What is the Stone Age?
Q: What is the Stone Age?
A: The Stone Age was a prehistoric time when people made tools from stone. It began when people created the first stone tools about 3.3 million years ago and lasted for about 3.4 million years, ending between 4,000 BC and 2,000 BC.
Q: What materials were used to make tools during the Stone Age?
A: During the Stone Age, people made tools out of stone, wood and bone. However, these materials do not last as long as stone so most of the Stone Age tools archaeologists have found are made of stone.
Q: How is the Stone Age divided?
A: Archaeologists divide the Stone Age into three sections - Paleolithic ("old stone"), Mesolithic ("middle stone") and Neolithic ("new stone").
Q: What did people invent during the Neolithic period?
A: During the Neolithic period, people invented farming and pottery and started to care for animals like cows and pigs.
Q: When did smelting (making metals) begin?
A: Sometime between 3000 BC and 2000 BC, people discovered how to make metals by smelting them which probably happened in the Middle East. People used copper first then learned how to make bronze.
Q: When did the Bronze Age begin?
A: The Bronze age began when people started using metals instead of stones which marked an end to the Stone age.
Q: Where were there still groups using Stone age technology in modern times?
A: Some groups of people in Papua New Guinea continued to use Stone Age technology into 20th century such as using stone-tipped weapons for hunting food or making shelters with animal skin .
Q: What kind of food was eaten during this time period ?
A: Food that was eaten in this era included berries (e.g blackberries), fish , animals (e .g mammoth )and animal organs .
