Name______Period ______Date ______

Chapter 1 - Lesson 3 “How Archaeologists Study the Past" p. 26-33

1. Who do archaeologists work with when making new discoveries about how prehistoric people live?

2. How do archaeologists uncover the story of early people?

3. Scientists called ______often work with archaeologists too. Anthropologists study ______. What does studying culture mean / include?

4. Fill in the chart below for EARLY HUMANS (p.29)

Who? / How many years ago? / Characteristics / interesting facts
australopithecines / hominids / • Hominids walk on ______feet
• Learned to walk on the ______
Homo habilis / • Homo habilis means “Man of ______”
• Where did they appear? ______
• What kind of tools did they use to crack open
bones? ______
Homo erectus / • Homo erectus means “______”

5. Fill in the chart below for MODERN HUMANS (p.30)

Who? / How many years ago? / Characteristics / interesting facts
Homo sapiens / • Homo sapien means ______
• they ______their dead
• they created ______
• made ______tools
• began to ______
• developed ______systems
• built ______
• migrated from ______to______and ____

6. What was the name of the husband/wife who first began searching for early human remains in Africa in the 1930’s?

7. In 1974, American archaeologist Donald Johanson discovered an unusually complete skeleton of an australopithecine. He and his team named the skeleton ______.

8. Answer these questions about Lucy from the History Makers section on p.31.

  1. Where in Africa did they find the skeleton of Lucy?
  2. What was the first part of the skeleton discovered?
  3. How much of the skeleton were they able to retrieve?
  4. Why is she named Lucy?
  5. What was Lucy’s brain like and what animal did they compare it to?
  6. Was Lucy able to walk upright?
  7. What theory did Lucy challenge? The theory

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Name______Period ______Date ______

brain led n

The invention of tools, the mastery of fire and the development of language and farming are some of humankind’s most important achievements. These advances took place during the prehistoric period known as the Stone Age.

Period / Dates / Characteristics of period
Paleolithic Age
(Old Stone Age) / 2.5 million –
8000 BC / • homo period
• hunters and gatherers
• used simple stone tools with sharp edges to cut and chop
Mesolithic Age
(Middle Stone Age) / 10,000 – 6000 BC / • developed needles, thread, harpoons, and spear throwers
• began to control fire and develop language
• specialize in hunting particular animals
• gatherers used grindstones to prepare the food they gathered
Neolithic Age
(New Stone Age) / 8000 – 3000 BC / • only homo sapiens lived during this time
•
•

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