Life in the Stone age

Our ancestors lived a primitive life and relied heavily on stone as their primary tool and weapon material, but since the invention of a written language was thousands of years away, we can only piece together what we have found from archilogical digs.

When was the stone age?

Most estimates put the beginning of the stone age at around 2.5 million years ago, with the earliest start being as long ago as 3.5 million years. The stone age began as soon as our ancestors evolved enough to work out how to use stone as a tool, with the earliest actual evidence of stone shaping happening 2.5 million million years ago when humans, or whatever we were at the time learned how to chip stone to make it sharper. The Stone age ended between 8,700 BC and 2,000 BC depending on the area of the world, but in Britain it ended around 2,500 BC.

Why was it called the Stone Age?

Ages are usually defined by either political or royal influence, or a significant invention that advanced the race as a whole. During the stone age the most advanced thing they had was a carved piece of stone, but this simple invention allowed them to farm, build and hunt more effectively which allowed for larger populations. The stone age is named as such because the human race relied so heavily on stone in their daily lives, and it was also the most advanced material they had.

Did people live in caves during the stone age?

There has been evidence of people using caves as shelter for thousands of years, but whether they lived in them permanently is another question. The problem with caves is that they can be very dangerous, especially is a fire is being used in one as the heating and cooling can loosen rock and cause collapse, something they must have worked out at some point. The other issue is that there simply wouldnt be enough caves for everyone, or the caves wouldnt be in the right place such as close to hunting or gathering grounds.

What did stone age people wear?

In the early stone age people hadn’t worked out how to thatch roofs or weave fabric, so making their own clothes from farmed crops was not possible. Towards the later part of the age, flax was farmed in the northern hempisphere to make into linen but this didnt start to happen until close to the copper age. Animal skins would be the only choice for someone in the stone age, with leather clothing and furs being made into everything from boots to shirts. This wouldnt be as hard to maintain as it may sound because not only does leather last a very long time, but the animals it would have come from were often huge like the Megalocerous above which could provide a full set of clothes for a family of four.

(A stone age leather shoe preserved in the ground for thousands of years)

What did stone age people eat?

The answer depends entirely on the area of the world your looking at, but in this example i’ll use food in stone age Britain. Most of he food we take for granted today didnt exist in Briatin at the time and people survived mostly by hunting and gathering. Farming crops was alot of work and very difficult when you only have stone to work with, and combined with the huge amount of wilderness with such a tiny population, wild food was abundant and varied. Deer, Boar, Beaver, game birds and small animals were hunted when the tribe didnt want to go after something big like a wooly rhino or cave bear. Fish was a big part of their diet because it provided a year round food source, but plants mostly consisted of roots, berries and nuts. Grain was gathered from the wild in small amounts during the beginning of the age, with evidence of wheat and barley being a priority crop on farms towards the later part of the age when populations grew.

What were homes like in the stone age?

In the early part of the age they were always covered with animal skins to keep out the weather, with the supports made of branches. Towards the end of the age people worked out how to thatch roofs using straw or reeds and how to weave sticks to make wattle walls covered in daub. Homes would have been very small and usually only consisted of a single room. There has recently been an archiological dig in Russia that has unearthed a large 25,000 year old structure that appears to have been made using mammoth bones as the supports, a good example of how resourceful stone age people could be.

Was there only one stone age?

There is only one era in history called the stone age, but it is split into three major categories that reflect the advancement of the human race. It began with the Paleolithic period (Old stone age) which ran from 30,000 BC until 10,000 BC, then was followed by the Mesolithic period (Middle stone age) from 10,000 BC to 8,000 BC, and ended with the Neolithic period (New stone age) 8,000 BC until 3,000 BC.

How did stone age man make fire?

There have been no artifacts recovered from the stone age that show the use of something like a bow drill or fire plow, because the material would have long since been destoryed and wouldnt be recognisable, but it is highly unlikely they weren’t able to make such things since they didnt even know what pottery was at this point. The most likely answer is that someone worked out that hitting stone with other stone produced a spark, and flint produced the best sparks of all. Chipping flint sparks into tinder would have been the most likely method used because the intricate carving techniques and knowledge of how to make and use some kind of contraption would probably have been unknown to them.