Reading Skill
Stone Age
Life
The term "Stone Age" is used to describe a period of
human evolution where stone was used as the hardest material for making tools.
The Stone Age started around 2.5 to 2 million years ago when early humans first
produced the first stone tools in East Africa and ended with the development of
agriculture, the domestication of certain animals such as sheep, goat and cow,
and the smelting of copper ore to produce metal. The transition out of the
Stone Age occurred between 6000 BC and 2500 BC.
The Stone Age is further split into the Palaeolithic (literally,
"old age of the stone"), the Mesolitic (Middle Stone Age) and the
Neolitic (New Stone Age).
Life in the
Palaeolithic
During the Old Stone Age, the Paleolithic, starting around 2.5
million years ago, humans were grouped together in small scale societies such
as bands and gained their subsistence from gathering plants and hunting wild
animals. Humankind gradually evolved from early members of the genus Homo such
as Homo habilis, who used simple stone tools into fully behaviorally and
anatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens sapiens), around 200,000 years ago.
Homo habilis is believed to have constructed the first man-made structure in
East Africa around 2 million years ago, consisting of simple arrangements of
stones to hold branches of trees in position.
The Paleolithic is characterized by the use of knapped stone tools
known as choppers, although at the time, humans also used wood and bone tools.
Other organic commodities were adapted for use as tools, including leather and
vegetable fibers; however, given their nature, these have not been preserved to
any great degree.
Food of these hunter-gatherers included animals and plants that
were part of the environment in which they lived. Palaeolitic people
particularly liked animal organ meats including the livers, kidneys and brains.
They also ate leaves and roots and towards the end of this period wild cereal
grains.
It is believed that between 100,000 and 50,000 years ago, the
brain of Homo sapien was well enough developed to allow fully modern behaviour
including the use of relatively complex language. Based on DNA analyis, in
2003, Alec Knight and Joanna Mountain of Stanford University suggested that the
original human language may have been a click language similar to the language
spoken today by the Hadzabe people.
Around the end of the Paleolithic, humans began to produce the
earliest works of art and engage in religious and spiritual behavior such as
burial and ritual. The climate during the Paleolithic periodically fluctuated
between warm and cool temperatures.
<Original
script>
The Stone Age was a time thousands of years ago, when humans lived
in caves in jungles. There are 500 people and they have short life. Humans need
three basic things that are water, food and Warmth/Shelter. Life was simple and
there were only two main things to do: To protect themselves from the wild
animals and to gather food. For both purposes, people made tools from stone. A
special kind of sharp stone called flint was used to cut things. Stones were
also used to make fire. Since in those times, humans used stone for almost
everything they did, it is called Stone Age.
In this Stone Age there are many technologies. The Stone Age was a
time when people made tools of stone instead of the metal we use today. In this
era many people still used axes and farming tools made of stone. People used
different types of tools for many different uses like digging, cooking,
hunting, farming, making clothes and making pots. Humans lived in caves, under
large rocks and out in the open. Inhabitants of eastern Africa started to make
structures out of stone and also made roofs out of wood. They wear leave
Life was difficult for Stone Age humans. In fact, until modern
times, most humans had one goal in life—to survive that they need three basic
things. There are water, foods and Warmth/Shelter. Morin lived in the Stone
Age. He could make tools from stone and he got his food by hunting wild animals
and fishing and gathering wild foods (nuts, berries, vegetables, etc…) he lived
in cave. He could speak but don’t understand the alphabet but he could
communicate with written symbols. He likes to eat snake and fish.
From this era it makes me to know and understand much more because
people must do everything for life. I think foods are the most important for
them. They create tools to protect themselves from the wild animals and to
gather food. In addition, they lived in cave and they don’t have cloth. They
wear leave as cloth. If I lived in the Stone Age I would create the clothes
from fur for people. I think I am very lucky to live in the Digital Age and not
the Stone Age. Thank you for your attention.
