Adapting to the Environment: Paleolithic and Neolithic Peoples

1. Early Humans Paleolithic and Neolithic Peoples

2. How did Paleolithic people adapt to their environments? • Paleolithic people adapted to their environment and invented many tools to help them survive • Otzi “the Iceman” is an example of a Neolithic man

3. What tools or methods can we use to discover how Paleolithic people lived? • The time before writing is called prehistory or the stone ages because people used stone tools. • Historian- A person who studies and writes about the past since 5,500 years ago when writing was invented • Archaeologists look for fossils and artifacts of tools and other objects. • What artifacts do archeologists look for? They look for fossils and artifacts* that tell stories about people animals or cultures of long ago. • How are fossils and artifacts different? Fossils are traces of plants and animals, while artifacts are weapons, tools and other things made by humans • Anthropologists focus on how a society works. • *Artifacts- tools, weapons, pottery and other belongings from long ago. • Fossils are traces of plants or animals that are preserved in rock.

4. Who were the Hunter – Gatherers? • Hunter-Gatherers were nomads who regularly moved from place to place in large groups to make the hunt for food easier. They hunted animals for meat, bones and fur, and gathered fruits, berries and other plants. • Women stayed at the campsite and gathered food and looked after the children. • Men went far from camp and hunted. • They invented tools such as spears, traps and bows and arrows to make hunting safer and easier and other technology like needles to sew animal skins together to make clothing.

6. Adapting to the Environment • Paleolithic people lived and dressed according to their climates: People who lived in warm climates wore less clothing and had more simple housing vs. clothing and housing people had in colder climates. • Fire was a life changing discovery for cooking, warmth, light and safety.

7. What were the Ice Ages? • Long periods of extreme cold from about 100,000 BCE to 8,000 BCE • People had to change their diets, use fur for clothing and build better shelters.

8. Language, Art and Religion • Spoken language made it easier for people to work together and pass on knowledge. Early people expressed themselves through art as well as through words. • They created art using paint made from rocks. They painted animal pictures on cave walls. • The paintings may have had religious meanings- please the gods, good luck on the hunt, teaching hunting techniques and telling hunting stories.

12. The Invention of Tools • Technology is the use of tools and methods to help humans perform tasks. For example; a bone shaped as a fishhook or a bone shaped as a needle to make nets. • Tools got better over time. • Flint is a hard stone that was often used to make axes, spears and arrow heads. Hence the TV cartoon the “Flintstones” about a “Modern Stone Age Family, from the town of Bedrock, they’re a page right out of history”.

14. Science and Inventions • Tools started out as crude flakes of flint. • Tools made work easier- hunting, gathering, making clothes and building shelter. • Over time people made specific tools such as food choppers, meat scrapers and spear points.

16. The Neolithic Age • In the Neolithic age people started farming, building communities and producing goods and trading. • People began to domesticate animals. This means to tame them for human use. Domesticated animals provided meat, cheese, milk, wool and they carried items. • The Neolithic Age or New Stone Age began about 8,000 BCE. Over time, farming replaced hunting and gathering as a way of life.

17. Why was farming important? • People could now stay in one place and have enough food to live. People built better houses. People had more time to specialize in making things like never before. • Farming began in many parts of the world at around the same time.

19. Comparing The Paleolithic and Neolithic Ages • The work of men changed from the Paleolithic to the Neolithic ages in several ways. Men went from hunting to herding, farming and protecting the village. • There were a few advances in toolmaking between the Paleolithic and Neolithic ages. Stone tools gave way to copper and bronze tools.

20. The Growth of Villages • Farmers lived close to the fields in simple mud brick houses that were built close together. Houses were decorated with wall paintings. People built houses of worship. • They farmed, hunted, raised sheep and goats, and ate fish and bird eggs. • Jericho is one of the oldest villages dating back to 8,000 BCE.CatalHuyuk, part of modern day Turkey was a big village from 6700 to 5700 BCE.

23. The Benefits of a Settled Life • A surplus of food gave people a chance to work on other things. So some people specialized in making other things for the villagers, like pottery, paintings, cloth, mats, and metal tools and weapons etc.

24. Questions and Answers • 1. What do cave paintings tell us about the Paleolithic age? • 2. Why do you think early people chose stones to make their first tools? • 3. If scientists 5,300 years from now discovered the remains of someone from our time, what might they conclude about our society? • 4. How did the work of men change from the Paleolithic age to the Neolithic age?

25. More Questions and Answers • 5. What advances were made in toolmaking between the Paleolithic and Neolithic ages? • 6. How did the Paleolithic and Neolithic ages differ? • 7. Who are archaeologists and what do they study? • 8. How did domesticating animals help the Neolithic people? • 9. How can we compare the technology of the Paleolithic and the Neolithic ages? • 10. Why was the ability to make fire so important?