By: Izabela Jaszcz

1. Stone Age By: Izabela Jaszcz http://www.enjoyourholiday.com

2. Making Tools Making tools became one of the most important achievements starting with the PaleolithicAge, since this allowed the homo habilis to cut and carve trees, hunt, make their life more comfortable, let technology improve and develop more control over the environment which helped them survive. Tools made their life more comfortable and made their life easier. As you can imagine tools have been around for quite a while because even the homo habilis needed them to hunt. During the stone age they developed villages but to survive and create the village they needed to have weapons/tools. During the stone age they developed tools with stone and that is why we call it the stone age. Making tools was a particularly important development because if they were not invented, we wouldn’t have some things we take for granted today such an electric saw. The Stone Age Drill The Stone Age Drill was used to drill holes in stones. The stones then easily attached to wooden handles. This combination could make spears, hammers, or sickles. Using this tool reduced the amount of time required for drilling by 90%. The tool was used by putting the wooden turner on top of the stone, wrapping a bow around the wooden turner, and moving the bow back and forth, which in turn moved the wooden turner, which then carved into the rock. Thanks to the much faster drilling, many more tools could be made in the same period of time. The Rock Cutter This tool was a very clever invention. This tool was made by tightly tying a piece of wood to a rock and setting it in water for a couple of days. After a couple of days someone would go and check on rocks to find that the rocks were cut in the position the wood was in. To invent this tool the Mesolithic people had to make many connections, the first one being that when one hits two stones together they won’t cut the right way. The second one being that when someone puts wood in water the wood expands and the force is so strong it can cut through the rock and control how it breaks. The Carving Machine After digging a hole or cutting a stone into two, they needed to shape the stone so that it would be sharp and useful to cut grass or kill an animal. This tool shaped a stone by sprinkling sand on a flat, big rocky surface and then taking the stone and rubbing it against the rocky surface (as it is shown on the picture).

3. Shelter Making a long-lasting shelter was the only way of being able to create and survive living in a village. Without shelter it was impossible to sustain a village because of the natural disasters. This was very important because without the warmth and the accessibility to tools we probably wouldn’t have survived! What would you do if it was hailing golf-ball sized ice, and you had no roof over your head? Imagine living without those magical walls that protect from all the wild animals and the fierce snow in the winter. Stone Age Hatchet The Stone Age Hatchet is a wooden handle attached a nicely carved stone. This allows a homo Erectus to cut a tree in just 10 minutes. This was a big invention since in the Stone Age there was no glass or metal so everyone relied just on wood. Because of this, cutting down a tree was very important to make houses, shelves, chairs etc. Stone Age Window While they were building a wooden house they left a gap for the “window”. To make sure that light came through but the hoarse wind didn’t they covered the “windows” withgoatskin instead of glass (because they didn’t have glass then). With these ”windows” they were one step closer to controlling the environment-one step closer to us today. Living on Water Out of all places why build a village on water that has to be able to carry about 1,000 people? Living on a lake had many benefits for the homo erectus that are not needed by us now. The lake provides protection from outside predators, the ability to trade goods with another village in a boat, the ability to fish (without a fishing license), free baths and of course fresh water all year round. Since the water rose over the years and we are considered weaklings compare to the homo erectus it wasn’t as difficult to build a village on water as it seems (well at least for the homo erectus).

4. Domesticating Animals & Crops Crops The domestication of crops and animals was the homo erectus’ survival-ticket to living in a village. Domesticating something means to change it from being wild to under your own care or to “overtake” it for the your befit. So by domesticating crops they could have a surplus (more than they needed) of grain and wheat which allowed them to bake bread and other goods. Animals The domestication of animals was just as important because this allowed the homo erectus to have a surplus of meat (that had 100% protein which kept the village healthy and strong). This was also a huge change for them because instead of killing animals they raised them. This way of living brought up farming. Farming allowed them have surplus and to not need everyone doing the same thing at the same time which created specialization/jobs within the community (while they needed everyone to hunt at the same time when they were hunter-gathers). For example one person could be a potter while someone else could be baking bread while someone else was milking a cow. This created more complex villages withreligion, trading and government. Later this expanded and created the cities we have today. http://science.howstuffworks.com/