page_title: History of Eurasia
section_title: Upper Paleolithic
hierarchical_section_title: History of Eurasia / Prehistory / Upper Paleolithic
caption_attribution_description: Paleolithic Art in Europe Thin dark blue line: coastline Thick light blue (cyan) line: limits of the main glaciations Red tones: mural art Green tones: portable art
context_page_description: The history of Eurasia is the collective history of a continental area with several distinct peripheral coastal regions: the Middle East, South Asia, East Asia, Southeast Asia, and Western Europe, linked by the interior mass of the Eurasian steppe of Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Perhaps beginning with the Steppe Route trade, the early Silk Road, the Eurasian view of history seeks establishing genetic, cultural, and linguistic links between Eurasian cultures of antiquity. Much interest in this area lies with the presumed origin of the speakers of the Proto-Indo-European language and chariot warfare in Central Eurasia.
context_section_description: The Southern Dispersal scenario postulates the arrival of anatomically modern humans to Eurasia beginning about 70,000 BC. Moving along the southern coast of Asia, they reached Maritime Southeast Asia by about 65,000 years ago. 
  The establishment of population centers in Western Asia, the Indian subcontinent and in East Asia is attested by about 50,000 years ago.
  The Eurasian Upper Paleolithic proper is taken after c. 45,000 years ago, with the Cro-Magnon expansion of into Europe (Mousterian), and the expansion into the Mammoth steppe of Northern Asia.
caption: Humans populated all of ice-free Europe during the Upper Paleolithic