Introduction
Our most detailed and reliable knowledge about life in the Upper Paleolithic concerns the ways in which people made a living; the story is one of creativity and innovation. Modern excavation techniques bring to light the debris of everyday life scattered in patterned arrangements in ancient camp sites. The 12,000 year-old site of Pincevent, France shown here is a model of modern scientific excavation. Even eggshells were found intact.
Innovative strategies for survival are as impressive as Upper Paleolithic artistic accomplishments. Indeed, art and survival were tightly entwined. Tools and weapons were often much more elaborate than their function required and often carried designs and images of no mechanical value. Above all, the Upper Paleolithic was a technological revolution that saw fundamental changes in the ways tools were made, the raw materials from which they were manufactured and the tasks to which they were applied.
