The Paleolithic is also called the Old Stone Age, an ancient cultural level of human development, characterized by the use of rudimentary chipped stone tools. The name comes from the Ancient Greek ‘palaios’ (= old’) and ‘lithos’ (= ‘stone’). It is the oldest period in the prehistory of man and his material culture. The first use of stone tools was probably by Homo habilis and ends of the last ice age about 10.000 BC. The subsequent Mesolithic, the following period, is increasingly disappearing from sight. Some allow the Neolithic to begin after the Old Stone Age. There is no clear criterion to distinguish the Paleolithic and Mesolithic.

The onset of the Paleolithic Period has traditionally coincided with the first evidence of tool construction and use by Homo, about 2,58 million years BC, near the beginning of the Pleistocene Epoch. In 2015, researchers discovered primitive stone tools embedded in rocks near Kenya’s Lake Turkana; dating to 3,3 million years BC. This is the middle of the Pliocene Epoch. Those tools predate the oldest confirmed specimens of Homo, by almost 1 million years. This raises the possibility that toolmaking originated with Australopithecus and that the timing of the onset of the Paleolithic should be reevaluated.

During the Paleolithic Age, hominins grouped together in small societies and subsisted by gathering plants, fishing, hunting and scavenging wild animals. The period is characterized by the knapped stone tools. Although at the time humans also used wood and bone tools. They also used leather and vegetable fibers, however due to rapid decomposition, these have not survived time. About 50.000 BC, a diversity of artifacts increased. In Africa, bone artifacts and the first art appear in the archaeological record. First evidence of human fishing is noted, from artifacts in places like Blombos cave in South Africa. Artifacts have been found of projectile points, engraving tools, knife blades and drilling and piercing tools.

Humankind evolved from early members of the genus Homo, e.g. Homo habilis, who used stoned tools, into anatomically modern humans towards behaviorally modern humans. During the end of the Paleolithic, humans began to produce the earliest works of art to engage religious or spiritual behavior for burial and ritual customs.

The Paleolithic Age went through some glacial and interglacial periods. The climate periodically fluctuated between warm and cold temperatures. Finds suggest that the source populations of Paleolithic humans survived in sparsely-wooded areas and dispersed through areas of high productivity while avoiding dense forest cover.

About 50.000 BC, humans set foot in Australia, by 45.000 BC, humans lived in Europe, the first humans in Japan were about 30.000 BC and around 27.000 BC humans were present in Siberia. At the end of the Paleolithic Age a group of humans crossed the Beringia and expanded in the Americas.