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The Upper Paleolithic in Europe was not only the last phase of the Old (Paleo) Stone Age but it also coincided with the end of the geological epoch, the Pleistocene – or the Ice Age. Northern Europe was mostly glacial or tundra. Modern Humans would have come into Europe during this time and encountered their close relation, Homo Neanderthalensis. They would have shared technology and interbred before the Neanderthals finally dying out around 30,000 BP in Southern Iberia. Notable: the Cave Painting of the Franco Cantabrian region and the Venus Figurines which are widespread in the region.
See Palaeolithic Europe

The Neolithic in Europe is facilitated by the retreat of the glaciers as the world warms during the new Holocene period. Neolithic charateristics such as settlements and agriculture take hold in Europe later than in the Middle East closer to the middle of this time span. Examples of the Neolithic here are pottery culture and megalithic structure building.

Europe in the Ancient period is characterised by the technological / metallurgic revolution that became the Bronze Age, and then later the Iron Age. The comparably revolutionary period the Neolithic, which preceded the Bronze Age with the Copper (Chalcolithic) Age, naturally gave way to the next epoch in which metallic technology would revolutionise life. Bronze would begin in the Middle East as much as in Europe as the copper and tin trade that facilitated it was a network of both regions. Later, Iron would supersede Bronze especially in its use in weaponry.

Mediaeval Europe.

Modern Europe.

Humans began migrating out of Africa and across the globe during the Upper Palaeolithic period, moving across Asia and eventually to a place known as Beringia, which is today the Bering Strait between Eastern Russia and Alaska. The sea levels were much lower then and much of the Bering Strait would have been land, creating this region as an access point to a whole New World. They are thought to have arrived in North America via coastal routes approximately 15,000 YBP, up to one to two thousand years prior to the previously thought first people, the Clovis Culture, who would have come through a corridor in the glaciers as the final Ice Age receded. The history of the North West is connected more to coastal culture (aquaculture) than perhaps it is to stone technology.

It is thought that Humans entered the American continents around 15,000 years YBP through the North-West Coastal route and would be already in the Southern Continent by this time. As the glaciers melted, this gave way to an easier route into the Northern Continent and will allow a greater number of people enter, still coming from across the Bering strait before it would become the sea that it is today.

Ancient North America

Mediaeval North America.

Modern North America.