The best way to understand the life of prehistoric people is to try some of their daily activities.
We can call it Experimental Archaeology,
Living History or Back to Roots.
Workshop program
Paleolithic
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brief introduction to the Paleolithic (time span, anthropogenesis - advantages and disadvantages)
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stone tools and weapons of the Paleolithic - examples of the gradual development of tools (from a chisel, through a hand axe to blades and arrowheads); examples of raw materials (flint, radiolarite, limnosilicite, obsidian); examples of stone-tipped lances, spears and arrows
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flint knapping (short presentation)
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working with flint tools - students have an opportunity to use a number of chipped flint tools with which they can work with wood, bones, antlers, leather, etc.
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drilling with a simple spindle with a stone tip into pebbels, shells, wood
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Venus – examples of true replicas (clay) of the most famous Venuses (Moravany, Věstonice, Willendorf, Kostienky and others) or mammoths
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modelling of a Venus or a mammoth from clay
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spinning fibres to string - demonstration of nettle and sinew strings; presentation of processing nettle stems into fibres and spinning - pupils spin fibres from nettle, hemp, flax;
Neolithic
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neolithic tools - demonstration of an axe and the method of making a stone axe, students can try sharpening; demonstration of a sickle with flint blades
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spinning with a spindle whorl - pupils can try it (more demanding on skill)
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drilling with a Neolithic drill (pumpdrill) in stone, shells, wood.
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grain crushing - students can try crushing grain on a grain crusher
Finally
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fire - how fire was started in the past (friction, striking) - students can try the hand drill technique (friction of stick against a wooden mat; don't worry, they won't really set fire to anything); under good weather conditions the possibility to start a fire outside for a demonstration (no guarantee that it will actually work)
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spear throwing - if the school has a suitable space (playground, school grounds) - throwing spears with a spear thrower (atlatl)
Duration: 5 lessons (possibility to modify)
Price: 5 000 Kč (200 Eur)
Workshop Leader: Mgr. Branislav Kočan
tel: 00421 908 420 468
00420 734 728 954
mail: branokocan@gmail.com
STARTECH - Staré technológie, o. z.
20 rokov pedagogická prax
prekladateľ
redaktor
prezident STARTECH o. z.
Visit our page - there is a lot of interesting stuff about prehistory, texts unfortunately only in Slovak language.
For best performance use desktop.
Paleolithic
Neolithic
First metals