Scientists believe that life began on the continent of
Africa 3.6 million years ago……
Neanderthal
Cro-Magnon
Modern Man
Cro-Magnon man early Homo sapiens
(the species to which
modern humans
belong) that lived
about 40,000 years
ago.
• The Old Stone Age or the Paleolithic Era,
was a period of time that lasted until about
12,000 to 70,000 years ago.
•Man survived by hunting animals
and gathering roots, berries,
leaves, and seeds.
•Old Stone Age (Paleolithic Era) people
eventually began to hunt in groups.
•Cave Art showing
men hunting in groups
•These antlers may have been used
as a disguise during the hunt.
•Man used
stone, wood,
and bone tools
to survive
during the Old
Stone Age.
Bow found in Denmark
Hand Axe
Flint Blades used to sharpen tools
Bone Harpoon
•using a flint blade to skin
an animal
•using a flint blade to butcher
a carcass
There was another important
•There
was another
importantof
development
– the discovery
development
– the discovery of
fire
fire.
Many Stone Age people were Nomads,
or people who had no settled home.
• The New Stone
Age or The
Neolithic Era
lasted until
about 6,000 to
12,000 years
ago.
• During the
Neolithic
Era, people
began to
settle in one
place.
•Man began to change his diet and
eat grains and small animals.
• Agriculture is the
raising of crops and
animals.
• The development of
agriculture began
over a long period of
time and in more
than one place.
• People no longer
needed to travel
great distances to
gather food.
• People learned how to
domesticate plants and
animals.
• To domesticate means
to train something to
be useful to people.
• Early people learned to
care for plants such as
wheat, barley, peas,
and lentils.
• The first farmers also
domesticated wild
goats, cattle, and
sheep.
•Ancient charred
wheat grains are
shown in the
picture above.
• Man domesticated wild wheat.
• Thousands of years
ago, an ear of corn
did not make much
of a meal. (top)
• It took thousands of
years of careful
breeding for ears of
corn to reach their
present size. (bottom)
• People still used
stone, bone, and
wooden tools, but
some new tools
were added by
using copper and
bronze.
•These early farming tools date back to around 8,000 years
ago. The axe, bottom, was used for clearing; flint sickles,
left, were used for harvesting cereal crops; a flat rock and
rounded stone, center, were used for grinding flour; and
perforated clay slabs, upper right, were probably used to
ventilate bread ovens.