1.2 Hunter-gatherers - T -

• History
• Middelbare school
• vwo
• Leerjaar 1

1. The Age of Hunters and Farmers

1.2 Hunter-gatherers

theory

- T -

Which Age are we studying in this Unit?

What is this lesson about?

Hunter-gatherers hunted wild animals and collected edible things from nature. We use cave paintings and other sources to study how these people lived. In prehistory, man did not write things down. Prehistory means: before writing.

What you will learn in 

this lesson

• what are hunter-gatherers?
• what are sources?
• why are sources important to learn about prehistoric people?
• why did hunter-gatherers live in small groups?
• why did hunter-hatherers have only few belongings?
• how did hunter-gatherers adapt to the climate?

Word Duty

Cave paintings: paintings made in caves by prehistoric humans

Prehistory: time in history before people could read and write

Sources: remains from the past

Hunting-gathering: a way of living where people hunt animals and gather food like plants and berries to survive

Nomads: people who do not live in a fixed place

KEY WORDS

Timeline of this module

Introduction

Did you bring your bow and arrow? Did you hunt wild horses today to get lunch? Probably not. But 15,000 years ago this was the normal way to live. In prehistoric times, people lived as hunter-gatherers and had to survive in nature. Let us see what life was like in prehistory.

The cave paintings of Lascaux

Click the green hotspot to go to an article about this amazing discovery

Prehistoric cave paintings from Lascaux (10,000 - 17,500 years old).

The cave paintings of Lascaux were discovered by two boys on Sept 12, 1940. Modern time illustration.

Marcel Ravidat, second from left, at the Lascaux cave entrance in 1940

Discovering the cave

written sources

&

non-written sources

Sources are remains from the past that historians study to learn about that past.

So, a source = information.

For example: journalists use different sources to write their articles: documents, eye witness stories, photographs, video footage etc. These are all sources (of information).

There are different types of sources. For example:

Written Sources: every object from the past that has textual information: books, inscriptions, maps, coins.

Non-written Sources: every object from the past that has no textual information: bones, weapons, buildings, clothes.

Top:         three written sources. 

Bottom:  three non-written sources

Prehistory

The paintings in the Cave of Lascaux can teach us a lot about how people lived a long time ago. Prehistory is the time before people could write. Everything we know about this time comes from things found by archaeologists and paleontologists. These things are called sources. Sources give us information about the past. Historians use two types of sources to learn about history: written sources and physical (or unwritten) sources. 

In prehistoric times, there were no written sources. Early humans talked to each other and made drawings, but they did not write things down. They left behind flint tools, remains of houses, and bones. What we know depends on the sources that archaeologists and historians find. Although many things have been lost over time, many objects are still buried and waiting to be discovered.

Written sources are text sources. The information that a historian gets from the source is written (in any language or on any material).

The written source in the picture is a clay tablet with cuneiform inscriptions. It is the oldest form of writing in history, dating back to 3200 BC.

human remains belong to the category of unwritten sources. 

Some words in Dutch and English are almost the same; like prehistory and ‘prehistorie’. That is because both languages use words from Latin. In this case, ‘pre’ which means before.

Hunter-gatherers

When we look at the cave paintings, we see drawings of animals that lived in the Lascaux area a long time ago. Most scientists believe these wild animals were hunted by people. Hunters used spears or bows and arrows to kill bulls and horses. They also fished in rivers or at the coast. Women stayed near their small homes to care for children or went out to gather berries, nuts, mushrooms, and other food. This way of living is called hunting-gathering.

Many scientists think the cave paintings were made to ask for help from gods. Today, some hunter-gatherers have a shaman, or medicine man, who they believe can practice magic and talk to the gods. This way, they can pray for a successful hunt.

Hunter-gatherers lived in groups of about 20 to 50 people, made up of a few families. These groups did not stay in one place because they needed to follow the animals they hunted. When there was no food, they packed up their tents and belongings and moved to a new place. People who move from place to place and do not live in one fixed location are called nomads.

This is how a group of hunter-gatherers might have lived during prehistory (present-day drawing).

Even in our modern time, some people are still hunter-gatherers. For example, Indian tribes in the Amazon, the San in Africa and the aboriginals in Australia.

To travel with few belongings

Before the new Hanze railway was built in Overijssel, archaeologists dug in the area and found old campsites. The oldest ones were 6,000 years old. The hunter-gatherers who used these campsites left behind remains of it, which has become a source of information. Hunter-gatherers didn’t have a lot of possessions. They couldn’t carry many belongings with them as this would have been too heavy to move every time. Instead they used everything that they found in nature or took from animals and left behind what they didn’t need any more.

The objects that were found in Overijssel help us to understand how these people cut down trees or how they managed to kill animals. After killing animals, they used their hides to make blankets and clothing. They needed clothing to match the climate where they traveled. In cold places, like the Netherlands, they wore thick clothes made of fur and hides. In warmer areas, like Africa or the Middle East, they wore fewer clothes or none at all.

These prehistoric objects are made from bone and antlers. Such organic tools are rarer than stone tools from prehistory (9000 - 3000 BC).

Flint tools found near Hattemerbroek. You can see how these tools were produced, some pieces still fit together (6000 - 2000 BC).

fill in the gaps to make a summary

Finished with the summary?
Now make a printscreen of the finished summary
and upload it here.

You have finished with this lesson, meaning:
- You have read the texts
- You have made the summary
- You have done the practise questions.
Are you well prepared for a quiz / test or do you need extra help?

If you still need help, if something is not clear, you can ask your question here.

congratulations