1. Educational
Resources

2. Prehistoric Nidderdale: First People in Stone Age Nidderdale
Humans Arrive
First People in Stone Age Nidderdale

3. The stone age covers a huge period of history.
It is known as the ‘Stone Age’ because
it marks the time when humans used stone
to make their tools and weapons.
It is such a long time period that it is split into
three different eras.
Can you guess which is which?
MESOLITHIC
NEOLITHIC
PALAEOLITHIC
- Old stone age
- Middle Stone Age
- New Stone Age

4. Stone Age Nidderdale
2.6 million years ago
12,000 y.a.
5,500 y.a.
4,000 y.a.
Present
Palaeolithic: 2.6 million – 12,000 years ago (y.a.)
Mesolithic: 12,000 – 5,500 y.a.
Children need to understand that the stone age was a VERY long period of time. Point out that the Paleolithic is a massive period of history compared to the mesolithic, neolithic or any subsequent time periods in history.
There are lots of things about Paleolithic life that we do not know and so evidence and how we use it to draw conclusions is very important.
It is important that the children understand the vocabulary for the three different eras of the stone age: old stone age (Paleolithic - started around 2.6 million years ago with the first humans using stone tools in Africa and ended around 10,000 BC or 12,000 years ago), middle stone age (Mesolithic – 10000BC to 3500BC, 12,000 to 5,500 years ago ) and new stone age (Neolithic – 3500BC to 2,00BC, 5,500 to 4,000 years ago ). They each represent large spans of time and also characterise particular changes in the Nidderdale landscape.
It is useful to have a time line on display and for the children to already understand the terms BC, AD and how time moves ‘forward’ in BC terms, even though the numbers get lower. E.g. 2000BC being more recent that 10,000 BC
It is also useful for the children to understand the term YA, meaning years ago and bp meaning before present.
Neolithic: 5,500 – 4,000 y.a.
After this ... Bronze Age
Iron Age
to present day

5. When, how and why did the first humans come to Nidderdale?
Didn’t humans first live in Africa over 2 million years ago?

6. The earliest humans lived in eastern Africa
over 2 million years ago.
Half a million years later they had travelled as far as Eastern Turkey and Northern China.
And evidence has shown them in England 800,000 years ago...

7. But how did they get here?
Britain is an island!
They walked!
The sea was lower than it is now. The water was frozen in thick layers of ice in the North.
Read: The moment Britain became an island by Megan Lane BBC News Magazine
15 February 2011 to understand more about the moment when Britain did become an island:
“It wasn't until 6,100BC that Britain broke free of mainland Europe for good, during the Mesolithic period - the Middle Stone Age. It is thought that landslides in Norway - the Storegga Slides - triggered one of the biggest tsunamis ever recorded on Earth when a landlocked sea in the Norwegian trench burst its banks. The water struck the north-east of Britain with such force it travelled 25 miles (40km) inland, turning low-lying plains into what is now the North Sea, and marshlands to the south into the Channel. Britain became an island nation.
At the time it was home to a fragile and scattered population of about 5,000 hunter-gatherers, descended from the early humans who had followed migrating herds of mammoth and reindeer onto the jagged peninsula.
"The waves would have been maybe as much as 10m (33ft) high," says geologist David Smith, of Oxford University. "Anyone standing out on the mud flats at that time would have been dismembered. The speed [of the water] was just so great."
People could walk across from mainland Europe!

8. So what is the evidence that humans were here 800,000 years ago?
UK Happisburgh c BP EN.svg Map by Philg88 Licensed for re-use under creative commons
So what is the evidence that humans were here 800,000 years ago?
In 2013, archaeologists discovered footprints at Happisburgh, on the East Coast of England.
By Nick Ashton, Simon G. Lewis, Isabelle De Groote, Sarah M. Duffy, Martin Bates, Richard Bates, Peter Happisburg footprints: Hoare, Mark Lewis, Simon A. Parfitt, Sylvia Peglar, Craig Williams, Chris Stringer [CC BY 4.0 ( via Wikimedia Commons
These were dated as being 800,000 years old!

9. Might these first people have come as far north as Nidderdale?
It is possible...
...but early people did not
stay in Britain.
Why not?

10. From 2 million to 12,000 years ago, the climate kept changing from warm to...
freezing...
...and back again.
There have been a number of ice ages over the last 2 million years, but our own understanding of the ‘ice-age’ relates to the last ice age which was at its most severe 21,000 years ago and ended about 11,500 years ago.
The climate in Nidderdale will have had a major impact on the ability of the dale to support life.
We don’t exactly know what have caused large parts of the planet to ice over. The theories include products in the atmosphere, changes in the position of our planet in relation to the sun, and changes in ocean currents.
Many people believe that humans are responsible for the current warming of the planet. Some people, however, believe that the planet is warming anyway as part of the natural cycle of the earths relationship with the sun.
So humans could not easily survive in Nidderdale during the coldest times.
In the coldest times the whole of the UK was covered in ice sheets.

11. ...So humans came to Britain in warmer times and left again when it was very cold.
IS THERE EVIDENCE?
What is evidence? What are the different types?
What do the words history and pre-history mean?
Why is there no written evidence of this era?
No written evidence – this is PRE-HISTORY
Objects and clues have been found

12. Nidderdale AONB Evidence of humans Glaciers melted for the last time
Neanderthal
tools-
Cresswell
Crags (Nottinghamshire)
Paviland man (Gower)
Modern
humans
(Cresswell
Crags – Derbyshire)
Happisburg
Footprints
(Norfolk)
Boxgrove man
(W.Sussex)
Swanscombe woman
(Kent)
Pontnewydd teeth (Wales)
Britain
abandoned
by humans
ICE
800,000
years ago
500,000
years ago
400,000
years ago
230,000
years ago
150,000
years ago
50,000
years ago
11,500
years ago
33,000 years ago
27,000
years ago
Periods of glaciation
Nidderdale AONB
Most of the direct evidence of early humans, such as bones, have been found in other parts of the UK, but tools and other man made and carved objects have been found in Yorkshire in general and Nidderdale in particular.
The age of these objects coincide with the warmer periods of the earth. The children might, with some help, be able to conclude that this could suggest that humans were found in Britain between the glacial periods and they could be encouraged to think about why this is likely to be the case.
Evidence of humans
Glaciers melted for the last time
Evidence of animals in Yorkshire Dales

13. These objects have been found in
What about Nidderdale?
These objects have been found in
Upper Nidderdale
The evidence for early humans in Nidderdale includes a number of stone tools found throughout the dale. Nidderdale Museum and Harrogate Museums Service have these objects in their possession.
The children could spend some time thinking about these objects and coming to their own conclusions as to what they might be, what they might show us / tell us. They might even consider why these objects have survived while other more perishable evidence has disappeared, how we might tell how old they are (where found, how found, level of technology needed to shape these objects?)
What could they tell us?

14. What questions could we ask?
What are they?
What are they made from?
What?
Who left them there?
Who?
Where were they found?
Where?
Why were they there?
Before revealing them, ask the children to tell you the ‘what, who, where, why, when...and even how’ ‘question words’ which will help them to think about the objects more carefully, as if they are archaeologists.
Why?
When were they used?
When?
You can see these for yourself at the Nidderdale Museum, Pateley Bridge

15. Talk to a partner I think they are ..... ...because. Hmm..Yes.
Give the children time to think about what they have seen and talk it over with a partner.
If the children do not come up with reasons for their views, try and get them to explain their thinking with reference to what they notice about the objects e.g. Made from, look like.
e.g. Tell your partner three things you have noticed about the objects

16. These objects are sharp tools made from a stone called chert.
They were used by people to hunt and cut things.
They were found in the piles of earth on the valley sides which had been moved by huge ice sheets.
The finding of these objects was recorded in detail by a Major E.R. Collins (see notes on next slide). He was convinced that the tools he found were from the paleolithic era, which spans a huge time period.
Chert is a very hard stone which occurs naturally in the limestone of Upper Nidderdale (see Nidderdale: The Beginning for more information on the rocks of the valley).
Ask the children to look closely at the drawings of the stone tools in major Collins paper. What do they notice about these pieces of stone which might make them different to ordinary rocks. Can they see how the edges have been knocked or flaked away?
Use the Nidderdale ‘Stone Age’ topic box and compare and draw the different stones and rocks. Label any features of the examples and try and draw them really accurately to show those features (e.g. Any signs that the stones have been ‘shaped’ or ‘worked’.)
Reference: The Palaeolithic Implements of Nidderdale, Yorkshire
E. R. Collins
Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society of East Anglia / Volume 6 / Issue 03 / January 1930, pp
DOI: /S , Published online: 25 October 2013

17. He used detailed drawings to carefully record the things he found..
This local man spent a lot of time looking for and recording evidence of prehistoric people in Nidderdale.
Major E.R. Collins
Visit the Nidderdale Museum to see some of his finds and even see his old army uniform and letters.
He used detailed drawings to carefully record the things he found..
Major E.R. Collins was a well respected local enthusiast who made many searches of the Nidderdale area looking for evidence of prehistoric life. He was a founding member of the Nidderdale Museum and was part of an organisation called the Prehistoric Society of East Anglia. In 1930 he wrote about his findings and this was published in the ‘Proceedings’ of this society.
Not everyone agrees about how old the tools are which Major Collins found. However, many of his artefacts are of historical importance and, in addition to those at Pateley Museum, other finds are held by the University of Cambridge and by the Harrogate Museums Service.

18. He recorded his finds on a map.x x x x x x x
X marks the sites where they were found. x x x x x
Ensure that the children relate to this map of Upper Nidderdale. Use Google Earth to show the shape of Nidderdale, or use mapping activities in the web section on Nidderdale: The Beginning, which shows Nidderdale in the context of a map of the UK. x
You can see how it matches the aerial map of Nidderdale. x
Shows where later tools were found.

19. These stone tools could be the earliest evidence we have of people in Nidderdale.
They may show that people arrived here in the warmer periods of the Palaeolithic (old stone age) many thousands of years ago.
If the chert tools were found in mounds of earth moved by the huge ice sheets of glacial times, it implies that they were left there in an interglacial period. This means they could be extremely old indeed and certainly from before the last ice age.

20. These show some of the ways we find out
Archaeologists and interest groups are still looking for clues in Upper Nidderdale today:
Archaeological digs
Researching in books
Louise Brown
Aerial photos
Research into ancient times is undertaken in a number of different ways. Do the children know the difference between primary research and secondary research?
Primary research is information collected first hand (e.g. Field word and digs)...and secondary research is information we can read which someone else has already found and recorded e.g. looking in books, on the internet and at photos other people have taken.
Walking over the land
These show some of the ways we find out
more about our past in Nidderdale

21. Evidence suggests that stone age people continued to arrive in Nidderdale from the earliest times onwards.
Important evidence found is now recorded in the Historic Environment Record (HER) database for North Yorkshire
One page from the prehistoric HER and a map of Upper Nidderdale could be used with an ordnance survey map to help children practise using grid references and making keys.
It can be helpful to show the evidence on maps...

22. Palaeolithic evidence
Flint tools
Ask the children what they think a hut circle might be. It is the evidence left on the ground of where a circular hut might once have stood.
Ask the children why they think the word ‘possible’ is used in the key.
Possible hut circle
Possible rock shelter

23. Mesolithic evidence Flint / stone tools Enclosure
Ask the children what they think an enclosure might be. It is the evidence left on the ground of where people have made a wall, bank or fence for a purpose – to keep something ‘in’ or ‘out’ or to mark a boundary.
Flint / stone tools
Enclosure

24. Neolithic evidence Axe head Rock shelter Flint / stone tools Cairn
Ask the children what they think a cairn might be. It is the evidence left on the ground of where people have made a pile of stones to clear a field. How could we possibly know how old a pile of stones might be? Why might stones need to be moved from a field? By Neolithic times, settlers had started to work the land with ploughs.
Some cairns were made when someone died, possibly as part of a burial ceremony or to mark the grave of an important person.
Ask the children what they think a carved rock might be? What might it be for? How would we know how old it was?
Flint / stone tools
Cairn
Carved rock

25. Evidence suggests that people have come to Nidderdale ever since..
All stone age evidence
Axe head
Cairn
Flint tools
Possible hut circle
Possible rock shelter
Stone tools (Major Collins)
Cup marked rock

26. What do you think the evidence shows?
Humans arrived in Nidderdale over many thousands of years...
The evidence suggests that the first humans came to Nidderdale when the climate was warmer and left again when it was colder.
Ask the children if they know what ‘evidence’ is.
But why did they come...and how did they survive?

27. Can you think why humans came to Nidderdale? LETS FIND OUT!
Food
Warmth
What do humans need to survive?
Would early people find these things in Nidderdale?
Would early man find these things in Nidderdale?
Water
Air
LETS FIND OUT!
Humans are likely to have come to Nidderdale to find those things which would help them to survive.
Ask the children to consider what they think are the most essential things which humans need to survive.
What do they think is the order of importance?
After oxygen (air) and water, what do they think is the most important?
Help the chldren to understand that given that water and air would have been everywhere, food would be the most likely motivation for humans to travel to Nidderdale. Shelter and warmth would be needed once they got here, but not such a motivating force.
Shelter

28. Image Credits
We gratefully acknowledge the use of the following images in this document:
Slide 3: Drawing of hand axe: By José-Manuel Benito Álvarez (España) —> Locutus Borg (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Photo of hand axe: By José-Manuel Benito Alvarez - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0,
Slide 6, 10: These images, originally available on the internet via S Scotese’s website are now able to be used via an app. [License Information (c) 2010, C. R. Scotese These maps may be used or modified in any manner for personal use, teaching, research or in scientific publications as long as appropriate credit is given to the author
Moore, T.L., and C.R. Scotese., 2016, Ancient Earth: Breakup of Pangea, Vers. 1.7, iOS Mobile Application, retrieved from
Slide 16: Spear drawing:
By J. G. D. Clark, 1936 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons