The Epipaleolithic is a term used mainly in the Near East and parts of Europe for the period after the Last Glacial Maximum and before the beginning of farming, when hunter-gatherers lived in the warming postglacial world. In the Levant it included the Kebaran and Natufian cultures. Natufian communities began to settle in villages, gathered wild cereals and used stone sickles, and they buried their dead in cemeteries. These changes laid the foundations for the Neolithic and the later domestication of plants and animals. The tools of the period are characterised by small stone blades called microliths, often shaped geometrically.
Before and after
- about 23,100 years agoPeople are already in North America
- about 21,000 years agoLast Glacial Maximum
- about 20,000 years agoThe earliest known pottery is made in China
- from about 17,000 years ago to 12,000 years agoMagdalenian
- from about 16,000 years ago to 8th millennium BCEEpipaleolithic
- about 15,100 years agoDogs are domesticated
- from about 15,000 years ago to 1st millennium BCEJōmon period
- from about 14,000 years ago to 9th millennium BCENatufian culture
- about 13,000 years agoThe megafauna of the Americas die out
More in Evolution & life
- about 41,000 years agoNeanderthals disappear from Europe
- from about 40,000 years ago to 31,000 years agoAurignacian
- from c. 9,050s BCE to 8,850s BCEClovis culture
- from 55th century BCE to 27th century BCECucuteni–Trypillia culture
- from 36th century BCE to 18th century BCECaral–Supe civilization
- from c. 3,300 BCE to 2,600 BCEYamnaya culture
The era
This moment belongs to the Human prehistory (300,000 years ago to 3,200 BCE), the human story before writing.