paleolithic

/ˌpeɪliəˈlɪθɪk/

When you're talking about the era when humans hunted and gathered, lived in bands, and made tools out of wood and bone, you can call it paleolithic.

The adjective paleolithic is usually capitalized, since it's the scientific term for a specific period of human history beginning more than two million years ago, up until around the year 10,000 BCE. People sometimes call something paleolithic when it's really, really old. However, when anthropologists talk about the Paleolithic era, they mean the stage when humans truly became human, building homes, tools, jewelry, art, and began to observe rituals and early religious beliefs.

Definitions of paleolithic

1. adjective

   of or relating to the early period of the Stone Age, through 10,000 BCE
   “paleolithic artifacts”

   synonyms: palaeolithic