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Old Stone (Chinese: 老石; pinyin: Lǎo Shí) is a 2016 Chinese-Canadian drama film directed by Johnny Ma. It was selected to be screened in the Discovery section at the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival.
The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic (/ ˌ p eɪ l i oʊ ˈ l ɪ θ ɪ k, ˌ p æ l i-/ PAY-lee-oh-LITH-ik, PAL-ee-), also called the Old Stone Age (from Ancient Greek παλαιός (palaiós) 'old', and λίθος (líthos) 'stone'), is a period in human prehistory that is distinguished by the original development of stone tools, and ...
- Overview
- Paleolithic toolmaking
The Paleolithic Period is an ancient cultural stage of human technological development, characterized by the creation and use of rudimentary chipped stone tools. These included simple pebble tools (rock shaped by the pounding of another stone to produce tools with a serrated crest that served as a chopping blade), hand adzes (tools shaped from a block of stone to create a rounded butt and a single-bevel straight or curved cutting edge), stone scrapers, cleavers, and points. Such tools were also made of bone and wood. The Paleolithic Period was also characterized by the manufacture of small sculptures (e.g., carved stone statuettes of women, clay figurines of animals, and other bone and ivory carvings) and paintings, incised designs, and reliefs on cave walls.
tool
Learn more about the development of the first hand tools.
When did the Paleolithic Period begin?
The onset of the Paleolithic Period has traditionally coincided with the first evidence of tool construction and use by Homo some 2.58 million years ago, near the beginning of the Pleistocene Epoch (2.58 million to 11,700 years ago). In 2015, however, researchers excavating a dry riverbed near Kenya’s Lake Turkana discovered primitive stone tools embedded in rocks dating to 3.3 million years ago—the middle of the Pliocene Epoch (some 5.3 million to 2.58 million years ago). Those tools predate the oldest confirmed specimens of Homo by almost 1 million years, which raises the possibility that toolmaking originated with Australopithecus or its contemporaries and that the timing of the onset of this cultural stage should be reevaluated.
Lake Turkana remains
At sites dating from the Lower Paleolithic Period, simple pebble tools have been found in association with the remains of what may have been some of the earliest human ancestors. A somewhat more-sophisticated Lower Paleolithic tradition, known as the Chopper chopping-tool industry, is widely distributed in the Eastern Hemisphere, and it is thought to have been the work of the hominin species named Homo erectus. It is believed that H. erectus probably made tools of wood and bone, although no such fossil tools have yet been found, as well as of stone.
About 700,000 years ago a new Lower Paleolithic tool, the hand ax, appeared. The earliest European hand axes are assigned to the Abbevillian industry, which developed in northern France in the valley of the Somme River; a later, more-refined hand-ax tradition is seen in the Acheulean industry, evidence of which has been found in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. Some of the earliest known hand axes were found at Olduvai Gorge (Tanzania) in association with remains of H. erectus. Alongside the hand-ax tradition there developed a distinct and very different stone tool industry, based on flakes of stone: special tools were made from worked (carefully shaped) flakes of flint. In Europe the Clactonian industry is one example of a flake tradition. The early flake industries probably contributed to the development of the Middle Paleolithic flake tools of the Mousterian industry, which is associated with the remains of Neanderthals. Other items dating to the Middle Paleolithic are shell beads found in both North and South Africa. In Taforalt, Morocco, the beads were dated to approximately 82,000 years ago, and other, younger examples were encountered in Blombos Cave, Blombosfontein Nature Reserve, on the southern coast of South Africa. Experts determined that the patterns of wear seem to indicate that some of these shells were suspended, some were engraved, and examples from both sites were covered with red ochre.
The Upper Paleolithic Period was characterized by the emergence of regional stone tool industries, such as the Perigordian, Aurignacian, Solutrean, and Magdalenian of Europe as well as other localized industries of the Old World and the oldest known cultures of the New World. Principally associated with the fossil remains of such anatomically modern humans as Cro-Magnons, Upper Paleolithic industries exhibit greater complexity, specialization, and variety of tool types, such as those made of bone, ivory, and antlers, and the emergence of distinctive regional artistic traditions involving paintings and sculpture and musical instruments.
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May 25, 2024 · Stone Age, prehistoric cultural stage, or level of human development, characterized by the creation and use of stone tools, the oldest known of which date to some 3.3 million years ago. The Stone Age is usually divided into three separate periods: Paleolithic, Mesolithic, and Neolithic.
- The Stone Age was the prehistoric cultural stage, or level of human development, that was characterized by the creation and use of stone tools. It...
- The Stone Age is divided into three separate periods, namely the Paleolithic (Old Stone Age), Mesolithic (Middle Stone Age), and Neolithic (New Sto...
- The beginning of the Stone Age coincides with the discovery of the oldest known stone tools, which have been dated to some 3.3 million years ago.
- Humans created four types of tools during the Stone Age: pebble tools; bifacial tools, or hand-axes; flake tools; and blade tools.
Nov 30, 2016 · Old Stone is a cab driver who hits a cyclist and faces legal, financial and moral dilemmas. The film explores the absurd and cruel rules of urban China, where a driver who kills someone gets little punishment, but a driver who injures someone has to pay for life.
Feb 18, 2016 · Asia. Feb 18, 2016 11:49am PT. Berlin Film Review: ‘Old Stone’. A Chinese taxi driver's scruples get him in hot water in Johnny Ma's excoriating debut feature. By Maggie Lee. Courtesy of Berlin...
Sep 29, 2017 · The Palaeolithic ('Old Stone Age') makes up the earliest chunk of the Stone Age – the large swathe of time during which hominins used stone to make tools – and ranges from the first known tool use roughly 2,6 million years ago to the end of the last Ice Age c. 12,000 years ago, with part of its stone tool culture continuing up ...
