The culturally defined Palaeolithic is a rather large time period spanning from the earliest stone artefacts around 2.6 million years ago until the end of the last glacial around 10,000 BP.

The geologically defined Pleistocene also covers this time span. The period is divided into three main parts: the Older Palaeolithic (2.6 million years to 300,000 BP), linked with Homo erectus and Homo heidelbergensis; the Middle Palaeolithic (300,000 BP-40,000 BP), linked with Homo neanderthalensis in Europe and parts of Asia, and Homo sapiens in Africa and the Near East; and the Upper Palaeolithic (40,000 BP-10,000 BP), linked with Homo sapiens.

This chapter relies almost completely on human remains. Weapons or projectiles that were used exclusively for fighting are not identified in these times. Due to the rather low numbers of human remains in the earlier stages of the Palaeolithic, no information on identifiable skull trauma exists in early Homo (Homo habilis, Homo rudolfensis). The later species Homo erectus/Homo ergaster appeared in Africa from 1.8 million years ago, and remained present until roughly 600,000 BP, but continued to exist in Africa and Asia until 200,000 or even 40,000 BP. Around 600,000 BP Homo heidelbergensis developed from the later Homo erectus forms in Africa and Europe. These were ancestors to Homo neanderthalensis in Europe and northern Asia, existing from 200,000 until around 40,000 BP. Neanderthals became extinct after the arrival of anatomi­cally modern humans (Homo sapiens) in Europe around 40,000 BP.

The identification of violent behaviour on human remains from the Palaeolithic is a difficult task. The major problem is the small number and fragmentary nature of the remains. Especially in the older periods of the Palaeolithic, the preservation of human remains is often restricted to skull and jaw fragments. Complete bones or skulls are rare discoveries. The preservation of complete skeletons is an exception for the Palaeolithic, but is more common in the post-glacial Mesolithic or Epipalaeolithic, where more isolated burials and even graveyards are preserved. On skulls, injuries are usually easily recognisable and occur quite often in cases of interpersonal violence. In general, injuries related to violence are usually located on the cranium and lower arms. Usually it is possible to distinguish between dry breaks and perimortem (around the time of death) breakage patterns on bone.^[90] The main criteria for identification of skull trauma caused by blunt objects are defects with oblique fracture angles, radiating and circulating fracture lines, as well as a smooth fracture surface. A major criteria is the so-called internal bevelling, showing the chipping of bone on the inner table of the skull. The location of injuries on the cranium caused by interpersonal violence is usually frontal-parietal. Right-handed attackers cause lesions more frequently on the left side of the skull of the attacked person, assuming that both combatants are facing each other and are standing upright. A rather weak argument for interpersonal violence are lesions located above the so-called hat­brim-line. According to some forensic data, lesions caused by interpersonal violence should occur above this line. This has, however, to be treated with caution, as several forensic studies seem to contradict this general rule. Using published data, we have to be aware of the fact that reports on injuries are highly variable in quality and usually do not use comparable bioarchaeological or forensic diagnostic criteria or comparative methods, especially in older reports.