ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the overview of the human evolution against a backdrop of the evolution of living things, of tetrapods, mammals, primates, and hominids. Homo habilis may also have been the first regular manufacturer of stone tools or the Oldowan tradition, and their nature, wear, and distribution suggest early indication of such essentially human characteristics as food-sharing, division of labor, reciprocity, and cooperation. Homo erectus, appearing nearly two million years ago and with a yet larger brain, is traditionally thought of as the next in line, after Homo habilis, in human evolutionary lineage, and the first to have left Africa. The chapter overviews the origins of art and an aesthetic sense in the Acheulian and Mousterian to the Upper Palaeolithic. The European Upper Palaeolithic is noteworthy not only for its tools and personal ornaments, sculptures, and stone carvings, but above all for the galleries of cave or parietal art on rock walls.
