Name:______Block:______
Paleolithic Culture
Directions: You are an archaeologist; this means that you are a scientist who studies ancient cultures by analyzing the fossil remains left behind by communities of long ago. Look at the following evidence that you team has found to discover the world that ancient hominids lived in.
1. Cave paintings: These paintings were found in the Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc Cave, in southern France. Through radiocarbon dating; a process in which scientists study the rate of decay of carbon in organic materials to determine their age, you have determined that they are 30,000 to 32,000 years old. These are some of the earliest known cave paintings in the world.
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2. Neanderthal Tools: Discovered at a Paleolithic Village dig-site in Asia. These tools help your team of archaeologists discover what types of food Neanderthals ate. After dating the tools, archaeologists determined that they were from 10,200 BC.
3. Reconstruction of the Paleolithic world: By studying the fossil and geographical evidence, geologists (people who study rocks) and archeologists have been able to reconstruct the world that the Paleolithic man lived in. They have studied fossils of plants and animals, rock formations, and bone evidence that has been left behind. Through this research, scientists have been able to determine that the world the Paleolithic Man lived in looked like the following:
Questions
Directions: Using the artifacts you just looked at, answer the following questions regarding Paleolithic hominid culture.
1. What types of animals did Nomadic hominid tribes encounter and how do you know?
2. Did Paleolithic people have “culture?” Why or why not?
3. What was the world like that hominid tribes lived in? Was it dangerous? Was it scary? Why or why not?
4. What types of food do you think Hominid man ate? How do you know?
5. How did Neanderthals try to conquer their world? How do you know this?
6. How are we able to study cultures that did not have a written language?