Author: teacher

The Stone Age to Iron Age

Key Theme: Settlement

By the end of the unit, children will have explored and have an understanding of these key pieces of information:
The Stone Age lasted a very, very long time.
The oldest period of the Stone Age, the Palaeolithic period, began approximately 2.5 million years ago. T
he Middle Stone Age is called the Mesolithic period.
The Neolithic period, often called the New Stone Age, dates back approximately 8–10,000 years.
During the Stone Age, our ancestors started to use tools and weapons made out of stone to help them hunt and eat food. As a consequence of changes in global climate, crops became more readily available, and Stone Age humans began to farm the land.
Hunter-gatherers became farmers and people settled
The Stone Age ended when humans began to use metal to make tools and weapons. Metal was found from mining. Tin and Copper was combined to make bronze.
The Bronze Age lasted from around 2500-700 BC saw people migrating and using these tools and religion adapted in Britain.
The Beaker people
Homes were made of wattle and daub, wood and stone.
The Iron Age (500 BC to 43 AD) saw farming change along with tools as iron is much stronger than bronze.
Grains were important to the people and were stored underground. Farming was the most popular job.
Hill forts were built for living and protection.
Coins were invented.

Key Pieces of Evidence
Due to this unit being about pre-history, children will be taught how we know about this period in time. They will use facts and images about:
Cheddar Man
Skara Brae
Star Carr
Howick House
Horton House
Butser Ancient Farm

Stonehenge is an existing monument of the Bronze Age that children will study. It links to religion and the practices of Bronze age people.

Prehistoric means the time before there were any written records.
But our ancestors did leave clues which helped archaeologists and historians understand what life was like for them.

At the beginning of the unit, children will be taught that this topic is ‘pre-history’ and will use timelines to show this.

BC and AD are letters that are often found at the end of dates. BC refers to the years that come before the year 1 and AD refers to year 1 onwards.
As there are so many different faiths around the World, people sometimes use BCE (before the Common Era) and CE (Common Era) because they aren’t just related to Christianity

Children will learn about different tools, how they were made and what they were used for.

Stone Age cave paintings will be studied. In early Stone Age times, humans lived in small groups, using stone tools as they hunted for large mammals and gathered plants, fruit and berries. These hunter-gatherers were almost always moving (nomadic) to find food. About 10,000 years ago, as the climate warmed, certain crops like wheat and barley became more plentiful. Humans no longer needed to move around as much to find food and started building permanent homes to live in near land that they could farm.

Key Vocabulary
Hunter-gatherer
early farmers
Stone Age
Bronze Age
Iron age
hill forts
Historical source
Archaeologists
Period
Evidence
chronological