Stone Age Study Guide

This is DUE before we Take the Test on Tuesday, September

30th. It is worth 30 points. If you do not have it before we take
the test, you will receive a zero.
Vocabulary

Prehistory: Long period of time before people developed systems of writing

Archaeology: study of past cultures through the things that remain such as buildings,
tools, or pottery

Archaeologist: A scientist who uncovers evidence, or proof, from the past

Artifact: an object made by people long ago

Migrate: human movement from place to place

Glacier: Huge ice sheets that move very slowly

Domesticate: to tame

Harvest: to gather

Agriculture: Raising of plants and animals for human use

Technology: how humans produce the items they use

Nomad: somebody that wanders around with no permanent home

Carbon dating: method used to figure out how old something was when they died.

Excavation site: a site where archaeologists dig up artifacts

Anthropology: the study of how people have developed and live in cultural groups.

culture: includes technology, beliefs, customs, and art of certain people

diverse: different

Know the answers to these questions for the Test

How do we learn about Prehistory?
--by studying artifacts

List examples of artifacts

--arrowheads, stone tools, ashes, bones
What does ice age mean?
--earth was covered in ice—called glaciers.

What happened when the glaciers melted?

--land became fertile, which means it was good for farming and growing crops

List 4 Ice Age animals

1. giant ground sloth
2. saber tooth cat
3. mammoth
4. big horned bison
5. wolly mammoth

How did people get to North America?

--they crossed a land bridge known as Beringia. Today, it is called the Bering Strait
because the land bridge that was once used is now covered by water because of the Ice
Age meltdown.

List the 3 theories on where the earliest Americans lived

1. Clovis, NM
2. Monte Verde, Chile
3. Topper Site, South Carolina

Old Stone Age: a lot of progress or very little progress Circle One.
--Very little progress was made during the Old Stone Age

What caused the start of the New Stone Age?

-Metal Working

List the early plants that were grown in the New Stone Age
-Rice
-Wheat
-Barley

List the first animals to be domesticated

-Goats
-sheep
-dogs
-cows
--These four animals produced many important things for the people of the New Stone
Age. Things such as: wool for clothing, leather for clothing, shoes, etc., milk, meat, tools,
protection.

How were medicines made in the Stone Age

-Herbs

What did surplus food lead to in the Stone Age?

-Social Division. When farming began to succeed, people started to develop a surplus of
crops, which means that they had extra crops. With that extra supply of crops, they sold it
or traded it for things they needed. Not all farmers had the same amount of crops to sell
or trade, thus some people gained more wealth than others, creating a social division:
upper class, middle class, lower class.

How did plant and animal domestication affect the Stone Age?
--helped tribes progress rapidly
-it allowed people to have food without always having to hunt for it.

Material from ”Before we Ruled the Earth”

Part 1
What was the tool used by early human species?
-Hand axe

What was the most powerful tool discovered by the earliest human species?
--Fire
What type of animal did the hunting tribe hunt?
--Irish Elk
What happens at the end of the first hunt?
--The fire goes out and the Elk charge the hunters
What was the challenge that the earliest human species faced?
--Keeping the fire going in wet climates.
How did they solve the problem?
--Pine Resin from tree bark. The torches would not go out with pine resin on them.
What made the second hunt successful?
--Fire did not go out.

Part 2
Describe what a Neanderthal looks like?
--Short and Stalky
How did they hunt?
--Surrounded the bison and lunged and jabbed at it with spears
What type of weapon did they use to hunt with?
--stone tipped spears
What kind of tools did they have in their ‘tool kit’?
--stone flakes: used to cut meat
--rounded edge scrappers: smooth the hide, scrap off meat
--sharp points: poke holes in the hide

Part 3
What caused the Neanderthals to leave their cave?
--It became too cold and the animals were leaving, trying to find food. Thus, the hunters
had to leave because they needed to find animals to hunt.
What happened while they were on their migration?
--they met the Cro-Magnum, which is the Homo Sapiens (Us).
Cave Painting
What were some things that cave painters painted?
--bull, cattle, deer, hunters, rhino’s, elk, bison, etc.

Why is cave art important?

--shows us what things might have been like during the time of the Stone Age. Provides
us with clues to what it may have looked like.

What can we learn from studying cave art?

--how people hunted, how people perceived life, what the important animals were, etc.