Palaeolithic Age (Korean Peninsula)

People lived on the Korean Peninsula from about 700,000 years ago, using chipped stone tools and moving about to hunt and gather.

The Palaeolithic is divided into early, middle and late phases by how stone tools were worked. Early people used one large tool for many tasks (hand axes, choppers); later they struck small blades into specialized tools such as end scrapers, side scrapers, burins and tanged points, which were hafted and used like spears.

People lived in caves, rock shelters and riverside huts and moved with their food supply, in egalitarian bands without rulers. Acheulean-type hand axes found at Jeongok-ri, Yeoncheon, in 1978 refuted the Movius line theory that East Asia lacked a hand-axe culture.

Key sites are Jeongok-ri, Seokjang-ri in Gongju (the first excavated in South Korea), Suyanggae in Danyang, Geomeunmoru Cave in Sangwon and Durubong Cave in Cheongwon, where the bones of a child (the "Heungsu child") were found; chrysanthemum pollen around them is often read as a trace of burial ritual.