The Early Man

                                                          The Early Man
No one knows the earliest date when man came on this Earth. Experts agree that there were no men 1,000,000 years ago but that they already existed about 500,000 years later. So the first human beings came some time between the two dates.

We are not sure when early man first appeared but we can tell how he lived. He was almost the same as the wild animals around him. He had no weapons, no language and few means of getting food. He did not know fire. He lived for many thousand years in this way and learned the simplest things very slowly.

The old stone Age (Or Paleolithic Age)

From the simple stage, man developed to the Old Stone Age. This was the period when man began to use stones for making tools and weapons.

At first, he took pieces of stone, which he made into rough shapes by striking them against each other. The first axes were made in this way.

Each axe had a narrow and a thick end. The thick end was held in the fist and the narrow end was used for cutting, hitting, and for chopping wood.

The most important thing which Old Stone Age man discovers was the use of fire. It kept his body warm and cooked his meat. By making a big fire, he could also frighten away dangerous animals.  Early man had to live in trees and under very simple shelters.

After he discovered fire, he lived in caves. He always left a fire at the cave entrance to keep away animals.

The earliest ways of making fire were very simple. One was to push a stick forward and backward in a wooden groove.

 After a time the pointed stick was hot enough to make a spark. Another simple way was to twist a pointed stick round and round quickly by hand on a second piece of wood.

 All these early ways were slow and not always successful. Today, in our own country, farmers still make fire by using a machete to set sparks to tinder. As man learned more he found better ways of making fire.

The middle Stone Age (Or Mesolithic Age)

In the old stone age the tools of the simplest types. After many thousands of years much better stones tools were made by middle Stone Age man.

Middle Stone Age man made better tools and weapons by pressure method. Flint is a kind of stone which can easily be broken up in thin sheets. Middle Stone Age man broke up pieces of flint by pressing them with a hard piece of bone or wood.

The pieces which split off had sharper edges than anything the Old Stone Age man could make. In this way axes, knives arrow and spears heads drills and cutting tools were made.

With his better weapons, middle Stone Age man could hunt. He learned to throw his spear better with the help of the spear thrower. Later, he invented the bow and arrow. This made him a much better hunter.

Stone Age man knew something about art. On rocks in their caves and in other sheltered places we can still see many fine drawings and paintings which were made by the people of the middle stone age. The stone drawings and paintings were of men and animals which they knew well.

Another kind of middle atone art was the carving of ivory. Several ivory needless have been found showing that middle Stone Age man had also learned to sew and to make skin covering for himself.

Like people today, middle Stone Age men were fond of ornaments. They often wore coloured stones, shells and pieces of carved ivory.

The New Stone Age (or Neolithic Age)

After thousands of years, man passed from the middle stone age to the new stone age. It was during this age that man learned to make weapons by grinding stones edges. He learned how to catch animals alive and to keep them in pens until needed for food.

Some of these animals had young ones. Some of them became tame and lived with man in his house. Early man son found that some animals could be tamed but that others were too dangerous.

The New Age stone man son found better homes than trees, rude shelters and caves. He learned to build good huts and he gradually stopped moving about in search of food. He began to live in villages.

 At this time he learned to make useful household articles such as pots, jars and plates and to use the fibres of certain plants to make coarse clothing.

An important development in the new Stone Age was the discovery of agriculture. Now man found that he need not depend for his food on being a hunter. This helped him to settle down in one place.

 The first crops which man learned to grow were probably grains such as wheat, barley, oats and guinea-corn: he had become a food producer.

The Growth of Towns and Villages

When early men began to live a settled life, they found that it was safer and better to live near each other. In this way villages and small settlement began. Such groups were able to protect themselves from wild animals and unfriendly neighbours.

 They also found that their lives were better and safer if they obeyed the order of one another. The man usually chosen was the bravest or the most cunning. So arose the idea of a leader, who in time became the chief of ruler. The people willingly obeyed him as long as he could protect them.

As the life of early men became less simple, the elders began to meet many times to talk about hunting the growing of crops and other important matters.

These early villages were nearly always built on the top of hills on river banks and shores of lakes, or on a fertile piece of ground. The three great needs of the early villages were protection, food and water.

The Stone Age came to an end when metal was discovered. The first metal man discovered was copper. For a long time copper was not widely used because it was too soft. The metal age really began, when much later man learn to mix copper with another metal known as tin. The resulting metal was called bronze. Bronze is hard but it is easy to shape and polish. It was used to make tools and weapons. From Bronze Age, man came to the Iron Age. Modern man is about to leave the Iron Age for space Age.

Early man did not at first have a language and he could not write. But we have learned about early man in two ways. The first from diggings which archeologist have done are still doing all over the world. They have dug out bones of early man and these have been put together by experts.

They give us a very good idea of what he looked like. The bones of the animals he hunted have also been found and have been put together in the same way. Many animals have no longer live today.

Archeologists have also put the story of the early man made-needles axe, heads, hatchets, pieces of pottery, arrow points and spear heads. Caves where Stone Age men lived have been discovered in recent times in Spain, France, England and many part of the world.

 The best examples of drawing and painting of Stone Age men have been discovered in France and Spain, but many others have been found in Nigeria and other parts of Africa.

We have also learned about the early peoples through the study of tribes who were discovered about 100 years ago and were still using the stone tools. Such people were the original inhabitant of Australia, South Africa and South America.

Older people often tell their children stories about what happened long ago. These are called legends, but they are not always true, because sometimes facts are forgotten or changed.

Today, we use writing to help us remember historical fact. But even so the fact of history can still sometimes be altered in books.