"Paleo, Meso, Neo...lithic" Topic

In the book "Warfare in Northern Europe Before Rome" by Julie Wileman there is a handy chart that breaks down the various archaeological periods from the Upper Paleolithic through the early Iron Age. In brief, the first three sections are these:

43,000 years ago

Upper Paleolithic: Nomadic hunters; stone tools; cave art; stone axes; spears.

11,500 years ago

Mesolithic: Nomadic; composite stone and bone tools; archery and spears.

7,000 years ago

Neolithic: First farmers; pottery; villages; battle axes; archery, first defenses.

The global human population was tiny until the Neolithic and the development of agriculture.

You can add polished stone tools to the Neolithic.

In fact, you'd better. That's the defining trait.

Other factors to add: animal domestication and forms of dwellings. In general terms, the dog was domesticated by the Mesolithic, but perhaps as early as the Upper Paleolithic, cattle and most other livestock began appearing by the later
Mesolithic. THorse domestication seems to be in the early Bronze Age on the Eurasian Steppe.

While the earliest hominids may have constructed simple shelters, the nature of such structures leave no evidence. According several cave finds, caves were used as shelter for much o the period. By the close of the
Neolithic we find the remains of sedentary communities with substantial houses, fields, etc. Boats appear by the close of the Mesolithic.