A life ancient man directly dependent on the tribe in which collective labor was established. Everyone lived in common dwellings, because it was easier to survive that way. Having united in a community, they could pass on experience from older generations to younger ones, who, in turn, learned to hunt, make various tools of labor from wood and stone. Skills and knowledge have been passed down from generation to generation for many centuries.

Every student should know the history of their ancestors. They can draw knowledge from textbooks that describe the life of ancient people. Grade 5 provides an opportunity to get acquainted with the first people and learn the features of their life.

First fire

Man has always been interested in the fight against natural elements. The conquest of fire was the first step towards the survival of mankind. Ancient people first became acquainted with fire, seeing volcanic eruptions and forest fires. People were not afraid of the scale of the disasters that befell them, but on the contrary, they wanted to use fire for their own benefit. Therefore, they learned to extract it artificially. Getting a fire was a rather laborious process, so it was carefully protected and preserved. Ancient people made fire in the following way. They took a dry plank, made a hole in it and twisted the stick in it until smoke appeared, followed by fire in the dry leaves near the hole.

Weapons and tools

The history of the life of ancient people has Interesting Facts. Scientists have found interesting finds: labor and many household items. They surprise with their ingenuity. All items are made by ancient craftsmen from improvised materials: wood, bone and stone. The main tools of labor were objects made of stone. With their help, wood and bone were subsequently processed. Many tribes made war clubs, arrows, spears and knives from stone for protection. Deer and whale bones were used to make axes for making boats from a single tree trunk. The process of making one boat with such a tool could take up to three years. Dog bone needles were used to sew shoes and clothes.

Features of cooking

The life of an ancient man could not do without cooking. The first people made household items mainly from bushes and branches, leather, bamboo, wood, coconut shells, birch bark, and so on. Food was cooked in wooden troughs into which red-hot stones were thrown. In a later period, people learned to make dishes from clay. This marked the beginning of the real cooking of food. Spoons were analogous to river and sea shells, and forks were ordinary wooden sticks.

Fishing, hunting and gathering

In communities, fishing, hunting and gathering were an integral part of the life of ancient people. This type of food production belongs to the appropriating form of economy. In ancient times, people were engaged in collecting fruits, bird eggs, larvae, snails, root crops, and so on. Mostly it was the work of the women of the tribe. Men got the role of hunters and fishermen. While hunting, they undertook various methods: traps, traps, paddocks and raids. The purpose of the hunt was to obtain food and other means of subsistence, namely: horns, tendons, feathers, fat, bones and skins. In catching fish, sticks with sharp stone tips were used, and later they began to weave nets.

raising livestock

The appropriating form of economy was replaced by the producing form. One main one can be distinguished - cattle breeding. ancient people changed over time, they turned from nomads into settled ones, they stopped striving to leave the places of their settlements, settled in them forever. Therefore, the domestication and breeding of animals became possible. Cattle breeding originated from hunting. The first were sheep, goats and pigs, later cattle and horses. Accordingly, an indispensable pet was a dog that guarded the house and was an ally in the hunt.

Agriculture

Women played a leading role in the development of agriculture, as they were engaged in gathering. The life of an ancient man changed radically when he mastered this type of food production. Trees were cut down with axes from stone, then burned. Thus, space was freed up in flattering areas. A digging stick with a sharp tip was an impromptu chopper. The first people dug the earth with it. Later, a shovel was invented - a stick with a flat end, and a hoe - an ordinary bough with a process to which a sharp stone, bone tip or animal horn was tied. Throughout the world, ancient people grew in the fields those plants that were inherent in their habitat. Corn, potatoes and pumpkins were grown in America, rice in Indochina, wheat in Asia, cabbage in Europe, and so on.

crafts

Over time, the life of an ancient man forced him to master various crafts. They developed according to the conditions of the area where the first people lived and the availability of nearby raw materials. The earliest of them are considered: woodwork, pottery, leather dressing, weaving, processing of skins and bark. There is a conjecture that pottery arose during the process of weaving vessels by women. They began to smear them with clay or squeeze out depressions for liquids in the pieces of clay themselves.

Spiritual life

The spiritual life of ancient man is seen in cultural heritage ancient egypt. This great civilization left a significant mark in the history of all mankind. Religious motifs permeated all the works of the Egyptians. The first people believed that human earthly existence is only a transition to this stage. This stage was not considered so important. From birth, people were preparing to leave for a more perfect other world. The reflection of the spiritual life of Ancient Egypt is reflected in painting and other forms of art.

Human life in the art of ancient Egypt

Extraordinary and bright painting flourished in the state. The Egyptians were deeply religious people, so their whole life consisted of rituals, which can be seen in the themes of their paintings and drawings. Most of the paintings are devoted to higher mystical beings, the glorification of the dead, religious rites and priests. To this day, the finds of these works are true examples of art.

Paintings by Egyptian artists were performed in accordance with strict frames. It was customary to depict the figures of gods, people and animals strictly in full face, and their faces in profile. It looks like some kind of mystical scheme. Painting among the Egyptians served as decoration of religious buildings, tombs and buildings where noble citizens lived. Monumentality is also characteristic of the painting of Ancient Egypt. In the temples of their gods, Egyptian artists created images that sometimes reached enormous sizes.

The painting of Ancient Egypt has a unique style that is unique to it, incomparable with any other.

The ancient civilization of the first people captivates with its versatility and depth. This period is an important stage in the development of all mankind.

We do not know much about ancient people, our ancestors, who lived many thousands of years ago. However, the finds of archaeologists make it possible to draw a picture of what the life of primitive people was like, how they existed, survived and learned. The development of primitive civilization led to what we can see around now - science, technology and the rapid development of mankind.

Facts about ancient people

• At the earliest stage of primitive society, people did not have the concept of private property.
• The first ancient people who used stone tools walked the territories of modern Europe more than 2.4 million years ago.
• Even with primitive weapons, primitive people managed to exterminate dangerous animals, for example, huge flightless birds of prey that once lived in North America ().
• It is believed that Homo sapiens - a reasonable person - took shape as a species about 10-12 thousand years ago.
• Neanderthals became extinct about 40,000 years ago. Most scientists agree that they developed in parallel with the Cro-Magnons, but the latter appeared later, and probably completely replaced and assimilated the Neanderthals over time.
• In terms of genetics, we are very similar to ancient people. Deciphered in 2006, the Neanderthal genome is 99.5% similar to the modern human genome, as well as to the Cro-Magnon genome.
• Most ancient Neanderthal people had fair skin and red hair. Cro-Magnons were black.
• Primitive people split into two parallel branches of development about 580 million years ago.
• Africa is considered the birthplace of ancient people.
• Approximately 80 thousand years ago, the population of primitive people decreased by several orders of magnitude. What exactly caused this global extinction, scientists do not know. Most likely, the eruption of a particularly powerful volcano filled the atmosphere with ash for several years and caused global cooling- volcanic winter ().
• Ancient people constantly evolved, but evolutionary processes have not stopped even now. The man of the future will be no more like us than we are like primitive people.
• Primitive people settled Australia about 50,000 years ago by swimming Indian Ocean.
• The life span of ancient people was shorter than ours. Over time, the human metabolism has slowed down, resulting in an increase in the length of time we can live.
• The first animals domesticated by ancient people were wolves, the ancestors of modern dogs.
• Music was not alien to primitive people. Archaeologists have found flutes made of bone, which are about 40 thousand years old.
• Mammoths were exterminated by ancient people who hunted them not only for meat, but also for bones, from which they made tools and much more.
• The jaw of primitive man was larger than ours, because it had 36 teeth, and not 32, as it is now. Well, then the food was rougher.
• Ancient people made jewelry from pebbles, snake skin and bones.
• Judging by archaeological finds, primitive people learned to make fire by friction about 500 million years ago.
• In France, in Nice, an ancient man's hut was discovered with traces of a fire. It was built about 380 thousand years ago.
• Primitive people invented the bow and arrow 25,000 years before our era.
• Instead of building their own dwellings, ancient people usually used natural shelters like caves. But there were also exceptions.
• Pithecanthropus sites, the ancestors of Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons, have been discovered in Africa, Europe and Asia.
• Pithecanthropes are separated from Neanderthals by an epoch of about 1 million years.
• One of the earliest forms of religion among ancient people was the worship of fire.
• The primitive tool axe, which is a cross between an ax and a knife, was also used as a weapon. The oldest specimen found, made of stone, is about 1.7 million years old.
• In those few thousand years when Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons coexisted, they waged wars among themselves. Judging by the archaeological finds, they also ate each other, and made jewelry from the teeth of defeated opponents.
• According to studies, all the inhabitants of the Earth, except for indigenous Africans, have from 1 to 4% of Neanderthal DNA. But the indigenous people of Africa are one hundred percent descendants of the Cro-Magnons.
• Ancient people, Cro-Magnons and Neanderthals, could freely interbreed with each other, giving rise to viable offspring.
• Dwelling on Far East primitive people mastered the art of making ceramics more than 14 thousand years ago.

Archaeologists learn about the past by digging up the ruins of ancient structures or places where people lived a long time ago. They examine the found objects in order to make a picture of the past by the mosaic pieces.

People have always been interested in history, but over the centuries they have drawn knowledge about antiquity mainly from myths and traditions and did not particularly strive to find material evidence from past times. In the end XVIII-early XIX in. wealthy Europeans began to travel and collect antiques. They searched for them in Greece and Rome, where ancient buildings and sculptures were in full view. But, for example, in the Middle East, many cities were completely buried underground until the Europeans started looking for antiquities.

This head of a young woman (less than 4 cm high), found in Brassanpouis (France), is perhaps the oldest sculptural portrait. She was made from Ivory about 24,000 years ago.

People began to explore the past, and the first "archaeologists" began to wander around the world. Based on clues from old books, they began excavations, extracting many ancient objects from underground. Unfortunately, many finds were damaged, but the first archaeologists obtained remarkable information about ancient civilizations.

Archaeologists at the excavations ancient settlement in search of antiquities, they carefully study each layer of soil removed by them.

The body of this woman is well preserved due to the high acidity in the peat bog where it was found. Human remains provide information about how people ate and what diseases they suffered from.

One of the first archaeologists was the German merchant Heinrich Schliemann (1822–1890). After carefully reading the epic poems "Iliad" and "Odyssey" by the ancient Greek poet Homer, which described two lost cities, Troy and Mycenae, he decided to go in search of these cities. In 1870, near the Dardanelles in Asia Minor, he discovered Troy. In 1876, Heinrich Schliemann discovered the fortified city of Mycenae buried in a hill. In addition, in Mycenae, he found many gold objects, which testified to the innumerable treasures of the ancient Greek civilization.

Archaeologists have also been able to trace the history of writing by discovering clay tablets with ancient writings. One of these finds was the library of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal, who ruled in the 7th century. BC. . This library contained 20,000 tablets with ancient inscriptions. When the texts were deciphered, scientists were able to read historical evidence about the life of disappeared civilizations and about social order those times.

Today, archaeologists can use scientific methods to very accurately determine the age of an object. Without archaeologists, our knowledge of history would be very poor, and lost cities ancient world could have been buried forever.

Every year a new layer of bark and sapwood grows on a living tree. When a tree is cut down, the layers of sapwood are visible on the cut in the form of rings.

If you count the rings, you will know how old this tree is.

Unlike the tombs of other Egyptian pharaohs, all the buried treasures have been preserved. The king was wearing a golden mask, and his mummy rested in three golden coffins nested one inside the other. Items that the pharaoh might need in the afterlife were stored in a separate room.

The first anthropoid creatures, or hominids, appeared on Earth more than 4 million years ago. In different parts of Africa, the remains of great apes, called Australopithecus, were found. In Hadar (Ethiopia) they found the skeleton of one of the individuals, which was named "Lucy" (although it later turned out that the skeleton belonged to a male). Scientists were able to find out that Lucy, although she resembled a chimpanzee, was upright and walked on two legs. This characteristics human being.

Australopithecus (growth from 1 to 1.5 m) with long arms and with short legs looked like an ape, but was upright. He had a low forehead and a small brain.

Humans, great apes, and just apes descended from the same ancestor. It could be an Egyptian, or "Egyptian ape". She lived in Egypt about 35 million years ago and climbed trees on all fours.

Of all the descendants of this mammal, only humans developed bipedalism, that is, the ability to walk straight on two legs. They freed up their hands, which could be used for other purposes. Appeared in Africa about 2.5 million years ago Homo habilis, a "handy man" who could use simple stone tools, not just his own teeth or hands, to kill and skin animals.

Homo habilis was probably the first human.

A more intelligent kind of primitive man, Homo erectus, or Homo erectus, first appeared in Africa about 1.8 million years ago. He was taller and leaner than Homo habills, but with strongly protruding jaws and massive brow ridges. Able to move quickly on land Homo erectus became the first hominid to leave Africa and travel north and east. His remains have been found in China, on the island of Java and in Europe. It was not easy for human ancestors to chew raw meat, millennia passed until they learned how to soften food over fire. Homo erectus already cooked on fire.

These hominids lived in groups. The males were engaged in hunting, and the females collected edible plants and took care of the children. Animal bones found in China at the site of one of the sites indicate that primitive people successfully hunted elephants, rhinos, wild horses, bison, camels, wild boars, rams and antelopes. The hunting of such large animals could not have been successful with the primitive weapons they possessed, unless one assumed that Homo erectus were much smarter than their ancestors. It is possible that they possessed the rudiments of speech.

These hunters and gatherers were constantly moving from place to place. At night, they slept in caves or built primitive huts from branches and animal skins. The females collected firewood for the fire. Male individuals made stone tools, including those that could butcher the carcass of a dead animal.

China 500,000 years ago. A group of Homo erectus settle into an overnight camp. A fire is kindled, which also helps to drive away wild animals, the meat is cut into pieces.

About 750,000 years ago there appeared people resembling modern people. These were the first Homo sapiens ("reasonable man"). Their remains have been found in Africa, Europe and Asia.

One of the types Homo sapiens there were Neanderthals who appeared more than 200,000 years ago. They got their name from the Neander Valley in Germany, where in 1857 their bones were found in one of the caves. Chinless, with heavy jaws and overhanging brow ridges, Neanderthals looked somewhat bestial, but their brains were larger than those of modern humans.

Neanderthals died out about 30,000 years ago. They probably lost in the fight for food modern man.

Modern people, scientific name which Homo sapiens sapiens, first appeared about 125,000 years ago and reached Europe 40,000 years ago. They had neither prominent brow ridges nor massive jaws like the first ones. Homo sapiens. Their faces were distinguished by a high forehead and chin. The brain was larger than that of any of their ancestors, with the exception of the Neanderthals. After the disappearance of the Neanderthals, they were the only people on planet Earth.

Our immediate ancestors Homo sapiens sapiens appeared about 125,000 years ago, most likely in Africa, from where they spread throughout the world.

Distribution direction of Homo sapiens sapiens

People started painting and carving on cave walls long before they could write. The most famous examples of rock paintings were found in 1940 in France, in the Lascaux cave.

They are made about 18,000 years ago with paints made from natural minerals. For drawing, they used sticks or their own palms.

For primitive nomads, life basically consisted of an endless search for food. The cave paintings and other artworks found in the caves show that they may have had religious beliefs and practices that they believed aided in their search for food. The rock carvings were not intended for display. The drawings were made with paints, and sometimes they were carved on the dark walls and ceilings of the caves, where no one could see them.

Artists of those times had to use burning branches to see their creations and ladders to reach high places.

Since the rock paintings were hidden in the depths of the caves, it can be assumed that they served as part of a secret ritual, the purpose of which was to attract good luck on the hunt. People probably believed that by drawing an animal, they could count on prey. It is possible that some of the drawings depict scenes from real life. Be that as it may, people have been drawing and carving on the walls of caves for 20,000 years, and samples of primitive art have been found in Europe, Africa, Asia, North and South America and Australia. These images allow us to judge climate change and environment.

Ancient people left prints on the walls of their hands. A palm was applied to the wall and paints circled it along the contour.

As time went on, the hunters became more skillful and used more and more effective weapons. Sometimes they were able to push large prey off a steep cliff, or lure them into a swamp. When people had speech, they were able to discuss plans for joint hunting in detail, which made it more efficient.

The Paleolithic, or Old Stone Age, covers the period from the beginning of the use of the simplest tools (approximately 2.5 million years ago) to the Neolithic, or New Stone Age, when people began to engage in agriculture (12,000 years ago).

The hunters were armed with spears, bows and arrows, knives, and for fishing they made fish hooks. People studied the surroundings to understand where herds might congregate or where prey might hide. Knowing the environment saved a lot of time and effort and made life easier.

Most hunter-gatherers lived in small groups of two or three families that could easily subsist on large prey such as mammoth or bison. Probably, each group had a leader who made decisions and made plans.

About 20,000 years ago on Earth lasted ice Age. Huge woolly mammoths were then found in the northern regions. For hunters, they served as desirable prey.

Hunters were armed with wooden spears with sharp stone tips. When throwing, wooden or bone devices, spear throwers were used, which allowed the hunter to throw a spear with greater force. The fishermen fished in the lake with a net, and the women gathered nuts and fruits.

Hunting was very important, but plant foods were an essential part of the diet. People found certain types of nuts, fruits and edible herbs. They discovered that bees collect honey, and with it the food becomes sweeter. People dug up the earth to find the roots and tubers of plants. Thanks to plant foods, it was possible to survive the difficult times when the hunt was unsuccessful. However, the most important food was meat.

From the skins of animals it was possible to make clothes. First, the skin was dressed so that it would not crack. To do this, it was stretched on the ground and scraped, removing fat. Then they smoothed it with bone tools so that it became soft. When the dressing was completed, pieces of the desired shape were cut out of the skin with a stone knife. Holes were made along the edges so that the pieces could be connected to each other, and they were sewn together with a bone needle, using animal tendons as threads.

In the evening, the whole group gathered at the parking lot. Shelters were made from animal skins stretched over wooden frames. Mammoth hunters built conical dwellings from the bones of these animals. They also built huts from branches intertwined with each other, forming a solid tent, inside of which there was a frame of thick sticks. Over the branches could impose animal skins.

Temporary dwellings were often arranged in a circle to better protect themselves from wild animals and bad weather. The fire scared away the animals.

Evolution turned primitive people into us, and Pithecanthropus with Australopithecus are our direct ancestors. However, evolution does not stop, and who knows what the people of the future will be like? Nevertheless, archaeologists and paleontologists are still studying the life and life of ancient people. This allows us to learn more about how life used to be, and how evolution has twisted and twisted.

1. The human face has acquired this form in the process of evolution in order to better take a hit. Ancient people often sorted things out by force.
2. Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons were two parallel lineages of primitive humans that split over 500 million years ago.
3. The ancient Cro-Magnon people came out with African continent, and Neanderthals may have originated in modern Europe.
4. Neanderthals were distinguished by fair skin and mostly red hair, while Cro-Magnons were dark-skinned. When their migration began, they partially assimilated and partially destroyed the primitive people of the Neanderthals. The last Neanderthals disappeared about 40,000 years ago.
5. We all have the genes of primitive people. On average, each person has between 1 and 4 percent of Neanderthal DNA.
6. Homo erectus, one of the most ancient species of ancient people, began its distribution from Africa about a million years ago.
7. Interbreeding between ancient people different types was possible. Archaeological finds show that Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons successfully produced offspring.
8. Primitive people swam across the Indian Ocean and settled in Australia about 50,000 years ago ().
9. Ancient people had 4 more teeth than ours, and their jaw was larger.
10. Scientists believe that primitive people usually did not even live to be 40 years old. This is partly due to predators and the lack of medicine, and partly due to the fact that the metabolism of ancient people was faster than ours. Over time, it slowed down, which contributed to longevity.
11. Primitive people learned how to make fire about 500 million years ago. The method used was the simplest - friction.
12. The very first animal domesticated by ancient people was the wolf ().
13. Art was not alien to our ancestors. The rock paintings that have survived to this day have become a prototype modern books, and allowed us to learn more about the life of ancient people.
14. In part, primitive people are to blame for the extinction of mammoths. They actively hunted them, and not so much for meat, but for skins and bones.
15. Music also did not bypass the ancient people. The oldest musical instrument discovered by archaeologists is a flute made of bone, which is about 40,000 years old.
16. The fashion for jewelry among primitive people also existed. They made jewelry mainly from teeth, bones and dried fruits.
17. For the manufacture of clothing, ancient people used fish bones and thorns of some plants as needles.
18. The most common tool in that era was the so-called axe, which was a kind of hybrid of an ax and a knife. Primitive people made these tools from stone hundreds of thousands of years ago.
19. Bow and arrows were invented by ancient people about 25,000 years ago, quickly realizing that a new formidable weapon can be used not only for hunting, but also for war with their own kind.
20. Within the territory of modern France discovered a primitive Neanderthal hut with a fire, which is about 380,000 years old ().
21. However, for most of their development, ancient people preferred not to build dwellings, but to use natural shelters like caves.
22. Arachnophobia, the fear of spiders, is a legacy of our primitive ancestors, as is the fear of the dark. Both large predators and poisonous spiders () could be found in dark caves.
23. The population of modern humans declined to a critical level about 80,000 years ago. Most likely, this was caused by a particularly powerful eruption of some supervolcano, as a result of which a protracted volcanic winter, which led to a lack of sunlight, a cold snap and crop failures of many plants.
24. The earliest form of religious practices and primitive people was the worship of fire.
25. Gold was one of the first metals to be used by ancient people due to its softness and ease of processing ().
26. Hundreds of thousands of years ago, Neanderthals set traps for animals. They quickly realized that this was a safer and more efficient activity than direct hunting, albeit more laborious.
27. The brain size of an ancient person 2 million years ago was comparable to the brain size of a monkey. Since then, it has grown considerably.