art in the Middle Paleolithic

Art in the Middle Paleolithic (around 300,000 to 30,000 years ago) includes early symbolic behaviors like carvings, engravings, pigment use, and possibly portable objects that suggest aesthetic or spiritual significance. These artifacts indicate that early humans engaged in creative expression, perhaps for communication, ritual, or social bonding. While not art in the modern sense, these objects reflect emerging cognitive abilities, such as abstract thinking and symbolic thought, marking important steps in human cultural development. These expressions provide insight into the evolving mind and social lives of our early ancestors.