On the Trail of the Earliest People

Stone tools were used :

1. To cut meat & bone.
2. Scrape bark (from trees) & hides (animal skins).
3. Chop fruit & roots.
4. Some stones may have been attached to handles of bone or wood, to make spears & arrows forhunting.
5. To chop wood for firewood.
6. To dig the ground to collect edible roots.
7. Stitching clothes made out of animal skin.

The reasons behind the moving of hunters-gatheres are :

• If they had stayed at one place for a long time, they would have eaten up all the available plant & animal resources. Therefore they would have had to go elsewhere in search of food.
• Animals move from place to place - either in search of smaller prey, or, in the case of deer and wild cattle, in search of grass and leaves. That is why those who hunted them had to follow their movements.
• Plants and trees bear fruit in different seasons. So people may have moved from season to season in search of different kinds of plants.
• People, plants and animals need water to survive; people living on river banks would have had to go in search of water during the dry seasons as some rivers are seasonal while others are perennial (with water throughout the year.)