Paleolithic Europe

In Western Europe at Atapuerca in Spain, human remains have been found that are from 1.2 million years ago.

[16][17] Neanderthals are associated with the Mousterian culture (Mode 3), stone tools that first appeared approximately 160,000 years ago.

[20] The earliest modern human remains which have been directly dated are from 46,000 to 44,000 years ago in the Bacho Kiro cave, located in present-day Bulgaria.

[24][25] Studies of aDNA have found an association between 35,000 year old Aurignacian remains in the Goyet Cave system in Belgium and Mesolithic hunter-gatherers in Western Europe.

The same aDNA signature is found in the intervening period in Iberia, suggesting that the area was a refuge for hunter-gatherers at the height of the Last Glacial Maximum.

The Solutrean culture, extended from northern Spain to southeastern France, includes not only an advanced stone technology but also the first significant development of cave painting, the use of the needle and possibly that of the bow and arrow.

The more widespread Gravettian culture is no less advanced, at least in artistic terms: sculpture (mainly venuses) is the most outstanding form of creative expression of these peoples.

However, in Mediterranean Iberia, the Italian Peninsula, and Eastern Europe, epi-Gravettian cultures continue evolving locally.

In the late phase of this Epipaleolithic period, the Sauveterrian culture evolves into the so-called Tardenoisian and influences strongly its southern neighbour, clearly replacing it in Mediterranean Spain and Portugal.