Educational Resources

What might have been the first tools used to hunt? Sticks, stones... ...and bones Prompt the children to think how humans might have caught or killed animals with no tools at all. The earliest visitors to Nidderdale may just have used sharpened sticks or spears and stones to attack their prey. It is thought from evidence in the south of France, where many animal bones have been found at the base of cliffs, that in the absence of any actual tools or large enough weapons, larger creatures would have been guided towards and driven off the tops of cliffs and then killed when they fell. It is also thought that they may have been driven into swamps or pits and then attacked by humans once they had become stuck. Not everyone agrees about this theory, but in Nidderdale, there are possible locations for such a strategy at Guise Cliff and ........??? Also, in the Paleolithic era, swampy and boggy areas in the valley bottom after the ice ages may have made it possible to capture animals in marshy land. There is no archaeological evidence to support these theories in Nidderdale...and worldwide, not very much is yet known about exactly how early people used sticks and stones. Slings (see later slide) were commonly used to help throw the stones fast enough and hard enough to kill an animal and it is possible that ancient forms of these may have been made from animal skin.

How do you think hunters caught animals before weapons were invented? Did they: Chase them off cliffs? Chase them into bogs or holes in the ground? Use dogs?

The first hunting methods: