History
What was the Stone Age?
Quick answer
The Stone Age is the long period, from about 3 million years ago until metal tools appeared, when people made tools from stone, hunted and gathered food, and later began farming.
In one sentence
The Stone Age was the earliest and longest period of human history, when people made their tools and weapons mainly from stone.
Explained
The Stone Age lasted for millions of years. Historians split it into three parts:
- Palaeolithic (Old Stone Age): from about 3 million years ago to around 10,000 years ago. People were hunter-gatherers. They moved from place to place, hunting animals such as deer and mammoth, fishing, and collecting nuts, fruit and roots.
- Mesolithic (Middle Stone Age): a time of warming climate after the last Ice Age, when people lived by forests and coasts.
- Neolithic (New Stone Age): from about 10,000 years ago in the Middle East, and later elsewhere. People started farming and keeping animals, stayed in one place and built villages.
rock
fire
tent
Early people learned to control fire, which gave them warmth, light, protection and cooked food. They chipped flint into hand axes, scrapers and spear points. They wore animal skins and lived in caves, or in shelters made from branches and skins. They also made art. Cave paintings in places like Lascaux in France and Altamira in Spain show animals such as bison and horses, painted thousands of years ago.
In the Neolithic, people made pottery and polished stone tools and built stone monuments. Stonehenge in England was started around 5,000 years ago. Skara Brae, a village on Orkney in Scotland, still shows stone homes with stone beds and shelves. The Stone Age ended in different places at different times when people learned to make metal tools, first from copper and bronze.
Stone Age people were just as clever as we are. Their lives were hard, but they solved problems with what they had. Fossils and ancient tools let us learn about them; see fossils and rocks. Later, great river civilisations such as ancient Egypt grew from farming.
Examples
| Item | What it tells us |
|---|---|
| Flint hand axe | tools were shaped by chipping |
| Cave paintings | people made art and told stories |
| Stonehenge | Neolithic people could plan big projects |
| Skara Brae | how farmers built homes |
Common mistakes
- "Cave people lived with dinosaurs." Dinosaurs died out more than 60 million years before the first humans.
- "Stone Age people were not clever." They had skills, language, art and knowledge of nature.
- "Everyone lived in caves." Many lived in shelters and huts.
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Stone Age
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Question 1 of 4
What did Stone Age people use to make tools?
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