<P> By c. 50,000--c . 40,000 BP, the first humans set foot in Australia . By c . 45,000 BP, humans lived at 61 ° N latitude in Europe . By c . 30,000 BP, Japan was reached, and by c . 27,000 BP humans were present in Siberia, above the Arctic Circle . At the end of the Upper Paleolithic, a group of humans crossed Beringia and quickly expanded throughout the Americas . </P> <P> The term "Palaeolithic" was coined by archaeologist John Lubbock in 1865 . It derives from Greek: παλαιός, palaios, "old"; and λίθος, lithos, "stone", meaning "old age of the stone" or "Old Stone Age". </P> <P> The Paleolithic coincides almost exactly with the Pleistocene epoch of geologic time, which lasted from 2.6 million years ago to about 12,000 years ago . This epoch experienced important geographic and climatic changes that affected human societies . </P> <P> During the preceding Pliocene, continents had continued to drift from possibly as far as 250 km (160 mi) from their present locations to positions only 70 km (43 mi) from their current location . South America became linked to North America through the Isthmus of Panama, bringing a nearly complete end to South America's distinctive marsupial fauna . The formation of the isthmus had major consequences on global temperatures, because warm equatorial ocean currents were cut off, and the cold Arctic and Antarctic waters lowered temperatures in the now - isolated Atlantic Ocean . </P>

Neolithic culture is distinguished from paleolithic culture primarily because of