Social Studies - Chapter 1

How did people of the Old Stone Age survive?

• Training dogs to help them hunt

• Gathering seeds to plant crops

• Hunting and gathering

• Building stone houses

People of the New Stone Age survived by:

• Growing their own food

• Developing new and better hunting tools from stone

• Moving from place to place to find food

• Discovering fire, which allowed them to live in cold climates.

Which condition below might make an area unsuitable for growing food?

• Rich soil

• Plenty of sunlight and warmth

• Gentle rains

• Short springs and summers

When many people changed from hunter-gatherers to farmers, the world population:

• Increased because artisans were needed in new cities

• Increased because people had more food to feed their families

• Decreased because farming requires fewer people than hunting

• Decreased because early crops were small and not nutritious

By 3000 BC, which metal was most commonly used for making weapons?

• Copper

• Silver

• Bronze

• Gold

In early farming villages, most people farmed for a living. However, in early cities:

• There was a wide variety of occupations

• There was no farming

• People hunted and gathered

• People imported all their food

Traders carried new tools and ideas from one city to another, resulting in:

• An increase in farmers

• The spread of civilization

• The discovery of bronze

• The need for irrigation projects

To learn about life in prehistoric times, scientists use:

• Oral traditions of ancient civilizations

• Objects such as bones and tools

• Early writings found on clothing and tools

• Powerful computers to translate ancient writings

Historians use oral traditions to:

• Describe their research

• Learn what people in a society consider important

• Examine the geography of a civilization

• Determine the date of an object, such as an ax.

Egyptian civilization developed on the banks of the Nile because:

• The sunshine in Africa allowed life to flourish

• The river flooded each year, depositing rich soil on its banks

• The river connected to the Mediterranean Sea

• People could not grow crops in the surrounding desert