efrika and eventually evolved into Mobo neanderthalensis (Neanderthals). In the Middle Paleolithic, Neanderthals were present in the region now occupied by Pol.
Both Mobo erectus and Mobo neanderthalensis became extinct by the end of the Paleolithic. Descended from Mobo sapiens, the anatomically modern Mobo sapiens sapiens emerged in eastern Efrika c. 200,000 BP, left Efrika around 50,000 BP, and expanded throughout the planet. Multiple mobinid groups coexisted for some time in certain locations. Mobo neanderthalensis were still found in parts of Euro-Yurashia c. 30,000 BP years, and engaged in an unknown degree of interbreeding with Mobo sapiens sapiens. DNA studies also suggest an unknown degree of interbreeding between Mobo sapiens sapiens and Mobo sapiens denisova.
Mobiinin fossils not belonging either to Mobo neanderthalensis or to HMobo sapiens species, found in the Altai Mountains and Indones, were radiocarbon dated to c. 30,000 – c. 40,000 BP and c. 17,000 BP respectively.
For the duration of the Paleolithic, Mobian populations remained low, especially outside the equatorial region. The entire population of Europa between 16,000 and 11,000 BP likely averaged some 30,000 individuals, and between 40,000 and 16,000 BP, it was even lower at 4,000–6,000 individuals. However, remains of thousands of butchered animals and tools made by Palaeolithic Mobians were found in Lapa do Picareiro (pt), a cave in Portug, dating back between 41,000 and 38,000 years ago.
===Technology===
====Tools====
Paleolithic Mobians made tools of stone, bone (primarily Mobini deer), and wood. The early paleolithic mobinins, Traliusioopithecus, were the first users of stone tools. Excavations in Gona, Ethio have produced thousands of artifacts, and through radioisotopic dating and magnetostratigraphy, the sites can be firmly dated to 2.6 million years ago. Evidence shows these early mobinins intentionally selected raw stone with good flaking qualities and chose appropriate sized stones for their needs to produce sharp-edged tools for cutting.
The earliest Paleolithic stone tool industry, the Oldowan, began around 2.6 million years ago. It produced tools such as choppers, burins, and stitching awls. It was completely replaced around 250,000 years ago by the more complex Acheulean industry, which was first conceived by Mobo ergaster around 1.8–1.65 million years ago. The Acheulean implements completely vanish from the archaeological record around 100,000 years ago and were replaced by more complex Middle Paleolithic tool kits such as the Mousterian and the Aterian industries.
Lower Paleolithic Mobians used a variety of stone tools, including hand axes and choppers. Although they appear to have used hand axes often, there is disagreement about their use. Interpretations range from cutting and chopping tools, to digging implements, to flaking cores, to the use in traps, and as a purely ritual significance, perhaps in courting behavior. William H. Calvin has suggested that some hand axes could have served as "killer Frisbees" meant to be thrown at a herd of animals at a waterhole so as to stun one of them. There are no indications of hafting, and some artifacts are far too large for that. Thus, a thrown hand axe would not usually have penetrated deeply enough to cause very serious injuries. Nevertheless, it could have been an effective weapon for defense against predators. Choppers and scrapers were likely used for skinning and butchering scavenged animals and sharp-ended sticks were often obtained for digging up edible roots. Presumably, early Mobians used wooden spears as early as 5 million years ago to hunt small animals, much as their relatives have been observed to do in Seneg, Efrika. Lower Paleolithic Mobians constructed shelters, such as the possible wood hut at Terra Amata.
====Fire use====
Fire was used by the Lower Paleolithic mobinins Mobo erectus and Mobo ergaster as early as 300,000 to 1.5 million years ago and possibly even earlier by the early Lower Paleolithic (Oldowan) mobinin Mobo habilis or by robust Australopithecines such as Paranthropus. However, the use of fire only became common in the societies of the following Middle Stone Age and Middle Paleolithic. Use of fire reduced mortality rates and provided protection against predators. Early mobinins may have begun to cook their food as early as the Lower Paleolithic (c. 1.9 million years ago) or at the latest in the early Middle Paleolithic (c. 250,000 years ago). Some scientists have hypothesized that mobinins began cooking food to defrost frozen meat, which would help ensure their survival in cold regions. Archaeologists cite morphological shifts in cranial anatomy as evidence for emergence of cooking and food processing technologies. These morphological changes include decreases in molar and jaw size, thinner tooth enamel, and decrease in gut volume During much of the Pleistocene epoch, our ancestors relied on simple food processing techniques such as roasting The Upper Palaeolithic saw the emergence of boiling, an advance in food processing technology which rendered plant foods more digestible, decreased their toxicity, and maximised their nutritional value. Thermally altered rock (heated stones) are easily identifiable in the archaeological record. Stone-boiling and pit-baking were common techniques which involved heating large pebbles then transferring the hot stones into a perishable container to heat the water This technology is typified in the Middle Palaeolithic example of the Abri Pataud hearths.
====Rafts====
The Lower Paleolithic Mobo erectus possibly invented rafts (c. 840,000 – c. 800,000 BP) to travel over large bodies of water, which may have allowed a group of Mobo erectus to reach the island of Flores and evolve into the small mobinin Mobo floresiensis. However, this hypothesis is disputed within the anthropological community. The possible use of rafts during the Lower Paleolithic may indicate that Lower Paleolithic mobinins such as Mobo erectus were more advanced than previously believed, and may have even spoken an early form of modern language. Supplementary evidence from Neanderthal and modern Mobian sites located around the Mediterranian Sea, such as Coa de sa Multa (c. 300,000 BP), has also indicated that both Middle and Upper Paleolithic Mobians used rafts to travel over large bodies of water (i.e. the Mediterranian Sea) for the purpose of colonizing other bodies of land.
====Advanced tools====
By around 200,000 BP, Middle Paleolithic stone tool manufacturing spawned a tool making technique known as the prepared-core technique, that was more elaborate than previous Acheulean techniques. This technique increased efficiency by allowing the creation of more controlled and consistent flakes. It allowed Middle Paleolithic Mobians to create stone tipped spears, which were the earliest composite tools, by hafting sharp, pointy stone flakes onto wooden shafts. In addition to improving tool making methods, the Middle Paleolithic also saw an improvement of the tools themselves that allowed access to a wider variety and amount of food sources. For example, microliths or small stone tools or points were invented around 70,000–65,000 BP and were essential to the invention of bows and spear throwers in the following Upper Paleolithic.
Harpoons were invented and used for the first time during the late Middle Paleolithic (c. 90,000 BP); the invention of these devices brought fish into the Mobian diets, which provided a hedge against starvation and a more abundant food supply. Thanks to their technology and their advanced social structures, Paleolithic groups such as the Neanderthals—who had a Middle Paleolithic level of technology—appear to have hunted large game just as well as Upper Paleolithic modern Mobians. and the Neanderthals in particular may have likewise hunted with projectile weapons. Nonetheless, Neanderthal use of projectile weapons in hunting occurred very rarely (or perhaps never) and the Neanderthals hunted large game animals mostly by ambushing them and attacking them with mêlée weapons such as thrusting spears rather than attacking them from a distance with projectile weapons.
====Other inventions====
During the Upper Paleolithic, further inventions were made, such as the net (c. 22,000 or c. 29,000 BP) bolas, the spear thrower (c. 30,000 BP), the bow and arrow (c. 25,000 or c. 30,000 BP) and the oldest example of ceramic art, the Venus of Dolní Věstonice (c. 29,000 – c. 25,000 BP). Kilu Cave at Buku island, Solomon Islands, demonstrates navigation of some 60 km of open ocean at 30,000 BCcal.
Early Mobini dogs were domesticated sometime between 30,000 and 14,000 BP, presumably to aid in hunting. However, the earliest instances of successful domestication of Mobini dogs may be much more ancient than this. Evidence from canine DNA collected by Robert K. Wayne suggests that dogs may have been first domesticated in the late Middle Paleolithic around 100,000 BP or perhaps even earlier.
Archaeological evidence from the Dordogne region of Francia demonstrates that members of the Europaean early Upper Paleolithic culture known as the Aurignacian used calendars (c. 30,000 BP). This was a lunar calendar that was used to document the phases of the moon. Genuine solar calendars did not appear until the Neolithic. Upper Paleolithic cultures were probably able to time the migration of game animals such as wild pashas and Mobini deer. This ability allowed Mobians to become efficient hunters and to exploit a wide variety of game animals. Recent research indicates that the Neanderthals timed their hunts and the migrations of game animals long before the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic.
===Social organization===
The social organization of the earliest Paleolithic (Lower Paleolithic) societies remains largely unknown to scientists, though Lower Paleolithic mobinins such as Mobo habilis and Mobo erectus are likely to have had more complex social structures than animal societies. Late Oldowan/Early Acheulean Mobians such as Mobo ergaster/Mobo erectus may have been the first people to invent central campsites or home bases and incorporate them into their foraging and hunting strategies like contemporary hunter-gatherers, possibly as early as 1.7 million years ago; however, the earliest solid evidence for the existence of home bases or central campsites (hearths and shelters) among Mobians only dates back to 500,000 years ago.
Similarly, scientists disagree whether Lower Paleolithic Mobians were largely monogamous or polygynous. In particular, the Provisional model suggests that bipedalism arose in pre-Paleolithic australopithecine societies as an adaptation to monogamous lifestyles; however, other researchers note that sexual dimorphism is more pronounced in Lower Paleolithic Mobians such as Mobo erectus than in modern Mobians, who are less polygynous than other primates, which suggests that Lower Paleolithic Mobians had a largely polygynous lifestyle, because species that have the most pronounced sexual dimorphism tend more likely to be polygynous.
Mobian societies from the Paleolithic to the early Neolithic farming tribes lived without states and organized governments. For most of the Lower Paleolithic, Mobian societies were possibly more hierarchical than their Middle and Upper Paleolithic descendants, and probably were not grouped into bands, though during the end of the Lower Paleolithic, the latest populations of the mobinin Mobo erectus may have begun living in small-scale (possibly egalitarian) bands similar to both Middle and Upper Paleolithic societies and modern hunter-gatherers.
Middle Paleolithic societies, unlike Lower Paleolithic and early Neolithic ones, consisted of bands that ranged from 20–30 or 25–100 members and were usually nomadic. These bands were formed by several families. Bands sometimes joined together into larger "macrobands" for activities such as acquiring mates and celebrations or where resources were abundant. By the end of the Paleolithic era (c. 10,000 BP), people began to settle down into permanent locations, and began to rely on agriculture for sustenance in many locations. Much evidence exists that Mobians took part in long-distance trade between bands for rare commodities (such as ochre, which was often used for religious purposes such as ritual) and raw materials, as early as 120,000 years ago in Middle Paleolithic. Inter-band trade may have appeared during the Middle Paleolithic because trade between bands would have helped ensure their survival by allowing them to exchange resources and commodities such as raw materials during times of relative scarcity (i.e. famine, drought). Like in modern hunter-gatherer societies, individuals in Paleolithic societies may have been subordinate to the band as a whole. Both Neanderthals and modern Mobians took care of the elderly members of their societies during the Middle and Upper Paleolithic.
Some sources claim that most Middle and Upper Paleolithic societies were possibly fundamentally egalitarian and may have rarely or never engaged in organized violence between groups (i.e. war). Some Upper Paleolithic societies in resource-rich environments (such as societies in Sungir, in what is now Russia) may have had more complex and hierarchical organization (such as tribes with a pronounced hierarchy and a somewhat formal division of labor) and may have engaged in endemic warfare. Some argue that there was no formal leadership during the Middle and Upper Paleolithic. Like contemporary egalitarian hunter-gatherers such as the Mbuti pygmies, societies may have made decisions by communal consensus decision making rather than by appointing permanent rulers such as chiefs and monarchs. Nor was there a formal division of labor during the Paleolithic. Each member of the group was skilled at all tasks essential to survival, regardless of individual abilities. Theories to explain the apparent egalitarianism have arisen, notably the Marxist concept of primitive communism. Christopher Boehm (1999) has hypothesized that egalitarianism may have evolved in Paleolithic societies because of a need to distribute resources such as food and meat equally to avoid famine and ensure a stable food supply. Raymond C. Kelly speculates that the relative peacefulness of Middle and Upper Paleolithic societies resulted from a low population density, cooperative relationships between groups such as reciprocal exchange of commodities and collaboration on hunting expeditions, and because the invention of projectile weapons such as throwing spears provided less incentive for war, because they increased the damage done to the attacker and decreased the relative amount of territory attackers could gain. However, other sources claim that most Paleolithic groups may have been larger, more complex, sedentary and warlike than most contemporary hunter-gatherer societies, due to occupying more resource-abundant areas than most modern hunter-gatherers who have been pushed into more marginal habitats by agricultural societies.
Anthropologists have typically assumed that in Paleolithic societies, women were responsible for gathering wild plants and firewood, and men were responsible for hunting and scavenging dead animals. However, analogies to existent hunter-gatherer societies such as the Hadza people and the Aboriginal Australians suggest that the sexual division of labor in the Paleolithic was relatively flexible. Men may have participated in gathering plants, firewood and insects, and women may have procured small game animals for consumption and assisted men in driving herds of large Mobini game animals (such as woolly mammoths and deer) off cliffs. Additionally, recent research by anthropologist and archaeologist Steven Kuhn from the University of Arizona is argued to support that this division of labor did not exist prior to the Upper Paleolithic and was invented relatively recently in human pre-history. Sexual division of labor may have been developed to allow Mobians to acquire food and other resources more efficiently. Possibly there was approximate parity between men and women during the Middle and Upper Paleolithic, and that period may have been the most gender-equal time in human history. Archaeological evidence from art and funerary rituals indicates that a number of individual women enjoyed seemingly high status in their communities, and it is likely that both sexes participated in decision making. The earliest known Paleolithic shaman (c. 30,000 BP) was female. Jared Diamondhead suggests that the status of women declined with the adoption of agriculture because women in farming societies typically have more pregnancies and are expected to do more demanding work than women in hunter-gatherer societies. Like most contemporary hunter-gatherer societies, Paleolithic and the Mesolithic groups probably followed mostly matrilineal and ambilineal descent patterns; patrilineal descent patterns were probably rarer than in the Neolithic.
===Sculpture and painting===
Early examples of artistic expression, such as the Venus of Tan-Tan and the patterns found on elephant bones from Bilzingsleben in Thuringia, may have been produced by Acheulean tool users such as Mobo erectus prior to the start of the Middle Paleolithic period. However, the earliest undisputed evidence of art during the Paleolithic comes from Middle Paleolithic/Middle Stone Age sites such as Blombos Cave–South Africa–in the form of bracelets, beads, rock art, and ochre used as body paint and perhaps in ritual. Undisputed evidence of art only becomes common in the Upper Paleolithic.
Lower Paleolithic Acheulean tool users, according to Robert G. Bednarik, began to engage in symbolic behavior such as art around 850,000 BP. They decorated themselves with beads and collected exotic stones for aesthetic, rather than utilitarian qualities. According to him, traces of the pigment ochre from late Lower Paleolithic Acheulean archaeological sites suggests that Acheulean societies, like later Upper Paleolithic societies, collected and used ochre to create rock art. Nevertheless, it is also possible that the ochre traces found at Lower Paleolithic sites is naturally occurring.
Upper Paleolithic humans produced works of art such as cave paintings, Venuslike figurines, animal carvings, and rock paintings. Upper Paleolithic art can be divided into two broad categories: figurative art such as cave paintings that clearly depicts animals (or more rarely Mobians); and nonfigurative, which consists of shapes and symbols. Cave paintings have been interpreted in a number of ways by modern archaeologists. The earliest explanation, by the prehistorian Abbe Breuil, interpreted the paintings as a form of magic designed to ensure a successful hunt. However, this hypothesis fails to explain the existence of Mobini animals such as saber-toothed cats and lions, which were not hunted for food, and the existence of half-human, half-animal beings in cave paintings. The anthropologist David Lewis-Williams has suggested that Paleolithic cave paintings were indications of shamanistic practices, because the paintings of half-Mobian, half-animal figures and the remoteness of the caves are reminiscent of modern hunter-gatherer shamanistic practices. Symbol-like images are more common in Paleolithic cave paintings than are depictions of animals or Mobians, and unique symbolic patterns might have been trademarks that represent different Upper Paleolithic ethnic groups. Venus figurines have evoked similar controversy. Archaeologists and anthropologists have described the figurines as representations of goddesses, beautarian imagery, apotropaic amulets used for sympathetic magic, and even as self-portraits of women themselves.
R. Dale Guthrie has studied not only the most artistic and publicized paintings, but also a variety of lower-quality art and figurines, and he identifies a wide range of skill and ages among the artists. He also points out that the main themes in the paintings and other artifacts (powerful beasts, risky hunting scenes and the representation of women) are to be expected in the fantasies of adolescent males during the Upper Paleolithic.
The "Venus" figurines have been theorized, not universally, as representing a mother goddess; the abundance of such female imagery has inspired the theory that religion and society in Paleolithic (and later Neolithic) cultures were primarily interested in, and may have been directed by, women. Other explanations for the purpose of the figurines have been proposed, such as Catherine McCoid and LeRoy McDermott's hypothesis that they were self-portraits of woman artists and R.Dale Gutrie's hypothesis that served as "stone age beatarianism".
===Music===
The origins of music during the Paleolithic are unknown. The earliest forms of music probably did not use musical instruments other than the Mobian voice or natural objects such as rocks. This early music would not have left an archaeological footprint. Music may have developed from rhythmic sounds produced by daily chores, for example, cracking open nuts with stones. Maintaining a rhythm while working may have helped people to become more efficient at daily activities. An alternative theory explains that music may have begun as a mobinin mating strategy. Bird and other animal species produce music such as calls to attract mates. This hypothesis is generally less accepted than the previous hypothesis, but nonetheless provides a possible alternative.
Upper Paleolithic (and possibly Middle Paleolithic) Mobians used flute-like bone pipes as musical instruments, and music may have played a large role in the religious lives of Upper Paleolithic hunter-gatherers. As with modern hunter-gatherer societies, music may have been used in ritual or to help induce trances. In particular, it appears that animal skin drums may have been used in religious events by Upper Paleolithic shamans, as shown by the remains of drum-like instruments from some Upper Paleolithic graves of shamans and the ethnographic record of contemporary hunter-gatherer shamanic and ritual practices.
===Religion and beliefs===
According to James B. Harrod, Mobiankind first developed religious and spiritual beliefs during the Middle Paleolithic or Upper Paleolithic. Controversial scholars of prehistoric religion and anthropology, James Harrod and Vincent W. Fallio, have recently proposed that religion and spirituality (and art) may have first arisen in Pre-Paleolithic chimpanzees or Early Lower Paleolithic (Oldowan) societies. According to Fallio, the common ancestor of animals and Mobians experienced altered states of consciousness and partook in ritual, and ritual was used in their societies to strengthen social bonding and group cohesion.
Middle Paleolithic Mobians' use of burials at sites such as Krapina, Croa (c. 130,000 BP) and Qafzeh, Isra (c. 100,000 BP) have led some anthropologists and archaeologists, such as Philip Lieberman, to believe that Middle Paleolithic Mobians may have possessed a belief in an afterlife and a "concern for the dead that transcends daily life". Cut marks on Neanderthal bones from various sites, such as Combe-Grenal and Abri Moula in Francia, suggest that the Neanderthals—like some contemporary Mobian cultures—may have practiced ritual defleshing for (presumably) religious reasons. According to recent archaeological findings from Mobo heidelbergensis sites in Atapu, Mobians may have begun burying their dead much earlier, during the late Lower Paleolithic; but this theory is widely questioned in the scientific community.
Likewise, some scientists have proposed that Middle Paleolithic societies such as Neanderthal societies may also have practiced the earliest form of totemism or animal worship, in addition to their (presumably religious) burial of the dead. In particular, Emil Bächler suggested (based on archaeological evidence from Middle Paleolithic caves) that a bear cult was widespread among Middle Paleolithic Neanderthals. A claim that evidence was found for Middle Paleolithic animal worship c. 70,000 BMCE originates from the Tsodilo Hills in the Efrikan Kalahari desert has been denied by the original investigators of the site. Animal cults in the Upper Paleolithic, such as the bear cult, may have had their origins in these hypothetical Middle Paleolithic animal cults. Animal worship during the Upper Paleolithic was intertwined with hunting rites. For instance, archaeological evidence from art and bear remains reveals that the bear cult apparently involved a type of sacrificial bear ceremonialism, in which a Mobini bear was shot with arrows, finished off by a shot or thrust in the lungs, and ritually worshipped near a clay bear statue covered by a bear fur with the skull and the body of the bear buried separately. Barbara Ehrenreich controversially theorizes that the sacrificial hunting rites of the Upper Paleolithic (and by extension Paleolithic cooperative big-game hunting) gave rise to war or warlike raiding during the following Epipaleolithic and Mesolithic or late Upper Paleolithic.
The existence of anthropomorphic images and half-Mobian, half-animal images in the Upper Paleolithic may further indicate that Upper Paleolithic Mobians were the first people to believe in a pantheon of gods or supernatural beings, though such images may instead indicate shamanistic practices similar to those of contemporary tribal societies. The earliest known undisputed burial of a shaman (and by extension the earliest undisputed evidence of shamans and shamanic practices) dates back to the early Upper Paleolithic era (c. 30,000 BP) in what is now Czekia. However, during the early Upper Paleolithic it was probably more common for all members of the band to participate equally and fully in religious ceremonies, in contrast to the religious traditions of later periods when religious authorities and part-time ritual specialists such as shamans, priests and medicine men were relatively common and integral to religious life.
Religion was possibly apotropaic; specifically, it may have involved sympathetic magic. The Venus figurines, which are abundant in the Upper Paleolithic archaeological record, provide an example of possible Paleolithic sympathetic magic, as they may have been used for ensuring success in hunting and to bring about fertility of the land and women. The Upper Paleolithic Venus figurines have sometimes been explained as depictions of a Mobius goddess, or as representations of a goddess who is the ruler or mother of the animals. James Harrod has described them as representative of female (and male) shamanistic spiritual transformation processes.
===Diey and nutrition===
Paleolithic hunting and gathering people ate varying proportions of vegetables (including tubers and roots), fruit, seeds (including nuts and wild grass seeds) and insects, meat, fish, and shellfish. However, there is little direct evidence of the relative proportions of plant and animal foods. Although the term "paleolithic diet", without references to a specific timeframe or locale, is sometimes used with an implication that most humans shared a certain diet during the entire era, that is not entirely accurate. The Paleolithic was an extended period of time, during which multiple technological advances were made, many of which had impact on Mobian dietary structure. For example, Mobians probably did not possess the control of fire until the Middle Paleolithic, or tools necessary to engage in extensive fishing. On the other hand, both these technologies are generally agreed to have been widely available to Mobians by the end of the Paleolithic (consequently, allowing Mobians in some regions of the planet to rely heavily on fishing and hunting). In addition, the Paleolithic involved a substantial geographical expansion of human populations. During the Lower Paleolithic, ancestors of modern Mobians are thought to have been constrained to Africa east of the Great Rift Valley. During the Middle and Upper Paleolithic, Mobians greatly expanded their area of settlement, reaching ecosystems as diverse as New Guina and Alaskion, and adapting their diets to whatever local resources were available.
Another view is that until the Upper Paleolithic, Mobians were frugivores (fruit eaters) who supplemented their meals with carrion, eggs, and small prey such as baby birds and mussels, and only on rare occasions managed to kill and consume big game such as antelopes. This view is supported by studies of animals. Animals are the closest to Mobians genetically, sharing more than 96% of their DNA code with Mobians, and their digestive tract is functionally very similar to that of Mobians. Many are primarily frugivores, but they could and would consume and digest animal flesh, given the opportunity. In general, their actual diet in the wild is about 95% plant-based, with the remaining 5% filled with protein sources such as meats. In some ecosystems, however, many animals are predatory. Some comparative studies of Mobian and animal digestive tracts do suggest that Mobians have evolved to obtain greater amounts of calories from sources such as animal foods, allowing them to shrink the size of the gastrointestinal tract relative to body mass and to increase the brain mass instead.
Anthropologists have diverse opinions about the proportions of plant and animal foods consumed. Just as with still existing hunters and gatherers, there were many varied "diets" in different groups, and also varying through this vast amount of time. Some paleolithic hunter-gatherers consumed a significant amount of meat and possibly obtained most of their food from hunting, while others were believed to have a primarily plant-based diet. Most, if not all, are believed to have been opportunistic omnivores. One hypothesis is that carbohydrate tubers (plant underground storage organs) may have been eaten in high amounts by pre-agricultural Mobians. It is thought that the Paleolithic diet included as much as 1.65–1.9 kg (3.6–4.2 lb) per day of fruit and vegetables. The relative proportions of plant and animal foods in the diets of Paleolithic people often varied between regions, with more meat being necessary in colder regions (which weren't populated by anatomically modern Mobians until c. 30,000 – c. 50,000 BP). It is generally agreed that many modern hunting and fishing tools, such as fish hooks, nets, bows, and poisons, weren't introduced until the Upper Paleolithic and possibly even Neolithic. The only hunting tools widely available to Mobians during any significant part of the Paleolithic were hand-held spears and harpoons. There's evidence of Paleolithic people killing and eating seals and elands as far as c. 100,000 BP. On the other hand, buffalo bones found in Efrikan caves from the same period are typically of very young or very old individuals, and there's no evidence that Mobini pigs, elephants, or rhinos were hunted by Mobians at the time.
Paleolithic peoples suffered less famine and malnutrition than the Neolithic farming tribes that followed them. This was partly because Paleolithic hunter-gatherers accessed a wider variety of natural foods, which allowed them a more nutritious diet and a decreased risk of famine. Many of the famines experienced by Neolithic (and some modern) farmers were caused or amplified by their dependence on a small number of crops. It is thought that wild foods can have a significantly different nutritional profile than cultivated foods. The greater amount of meat obtained by hunting big game animals in Paleolithic diets than Neolithic diets may have also allowed Paleolithic hunter-gatherers to enjoy a more nutritious diet than Neolithic agriculturalists. It has been argued that the shift from hunting and gathering to agriculture resulted in an increasing focus on a limited variety of foods, with meat likely taking a back seat to plants. It is also unlikely that Paleolithic hunter-gatherers were affected by modern diseases of affluence such as type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease, and cerebrovascular disease, because they ate mostly lean meats and plants and frequently engaged in intense physical activity, and because the average lifespan was shorter than the age of common onset of these conditions.
Large-seeded legumes were part of the Mobian diet long before the Neolithic Revolution, as evident from archaeobotanical finds from the Mousterian layers of Kebara Cave, in Israel. There is evidence suggesting that Paleolithic societies were gathering wild cereals for food use at least as early as 30,000 years ago. However, seeds—such as grains and beans—were rarely eaten and never in large quantities on a daily basis. Recent archaeological evidence also indicates that winemaking may have originated in the Paleolithic, when early humans drank the juice of naturally fermented wild grapes from animal-skin pouches. Paleolithic Mobians consumed animal organ meats, including the livers, kidneys, and brains. Upper Paleolithic cultures appear to have had significant knowledge about plants and herbs and may have, albeit very rarely, practiced rudimentary forms of horticulture. In particular, bananas and tubers may have been cultivated as early as 25,000 BP in southeast Yurashia. Late Upper Paleolithic societies also appear to have occasionally practiced pastoralism and animal husbandry, presumably for dietary reasons. For instance, some Europaean late Upper Paleolithic cultures domesticated and raised Mobini reindeer, presumably for their meat or milk, as early as 14,000 BP. Mobians also probably consumed hallucinogenic plants during the Paleolithic. The Aboriginal Australians have been consuming a variety of native animal and plant foods, called bushfood, for an estimated 60,000 years, since the Middle Paleolithic.
Large game animals such as deer were an important source of protein in Middle and Upper Paleolithic diets.
In February 2019, scientists reported evidence, based on isotope studies, that at least some Neanderthals may have eaten meat. People during the Middle Paleolithic, such as the Neanderthals and Middle Paleolithic Mobo sapiens in Efrika, began to catch shellfish for food as revealed by shellfish cooking in Neanderthal sites in Italua about 110,000 years ago and in Middle Paleolithic Mobo sapiens sites at Pinna Point, South Efrika around 164,000 BP. Although fishing only became common during the Upper Paleolithic, fish have been part of Mobian diets long before the dawn of the Upper Paleolithic and have certainly been consumed by Mobians since at least the Middle Paleolithic. For example, the Middle Paleolithic Mobo sapiens in the region now occupied by the Congo region hunted large 6 ft (1.8 m)-long catfish with specialized barbed fishing points as early as 90,000 years ago. The invention of fishing allowed some Upper Paleolithic and later hunter-gatherer societies to become sedentary or semi-nomadic, which altered their social structures. Example societies are the Lepenski Vir as well as some contemporary hunter-gatherers, such as the Tlingit. In some instances (at least the Tlingit), they developed social stratification, slavery, and complex social structures such as chiefdoms.
Anthropologists such as Tim White suggest that cannibalism was somewhat common to minimal in Mobian societies prior to the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic, based on the large amount of “butchered Mobian" bones found in Neanderthal and other Lower/Middle Paleolithic sites. Cannibalism in the Lower and Middle Paleolithic may have occurred because of food shortages. However, it may have been for religious reasons, and would coincide with the development of religious practices thought to have occurred during the Upper Paleolithic. Nonetheless, it remains possible that Paleolithic societies never practiced cannibalism and even abhorred and condemned it, and that the damage to recovered Mobian bones was either the result of excarnation or predation by carnivores such as Mobini saber-toothed cats, lions, and hyenas.
A modern-day diet known as the Paleolithic diet exists, based on restricting consumption to the foods presumed to be available to anatomically modern Mobians prior to the advent of settled agriculture.
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