Paleolithic
The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic is a period in human prehistory distinguished by the original development of stone tools that covers c. 99% of human technological prehistory. It extends from the earliest known use of stone tools by hominins c. 3.3 million years ago, to the end of the Pleistocene c. 11,650 cal BP. The Paleolithic is followed in Europe by the Mesolithic, although the date of the transition varies geographically by several thousand years. During the Paleolithic, hominins grouped together in small societies such as bands, subsisted by gathering plants and fishing, hunting or scavenging wild animals; the Paleolithic is characterized by the use of knapped stone tools, although at the time humans used wood and bone tools. Other organic commodities were adapted for use including leather and vegetable fibers. About 50,000 years ago, there was a marked increase in the diversity of artifacts. In Africa, bone artifacts and the first art appear in the archaeological record; the first evidence of human fishing is noted, from artifacts in places such as Blombos cave in South Africa.
Archaeologists classify artifacts of the last 50,000 years into many different categories, such as projectile points, engraving tools, knife blades, drilling and piercing tools. Humankind evolved from early members of the genus Homo—such as Homo habilis, who used simple stone tools—into anatomically modern humans as well as behaviorally modern humans by the Upper Paleolithic. During the end of the Paleolithic the Middle or Upper Paleolithic, humans began to produce the earliest works of art and began to engage in religious and spiritual behavior such as burial and ritual; the climate during the Paleolithic consisted of 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 humans 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 humans set foot in Australia.
By c. 45,000 BP, humans lived at 61°N latitude in Europe. By c. 30,000 BP, Japan was reached, by c. 27,000 BP humans were present in Siberia, above the Arctic Circle. At the end of the Upper Paleolithic, a group of humans crossed Beringia and expanded throughout the Americas; the term "Palaeolithic" was coined by archaeologist John Lubbock in 1865. It derives from Greek: παλαιός, palaios, "old"; the Paleolithic coincides 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 climatic changes that affected human societies. During the preceding Pliocene, continents had continued to drift from as far as 250 km from their present locations to positions only 70 km from their current location. South America became linked to North America through the Isthmus of Panama, bringing a nearly complete end to South America's distinctive marsupial fauna; the formation of the isthmus had major consequences on global temperatures, because warm equatorial ocean currents were cut off, the cold Arctic and Antarctic waters lowered temperatures in the now-isolated Atlantic Ocean.
Most of Central America formed during the Pliocene to connect the continents of North and South America, allowing fauna from these continents to leave their native habitats and colonize new areas. Africa's collision with Asia created the Mediterranean, cutting off the remnants of the Tethys Ocean. During the Pleistocene, the modern continents were at their present positions. Climates during the Pliocene became cooler and drier, seasonal, similar to modern climates. Ice sheets grew on Antarctica; the formation of an Arctic ice cap around 3 million years ago is signaled by an abrupt shift in oxygen isotope ratios and ice-rafted cobbles in the North Atlantic and North Pacific Ocean beds. Mid-latitude glaciation 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 retreats; the minor excursion is a "stadial". Each glacial advance tied up huge volumes of water in continental ice sheets 1,500–3,000 m deep, resulting in temporary sea level drops of 100 m or more over the entire surface of the Earth. During interglacial times, such as at present, drowned coastlines were common, mitigated by isostatic or other emergent motion of some regions; the effects of glaciation were global. Antarctica was ice-bound throughout the preceding Pliocene; the Andes were covered in the south by the Patagonian ice cap. There were glaciers in New Tasmania; the now decaying glaciers of Mount Kenya, Mount Kilimanjaro, the Ruwenzori Range in east and central Africa were larger. Glaciers existed to the west in the Atlas mountains. In the northern hemisphere, many glaciers fused into one.
T
Oldowan
The Oldowan is the earliest widespread stone tool archaeological industry in prehistory. These early tools were simple made with one or a few flakes chipped off with another stone. Oldowan tools were used during the Lower Paleolithic period, 2.6 million years ago up until 1.7 million years ago, by ancient Hominin across much of Africa, South Asia, the Middle East and Europe. This technological industry was followed by the more sophisticated Acheulean industry. Oldowan is pre-dated by Lomekwian tools at a single site dated to 3.3 mya. It is not clear; the term Oldowan is taken from the site of Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania, where the first Oldowan lithics were discovered by the archaeologist Louis Leakey in the 1930s. However, some contemporary archaeologists and palaeoanthropologists prefer to use the term Mode 1 tools to designate pebble tool industries, with Mode 2 designating bifacially worked tools, Mode 3 designating prepared-core tools, so forth. Classification of Oldowan tools is still somewhat contentious.
Mary Leakey was the first to create a system to classify Oldowan assemblages, built her system based on prescribed use. The system included choppers and pounders. However, more recent classifications of Oldowan assemblages have been made that focus on manufacture due to the problematic nature of assuming use from stone artefacts. An example is Isaac et al.'s tri-modal categories of "Flaked Pieces", "Detached Pieces", "Pounded Pieces" and "Unmodified Pieces". Oldowan tools are sometimes called "pebble tools", so named because the blanks chosen for their production resemble, in pebble form, the final product, it is not known for sure which hominin species used Oldowan tools. Its emergence is associated with the species Australopithecus garhi and its flourishing with early species of Homo such as H. habilis and H. ergaster. Early Homo erectus appears to inherit Oldowan technology and refines it into the Acheulean industry beginning 1.7 million years ago. The oldest known Oldowan tools have been found in Gona and are dated to about 2.6 mya.
The use of tools by apes including chimpanzees and orangutans can be used to argue in favour of tool-use as an ancestral feature of the hominin family. Tools made from bone, wood, or other organic materials were therefore in all probability used before the Oldowan. Oldowan stone tools are the oldest recognisable tools which have been preserved in the archaeological record. There is a flourishing of Oldowan tools in eastern Africa, spreading to southern Africa, between 2.4 and 1.7 mya. At 1.7 mya. the first Acheulean tools appear as Oldowan assemblages continue to be produced. Both technologies are found in the same areas, dating to the same time periods; this realisation required a rethinking of old cultural sequences in which the more "advanced" Acheulean was supposed to have succeeded the Oldowan. The different traditions may have been used by different species of hominins living in the same area, or multiple techniques may have been used by an individual species in response to different circumstances.
Sometime before 1.8 mya Homo erectus had spread outside of Africa, reaching as far east as Java by 1.8 mya and in Northern China by 1.66 mya. In these newly colonised areas, no Acheulean assemblages have been found. In China, only "Mode 1" Oldowan assemblages were produced, while in Indonesia stone tools from this age are unknown. By 1.8 mya early Homo was present in Europe, as shown by the discovery of fossil remains and Oldowan tools in Dmanisi, Georgia. Remains of their activities have been excavated in Spain at sites in the Guadix-Baza basin and near Atapuerca. Most early European sites yield "Mode 1" or Oldowan assemblages; the earliest Acheulean sites in Europe only appear around 0.5 mya. In addition, the Acheulean tradition does not seem to spread to Eastern Asia, it is unclear from the archaeological record. Other tool-making traditions seem to have supplanted Oldowan technologies by 0.25 mya. To obtain an Oldowan tool, a spherical hammerstone is struck on the edge, or striking platform, of a suitable core rock to produce a conchoidal fracture with sharp edges useful for various purposes.
The process is called lithic reduction. The chip removed by the blow is the flake. Below the point of impact on the core is a characteristic bulb with fine fissures on the fracture surface; the flake evidences ripple marks. The materials of the tools were for the most part quartz, basalt, or obsidian, flint and chert. Any rock that can hold an edge will do; the main source of these rocks is river cobbles, which provide both hammer stones and striking platforms. The earliest tools were split cobbles, it is not always clear, the flake. Tool-makers identified and reworked flakes. Complaints that artifacts could not be distinguished from fractured stone have helped spark careful studies of Oldowon techniques; these techniques have now been duplicated many times by archaeologists and other knappers, making misidentification of archaeological finds less likely. Use of bone tools by hominins producing Oldowan tools is known from Swartkrans, where a bone shaft with a polished point was discovered in Member I, dated 1.8–1.5 mya.
The Osteodontokeratic industry, the "bone-tooth-horn" industry hypothesized by Raymond Dart, is less certain. Mary Leakey classified the Oldowan tools as Heavy Duty, Light Duty, Utilized Pieces and Debitage, or waste. Heav
Babai River
The Babai River originates in and drains Inner Terai Dang Valley of Mid-Western Nepal. Dang is an oval valley between the Mahabharat Siwalik Hills in its eponymous district. Dang was anciently home to indigenous Tharu people and came to be ruled from India by the House of Tulsipur who counted as one of the Baise Rajya —a confederation of 22 petty kingdoms in the Karnali region. About 1760 AD all these kingdoms were annexed by the Shah Dynasty during the unification of Nepal, except Tulsipur lands south of the Siwalik Hills were not taken. Since Dang Valley was somewhat higher, better-drained and therefore less malarial than most of the country's Inner Terai, it was settled to some extent by Shah and Rana courtiers and other Paharis long before DDT was introduced to control the disease-bearing Anopheles mosquito. Exiting Dang Valley and its district, the Babai enters Salyan District and flows between sub-ranges of the Siwalik Hills along their west-northwest axis. Sharada Khola drains about half of Salyan's larger Middle Hills region before cutting through the Mahabharat Range and joining the Babai from the right.
Salyan was another Baise principality before unification. About 20 kilometres beyond this confluence, the Babai crosses into Bardiya District and enters Bardiya National Park; the river continues another 30 kilometres west-northwest until the enclosing Siwalik hills fall away and the Outer Terai begins. At this point the river crosses Nepal's main east -- exits the national park. On the Outer Terai the Babai is free to bend left toward the main inclination of the Indo-Gangetic Plain; the river enters India's Uttar Pradesh state. The Babai continues about 50 kilometres south from the border before joining the much larger Ghaghara from the left at about 35 kilometres west-northwest of Bahraich; this confluence is about 10 kilometres upstream of the Sharda confluence from the right. In Nepal the catchment of the Babai is bordered by that of the Rapti on the north and south. In India the Rapti takes a more easterly course, joining the Ghagra some 285 kilometres southeast of the Babai's confluence. In Season 9, Episode 55 of the television series River Monsters, Jeremy Wade visits Bardia National Park to fish the Babai.
He was unsuccessful. "Babai catchment in Nepal". 1:250,000. Cartography by Babai River Training Works http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-rU8C4to0UzA/T6zuXRRdlMI/AAAAAAAAAA4/oE1PEroFwys/s1600/Babai-Catchment.jpg. Retrieved Nov 27, 2013. List of rivers of Nepal
Ghorahi
Ghorahi is the seventh largest city and largest sub-metropolitan city of Nepal. The city lies in Province No. 5 in the mid-Western part of Nepal. It is the largest city of Dang Deukhuri District of southwest Nepal. Located in the Inner Terai region, it lies 413 kilometres south-west of Nepal's capital Kathmandu and is one of the Counter Magnets being developed as an alternative centre of growth to help ease the migration and population explosion in the Kathmandu metropolitan area, it is the largest city of the Rapti Zone and is surrounded by the Sivalik Hills to the south and Mahabharata Range to the north. Ghorahi is located in the Dang Valley in the foothills of the Himalayas nestled between the Babai River in the east, in the west which ends being the famous Sarayu and Ganges rivers in India; the city is known for its landscape and milder climate and provides a gateway to the surrounding regions of Rolpa, Pyuthan and Rukum. It is well-connected and close to tourist destinations such as Bardiya National Park in the west, Surkhet in the north-west, Rara Lake, the Hindu holy lands of Swargadwari and along with the Hindu temples as Pandaveshwor and Ambikeshwori.
It is one of the excellent sub-metropolitan cities based on minimum conditions and performance measurements in the assessment by the local government and financial experts of the Commission in the fiscal year 2072/73 V. S.. The city was the first in the assessment of financial commission by the local body of the Federal Affairs and Local Development Ministry held in the financial year 2067/68 V. S.. It hosts training institutions such as Nepal Sanskrit University, Central Ayurveda College, Rapti Engineering College, Deepjyoti Nursing College, Mahendra Multiple College; the city population makes a significant contribution to government civil servants. It is home to national factories such as the Ghorahi Cements Ghorahi, Sonapur Cement Factory, Dang Cement Industry. Ghorahi Submetropolitan City Office is locally known as Ghorahi Upa-Mahanagarpalika Karyalaya. Other urban entities involved in civic services and city governance and management include: Tripur Nagar Bikas Samiti, Rampur Gaubikas Samiti, Lakshmipur Gaubikas Samiti, Saudiyar Gaubikas Samiti, Dharna Gaubikas Samiti.
Ghorahi is best known for its high-quality hemp textiles. Ghorahi is the main town of the Rapti Zone and the headquarters of the Dang district, it is located at an elevation of 2,300 feet in the Mahabharat-Chure hill region. The hills of Dang Valley are part of the Chure Range. Hand axes and other artifacts dated to early Paleolithic have been found in alluvial deposits along the Babai River in Dang Valley. Archeologists classify these as Acheulean, i.e.'second-generation' toolmaking that succeeds the oldest Olduwan. There are more numerous, less ancient archeological sites dating to the Upper Paleolithic/Late Pleistocene; these are along the Babai, as well as in Deukhuri Valley adjacent and south of Dang Valley. Throughout historic times, earlier, the Dang and Deukhuri valleys were home to indigenous Tharu people; the House of Tulsipur ruled one of the largest Taluqs of Oudh, which included the Dang and Deukhuri Valleys. Therefore, it counted as one of the Baise Rajya, a confederation in what became western Nepal.
The town shares its name with another Tulsipur in Nepal. About 1760 AD, these kingdoms were annexed by the Shah Dynasty during the reunification of Nepal. Tulsipur lands south of the Siwalik Hills were not taken. Since Dang was somewhat higher, better-drained and therefore had fewer instances of malaria than most of Inner Terai Valleys of Nepal, it was settled to some extent by Shah and Rana courtiers and other Nepalese. Deukhuri was more of a Tharu enclave until DDT was introduced to control the malaria-bearing Anopheles mosquito in the 1950s; the municipality was established 29 January 1979 with the amalgamation of Ghorahi VDC and Sewar Bangaun VDC with a combined population of 12,279. It was named Tribhuvannagar Municipality after King Tribhuvan. After Nepal became a republic in 2008 the name changed back to Ghorahi Municipality. Local transport in Ghorahi city is by bus or private vehicles. Buses ply on the circular road surrounding the city centre. Heavy local transport can be seen between Ghorahi and its major suburbs which include Tulsipur, Dharna and Saudiyar.
Like any other growing city, Ghorahi is expanding with new habitats in the vicinity. Transport services in these areas are expanding rapidly. Tourist taxis are an option for out-of-town trips. Locals traverse the city on foot. Auto rickshaws are common as in other cities. Ghorahi is well-connected by road network to all major cities in Nepal; the East West Highway is connected via a spur road to Ghorahi from Lamahi. Rapti Sarbajanik Yatayat, Shikari Yatayat, Ambikeshwori Yatayat and other private bus agencies provide extensive transport around the valley and Rapti region. Government based transport is not available in the city. Distance between major towns and Ghorahi: Krishna Sen Icchuk Highway connects Ghorahi to the East West Highway. Distance between major towns and Ghorahi: No railway service is available in the valley. Dang Airport is situated at 23 kilometres from the city; the airport has infrequent flights to Kathmandu. The nearest major airport is Nepalgunj Airport in Banke District, about 152 kilometre
India
India known as the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh largest country by area and with more than 1.3 billion people, it is the second most populous country as well as the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the southwest, the Bay of Bengal on the southeast, it shares land borders with Pakistan to the west. In the Indian Ocean, India is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka and the Maldives, while its Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a maritime border with Thailand and Indonesia; the Indian subcontinent was home to the urban Indus Valley Civilisation of the 3rd millennium BCE. In the following millennium, the oldest scriptures associated with Hinduism began to be composed. Social stratification, based on caste, emerged in the first millennium BCE, Buddhism and Jainism arose. Early political consolidations took place under the Gupta empires. In the medieval era, Zoroastrianism and Islam arrived, Sikhism emerged, all adding to the region's diverse culture.
Much of the north fell to the Delhi Sultanate. The economy expanded in the 17th century in the Mughal Empire. In the mid-18th century, the subcontinent came under British East India Company rule, in the mid-19th under British Crown rule. A nationalist movement emerged in the late 19th century, which under Mahatma Gandhi, was noted for nonviolent resistance and led to India's independence in 1947. In 2017, the Indian economy was the world's sixth largest by nominal GDP and third largest by purchasing power parity. Following market-based economic reforms in 1991, India became one of the fastest-growing major economies and is considered a newly industrialised country. However, it continues to face the challenges of poverty, corruption and inadequate public healthcare. A nuclear weapons state and regional power, it has the second largest standing army in the world and ranks fifth in military expenditure among nations. India is a federal republic governed under a parliamentary system and consists of 29 states and 7 union territories.
A pluralistic and multi-ethnic society, it is home to a diversity of wildlife in a variety of protected habitats. The name India is derived from Indus, which originates from the Old Persian word Hindush, equivalent to the Sanskrit word Sindhu, the historical local appellation for the Indus River; the ancient Greeks referred to the Indians as Indoi, which translates as "The people of the Indus". The geographical term Bharat, recognised by the Constitution of India as an official name for the country, is used by many Indian languages in its variations, it is a modernisation of the historical name Bharatavarsha, which traditionally referred to the Indian subcontinent and gained increasing currency from the mid-19th century as a native name for India. Hindustan is a Middle Persian name for India, it was introduced into India by the Mughals and used since then. Its meaning varied, referring to a region that encompassed northern India and Pakistan or India in its entirety; the name may refer to either the northern part of India or the entire country.
The earliest known human remains in South Asia date to about 30,000 years ago. Nearly contemporaneous human rock art sites have been found in many parts of the Indian subcontinent, including at the Bhimbetka rock shelters in Madhya Pradesh. After 6500 BCE, evidence for domestication of food crops and animals, construction of permanent structures, storage of agricultural surplus, appeared in Mehrgarh and other sites in what is now Balochistan; these developed into the Indus Valley Civilisation, the first urban culture in South Asia, which flourished during 2500–1900 BCE in what is now Pakistan and western India. Centred around cities such as Mohenjo-daro, Harappa and Kalibangan, relying on varied forms of subsistence, the civilization engaged robustly in crafts production and wide-ranging trade. During the period 2000–500 BCE, many regions of the subcontinent transitioned from the Chalcolithic cultures to the Iron Age ones; the Vedas, the oldest scriptures associated with Hinduism, were composed during this period, historians have analysed these to posit a Vedic culture in the Punjab region and the upper Gangetic Plain.
Most historians consider this period to have encompassed several waves of Indo-Aryan migration into the subcontinent from the north-west. The caste system, which created a hierarchy of priests and free peasants, but which excluded indigenous peoples by labeling their occupations impure, arose during this period. On the Deccan Plateau, archaeological evidence from this period suggests the existence of a chiefdom stage of political organisation. In South India, a progression to sedentary life is indicated by the large number of megalithic monuments dating from this period, as well as by nearby traces of agriculture, irrigation tanks, craft traditions. In the late Vedic period, around the 6th century BCE, the small states and chiefdoms of the Ganges Plain and the north-western regions had consolidated into 16 major oligarchies and monarchies that were known as the mahajanapadas; the emerging urbanisation gave rise to non-Vedic religious movements, two of which became independent religions. Jainism came into prominence during the life of Mahavira.
Buddhism, based on the teachings of Gautama Buddha, attracted followers from all social classes excepting the middle
Baise rajya
Baise Rajya were sovereign and intermittently allied petty kingdoms on the Indian subcontinent, ruled by Khas Rajputs from medieval India, located around the Karnali-Bheri river basin of modern-day Nepal. The Baise were annexed during the unification of Nepal from 1744 to 1810; the kingdom’s founder Prithvi Narayan Shah did not live to see this, but his son and grandson annexed the entire collection by the end of the 18th century. The 22 principalities were Jumla, Jajarkot, Gajur, Malneta, Dailekh, Duryal, Sallyana, Phalawagh, Darnar, Atbis Gotam, Majal and Rukum; the Baise States included Kumaon, Garhwal in the west, Western Tibet in the north and Surkhet alogwith inner Terai valleys in the south. These Baise alongwith Chaubisi rajya states were ruled by Rajputs and several decentralized tribal polities. A parallel confederation of 24 principalities Chaubisi rajya occupied most of the Gandaki basin east of the Baisi. Dang Deukhuri District House of Tulsipur Dailekh Dullu Jumla Pradhan, Kumar L. Thapa Politics in Nepal: With Special Reference to Bhim Sen Thapa, 1806–1839, New Delhi: Concept Publishing Company, ISBN 9788180698132
Upper Paleolithic
The Upper Paleolithic is the third and last subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age. Broadly, it dates to between 50,000 and 10,000 years ago, according to some theories coinciding with the appearance of behavioral modernity and before the advent of agriculture. Anatomically modern humans are believed to have emerged out of Africa around 200,000 years ago, although these lifestyles changed little from that of archaic humans of the Middle Paleolithic, until about 50,000 years ago, when there was a marked increase in the diversity of artefacts; this period coincides with the expansion of modern humans from Africa throughout Asia and Eurasia, which contributed to the extinction of the Neanderthals. The Upper Paleolithic has the earliest known evidence of organized settlements, in the form of campsites, some with storage pits. Artistic work blossomed, with cave painting, petroglyphs and engravings on bone or ivory; the first evidence of human fishing is found, from artefacts in places such as Blombos cave in South Africa.
More complex social groupings emerged, supported by more varied and reliable food sources and specialized tool types. This contributed to increasing group identification or ethnicity; the peopling of Australia most took place before c. 60 ka. Europe was peopled after c. 45 ka. Anatomically modern humans are known to have expanded northward into Siberia as far as the 58th parallel by about 45 ka; the Upper Paleolithic is divided during about 25 to 15 ka. The peopling of the Americas occurred during this time, with East and Central Asia populations reaching the Bering land bridge after about 35 ka, expanding into the Americas by about 15 ka. In Western Eurasia, the Paleolithic eases into the so-called Epipaleolithic or Mesolithic from the end of the LGM, beginning 15 ka; the Holocene glacial retreat begins 11.7 ka, falling well into the Old World Epipaleolithic, marking the beginning of the earliest forms of farming in the Fertile Crescent. Both Homo erectus and Neanderthals used the same crude stone tools.
Archaeologist Richard G. Klein, who has worked extensively on ancient stone tools, describes the stone tool kit of archaic hominids as impossible to categorize, it was as if the Neanderthals made stone tools, were not much concerned about their final forms. He argues that everywhere, whether Asia, Africa or Europe, before 50,000 years ago all the stone tools are much alike and unsophisticated. Firstly among the artefacts of Africa, archeologists found they could differentiate and classify those of less than 50,000 years into many different categories, such as projectile points, engraving tools, knife blades, drilling and piercing tools; these new stone-tool types have been described as being distinctly differentiated from each other. The invaders referred to as the Cro-Magnons, left many sophisticated stone tools and engraved pieces on bone and antler, cave paintings and Venus figurines; the Neanderthals continued to use Mousterian stone tool technology and Chatelperronian technology. These tools disappeared from the archeological record at around the same time the Neanderthals themselves disappeared from the fossil record, about 40,000 cal BP.
Settlements were located in narrow valley bottoms associated with hunting of passing herds of animals. Some of them may have been occupied year round, though more they appear to have been used seasonally. Hunting was important, caribou/wild reindeer "may well be the species of single greatest importance in the entire anthropological literature on hunting."Technological advances included significant developments in flint tool manufacturing, with industries based on fine blades rather than simpler and shorter flakes. Burins and racloirs were used to work bone and hides. Advanced darts and harpoons appear in this period, along with the fish hook, the oil lamp and the eyed needle; the changes in human behavior have been attributed to changes in climate, encompassing a number of global temperature drops. These led to a worsening of the bitter cold of the last glacial period; such changes may have reduced the supply of usable timber and forced people to look at other materials. In addition, flint may not have functioned as a tool.
Some scholars argue that the appearance of complex or abstract language made these behavior changes possible. The complexity of the new human capabilities hints that humans were less capable of planning or foresight before 40,000 years, while the emergence of cooperative and coherent communication marked a new era of cultural development; the climate of the period in Europe saw dramatic changes, included the Last Glacial Maximum, the coldest phase of the last glacial period, which lasted from about 26.5 to 19 kya, being coldest at the end, before a rapid warming. During the Maximum, most of Northern Europe was covered by an ice-sheet, forcing human populations into the areas known as Last Glacial Maximum refugia, including modern Italy and the Balkans, parts of the Iberian Peninsula and areas around the Black Sea; this period saw cultures such as the Solutrean in Spain. Human life may have continued on top of the ice sheet, but we know next to nothing about it, little about the human life that preceded the European glaciers.
In the early part of the period, up to a
Nepal
