Source: Human Heritage: A World History . F. Kenneth Cox et al. Charles E Merrill Publishing Co. ;Columbus, OH, 1981.
Experts believe that people first lived in the lands known today as South Africa and
East Africa. Originally these lands contained many small lakes bordered by low trees and bushes. Beyond the lakes were great stretches of tall grasses where many kinds of animals lived. There were large animals which were the ancestors of modern deer, sheep, pigs, jaguars, and baboons. There were small animals such as snakes, lizards, turtles, mice, ground squirrels, and porcupines. Here and there the grasslands were broken up by groups of trees. Birds of many sizes and colors filled the skies, and fish of all kinds swam in the clear lake waters. The people who lived in these lands stood about four and a half feet, or about 1.4 meters, tall. They had large jaws and teeth, and their noses were more or less flat. Because of their short foreheads, their hair started just above their eyebrows. They probably had dark skin and thick patches of hair on their backs, arms, and legs.
GATHERING FOOD
The people lived in small bands , or groups, of about 20 members. When the food supply was good, the bands grew as large as 40 or 50. Almost none of the band members were more than 30 years old. More than half of the children born into a band died from illnesses or were killed by animals before their first birthday.
The people within a band felt very close to one another. They lived and worked together and shared their food. They fed and cared for band members who became injured or sick.
People in the Paleolithic were nomads, meaning that they travelled from place to place in search of food. Each band gathered its food within an area known as its home territory , which might cover ten miles, or 16 kilometers. When times were hard, it could be as much as 50 miles, or 80 kilometers. There were campsites at various places throughout the home territory. Sometimes they were on the mud flats of swamps. Other times they were in dry riverbeds where the people were protected from the wind. The band stayed at a campsite until they used up the nearby food supply. Then they would move to the next campsite.
People in the Paleolithic are also known as “Hunter/Gatherers” because of the way that they got their food. In Hunter/ Gatherer societies each gender had special roles in

getting what the band needed to survive. Women and children gathered most of the food. They collected berries, nuts, and fruit. They took eggs out of bird and turtle nests.
They poked sticks into bee nests to get honey. They also used the sticks to dig roots from the ground. Women were more reliable at getting food from day to day.
Men of the band did the hunting. Since their only weapons were sticks and stones, they usually hunted only small animals. Once in a while, though, they were able to kill a larger animal that was too old or too badly hurt to run away. A good kill meant that the band would have enough food for several days.
The men also fished for food. Sometimes they fished from a flat rock. They lay on the rock and dangled their hands in the water. When a fish came close, they reached out and grabbed it. Neanderthal people were excellent hunters. They used traps to catch birds and small, fast-running animals. They used pitfalls to catch big animals like the rhinoceros and the elephant. A pitfall was a large hole that was covered over by branches, leaves, and dirt. As an animal ran across the pitfall, it would crash through the covering and fall into the pit. There it was speared over and over until it bled to death. The Neanderthals also caught big animals by driving them into swampy mudholes. The heavy animals would sink deeper and deeper into the mud until they could no longer move their feet. Then the Neanderthals would kill them with spears and stones.
MAKING TOOLS
At first the only tools people had were sticks and stones which they found on the ground. After a time they learned to shape stones to make them more useful. At first they knocked chips, or small pieces, from a stone by hitting it with another stone. They kept knocking chips off until the stone had the shape they wanted. Later they learned to knock off flakes, or long, sharp-edged chips,

and used them as tools.
The earliest well-shaped tool was the fist-hatchet, or hand-ax. One end had a cutting edge, and the other end was sha ped to fit a person’s hand. The fisthatchet was an all-purpose tool, or one that can be used to do many different things. People used it to cut the meat off dead animals and to split animal bones.
They also used it to scrape animal skins, cut down trees, and chop up plants and vegetables. Later, people developed special tools for such different purposes as scraping, chopping, and polishing.
The people usually made their tools of flint, a stone found n the surface of the earth throughout much of Europe, Africa, and western Asia. In eastern Asia where there was not much flint, the people made their tools of quartz instead.
Cro-Magnons were very skillful tool makers. They were the first to make flake tools. They made a tool called a burin which they used only to make other tools.
They also made great use of such materials as bone, antler, and ivory, which were more workable than wood or stone. As a result the Cro-Magnons were able to make needles, beads, jewelry, and fishing hooks. They also invented weapons which helped them to increase their food supply, such as the bow and arrow and the atlatl, a device that throws a spear farther than an arm can.
LEARNING TO TALK
Early people did not always know how to talk. At first they simply made different kinds of noises. Each noise meant something different. A certain kind of grunt meant the person was happy. A hoot, or loud cry, may have meant that a dangerous animal was nearby. A soft cry may have meant that a child was lost. A whimper meant a person was cold, lonely, or scared. A yell probably meant a person was angry.
Early people also had other ways to express meaning. They pointed at objects. They tugged at elbows or pulled at shoulders to get attention. They probably used different kinds of hand signs for such important things as water, food, animals, and weapons.
Gradually people developed language. Experts have no way of knowing for certain when or how this happened. But they think it came about when people began to hunt large animals with spears and bows and arrows. Since they had to hunt in a group they had to be able to give one another instructions. Noises and hand gestures were not enough.
DISCOVERING FIRE
The food-gatherers and hunters cut the animals and fish they caught with stone knives.
They ate the meat raw because they did not know it could be cooked. Although people knew about fire, they did not know how to use it. The fires they knew about were made by nature. They used the fires that came after bolts of lightning struck trees and after volcanoes sent burning coals across the land. They saw piles of dry leaves and brush suddenly burst into flame.
After hundreds of thousands of years, people discovered they could make fire

themselves. To do this, they either rubbed one stick back and forth against another stick, or rapidly turned a stick in a hole in a dry log. Once the people learned to make fire, their lives began to change. They could cook their food instead of eating it raw.
They discovered that cooked food was easier to chew and digest, especially for older people with few teeth. They also found they had to spend less time eating. This gave them more time to do other things. Scientists now believe that this a lso helped human’s brains to become bigger and helped each species of human become more intelligent.
By about 750,000 years ago, people were using fire to keep themselves warm. They also used it as a weapon. They threw burning sticks of wood at animals to drive them away. By about 80,000 years ago, people were using fire to harden the points of their wooden weapons. The fire-hardened points were strong enough to go through horse, leopard, and rhinoceros skin. Now hunters were able to get more food.
SHELTER AND CLOTHING
Early people did not live in houses. They usually camped out in the open. They protected themselves from the wind by digging pits in the ground or by using such natural spots as the dry bed of a river. They took shelter under an overhanging rock or piled up brush to build windbreaks, or protection from the wind.
Early people used caves only for such emergencies as escaping from a sudden storm or a large animal. Caves were too cold and damp to live in all the time. When people heated the caves by fire, the smoke got in their lungs and hurt their eyes. Many
Cro-Magnons, especially those who lived in cold areas, built huts in which they lived for part of the year. The walls and roof of the huts were made of animal skins held up by wooden posts. Stones and heavy bones piled on the bottom of the skins kept them on the ground.
After hunters began killing large animals, they found that the animal skins could be used to protect their bodies and keep them warm. They learned to cut off the skin and scrape it to remove any remaining meat. The women then took the skin and laid it out in the sun to dry. Even though the dried skin was stiff and hard, the fur was soft and warm.
Later, people discovered that rubbing and pounding fat into the skin while it was drying would make it softer and less stiff.
At first people just wrapped the skins around themselves. Later they learned how to fasten several skins together. They used a sharp stone or bone to punch holes in the skins. Then they drew thongs , or long thin strips of animal skin, through the holes to join one skin to another. Before long they learned to shape a piece of bone until it was smooth and thin and pointed at one end. They made a hole in the thicker end and drew a thong through it. Thus, they had the first needle and thread. Clothing made a big difference in the way people lived. It protected them from the cold and the rain. With clothing, people could move from a warm, dry area into a cooler, wetter area.

MAMMOTH SKELETON
Prehistoric people hunted animals such as the mammoth for food. By
8000 B. C., mammoths and other large animals started to die out, and people began to hunt smaller animals such as deer. Today the remains of mammoths have been found in many parts of the world and are displayed in museums.
GROUP LIFE
Experts believe that most hunter/gatherers lived in groups made up of several families. In order to survive, the people within each group learned to help each other.
Here a group of hunters provides aid to a wounded companion.

ART AND RELIGION
Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon people were artists as well as hunters and foodgatherers. They collected shells and stones with interesting shapes. Cro-
Magnons made necklaces and bracelets which they decorated with designs or pictures of animals. They carved statues out of ivory and bone or molded them out of clay. Prehistoric artists painted scenes of animals and people on the walls of caves. Experts believe the artists either rubbed the paint onto the rock or blew it onto the surface through a hollow bone.
Cro-
Magnons covered the walls of certain caves with pictures painted in vivid reds, browns, yellows, and blacks. The pictures showed hunters and such animals as bisons, horses, reindeer, and mammoths , or hairy elephants. The most famous and complete cave paintings known are the Lascaux Caves, in France.
Many anthropologists think these paintings were linked to religion. The people believed that everything was alive and filled with spirits. They thought that creating an animal in paint gave them a kind of magic power over that animal’s spirit. They felt this would help them find the animal and kill it in the hunt.
Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon people also believed in a life after death.
Archaeologists have found a number of skeletons buried in caves. Near the skeletons were tools and weapons, and around them was a rough circle of stones.