Stone Age

The Stone Age was a broad <a href="/facts/Prehistory/52D6oKM4">prehistoric</a> period during which <a href="/facts/Rock_(geology)/FXCJkmop">stone</a> was widely used to make <a href="/facts/Stone_tool/JQxItKEm">stone tools</a> with an edge, a point, or a percussion surface. The period lasted for roughly 3.4 million years and ended between 4000 <a href="/facts/Anno_Domini/NmQwnQNj">BC</a> and 2000 BC, with the advent of <a href="/facts/Metalworking/eAT0Pvz2">metalworking</a>. It therefore represents nearly 99.3% of human history. 
Though some simple metalworking of malleable metals, particularly the use of <a href="/facts/Goldsmith/L1xlgt2o">gold</a> and <a href="/facts/Coppersmith/BrnQsneu">copper</a> for purposes of ornamentation, was known in the Stone Age, it is the melting and <a href="/facts/Smelting/Ghdvhlga">smelting</a> of copper that marks the end of the Stone Age. In <a href="/facts/Western_Asia/xXM15vIz">Western Asia</a>, this occurred by about 3000 BC, when <a href="/facts/Bronze/YCYCVIKt">bronze</a> became widespread. The term <a href="/facts/Bronze_Age/c09qWcTt">Bronze Age</a> is used to describe the period that followed the Stone Age, as well as to describe cultures that had developed techniques and technologies for working copper alloys (bronze: originally copper and arsenic, later copper and tin) into tools, supplanting stone in many uses.
Stone Age artifacts that have been discovered include tools used by modern humans, by their predecessor species in the <a href="/facts/Genus/m8EFjSms">genus</a> <a href="/facts/Homo/qvJtEBr2">Homo</a>, and possibly by the earlier partly contemporaneous genera <a href="/facts/Australopithecus/hyfqJnsx">Australopithecus</a> and <a href="/facts/Paranthropus/7R9W8ABU">Paranthropus</a>. <a href="/facts/Bone_tool/cJdsUNNA">Bone tools</a> have been discovered that were used during this period as well but these are rarely preserved in the <a href="/facts/Archaeological_record/CNHr7zAE">archaeological record</a>. The Stone Age is further subdivided by the types of <a href="/facts/Stone_tool/JQxItKEm">stone tools</a> in use.
The Stone Age is the first period in the <a href="/facts/Three-age_system/boEDrPg0">three-age system</a> frequently used in <a href="/facts/Archaeology/K3Q5P38R">archaeology</a> to divide the timeline of human technological prehistory (especially in Europe and western Asia) into functional periods, with the next two being the <a href="/facts/Bronze_Age/c09qWcTt">Bronze Age</a> and the <a href="/facts/Iron_Age/mpQYShI0">Iron Age</a>, respectively. The Stone Age is also commonly divided into three distinct periods: the earliest and most primitive being the <a href="/facts/Paleolithic/I48SMHo5">Paleolithic</a> era; a transitional period with finer tools known as the <a href="/facts/Mesolithic/XTNS0x3r">Mesolithic</a> era; and the final stage known as the <a href="/facts/Neolithic/wRS0Bnh4">Neolithic</a> era. Neolithic peoples were the first to transition away from <a href="/facts/Hunter-gatherer/ghnjoNbJ">hunter-gatherer</a> societies into the settled lifestyle of inhabiting <a href="/facts/List_of_Neolithic_settlements/WTBNnP7R">towns and villages</a> as <a href="/facts/Neolithic_Revolution/P5tLdcgU">agriculture became widespread</a>. In the chronology of prehistory, the Neolithic era usually overlaps with the <a href="/facts/Chalcolithic/asevzSXh">Chalcolithic</a> ("Copper") era preceding the Bronze Age.
The <a href="/facts/Archaeology_of_the_Americas/tLHqh7JX">Archaeology of the Americas</a> uses different markers to assign five periods which have different dates in different areas; the oldest period is the similarly named <a href="/facts/Lithic_stage/STBTdkIY">Lithic stage</a>.

Stone Age open-in-new

Stone Age