Is there any distinction between caveman, Early Man and Stone Age man?
   Cora, Web Post

Dr. dig responds:
The three are really the same thing. "Caveman" is an old-fashioned and unscientific term used to describe the early prehistoric peoples who often decorated caves, but did not necessarily live in them. "Early Man" is an imprecise term that can be used to describe prehistoric men and women going as far back as the earliest fossil humans. "Stone Age man" usually means someone (again male or female) who lived during the Stone Age, that is, either the Palaeolithic (Old Stone Age: the age of the first stone tools), the Mesolithic (Middle Stone Age) or Neolithic (New Stone Age: this ends with the development of metallurgy). However, in sub-Saharan Africa, the term Stone Age is used to refer to the first stage in human technology, which stretched from 2.5 million years ago until, in some areas, the a.d. 1800s.