The Mousterian is an archaeological industry of stone tools associated mainly with Neanderthals in Europe, western Asia and North Africa, during the Middle Paleolithic. It is named after the rock shelter of Le Moustier in the Dordogne region of France. Mousterian toolmakers used the Levallois technique to shape cores and strike flakes of predetermined form, which were turned into scrapers, points and hand axes. The people who used the tools hunted large game, used fire, and buried some of their dead. The industry gave way to the Upper Palaeolithic cultures associated with modern humans, and the Neanderthals disappeared around forty thousand years ago.
Before and after
- from about 3.3 million years ago to 302,000 years agoLower Paleolithic
- about 2.7 million years agoGreat American Interchange
- about 2.6 million years agoOldowan
- from about 1.76 million years ago to 150,000 years agoAcheulean
- from about 315,000 years ago to 33,000 years agoMousterian
- from about 302,000 years ago to 32,000 years agoMiddle Paleolithic
- from about 115,000 years ago to 10th millennium BCELast Glacial Period
- about 75,100 years agoSymbolic engraving at Blombos Cave
- about 51,300 years agoSulawesi cave art is made
More in Evolution & life
- about 66 million years agoCretaceous-Paleogene mass extinction
- from about 3.3 million years ago to 15,000 years agoPaleolithic
- from c. 3,300 BCE to 600 BCEBronze Age
- from 3rd millennium BCE to 2nd millenniumMaya civilization
- from 1200 to 1523Aztec
- 24 November 1974Discovery of Lucy
The era
This moment belongs to the Cenozoic (66 million years ago to 300,000 years ago), the rise of mammals and the ice ages.