Archaeologists and Artifacts

Start with the Stone Age reading and tool table, then move to the farming chart so students can see the change side by side. Use the dig site diagram last, and ask students to defend each answer with a detail from the page.

Read a dig site diagram to compare layers and explain what artifacts can and cannot tell us. The directions on the page read: Read the text and the dig site diagram. Then answer the questions on page 2. An answer key is included.

Yes, both. We made it for 6th Grade Ancient History, and the page works the same whether it lands on a kitchen table or a center rotation. At home, most families go through it together and talk the answers out loud, and that talking is where most of the learning happens with early humans. In class it runs well as independent work while you pull a small group. Print one copy or thirty, whichever the day needs.

Paleolithic means Old Stone Age, when people lived in small bands and moved with the seasons. In the Neolithic age, which began about 12,000 years ago in Southwest Asia, people learned to farm and settled in villages. Early Humans and the Stone Age compares the two with a table of tools.

The migration sheet explains that sea level was lower during the last Ice Age, so a land bridge joined Asia and North America. Many scientists think people walked across it and then spread south. The map shows approximate dates in years ago.

Archaeologists and Artifacts explains that deeper layers are usually older, a dated coin can tell the age of the layer around it, and radiocarbon dating works on things that were once alive. Students apply this to a diagram with three layers.