Stone Age quick facts
- The Stone Age lasted about 3.3 million years, roughly 99% of all human history.
- It has three parts: Palaeolithic (Old), Mesolithic (Middle) and Neolithic (New Stone Age).
- The oldest known stone tools, from Lomekwi in Kenya, are 3.3 million years old and were made before our genus Homo existed.
- Most Stone Age people did not live in caves. Caves simply preserve the evidence best.
- The Stone Age ended when people learned to work metal, which happened thousands of years apart around the world.
The Stone Age is by far the longest chapter in the human story. It starts when somebody first struck one rock on another to make a sharp edge. It ends when people started working metal. That is about 3.3 million years. It covers roughly 99% of the time humans and our ancestors have existed.
Everything since then fits into the last 1%. That includes writing, cities, cars and the internet. Farming had already begun during the Stone Age.
When was the Stone Age?
There is no single answer, and that is the first surprise. The Stone Age did not start and end on the same date everywhere. It ended when a group of people learned to work metal. Different parts of the world reached that point thousands of years apart.
For Britain, the usual dates look like this:
| Period | Roughly when | What changed |
|---|---|---|
| Palaeolithic (Old Stone Age) | about 800,000 – 10,000 BC | Hunting and gathering, simple chipped stone tools, the control of fire, cave painting |
| Mesolithic (Middle Stone Age) | about 10,000 – 4000 BC | The ice retreats, forests spread, tools get small and precise, boats and fishing gear appear |
| Neolithic (New Stone Age) | about 4000 – 2500 BC | Farming arrives, people settle in one place, pottery, Stonehenge |
Worldwide the story stretches much further back. The oldest stone tools yet found are about 3.3 million years old. They come from a site called Lomekwi 3, near Lake Turkana in Kenya, and were published in 2015. They are older than our own group of humans, Homo. So somebody else made tools first. That overturned an idea archaeologists had held with confidence for decades.
The people of the Stone Age
For most of the Stone Age, we were not the only kind of human. Neanderthals lived across Europe and western Asia for hundreds of thousands of years. Denisovans lived further east. There were others too. For a long stretch, several kinds of human shared the planet.
They met, and sometimes had children together. If your family comes from outside Africa, about 1–2% of your DNA is Neanderthal. You carry a small piece of the Stone Age inside you right now.
Stone Age people were not stupid, and they were not lucky. They tracked animals across whole landscapes. They knew which plants healed and which killed. They found their way by the stars. And they passed all of it on without writing a word down. Learn more in our guide to Stone Age People.
Did they really live in caves?
Mostly, no. Caves are where the evidence survives. That is not the same as where people lived. A cave keeps bones, ash and paint safe from rain and wind for tens of thousands of years. So caves are where archaeologists keep finding things.
Most Stone Age people lived in the open. Their shelters were made from wood, hide, turf and bone. All of that rots away and leaves almost nothing. Caves were used in bad weather, and as special places for burial and painting. Calling everyone a caveman is like judging where you live from your garden shed.
What did they eat?
Whatever was there, and the list is longer than people expect. It runs from deer and wild horse to fish and shellfish. Then come birds and their eggs, nuts, berries, roots, seeds, mushrooms and honey. Hunting big animals gets all the attention. Day to day, gathering plants and shellfish probably fed more people, and more reliably, than mammoth hunting ever did.
Fire changed everything. Cooking makes food safer and far easier to digest. The body then gets more energy from the same meal. Some scientists think that is much of why human brains grew so big. A big brain is very costly to run.
Farming reached Britain around 4000 BC. This marked the start of the Neolithic, or New Stone Age. People grew crops and kept animals, but hunting and gathering did not stop overnight. Farming was part of the Stone Age. The later spread of metalworking marked its end.
Stone Age: Fact or Myth?
- For most of the Stone Age, our own species was the only kind of human alive.
- Most people whose families come from outside Africa carry a little Neanderthal DNA.
- Stone Age people ate only meat.
- Gathering plants and shellfish probably fed more people than hunting mammoths did.
- Stone Age people passed on what they knew without writing anything down.
- Shelters made of wood and animal hide can last for tens of thousands of years.
- Stone Age people could find their way using the stars.
- In Britain, farming began right at the start of the Stone Age.
Stone Age art
The world’s oldest known cave painting of real things is on Sulawesi, an island in Indonesia. It is at least 51,200 years old. It shows three human-like figures with a wild pig. Researchers dated it in 2024, using a laser method. It is the earliest known picture that tells a story, rather than just showing a shape.
Europe has famous painted caves too. Chauvet in France is about 36,000 years old. Lascaux is about 17,000. The animals are drawn with real skill: lions, rhinos, horses and bison. Some use the bumps in the rock, so they seem to move in firelight.
One thing almost never appears in cave art: people. There are thousands of animals and hardly any humans. Nobody knows why.
You also find hand stencils. Someone put a hand on the rock and blew paint around it. They turn up on cave walls across the world, made by people who never met. Some are small enough to be children’s.
Animals of the Stone Age
In the coldest spells, Europe looked like the Arctic. Woolly mammoths and woolly rhinos lived there. So did cave bears, cave lions and giant deer with antlers nearly four metres across. The wolf is the one animal on that list still with us.
The wolf matters most of all. At some point in the Stone Age, wolves and people began living side by side. Those wolves slowly became dogs. Dogs came long before sheep, cattle or wheat. The first animal we ever made friends with was a hunter.
Stone Age Britain
Britain was not an island for most of this. A stretch of low land called Doggerland joined it to Europe. It had rivers and marshes, and people lived on it. Fishing boats still drag mammoth bones and Stone Age tools off the bottom of the North Sea. Around 6000 BC the rising sea drowned it, and Britain stood alone.
The best-known thing Stone Age Britain left behind is Stonehenge. Work began around 3000 BC, and it was finished in stages over centuries. Some of its smaller bluestones came from the Preseli Hills in Wales, about 150 miles away. The people who moved them had no wheels and no metal tools. How they did it is still argued about.
Skara Brae in Orkney is less famous, and in some ways more striking. It is a Neolithic village that sand buried and kept safe. You can still see the stone dressers, beds and fireplaces inside the houses. It is older than the pyramids.
Match the Discovery
- Hand stencils — Made by blowing paint around a hand pressed on the rock
- Neanderthals — Another kind of human who lived across Europe and western Asia
- Wolves — Became dogs, long before any farm animal
- Giant deer — Had antlers nearly four metres across
- Skara Brae — A Neolithic village in Orkney, older than the pyramids
- Stonehenge's bluestones — Brought about 150 miles from the Preseli Hills in Wales
Things people get wrong about the Stone Age
- “They all lived in caves.” Most did not. Caves preserve evidence, which is a completely different thing.
- “Cavemen fought dinosaurs.” The last dinosaurs died about 66 million years ago. The oldest stone tools are 3.3 million years old. No human ever saw a living Tyrannosaurus.
- “The Stone Age was one period.” Three, at least: Old, Middle and New, and they are wildly different from each other.
- “It ended everywhere at once.” It ended whenever a given people took up metal, which happened thousands of years apart in different places.
- “Homo habilis made the first tools.” That was the standard answer until 2015. Then tools 3.3 million years old turned up in Kenya, older than Homo itself.
- “They were primitive and stupid.” They crossed oceans, made rope and sewed clothes. They cut holes in skulls as surgery, and painted work we still find beautiful. They simply had no metal.
Ten Stone Age facts worth remembering
- The Stone Age covers about 99% of human history.
- The oldest known stone tools are 3.3 million years old and predate our own genus.
- The oldest known storytelling picture is a 51,200-year-old cave painting in Indonesia.
- Dogs were domesticated during the Stone Age, long before any farm animal.
- Britain was joined to Europe by a drowned land called Doggerland.
- Skara Brae in Orkney is older than the Egyptian pyramids.
- Stone Age people cut holes in living skulls. Some patients lived, because the bone healed afterwards.
- Ötzi the Iceman was found frozen in the Alps. He died around 3300 BC, and still has his clothes, tools and last meal.
- Obsidian tools can be sharper than a modern steel scalpel.
- Most people outside Africa carry 1–2% Neanderthal DNA.
Did you know? The oldest known picture that tells a story is a cave painting on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi showing three figures and a wild pig. It is at least 51,200 years old.
Try it
Make a Stone Age timeline on a long strip of paper. Put the first stone tools at one end and today at the other, then mark where farming begins. Almost all of your strip will be Stone Age.
Knowledge check
What are the three periods of the Stone Age?
Show answer
The Palaeolithic (Old Stone Age), the Mesolithic (Middle Stone Age) and the Neolithic (New Stone Age). Farming begins in the Neolithic.
Did Stone Age people live at the same time as dinosaurs?
Show answer
No. The last dinosaurs died out about 66 million years ago, more than 60 million years before the first stone tools were made.
The Stone Age Story in Order
- First stone tools Someone in Kenya strikes stones together and makes the oldest tools we know of.
- A story on a wall On Sulawesi, in Indonesia, people paint three figures and a wild pig.
- Chauvet Lions, rhinos and horses are painted in a cave in France.
- Lascaux More animals are painted in the Lascaux cave in France.
- Britain becomes an island Rising seas drown Doggerland, the land joining Britain to Europe.
- Farming arrives People in Britain start growing food instead of chasing it.
- Stonehenge Work begins on Stonehenge.
Frequently asked questions
When was the Stone Age?
The Stone Age began about 3.3 million years ago and ended at different times in different places, whenever a people learned to work metal. In Britain the usual dates are roughly 800,000 BC to 2500 BC. There is no single end date, because different parts of the world reached metalworking thousands of years apart.
What are the three parts of the Stone Age?
The Palaeolithic or Old Stone Age, the Mesolithic or Middle Stone Age, and the Neolithic or New Stone Age. The Palaeolithic was hunting and gathering with chipped stone tools. In the Mesolithic the ice retreated and tools became small and precise. In the Neolithic farming arrived and people settled in one place.
Why is it called the Stone Age?
Because people made their tools from stone, along with bone and wood, before anyone could work metal. The name describes the technology, not the people. It is one of three ages in a sequence: the Stone Age, then the Bronze Age, then the Iron Age.
Did Stone Age people live in caves?
Mostly not. Caves preserve evidence far better than open-air shelters, so that is where archaeologists find things, which makes caves look more important than they were. Most people built shelters from wood, hide, turf, stone and even mammoth bone.
How long did the Stone Age last?
The Stone Age lasted roughly 3.3 million years worldwide. Its end date varied by region. Farming began within the Stone Age, during the Neolithic, before bronze tools became common.
What ended the Stone Age?
Metal. Once people learned to smelt copper and then mix it with tin to make bronze, they had a material that could be melted, poured into moulds and resharpened, which stone cannot. The Stone Age ended wherever and whenever that happened.
What tools did Stone Age people use?
Stone Age people used hand axes, scrapers, blades, spears and harpoons. Bows and arrows came later. Materials included stone, bone, antler and wood.
Sources
- Nature: 3.3-million-year-old stone tools from Lomekwi 3, Kenya — the date of the oldest known stone tools.
- Nature: narrative cave art in Indonesia by 51,200 years ago — the oldest known storytelling picture.
- English Heritage: prehistoric England — the British dates for each Stone Age period.
- The British Museum — Stone Age tools, art and burial collections.
- Natural History Museum: the Neanderthal in us — how much Neanderthal DNA people outside Africa carry today.
Correction, 28 September 2026: farming began during the New Stone Age; it did not end the Stone Age. See English Heritage’s introduction to prehistoric England.
Stone Age Final Challenge
- About how much of the whole human story does the Stone Age cover?
- Why did the Stone Age end at different times in different places?
- Why are so many Stone Age finds made in caves?
- What almost never appears in Stone Age cave paintings?
- Why do some scientists think cooking helped human brains grow bigger?
- What happened once people started farming?
- Why were the stone tools found in Kenya in 2015 such a surprise?
- Why is Ötzi the Iceman so useful to scientists?
