Did early man live at the same time as dinosaurs? 

The answer to that one is simple. Nah! No way. Not a chance. Nobody knows for sure why dinosaurs disappeared, but they do know that dinosaurs died out about 65 million years ago. The first hominids (human-like primates) did not appear until 3.6 million years ago. Even if scientists are off a few million years or so, early man simply did not live during the same period in history as dinosaurs. 

This is not to say that early man had it easy. They did have to face saber-toothed tigers, cave lions, and woolly mammoths! But, they did not have to fight dinosaurs! (Some of the movies you've seen have men fighting dinosaurs - fortunately for mankind, this is movie nonsense. Dinosaurs were long gone before man first appeared.)

As you learn about Early Man, you may find words with which you are not familiar. I'll give you three definitions right now, because these are terms you will see quite often!

• Hominids are the family of mankind and his or her relatives.

• Fossils are remains of living things (plants, animals, people), not things that were made.

• Artifacts are remains of things that were made, not remains of living things.

The Old Stone Age people were hunters/gatherers. We know about these people because scientists have found fossils and artifacts, which reveal traces of their life. Human-like hominids first appeared about 3 million years ago! Man went through a lot of different stages to evolve into the human being of today!

Since the evolution of man (and the Stone Age) covers a period of roughly 3 million years, we've created a Cheat Sheet, a sort of who's who for Early Stone Age Man to make it easy to .. Meet Early Man!