The Stone Age: A History from Beginning to End (Prehistory)

by Hourly History

the Bronze Age began around 3,000 BCE and continued until around 1,200 BCE. The Iron Age began in 1,200 BCE,

Paleolithic is generally used to denote a period from around 2.6 million years ago to around 10,000 BCE. Mesolithic means the period from 10,000 BCE to around 5,000 BCE. Neolithic indicates the period from 5,000 BCE to around 3,000 BCE.

the most recent Ice Age, around 10,000 BCE.

Homo habilis may have fashioned and used primitive stone tools by striking a cobble against a larger stone to produce sharp-edged shards that could be used for cutting, which

is why the Stone Age is generally thought to have begun with the emergence of this species.

Homo ergaster.

It was also the first human species to move outside Africa, with examples identified in Europe and Asia.

Somewhere around 200,000 to 300,000 years ago, the human species developed as three separate but related groups. These were Homo sapiens, principally originating in Africa, Homo neanderthalensis, mainly in Europe, and Homo denisova in Asia, though in parts of Asia, there appear to have also been relict populations of Homo erectus in some isolated areas.

but by the beginning of the Mesolithic era, Homo sapiens was the only remaining human species,

As it became warmer, Europe was covered in forest that gradually replaced the barren steppes left behind when the glaciers initially retreated.

It was only around 6,500 BCE that Britain became an island separated from continental Europe.