The article is devoted to the question of the existence and intensity of armed violence at different stages of the Paleolithic. The first two sections provide a review and analysis of paleoanthropological and figurative data relevant to this topic. The third section addresses the problem of estimating changes in the intensity of gun violence from fossil materials. All available information about the findings of human and animal bones with fragments of stone or bone tips stuck in them at Paleolithic and Mesolithic sites has been collected and presented (Tables 1 and 2). It is shown that all finds of this kind older than 15 thousand years are animal bones (10 bones of 10 individuals from 9 sites). On the contrary, after 15 thousand years the ratio changes sharply, and the number of finds of human bones with fragments of weapons embedded in them (29 bones of 27 individuals from 17 sites) is almost equal to the number of similar finds of animal bones. Given that the number of excavated faunal remains exceeds the number of anthropological finds by several orders of magnitude, such equality may indicate important changes in the dynamics of armed violence (and society in general) at the end of the Paleolithic.