Stone Age

The Stone Age marks a period of prehistory in which humans used primitive stone tools. Lasting roughly 2.5 million years, the Stone Age ended around 5,000 years ago when humans in the Near East began working with metal and making tools and weapons from bronze.

During the Stone Age, humans shared the planet with a number of now-extinct hominin relatives, including Neanderthals and Denisovans.

The Stone Age is the first period in the three-age system of archaeology, which divides human technological prehistory into three periods:

• The Stone Age
• The Bronze Age
• The Iron Age

The Stone Age has been divided into three distinct periods:

• Paleolithic Period or Old Stone Age
• Mesolithic Period or Middle Stone Age
• Neolithic Period or New Stone Age

The art of the Stone Age represents the first accomplishments in human creativity, preceding the invention of writing. While numerous artefacts still exist today, the lack of writing systems from this era greatly limits our understanding of prehistoric art and culture.

1. Paleolithic Period:

2. Mesolithic Period:

3. Neolithic Period:

Stone Age People:

There are 4 different types of human species that emerged at different times during the Stone Age:

Types of human species	Description
Tool-makers (Homo habilis)	1. Homo habilis means “Skilled man”. 2. Homo habilis were the first humans to make stone tools. 3. They had nimble hands and moderately large brains. 4. They lived from 2.4 to 1.6 million years ago in East Africa.
Fire-makers (Homo erectus)	1. Homo erectus means “Upright man”. 2. The first humans who learned how to make fire. 3. They made fire to create light, keep themselves warm, cook meat and to frighten animals away. 4. They had large brains. 5. They lived 2 million years ago in Africa, and they were the first humans to move into Europe and Asia.
Neanderthals	1. Homo neanderthalensis were similar to us, but they were shorter and stronger. 2. They made warm clothes from animal skins and fur to stay warm in the freezing cold weather. 3. They lived in Europe and Asia during the Ice Age from 300,000 to 24,000 years ago.
Modern Humans (Homo sapiens)	1. Homo sapiens means “Wise man”. 2. They had large brains and slender bodies. 3. They made art and painted rocks and walls with pictures. 4. They started to grow crops and raise cattle for food around 10,000 years ago.

Stone Age Houses:

During the Stone Age, the people lived in four types of shelters:

Types of shelter	Description
Caves	1. They stayed near the mouth of the cave because it was warmer and lighter. 2. They drew on the cave walls which are still present today.
Hut	1. This shelter was built with a wooden frame in the shape of a tepee. 2. The wooden frame would be covered by animal skins and tree barks. 3. This shelter was very light and portable.
Animal Bone Structure	1. This shelter was built by assembling animal bones. 2. Often, Mammoth bones and tusks were used to construct the walls and frame. 3. The bones were then covered by animal skins.
Permanent Dwellings	1. Towards the end of the Stone Age, people started to build more permanent dwellings. 2. This shelter was built with wattle and daub in a rectangular shape. 3. It had a thatched roof. 4. These shelters were usually built in larger settlements.

Stone Age Facts:

During the Stone Age, the people lived in four types of shelters:

Facts	Description
Stone Age Cave Paintings	1. Painting animals on cave walls was very common during the Stone Age. 2. Paintings were made deep inside the caves and not where the people lived, because flickering fire-light could have created the illusion that these paintings were real animals. 3. The famous cave paintings at Lascaux in France are 18,000 years old.
Stone Age Jewellery	1. The first jewellery was made by humans around 75,000 years ago. 2. They strung shells together to make necklaces. 3. This jewellery was simple in design.
Stone Age Clothing	1. The weather was extremely cold during the Ice Age. 2. Early humans used to hunt animals. They cleaned and prepared the animal skins and then wrapped them around their bodies. 3. They also made needles from animal bones to sew animals’ skins into clothes. 4. They decorated their faces and bodies with paints from natural resources.
Stone Age Food	1. During the early Stone Age, the humans were hunter-gatherers. 2. They hunted animals and gathered wild fruits and nuts for food. 3. They also caught fish, especially during the Ice Age. 4. After the discovery of farming, they made large villages which depended upon food from the crops. 5. They grew wheat, barley, maize and many other crops.

Stone Age Animals:

The humans mostly depended on hunting for food during the Stone Age. There were many animals roaming the forests during the Stone Age, some of which are not present today.

Stone Age Tools:

Different tools were used in the Stone Age. Those tools were simple but they made lives easy. They advanced with the passage of time.

Interesting Facts:

• The first modern man, Homo sapiens, emerged about 200,000 years ago.
• The stone “Flint” was most commonly used to make the stone tools in the stone age. Other than flint,chert and obsidian stones were also used.
• The people living in the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic were mostly travellers who hunted and gathered food. They were always on the move as they followed the animals which they hunted.
• It was during the Mesolithic period, when dog was domesticated. Dogs were very helpful in hunting, for security warning and faithful pet.
• During the Neolithic period agriculture developed, more animals were domesticated and people started living in settled communities.
• The stone age site Skara Brae is of an Orkney village of the Neolithic period, which had beds, cupboards, dressers, shelves and chairs.