thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand years years years years years years ago ago ago ago ago ago is a of the reconstruction the face man stone bronze and of a iron ages Who The Stone Bronze and Iron Ages cover a long period of history They stretch from the time of the first ancestors of modern humans who lived over two million years ago through to the first modern humans and up to the time of the ancient civilizations It was a period of great discovery and change as humans began to use tools grow crops and work with metal These inventions had a huge impact on prehistoric life in Britain 10,000 years ago Lived This map shows how and when early humans traveled and settled across the globe This who 4
What happened The names Stone Age Bronze Age and Iron Age are terms that historians use to divide up different stages in history The Stone Age is defined by the use of stone tools while people worked with bronze during the Bronze Age and then began using iron tools in the Iron Age bronze other and metals Iron Age e people also such worked with gold This Bronze Age pottery model of a horse-drawn chariot was found in what is now Lebanon Where The Stone Bronze and Iron Ages began and finished at different times around the world For example the Iron Age began 500 years earlier in the Middle East than in Europe In Europe the end of the Iron Age is considered the start of the great ancient civilizations such e the ancient Greeks and Romans Some areas never went through certain periods People in South America did not work with bronze or iron and therefore did not experience the Bronze or Iron Ages The Great Ziggurat of Ur was built by the Sumerian civilization in Mesopotamia modern-day Iraq in the Bronze Age The building has been restored to show what it would have looked like thousands of years ago 5
first tools STONE The ancestors of modern humans began to use stones as tools around 2.5 million years ago in Africa This marked the beginning of the Stone Age During the Stone Age humans learned how to turn stones into useful and increasingly effective tools genius Chipping away The very first stone tools were stones that had been naturally chipped Humans used the sharp chipped edge as a blade for cutting It took time to find rocks that were naturally chipped so people began to chip the rocks themselves to create cutting tools They used another stone to chip away flakes of rock from one side of a round stone This created a rough serrated edge that could be used to cut meat or dig roots up out of the ground BRAIN WAVE Early stone tools had rough irregular blades The first stone toolmakers used a hard stone to shape tools Later they figured out that some rocks could be chipped using softer materials One technique was to use a long piece of bone or hom to gently chip away very small pieces of rock This created a much smoother blade
This Stone Age hand ax has t wo sharpened sides It is made from flint a t ype of rock that was often used for tools in the Stone Age Axes and beyond Over time humans realized that chipping away both sides of a stone made a sharper and more effective blade These tools were known as hand axes Humans took the idea of the hand ax and developed it into different types of blades such as knives arrowheads and tools for scraping These blades could cut through wood bone and horn Sophisticated stones Adding handles to stone tools made them much easier to hold It also meant they could be swung which enabled people to apply more pressure when cutting This helped them to cut up thick tree trunks Stone Age people also learned how to make smoother tools by polishing them on a rough rock A smooth blade was sharper which meant that it could cut deeper and more accurately To keep up with the demand for flint tools Stone Age people mined flint from the ground This drawing shows Grime’s Graves a flint mine in Britain There miners dug deep holes and picked flint out of the ground using horn tools 7
