Images

Archaeologists in Thebes have discovered a burial for victims of the 3rd-century CE Cyprian Plague.

This 'creeping hyena' forms the highly decorated butt-end of an Upper Paleolithic spear thrower (also known as atlatl). The hook used to propel the spear is clearly visible. It was found at La Madeleine rock shelter in Tursac, Dordogne, France...

Drawing of a lanceolate biface or handaxe from the Acheulean stone tool culture (ca. 1,7 million years ago-ca. 250,000 years ago), found at San Isidro, Madrid, Spain.

Replica of a mammoth-bone structure, shown at the "Frozon Woolly Mammoth Yuka Exhibit" in Yokoyama, Japan in Summer 2013. Upper Palaeolithic man is known to have created dwellings using mammoth bones.

Megaloceros giganteus (generally known as Irish- or Giant Elk) skeleton on display at the National Museum of Natural History, Washington, D.C. Megaloceros is an extinct genus of deer that lived from the Late Pliocene to the Late Pleistocene...

Liang Bua Cave is situated on the island of Flores, Indonesia. Here, in 2003, the remains of the extinct species Homo floresiensis (nicknamed 'hobbit') were discovered.

Artist's vision of woolly mammoths (Mammuthus primigenius) in a late Pleistocene landscape in northern Spain. Mammoths were hunted by prehistoric humans.

South island of Lake Turkana in Kenya, an area in which some of the earliest hominin (i.e. human species and their immediate ancestors) fossils and tools have been found.

Skull of Homo erectus found in Koobi Fora, Kenya, dated to ca. 1,8 million years old. (Smithsonian Natural History Museum, Washington, D.C.)

Skeleton of a cave bear (Ursus spelaeus) on display at the American Museum of Natural History. The cave bear lived in Europe during the Pleistocene and shared the stage with early humans up to around 24,000 years ago, when it went extinct.