History of education Class 3 - Wednesday, April 6 th

INTRODUCTION

The history of education is both long and short.

Originally education was related to the transmission of traditions. At present due to the studies
on linguistics and applied linguistics It has become a science.

Education was the natural response of early civilizations to the struggle of surviving and
thriving as a culture. Adults trained the young of their society in the knowledge and skills they
would need to master and eventually pass on.
The evolution of culture, and human beings as a species depended on this practice of
transmitting knowledge. In pre-literate societies this was achieved orally and through
imitation. Story-telling continued from one generation to the next.

The Paleolithic
Paleolithic, Old Stone Age, is the period of the earliest known occupation of Britain by man.
This huge length of time saw many changes in the environment, encompassing several glacial
and interglacial periods which greatly affected human settlement in the region. Providing
dating for this distant period of time is difficult. The inhabitants of the region at this time were
bands of hunter-gatherers who roamed all over northern Europe following herds of animals or
supported themselves by fishing.

Lower Paleolithic (up to 250,000 years ago)

There is evidence from bones and flint tools found in coastal deposits in Norfolk and in
Suffolk that a species of Homo Erectus was present in what is now Britain around 700,000
years ago. At this time, southern and eastern Britain were linked to continental Europe by a
wide land bridge allowing humans to move freely.

The current position of the English Channel was a large river flowing westwards and fed by
tributaries that would later become the Thames (in England) and Seine (in France).

Reconstructing this ancient environment has provided clues to the route first visitors took to
arrive at what was then a peninsula of the Eurasian continent. Archaeologists have found a
string of early sites located close to the route of a now lost watercourse which indicate that it
was exploited as the earliest route west into Britain.

These early peoples made flint tools (hand axes) and hunted the large native mammals of the
period. They drove elephants, rhinoceros and hippopotami over the tops of cliffs or into bogs
to more easily kill them.

The more advanced flint technology permitted more efficient hunting and therefore made
Britain a more worthwhile place to remain until the following period of cooling.
Meltwaters from the previous glaciation cut Britain off from the continent for the first time
during this period which may explain the lack of activity. Overall, there appears to have been
a gradual decline in population during this period.

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Upper Paleolithic (around 40,000 - 10,000 years ago)
Evidence of Neanderthal occupation of Britain is limited and by 30,000 BC the first signs of
modern human activity. The most famous example from this period is the burial of the "Red
Lady of Paviland" (actually now known to be a man) in modern day coastal south Wales. A
final ice age covered Britain between around 70,000 and 10,000 years ago. This may well
have driven humans south and out of Britain altogether, pushing them back across the land
bridge that had resurfaced at the beginning of the
glaciation, possibly to a refuge in Southern France and
Iberia. Sites such as Gough's Cave in Somerset dated at
12,000 BC provide evidence suggesting that humans
returned to Britain towards the end of this ice age, in a
warm period. The environment during this ice age period
would have been a treeless tundra, eventually replaced
by a gradually warmer climate, perhaps reaching 17
degrees Celsius in summer which encouraged the
expansion of birch trees as well as shrub and grasses.

The first distinct culture of the Upper Palaeolithic in

Britain is what archaeologists call the Creswellian
industry, with leaf-shaped points probably used as
arrowheads. It produced more refined flint tools but also
made use of bone, antler, shell, amber, animal teeth, and
mammoth ivory. These were fashioned into tools but also
jewellery and rods of uncertain purpose. Flint seems to
have been brought into areas with limited local
resources; the stone tools found in the caves of Devon,
such as Kent's Cavern, seem to have been sourced from Salisbury Plain, 161 km east. This is
interpreted as meaning that the early inhabitants of Britain were highly mobile, roaming over
wide distances and carrying 'toolkits' of flint blades with them rather than heavy, unworked
flint nodules or improvising tools extemporaneously. The possibility that groups also travelled
to meet and exchange goods or sent out dedicated expeditions to source flint has also been
suggested.
The dominant food species were the Wild Horse and Red Deer although other mammals
ranging from hares to mammoth were also hunted, including rhino and hyena. From the
limited evidence available, burial seemed to involve skinning and dismembering a corpse with
the bones placed in caves. This suggests a practice of excarnation and secondary burial, and
possibly some form of ritual cannibalism. Artistic expression seems to have been mostly
limited to engraved bone although the cave art at Creswell Crags caves are notable
exceptions.

From 12,700 to 11,500 years ago the climate became cooler and dryer. Food animal
populations seem to have declined although woodland coverage expanded. Tool manufacture
in the Final Upper Palaeolithic revolved around smaller flints but bone and antler work
became less common. Typically, there are parallel-sided flint blades known as "Cheddar
Points". There are scrapers, some of which are annoted with what may be calendars. However,
the number of known sites is much larger than before and more widely spread.

The Wisdom of Hunter-Gatherers

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 by Peter Gray, Ph.D.
For hundreds of thousands of years, up until the time when agriculture was invented, we were all
hunter-gatherers. Our human instincts, including all of the instinctive means by which we learn, came
about in the context of that way of life. And so it is natural to ask: How do hunter-gatherer children
learn what they need to know to become effective adults within their culture?
In the last half of the 20th century, anthropologists located and observed many groups of people - in
remote parts of Africa, Asia, Australia, New Guinea, South America, and elsewhere - who had
maintained a hunting-and-gathering life, almost unaffected by modern ways. Although each group
studied had its own language and other cultural traditions, the various groups were found to be similar
in many basic ways, which allows us to speak of the "hunter-gatherer way of life" in the singular.
Wherever they were found, hunter-gatherers lived in small nomadic bands (of about 25 to 50 people
per band), made decisions democratically, had ethical systems that centered on egalitarian values and
sharing, and had rich cultural traditions that included music, art, games, dances, and time-honored
stories.
To supplement what we could find in the anthropological literature, several years ago Jonathan Ogas
(then a graduate student) and I contacted a number of anthropologists who had lived among hunter-
gatherers and asked them to respond to a written questionnaire about their observations of children's
lives. Nine such scholars kindly responded to our questionnaire. Among them, they had studied six
different hunter-gatherer cultures - three in Africa, one in Malaysia, one in the Philippines, and one in
New Guinea.
What I learned from my reading and our questionnaire was startling for its consistency from culture.
Here I will summarize four conclusions, which I think are most relevant to the issue of self-education.
Because I would like you to picture these practices as occurring now, I will use the present tense in
describing them, even though the practices and the cultures themselves have been largely destroyed
in recent years by intrusions from the more "developed" world around them.

It would be a mistake to think that education is not a big issue for hunter-gatherers because they don't
have to learn much. In fact, they have to learn an enormous amount.
To become effective hunters, boys must learn the habits of the two or three hundred different species
of mammals and birds that the band hunts; must know how to track such game using the slightest
clues; must be able to craft perfectly the tools of hunting, such as bows and arrows, blowguns and
darts, snares or nets; and must be extraordinarily skilled at using those tools.
To become effective gatherers, girls must learn which of the countless varieties of roots, tubers, nuts,
seeds, fruits, and greens in their area are edible and nutritious, when and where to find them, how to
dig them (in the case of roots and tubers), how to extract the edible portions efficiently (in the case of
grains, nuts, and certain plant fibers), and in some cases how to process them to make them edible or
increase their nutritional value. These abilities include physical skills, honed by years of practice, as
well as the capacity to remember, use, add to, and modify an enormous store of culturally shared
verbal knowledge about the food materials.
In addition, hunter-gatherer children must learn how to navigate their huge foraging territory, build
huts, make fires, cook, fend off predators, predict weather changes, treat wounds and diseases, assist
births, care for infants, maintain harmony within their group, negotiate with neighboring groups, tell
stories, make music, and engage in various dances and rituals of their culture. Since there is little
specialization beyond that of men as hunters and women as gatherers, each person must acquire a
large fraction of the total knowledge and skills of the culture.

Hunter-gatherer children are never isolated from adult activities. They observe directly all that occurs
in camp - the preparations to move, the building of huts, the making and mending of tools and other
artifacts, the food preparation and cooking, the nursing and care of infants, the precautions taken
against predators and diseases, the gossip and discussions, the arguments and politics, the dances
and festivities. They sometimes accompany adults on food gathering trips, and by age 10 or so, boys
sometimes accompany men on hunting trips.
The children not only observe all of these activities, but they also incorporate them into their play, and
through that play they become skilled at the activities. As they grow older, their play turns gradually
into the real thing. There is no sharp division between playful participation and real participation in the
valued activities of the group.
For example, boys who one day are playfully hunting butterflies with their little bows and arrows are,
on a later day, playfully hunting small mammals and bringing some of them home to eat, and on yet a
later day are joining men on real hunting trips, still in the spirit of play.
Other examples of valued adult activities were regularly emulated by children in play. Digging up roots,
fishing, smoking porcupines out of holes, cooking, caring for infants, climbing trees, building vine

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ladders, using knives and other tools, making tools, carrying heavy loads, building rafts, making fires,
defending against attacks from predators, imitating animals (a means of identifying animals and
learning their habits), making music, dancing, storytelling, and arguing were all mentioned by one or
more respondents. Because all this play occurs in an age-mixed environment, the smaller children are
constantly learning from the older ones.
Nobody has to tell or encourage the children to do all this. They do it naturally because, like children
everywhere, there is nothing that they desire more than to grow up and to be like the successful adults
that they see around them. The desire to grow up is a powerful motive that blends with the drives to
play and explore and ensures that children, if given a chance, will practice endlessly the skills that they
need to develop to become effective adults.

Experts put date to UK rock art

The art was probably made by Ice-Age hunter-gatherers

Experts have dated the UK's oldest rock art, at Creswell

Crags in the midlands, to more than 12,800 years ago.

A team of archaeologists dated the paintings by measuring

traces of radioactive uranium in limestone crusts over the
engravings.

The complex of caves at Creswell Crags has preserved evidence of human activity during the
last Ice Age.
Archaeologists announced the discovery of the engravings, on the walls and ceilings of the
caves, in 2003.
The pictures depict animals such as the European bison, which is now extinct from Britain,
and other figures.
Artefacts left by Ice Age hunter-gatherers excavated from Creswell's caves have been dated to
13,000-15,000 years old.
The new results indicate the art may have been left by the people who made these artefacts.

Cave art in Britain

Until recently it was believed that people visiting and using caves in Britian during the Ice
Age were not decorating the caves with pictures of animals and other markings. This was
despite having all the necessary tools and materials, ochre, manganese and charcoal.

However, a team of archaeologists made a remarkable discovery at Creswell Crags in April

2003. They found the first and only example of rock art from the Ice Age. All of the pictures
found were engraved into the rock and as far as is known colour was not applied to the
figures.

The pictures range from complete figures of animals to geometric shapes and individual
vertical lines.

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Close to the entrance in Church Hole, on a flat surface of rock, is this engraving of an ibex, a
goat-like animal. Beneath the figure Ice Age hunters have engraved a series of vertical lines.
Deeper within Church Hole these engraved figures were found and are believed to be birds
with long necks.

Engravings of triangle shapes were also discovered close to the entrance in Church Hole.
This engraving of a bison lies on the same rock surface as the ibex. The artist appears to have
used the natural hape of the rock to emphasise the head.

As well as engraving pictures onto the rock surfaces within the caves the hunters also created
other forms of artwork.

TEACHING METHODS USED

In primitive cultures Education was mainly in the hands of wizards (AS wicca (masculine)
and wicce (feminine) which turned into witch. These wizards had magical powers which
allowed them to cure or invoke spirits for protection.
For them, the first classroom was in the open sky, around a bonfire, observing attentively
what an adult was doing so as to copy each movement or in a cave where children were taught
what animals they should look for and hunt.
In short the methods used by the wizards and parents were:
a- observation
b- mouth to ear oral transmission of spells or use of tools
c- Field trips for recognition of plants, berries, small animals, etc.
d- imitation in hands-on activities tools, clothing making, food preparing, etc.

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 e- Caves painting with animist purposes (hunting magic) meant to increase the
presence of animals or to exemplify the kind of object/animal to look for or
be aware of. Caves were to teaching what boards are to us today. Besides
Cresswell Crags we can finds painted caves in France (in Lascaux), in Spain
(in Altamira) and in Argentina (the Hands Cave)
f- Story telling anecdotes to refer to customs, tribe, family, etc.

The Neolithic (4000 - 2000 BC)

Around 10,000 years ago the ice age finally ended. Temperatures rose, probably to levels
similar to those today, and forests expanded further. The warmer climate changed the Arctic
environment to one of pine, birch, and alder forest; this less open landscape was less
conducive to the large herds of reindeer and wild horse that had previously sustained humans.
Those animals were replaced in people's diets by pig and less social animals such as elk, red
deer, roe deer, wild boar and wild cattle which would have required different hunting
techniques in order to be effectively exploited. Tools changed to incorporate barbs which
could snag the flesh of a hunted animal, making it harder for it to escape alive. Tiny
microliths were developed for hafting onto harpoons and spears. Woodworking tools such as
adzes appear in the archaeological record, although some flint blade types remained similar to
their Paleolithic predecessors.

The Neolithic was the period of domestication of plants and animals. Looking from a more
Europe-wide standpoint, researchers at Standford University have found overlapping cultural
and genetic evidence that supports the theory that migration was, at least, partially responsible
for the Neolithic Revolution in Northern Europe (including Britain).
Pollen analysis shows that woodland was decreasing and grassland increasing, with a major
decline of elms. The winters were typically 3 degrees colder than at present but the summers
some 2.5 degrees warmer.

The arrival of farming and a sedentary lifestyle as shorthand for the Neolithic is increasingly
giving way to a more complex view of the changes and continuities in practices that can be
observed from the Mesolithic period onwards. For example, the development of Neolithic
monumental architecture apparently venerating the dead may represent more comprehensive
social and ideological changes involving new interpretations of time, ancestry, community
and identity.
In any case, the Neolithic Revolution, as it is called, introduced a more settled way of life
and ultimately led to societies becoming divided into differing groups of farmers, artisans and
leaders.

Forest clearances were undertaken to provide room for cereal cultivation and animal herds.
Native cattle and pigs were reared whilst sheep and goats were later introduced from the
continent as were the wheats and barleys grown in Britain. However, only a few actual
settlement sites are known in Britain, unlike the continent. Cave occupation was common at
this time.

The construction of the earliest earthwork sites in Britain began during the early Neolithic (c.
4400 BC- 3300 BC) in the form of long barrows used for communal burial and the first
causewayed enclosures, sites which have parallels on the continent. The former may be
derived from the long house although no long house villages have been found in Britain, only
individual examples. The stone-built houses on Orkney such as those at Skara Brae are

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however indicators of some nucleated settlement in Britain. Evidence of growing mastery
over the environment is embodied in the Sweet Track, a wooden trackway built to cross the
marshes of the Somerset Levels and dated to 3807 BC. Leaf-shaped arrowheads, round-based
pottery types and the beginnings of polished axe production are common indicators of the
period. Evidence of the use of cow's milk comes from analysis of pottery contents found
beside the Sweet Track.

The Neolithic society was more complex. It was organized around Law, Religion and
Education.
The person grew in a primary group, to later be socialized in a secondary group. The main
group organizer was, and still is the Mutual Internal representation, i.e. to know the other
so as to know what you can expect of that person to organize the tasks.

They built large stone monuments called henges, they were built, along with stone rows as the
famous sites of Stonehenge, Avebury and Silbury Hill. they worshipped nature and the
natural phenomena and they also studied the stars, the sun, the moon and their influence.

The learned men in those times, by default became the teachers. Priests and even slaves taught
children. The priests position was elevated above many strata of society, and they
were treated accordingly for their knowledge, and wisdom.

Skara Brae

Skara Brae /skr bre/ is a stone-built Neolithic settlement, located on the Bay of
Skaill on the west coast of Mainland, the largest island in the Orkney archipelago of Scotland.
It consists of eight clustered houses, and was occupied from roughly 3180 BCE2500 BCE.
Europe's most complete Neolithic village, Skara Brae gained UNESCO World Heritage
Site status as one of four sites making up "The Heart of Neolithic Orkney."a Older
than Stonehenge and the Great Pyramids, it has been called the "Scottish Pompeii" because of
its excellent preservation.[1]
In the winter of 1850, a severe storm hit Scotland causing widespread damage. In the Bay of
Skaill, the storm stripped the earth from a large irregular knoll, known as "Skerrabra".

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When the storm cleared, local villagers found the outline of a village, consisting of a number
of small houses without roofs. William Watt of Skaill, the local laird, began an amateur
excavation of the site, but after uncovering four houses the work was abandoned. The site
remained undisturbed until 1913, when during a single weekend the site was plundered by a
party with shovels who took away an unknown quantity of artifacts. In 1924 another storm
swept away part of one of the houses and it was determined the site should be made secure
and more seriously investigated. The job was given to the University of Edinburgh.

NEOLITHIC LIFE STYLE

Skara Brae's people were makers and users of grooved ware, a distinctive style of pottery that
appeared in northern Scotland not long before the establishment of the village.
The houses used earth sheltering, being sunk into the ground.
In fact, they were sunk into
mounds of pre-existing pre-
historic domestic waste known
as middens. The midden provided
the houses with a small degree of
stability and also acted as
insulation against Orkney's harsh
winter climate. On average, the houses measure 40 square meters
in size with a large square room containing a stone hearth used
for heating and cooking. Given the number of homes, it seems likely that no more than fifty
people lived in Skara Brae at any given time.
It is by no means clear what material the inhabitants burned in their hearths. Gordon Childe
was sure that the fuel was peat, but a detailed analysis of vegetation patterns and trends
suggests that climatic conditions conducive to the development of thick beds of peat did not
develop in this part of Orkney until after Skara Brae was abandoned. Other possible fuels
include driftwood and animal dung. There's evidence that dried seaweed may have been used
significantly. At a number of sites in Orkney investigators have found a glassy, slag-like
material called "Kelp" or "Cramp" that may be residual burnt seaweed.
The dwellings contain a number of stone-built pieces of furniture, including cupboards,
dressers, seats, and storage boxes. Each dwelling was entered through a low doorway that had
a stone slab door that could be closed "by a bar that slid in bar-holes cut in the stone door
jambs". A sophisticated drainage system was incorporated into the village's design. It included
a primitive form of toilet in each dwelling.
Seven of the houses have similar furniture, with the beds and dresser in the same places in
each house. The dresser stands against the wall opposite the door, and was the first thing seen
by anyone entering the dwelling. Each of these houses had the larger bed on the right side of
the doorway and the smaller on the left. Lloyd Laing noted that this pattern accorded with
Hebridean custom up to the early 20th century suggesting that the husband's bed was the
larger and the wife's was the smaller. The discovery of beads and paint-pots in some of the
smaller beds may support this interpretation.
Additional support may come from the recognition that
stone boxes lie to the left of most doorways, forcing the
person entering the house to turn to the right-hand,

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'male', side of the dwelling. At the front of each bed lie the stumps of stone pillars that may
have supported a canopy of fur.
Evidence of home furnishings
One house, called House 8, has no storage boxes or dresser. It has been divided into
something resembling small cubicles. When this house was excavated, fragments of stone,
bone and antler were found. It is possible that this building was used as a house to make
simple tools such as bone needles or flint axes. The presence of heat-damaged volcanic rocks
and what appears to be a flue, support this interpretation. House 8 is distinctive in other ways
as well. It is a stand-alone structure not surrounded by midden, instead it is above ground and
has walls over 2 metres thick. It has a "porch" protecting the entrance.
The site provided the earliest known record of the human flea Pulex irritans inEurope.
The Grooved Ware People who built Skara Brae were primarily pastoralists who
raised cattle and sheep. Excavations in 1972 unearthed seed grains from a midden suggesting
that barley was cultivated. Fish bones and shells are common in the middens indicating that
dwellers ate seafood. Limpet shells are common and may have been fish-bait that was kept in
stone boxes in the homes. The boxes were formed from thin slabs with joints carefully sealed
with clay to render them waterproof.
This pastoral lifestyle is in sharp contrast to some of the more exotic interpretations of the
culture of the Skara Brae people. Euan MacKie suggested that Skara Brae might be the home
of a privileged theocratic class of wise men who engaged in astronomical and magical
ceremonies at nearby Ring of Brodgar and the Standing Stones of Stenness. Graham and
Anna Ritchie cast doubt on this interpretation noting that there is no archaeological evidence
for this claim, although a Neolithic "low road" that goes from Skara Brae passes near both
these sites and ends at the magnificent chambered tomb of Maeshowe. Low roads connect
Neolithic ceremonial sites throughout Britain.

View over the settlement, showing covering to house No.

7 and proximity to modern shore line. The glass roof has
now been replaced by a turf one, as the humidity and heat
caused by the glass roof was hindering preservation.

Radiocarbon results obtained from samples collected

during these excavations indicate that occupation of Skara
Brae began about 3180 BCE with occupation continuing for about six hundred years. Around
2500 BCE, after the climate changed, becoming much colder and wetter, the settlement may
have been abandoned by its inhabitants. There are many theories as to why the people of
Skara Brae left; particularly popular interpretations involve a major storm.
The site was farther from the sea than it is today, and it is possible that Skara Brae was built
adjacent to a fresh water lagoon protected by dunes. Although the visible buildings give an
impression of an organic whole, it is certain that an unknown quantity of additional structures
had already been lost to sea erosion before the site's rediscovery and subsequent protection by
a seawall. Uncovered remains are known to exist immediately adjacent to the ancient
monument in areas presently covered by fields, and others, of uncertain date, can be seen
eroding out of the cliff edge a little to the south of the enclosed area.

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 Symbols found at Skara Brae and other Neolithic sites
A number of enigmatic Carved Stone Balls have been
found at the site and some are on display in the
museum. Similar objects have been found throughout
northern Scotland. The spiral ornamentation on some of
these "balls" has been stylistically linked to objects
found in the Boyne Valley in Ireland. Similar symbols
have been found carved into stone lintels and bed
posts. These symbols, sometimes referred to as "runic
writings", have been subjected to controversial
translations. For example, Castleden suggested that
"colons" found punctuating vertical and diagonal
symbols may represent separations between words
Lumps of red ochre found here and at other Neolithic sites have been interpreted as evidence
that body painting may have been practiced. Nodules of haematitewith highly polished
surfaces have been found as well; the shiny surfaces suggest that the nodules were used to
finish leather.
Other artifacts excavated on site made of animal, fish, and bird and whalebone, whale and
walrus ivory, and killer whale teeth included awls, needles, knives, beads, adzes, shovels,
small bowls and, most remarkably, ivory pins up to 10 inches long. These pins are very
similar to examples found in passage graves in the Boyne Valley, another piece of evidence
suggesting a linkage between the two cultures. So-called Skaill knives were commonly used
tools in Skara Brae; these consist of large flakes knocked off sandstone cobbles. Skaill knives
have been found throughout Orkney and Shetland.
The 1972 excavations reached layers that had remained waterlogged and had preserved items
that otherwise would have been destroyed. These include a twisted skein of heather, one of a
very few known examples of Neolithic rope. and a wooden handle.

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