Final answer:
Human culture began during the Paleolithic Age, with the most significant cultural developments occurring around 40,000 years ago during the Upper Paleolithic. Innovations included changes in tool-making, the use of language, and the birth of artistic expression, as humans began to form complex social structures and cultural practices.
Step-by-step explanation:
Paleoanthropologists generally believe that human culture began during the Paleolithic Age, a period that extends as far back as 3.3 million years ago. The most significant developments were during the Upper Paleolithic, around 40,000 years ago, where there was a notable change in tool technology, subsistence patterns, and symbolic expression. These cultural advances included the emergence of symbolic language, sophisticated tool-making, and the beginning of artistic creation, like the cave paintings found in Europe which are consdiered among the first examples of representational art.
This epoch paved the way for profoundly transformative processes in human societies and is sometimes referred to as 'the human revolution' for the scale and impact of the changes witnessed. Evidence suggests that early humans from this period began to use sharpened Oldowan tools for various purposes, engaged in creative artistics activities, and developed not only a mastery over fire, but also a capacity for complex language and social structures that allowed for an expansion of shared culture and ideas across different emerging societies.
While earlier hominids like H. habilis and H. ergaster displayed some cultural aspects with their use of tools and social strategies for survival, it's the later emergence of H. sapiens and the subsequent rapid expansion of cultural practices that is considered the true genesis of what we define as human culture.