HearLore
ListenSearchLibrary

Follow the threads

Every story connects to a hundred more

Topics
  • Browse all topics
  • Featured
  • Recently added
Categories
  • Browse all categories
  • For you
Answers
  • All answer pages
Journal
  • All entries
  • RSS feed
Terms of service·Privacy policy

2026 HearLore

Preview of HearLore

Free to follow every thread. No paywall, no dead ends.

Middle Paleolithic

The earliest anatomically modern humans began migrating out of Africa around 125,000 years ago, marking a pivotal moment in the Middle Paleolithic period. This migration coincided with the emergence of behavioral modernity, though undisputed evidence of such behaviors only became common during the subsequent Upper Paleolithic. Sites like Krapina in Croatia, dated to 130,000 years before present, and the Qafzeh and Es Skhul caves in Israel, dated to 100,000 years before present, have led some anthropologists to believe that Middle Paleolithic cultures may have possessed a developing religious ideology. Philip Lieberman and others suggest these burials indicate concepts such as an afterlife, while other scholars argue the bodies were buried for secular reasons. The practice of intentional burial may have begun even earlier during the late Lower Paleolithic, according to recent findings from Homo heidelbergensis sites in the Atapuerca Mountains, though this theory remains widely questioned in the scientific community. Cut-marks on Neandertal bones from sites like Combe Grenal and the Moula rock shelter in France may imply that Neanderthals practiced excarnation for presumably religious reasons, adding another layer of complexity to our understanding of their social and spiritual lives.

Social Structures And Equality

Middle Paleolithic people lived in small, egalitarian band societies similar to those of Upper Paleolithic societies and some modern hunter-gatherers such as the ！Kung and Mbuti peoples. Both Neanderthal and modern human societies took care of the elderly members of their societies during the Middle Paleolithic, suggesting a level of social cohesion and care that was previously underestimated. Christopher Boehm has hypothesized that egalitarianism may have arisen in Middle Paleolithic societies because of a need to distribute resources such as food and meat equally to avoid famine and ensure a stable food supply. It has usually been assumed that women gathered plants and firewood and men hunted and scavenged dead animals through the Paleolithic. However, Steven L. Kuhn and Mary Stiner from the University of Arizona suggest that this sex-based division of labor did not exist prior to the Upper Paleolithic. The sexual division of labor may have evolved after 45,000 years ago to allow humans to acquire food and other resources more efficiently, challenging long-held assumptions about gender roles in prehistoric societies.

Nutrition And Survival Strategies

Although gathering and hunting comprised most of the food supply during the Middle Paleolithic, people began to supplement their diet with seafood and began smoking and drying meat to preserve and store it. The Middle Stone Age inhabitants of the region now occupied by the Democratic Republic of the Congo hunted large long catfish with specialized barbed fishing points as early as 90,000 years ago, demonstrating advanced fishing techniques. Neandertals and Middle Paleolithic Homo sapiens in Africa began to catch shellfish for food as revealed by shellfish cooking in Neanderthal sites in Italy about 110,000 years ago and Middle Paleolithic Homo sapiens sites at Pinnacle Point, in Africa. Anthropologists such as Tim D. White suggest that cannibalism was common in human societies prior to the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic, based on the large amount of

Up Next

Upper PaleolithicPaleolithic

Continue Browsing

Prehistoric cannibalismPleistocene

Common questions

When did the earliest anatomically modern humans begin migrating out of Africa during the Middle Paleolithic period?

The earliest anatomically modern humans began migrating out of Africa around 125,000 years ago during the Middle Paleolithic period. This migration marked a pivotal moment in human history and coincided with the emergence of behavioral modernity.

What evidence suggests Middle Paleolithic cultures possessed a developing religious ideology?

Sites like Krapina in Croatia dated to 130,000 years before present and the Qafzeh and Es Skhul caves in Israel dated to 100,000 years before present have led some anthropologists to believe Middle Paleolithic cultures may have possessed a developing religious ideology. Philip Lieberman and others suggest these burials indicate concepts such as an afterlife.

How did Middle Paleolithic people manage food resources and social organization?

Middle Paleolithic people lived in small egalitarian band societies similar to those of Upper Paleolithic societies and some modern hunter-gatherers such as the Kung and Mbuti peoples. Christopher Boehm has hypothesized that egalitarianism may have arisen in Middle Paleolithic societies because of a need to distribute resources such as food and meat equally to avoid famine and ensure a stable food supply.

When did the sexual division of labor evolve in Middle Paleolithic societies?

The sexual division of labor may have evolved after 45,000 years ago to allow humans to acquire food and other resources more efficiently. Steven L. Kuhn and Mary Stiner from the University of Arizona suggest that this sex-based division of labor did not exist prior to the Upper Paleolithic.

What advanced fishing techniques did Middle Stone Age inhabitants use during the Middle Paleolithic period?

The Middle Stone Age inhabitants of the region now occupied by the Democratic Republic of the Congo hunted large long catfish with specialized barbed fishing points as early as 90,000 years ago. Neandertals and Middle Paleolithic Homo sapiens in Africa began to catch shellfish for food as revealed by shellfish cooking in Neanderthal sites in Italy about 110,000 years ago.

See all questions about Middle Paleolithic →

In this section

Loading sources

All sources