Editing Stone Age (section)

===African chronology===
{{main|African archaeology}}

====Early Stone Age (ESA)====
{{main|Paleolithic|Lower Paleolithic}}
[[File:Obsidienne biface ethiopie.jpg|thumb|upright=.7|Acheulean biface from Lake Langano area, Ethiopia]]

The [[Africa#Early Stone Age Africa|Early Stone Age in Africa]] is not to be identified with "Old Stone Age", a translation of Paleolithic, or with Paleolithic, or with the "Earlier Stone Age" that originally meant what became the Paleolithic and Mesolithic. In the initial decades of its definition by the Pan-African Congress of Prehistory, it was parallel in Africa to the [[Upper Paleolithic|Upper]] and [[Middle Paleolithic]]. However, since then [[Radiocarbon dating]] has shown that the Middle Stone Age is in fact contemporaneous with the [[Middle Paleolithic]].<ref>{{cite encyclopedia | first=J. Desmond | last=Clark | author-link=J. Desmond Clark | title=The Culture of the Middle Paleolithic/Middle Stone Age | editor-first=J. Desmond | series=Volume | editor-last=Clark | encyclopedia=The Cambridge History of Africa | volume=I: From the Earliest Times to C. 500 BC | page=248 | location=Cambridge | publisher=Cambridge University Press | year=1982 }}</ref> The Early Stone Age therefore is contemporaneous with the [[Lower Paleolithic]] and happens to include the same main technologies, [[Oldowan]] and [[Acheulean]], which produced Mode 1 and Mode 2 [[stone tool]]s respectively. A distinct regional term is warranted, however, by the location and chronology of the sites and the exact typology.

====Middle Stone Age (MSA)====
{{main|Middle Stone Age}}
The Middle Stone Age was a period of African prehistory between Early Stone Age and Late Stone Age. It began around 300,000 years ago and ended around 50,000 years ago.<ref>McBrearty and Brooks 2000</ref> It is considered as an equivalent of European [[Middle Paleolithic]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.accessexcellence.org/BF/bf02/klein/bf02e3.html|title=Biological origins of modern humans}}</ref> It is associated with anatomically modern or almost modern ''[[Homo sapiens]]''. Early physical evidence comes from Omo<ref>McDougall et al. 2005</ref> and Herto,<ref>White et al. 2003</ref> both in Ethiopia and dated respectively at c. 195 ka and at c. 160 ka.

====Later Stone Age (LSA)====
{{main|Later Stone Age}}
The Later Stone Age (LSA, sometimes also called the '''Late Stone Age''') refers to a period in African prehistory. Its beginnings are roughly contemporaneous with the European Upper Paleolithic. It lasts until historical times and this includes cultures corresponding to Mesolithic and Neolithic in other regions.