Short answers, pulled from the story.
The Paleolithic era began 2.6 million years ago with the discovery of the oldest known stone tools in Gona, Ethiopia. These artifacts were produced by early hominins like Australopithecus and Homo habilis using carefully selected materials with good flaking qualities.
Evidence suggests that Homo erectus and Homo ergaster controlled fire as early as 1.5 million years ago. This capability triggered significant morphological changes in human anatomy, including smaller jaws and guts, while allowing hominins to expand out of Africa and reach southern Europe and Asia by 1.8 million years ago.
Neanderthals went extinct around 40,000 years ago due to a combination of climate change, competition with Homo sapiens, and the inability to adapt to rapidly shifting environments. Genetic studies reveal that Neanderthals interbred with modern humans, leaving a genetic legacy in non-African populations today.
The Upper Paleolithic period began around 50,000 years ago and witnessed an explosion of artistic and symbolic expression. The earliest undisputed evidence of art includes bracelets, beads, and rock art made with ochre found in Blombos Cave in South Africa, while cave paintings at Lascaux and Altamira date back 17,000 to 40,000 years.
The Last Glacial Maximum occurred around 20,000 years ago and saw the formation of massive ice sheets covering much of North America, Europe, and Asia. The cooling climate led to the extinction of many large mammals, including the woolly mammoth and the woolly rhinoceros, which had thrived in the mammoth steppe during the Pleistocene.
The Paleolithic era ended around 11,650 years ago with the transition to the Holocene epoch. Paleolithic societies were organized into small, nomadic bands ranging from 20 to 100 members that relied on a hunter-gatherer economy and likely practiced egalitarian decision-making by communal consensus.