from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
- adj. Of or relating to the cultural period of the Stone Age beginning with the earliest chipped stone tools, about 750,000 years ago, until the beginning of the Mesolithic Period, about 15,000 years ago.
- n. The Paleolithic Period. Also called Old Stone Age. See Usage Note at Three Age system.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
- n. A period that lasted from two and a half million years ago to 10,000 BC; the Old Stone Age.
- adj. Of or referring to the Old Stone Age (the Paleolithic period or Paleolithic age).
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English
- adj. Of or pertaining to an era marked by early stone implements. The Paleolithic era (as proposed by Lubbock) includes the earlier half of the “Stone Age;” the remains belonging to it are for the most part of extinct animals, with relics of human beings.
from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Characterized by the existence of ancient and roughly finished stone implements.
- n. A stone implement of the paleolithic or stone age.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- n. second part of the Stone Age beginning about 750,00 to 500,000 years BC and lasting until the end of the last ice age about 8,500 years BC
- adj. of or relating to the second period of the Stone Age (following the eolithic)
Lubbock distinguished the Neolithic period from what he called the Paleolithic, or “Old Stone Age,” which preceded it.
Archaeologists use the terms Paleolithic and Neolithic to refer to earlier and later epochs of human prehistory, which can be distinguished by the types of artifacts they left behind, especially the types of stone tools they used.
A case in point is a otherwise wonderful book published 20+ years ago titled The Paleolithic Prescription.
This diet is also called the Paleolithic diet because the focus is based on food available to cavemen during the Paleolithic Era, around 10,000 years ago.
I would recommend a book called The Paleolithic Prescription written about 20 years ago by an anthroplogist and physician that describes the unbelievable feats early man could perform.
If true, what a wonderful antiquity is here unfolded for the human race, and what a wonderful lapse of time is included in what is known as the Paleolithic Age!
Men write of and wonder at the strange gap between what are called the Paleolithic and the Neolithic ages, that is, between the ages when the spearheads and ax and arrowheads were of stone chipped roughly into shape, and the age of stone even-edged and smoothly polished.
The Paleolithic was a very cold period; humans were forced to the shoreline about 50,000 years ago, at the height of the last glaciation, actually got worse about 17,000 years ago.
Emory's Armelagos said this work might help settle debates over the so-called Paleolithic diets, which periodically become trendy, advocating little more than wild meat, seafood, a few nuts, and vegetables.
After the Ice aims to be a narrative of ancient lives rather than a compendium of artifacts, so Mithen places the reader in the company of a time-traveling observer, John Lubbock, who brings on his adventures a copy of Prehistoric Times, the influential textbook by his Victorian namesake that introduced the terms "Paleolithic" and "Neolithic."