What was the Stone Age?

The Stone Age was the period of time when people made and used stone tools and before they began working with metal. The Stone Age is part of prehistory because it is before we have any written records.

The Stone Age period includes our early ancestors through to modern Homo Sapiens (our species.) During this time the Neanderthal people also lived.

People ate nuts and berries and hunted animals for meat and skins. They lived in caves or shelters made from animal bones and skins.

Fun Stone Age Facts for Kids

1. Despite what many toy manufacturers seem to think, there were no dinosaurs in the Stone Age. Dinosaurs died out around 65 million years ago.

2. Nearly all of human history was in the Stone Age. A couple of million years of it. Only in the last 5000 years have we progressed beyond Stone Age technology.

3. Mammoths and Saber-toothed Cats did live at the same time as Stone Age people. And Cave Bears.

4. We often talk about The Ice Age meaning the last ice age which took place towards the end of the Stone Age.

5. The people of North Sentinel Island in Asia are isolated and still live a Stone Age lifestyle today.

6. Lots of animals were much bigger than their modern counterparts: Mammoths (that's how they got their name!), Saber-toothed Cats and Cave Bears were all really big.

7. At the beginning of the Stone Age people didn't know how to make fire but made use of naturally occurring fires after lightning strikes.

8. It wasn't just adults who created cave art, children made cave paintings too.

Cave Art

Cave painting is one of the things we most associate with Stone Age. The cave paintings at Lascaux in France were discovered by four schoolboys in 1940. A reproduction of the caves has been created next door so you can visit, but the original paintings are protected from further deterioration.

Cave paintings show that Stone Age people had culture. Cave paintings have been found around the world.

We watched this video of the recreated cave paintings at Lascaux and then my son created his own artwork in the same styles. Pastels work really well for this.

We were very interested to find that archaeologists think that children made cave paintings as well as adults.

Stone Age Animals

Stone Age creatures included huge animals Woolly Mammoths, Saber-toothed cats including Smilodon, lions, mega bears (cave bears) and hyenas. These animals had been around since before the stone age and lived alongside stone age people when they came along.

There were also lots of smaller animals including smaller mammals, birds and a variety of reptiles and insects. Lots of sea-creatures too.

But it's the big land mammals that are most associated with the stone age.

My son loved this video which shows dead Mammoth being fought over by a stone age lion, wolves and a cave bear!