A time before people developed a system of writing 2 Different Periods: Paleolithic Age (Old Stone...

LESSON 1:

Prehistory

A time before people developed a system of writing

2 Different Periods:Paleolithic Age (Old Stone Age)Neolithic Age (New Stone Age)

How can we learn about people before there was anything written down?

Artifacts- any objects created or modified by man

Examples of artifacts

WEAPONS

TOOLS

ART AND OTHER THINGS

How do artifacts help us?

They can tell us what people ate, if they hunted or had a shelter, burial practices, etc.

Prehistoric Humans

Homo habilis; skillful man Homo erectus; man who walks upright Homo sapiens; man who thinks

Lucy

Much of what we know about very early man has been learned from a skeleton was found in Africa in 1974. 

This skeleton was of a young female who was about 20 when she died. 

She was named Lucy, and was about 4 foot tall and probably weighed about 50 pounds when she died. 

Her skeleton showed she walked upright and her brain was about the size of an orange. 

How did geography influence the lives of early humans?

Migration= Human movement

Early people started in parts of east Africa to Europe and Asia

Ice Age

Approximatly 11,000 years ago there was an Ice Age on Earth

The Ice Age was a period of time when huge ice sheets covered the Earth

When the glaciers melted, temperatures rose and land could be farmed and animals could graze

Animals of the Ice Age

Rhinoceros

sabre-toothed tiger

Wooly Mammoth

How did people get to North America?

Beringia (now called the Bering Strait)

Went from Asia to North America

Formed a “land bridge”

Early Humans

Characteristics of Hunter Gatherer Societies

The First Technology

Stone tools were the first pieces of technology

Technology is anything that makes man’s life easier

Characteristics of Hunter-Gatherer Societies

Characteristics of Hunter-Gatherer Societies