Meet Early Man 

 

Introduction:   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!

Cheat Sheet: Who's Who of Early Man

Early Humans (Lucy, Neanderthals, Cro-Magnon and more!) 

Time Period	Name	Quick Glimpse
	Introduction	Did man live at the same time as dinosaurs? What is a hominid? What is an artifact? What is a fossil? Find out here!
About 3 million BCE	Australopithecus "Southern Ape"	Human-like hominids Lucy Basic traits of humans. Special because he could stand up. Main physical difference between early man and apes are the hands.
About 2 million BCE	Homo Habilis "Handy Man"	First true humans Stone tools - the first tool-maker Lived in Africa Taller, had a larger brain
About 1.5 million BCE	Homo Erectus "Upright Man"	Made and controlled fire The first hunters Traveled over land bridges from Africa, to begin to populate the world, about 1 million years ago
About 500,000 B.C.	Homo Sapiens "Wise Man" & Neanderthals	Neanderthals Buried their dead with ceremony. Stone-tipped spears, bone needles, bone fish hooks, sewed their clothes from animal skins, warm boots
About 25,000 BCE until about 10,000 BCE	Homo Sapiens Sapiens & "Moderns"	Cave Paintings Cro-Magnon & "Moderns" Bow and arrows, well constructed huts with central hearths for fires; necklaces & pendants, cave art, little statues made from ivory, antler, bone; tools and weapons for hunting and fishing, oil lamps. Used honey to sweeten food. End of the last Ice Age about 10,000 years ago.
	Links for Kids	Games, Stories, Interactive Activities
	Links for Teachers	Lesson Plans, Additional Resources
	Charles Darwin	Theories of Human Evolution