Features of technical equipment Stone Age travel

Lesson summary

Compiled by: Busalaeva Oksana Vladimirovna

Geography teacher

Municipal educational institution "Nizhnedobrinsk secondary school"

Item geography Class: 5

General didactic goal of the lesson : create conditions for studying a new topic:"P about the traces of Stone Age travelers"

Lesson type: Learning new material

Activities: Formation of ideas about the possibilities of travel by ancient people

Planned educational results:

Subject:

Students will be able to:

Determine the causes and consequences of geographical travel and discoveries;

Explain the influence of travel on the development of geographical knowledge;

Understand the significance of T. Heyerdahl's journey to the Kon-Tiki and what it proves.

Metasubject:

Ability to work with various sources of information, highlight the main points in the text, structure educational material, prepare messages

Set a learning task under the guidance of a teacher;

Plan your activities under the guidance of a teacher;

Identify cause-and-effect relationships;

Determine criteria for comparing facts and phenomena;

Be able to conduct a dialogue, developing a common solution.

Personal:

To form among students a personal attitude to the issue of the settlement of people across continents and islands.Be able to evaluate your own actions and the actions of other people from the standpoint of social norms. Develop an emotional and value-based attitude towards the environment, the need for its conservation and rational use;use geographical knowledge for adaptation and creative activity.

Solvable educational problems: How can you prove that ancient people could make long journeys by sea? Why are there uninhabited islands?

Educational aspect:

Check the degree of mastery of the material on the topic, identify problems, and outline ways to eliminate them;

Developmental aspect:

To promote the formation and development of OUUN as the basis for the formation of key competencies of students:

Communicative: master the basic techniques of oral speech, express judgments, give detailed answers to questions, use evidence techniques, and formulate your thoughts competently and clearly.

Informational: use sources of knowledge of various types (presentations, illustrations, diagrams, etc.);

Educational and research: independently determine the most rational ways of performing work, make comparisons, highlight features (hypotheses), apply previously obtained knowledge of knowledge to solve new educational, cognitive and practical problems. View cause-and-effect relationships. Give definitions of concepts, terms, generalize, classify, systematize educational material.

Social: determine your role in the class in accordance with the goal.

Reflexive: analyze your educational activities, identifying difficulties, adjust the learning system, evaluate the performance of group members, highlight the reasons for educational failures, suggest ways to eliminate gaps.

Educational aspect: contribute to increasing the level of cognitive interest in the subject, developing horizons, cultivating the qualities of a tolerant personality, a sense of camaraderie, and collectivism.

Organization of space: work frontal, individual, in pairs.

Practical work:Designation on the contour map of geographical objects indicated in the text of the paragraph

Concepts and personalities: Travel, expedition, Thor Heyerdahl, Kon-Tiki, Pacific Ocean, South America.

Type of ICT tools used in the lesson: Multimedia projector with screen, digital images and maps, workbook,

Educational Internet resources: Internet encyclopedia Wikipedia – T. Heyerdahl and his travels

• Thor Heyerdahl
• (born October 6, 1914, Larvik, Norway - died April 18, 2002, Alassio, Italy)
• Norwegian traveler and anthropologist.
• Author of many books.

• Heyerdahl was prompted to sail on a raft across the Pacific Ocean by ancient chronicles and drawings of Spanish conquistadors depicting Incan rafts, as well as local legends and archaeological evidence suggesting that there might have been contacts between South America and Polynesia.

• The ship was assembled without a single nail and all its parts were tied with ropes. The ancient inhabitants of these places, the Incas, built their rafts in exactly the same way. The mast and rudder of the ship were made of mangrove wood,
• which sinks in water.

• Vessel construction

• The Kon-Tiki is a raft made from 9 balsa trees. Their length is from 10 to 14 meters. These trees were cut down in the jungles of Ecuador and brought to its coast. The raft has a sharp bow, which improved its qualities and increased its speed.

• The homeland of balsa is the equatorial part of South America
• The tree grows quickly but does not reach maturity by 5 years. Large trees, has very strong and light (when dried, lighter than cork) wood,
• Balsa is extremely easy to process. For the same weight, balsa structures are more rigid than, for example, pine.

• Balsa is the lightest wood.

• The unique properties of balsa wood were known to the Incas, who hollowed out canoes from it and made rafts on which they made long trips. When the Spaniards saw these wonderful rafts, they were amazed, but they did not know the material from which they were made, they gave it the name “balsa” or “balsa”, which means “raft” in Spanish.

• The raft was named Kon-Tiki, in honor of the name of the sun god of the ancient Incas. In those days, people worshiped this god and carved his head in various statues. An image of one of these statues appeared on the sail of this ship. Legend has it that the tortured people eventually drove Kon-Tiki west and he and his people sailed overseas. And among the Polynesians there were legends about the great Tiki, who sailed with his people from the east. Thor Heyerdahl and his team decided to sail in the footsteps of this ancient god.

• Kon-Tiki crew
• Thor Heyerdahl (1914-2002) - leader of the expedition. (3rd in the photo)
• Eric Hesselberg (1914-1972) - navigator and artist. He painted an image of the god Kon-Tiki on the sail of the ship. (pictured 4th)
• Bengt Danielsson (1921-1997) - acted as cook. He was interested in the theory of migration. He also helped as a translator, since he was the only one on the crew who spoke Spanish. (2nd in photo)
• Knut Haugland (1917-2009) - radio operator. (pictured 1st)
• Thorstein Robue (1918-1964) - second radio operator. (5th in the photo)
• Hermann Watzinger (1916-1986) - technical measurement engineer. During the expedition he conducted meteorological and hydrological observations. (pictured 6th)
• The seventh member of the expedition was the South American parrot Lolita.

• The Kon-Tiki crew. From left to right: Knut Haugland, Bengt Danielsson, Thor Heirdal, Erik Hesselberg, Thorstein Robue and Hermann Watzinger

• Flying fish and other seafood constantly landed on board the ship. They had no shortage of seafood - there was an open ocean behind them. Dolphin fish were often encountered. We also collected plankton, pulling a fine mesh behind us.

• On my way

• They cooked food on a primus stove, which they took with them and placed in a wooden box. Once the cook dozed off and the bamboo wall of the hut caught fire, but they could easily put it out. Food, as well as various equipment, was stored below deck, between bamboo mats and a balsa floor. Everything needed was packed in cardboard boxes filled with asphalt (bitumen) to prevent moisture from getting into them.

• Part of the experiment was that two crew members did not eat fish or other seafood - there was a special diet for them that had to be tried. They were fed American rations designed for the military, but had not yet been tried.

• They also tried drinking lymphatic fluid obtained from fish glands. Thus, they wanted to see the possibility of extracting drinking water in the open sea. The crew members took with them a little less than a ton of fresh water, which was replenished from time to time by tropical rains. To maintain the salt balance, they sometimes mixed fresh water with sea water.

• The team also had to observe larger representatives of the ichthyofauna of the Pacific Ocean. They saw whales and caught sharks, and once the largest of the sharks, a whale shark, came close to them. They watched it for a long time, until one participant lost his nerve and stuck a spear into it, after which the shark disappeared. Sometimes they had to keep up to 9 sharks on deck.

• There were also cases when sharks almost bit the crew members, but fortunately there were no injuries.

• Kon-Tiki walked at an average speed of 80 km per day; their speed record was one day, during which they covered 130 km. The crew members constantly had to check the components under water, this pleasure was not pleasant, since there was a possibility of a shark attack. Although the sharks did not attack the raft until at least a drop of blood fell into the water.

• Finally they saw a sign that land was approaching - a frigate was flying next to them. They were approaching the coral archipelago of the Tuamotu. These were the islands of French Polynesia. It was necessary to keep your eyes open, as there was a high probability of stumbling upon coral reefs. The islands are so low that they can only be seen from a distance when the surf hits the reefs.
• On the 93rd day, an observer from the mast discovered land - it was one of the islands of the southern seas, on which palm trees grew. They walked past him. Then, after 4 days, they saw a boat of local residents, they swam up to them and began to help the Kon-Tiki crew row. But after that they went even further and on the 101st day they saw the earth for the 3rd time.

• Somehow, struggling with the waves and the ocean, they swam to the coral atoll of Raroia and climbed ashore. The logs of the raft held up. They proved that it is quite possible to sail from South America to the islands of Polynesia on a homemade raft made of balsa logs. They arrived on the island on August 7, 1947. They traveled a distance of 6980 km.

• They dragged their belongings to a desert island and lived there for a week until they saw a boat approaching with locals.

• The Kon-Tiki raft is now kept in the museum of the same name in Oslo.

• Thor Heyerdahl and his team proved the theoretical possibility of South American Indians crossing the Pacific Ocean.
• They also proved that coconuts could not swim across the ocean on their own and then sprout; because of the sea water, the nuts became unsuitable for sprouting, and therefore people brought them to the islands.

• Scientific achievements

• Thor Heyerdahl's wonderful book, Journey to Kon-Tiki, has been translated into almost sixty languages, from the pages of which one of the most interesting problems in the history of mankind enters every home. Heyerdahl's fiction books written for the mass reader are inevitably limited by the genre. Meanwhile, this remarkable feat in the name of science has its continuation. Thor Heyerdahl's research goes far beyond what we know from published books. Thor Heyerdahl's new book fills this gap. This is a collection of his articles and reports, as if summing up the preliminary results of thirty years of research by the outstanding Norwegian scientist. Almost every page is a fascinating journey into the past. With polemical enthusiasm and deep knowledge of the issue, the author talks about the remarkable sailors of the past who conquered the Atlantic and Pacific oceans on simple ships, and illuminates the highly developed cultures of ancient peoples. Anyone who has read Voyage to Kon-Tiki with enthusiasm will want to know how Thor Heyerdahl and his collaborators continued to substantiate and develop the theory, to confirm which six daredevils set out on a raft in 1947 on the vastness of the greatest of the Earth's oceans.

Test tasks.

1. The traveler who planned to repeat the voyage of Stone Age people across the ocean was called

a) Ottor Thorvaldsen

b) Torkel Larsen

c) Thor Heyerdahl

d) Roald Amundsen

2. To prove the possibility of long sea voyages carried out by primitive people, it was decided to cross the ocean

a) Quiet

b) Indian

c) Atlantic

d) Arctic

3. The crew of the Kon-Tiki raft was made up of volunteers from

b) Sweden

in Norway

d) Russia

4. The name "Kon-Tiki" means

a) the name of one of the gods of the Indians of South America

b) the name of the grandfather of one of the team members

c) the battle cry of the Norwegian pirates

d) the name of the city where the swimming organizer was born

5. The Kon-Tiki expedition crossed the ocean with

a) east to west

b) north to south

c) west to east

d) south to north

6. Which of the three proposed statements is true?

a) Thor Heyerdahl wanted to prove that the islands of the Pacific Ocean could have been inhabited by people who sailed from South America.

b) Of the modern items on board the Kon-Tiki, there was only a movie camera.

c) The light boat on which Thor Heyerdahl and his friends were going to cross the ocean was called “Kon-Tiki”.

Thematic workshop.

Read the text and answer the questions.

In Spanish, “balsa” translates to “raft.” This plant received this name due to the amazing properties of its wood. When dried, balsa is even lighter than cork. The Incas, familiar with the amazing properties of balsa, used this wood to build canoes and rafts.

Balsa wood has a lot of advantages and only one drawback - it is very difficult to extract. Firstly, not all trees are suitable for timber harvesting. The best quality wood is found in balsas that are between six and ten years old. At the same time, the diameter of their trunk should not exceed one hundred and fifteen centimeters, and the height should remain within twenty-seven meters. Secondly, balsa grows in the thick of the jungle, where it is very difficult to reach. Now they are trying to solve these problems by creating balsa plantations. For example, in Ecuador, which is the largest supplier of this wood in the world, several such plantations are already operating.

What is the name of this tree associated with?

"halsa" - raft. It was often used to make canoes and rafts. In Korean, balsa means light (balsin-feather).

Why do you think balsa is used to make kites and model airplanes?

Balsa is used to make kites because it is the lightest tree on the planet.

Why is balsa wood so difficult to obtain?

Not all trees are suitable for timber harvesting.

On what continent is the country that is the largest supplier of balsa in the world located?

The country producing balsa is Korea.

Cartographic workshop.
Place digital designations of the listed geographical objects on the contour map.

Class: 5 (according to Federal State Educational Standards).

Teacher: Nadezhda Nikolaevna Prozorova
Target : improving the skill of working with different types of information through studying the topic “In the footsteps of Stone Age travelers”

Lesson Objectives: through planned results.

Personal:

• 
  creation of value guidelines and meanings of educational activities;
• 
  awareness of the values ​​of geographical knowledge as an essential component of the scientific picture of the world;
• 
  formation of personal ideas about ancient discoveries and exploration of the Earth;
• 
  creating conditions for the development of respectful attitude of students towards each other;
• 
  formation of a conscious attitude towards one’s own safety and health.

• 
  know the reasons for new travels and geographical discoveries;
• 
  know about T. Heyerdahl's expedition;
• 
  name the main results of geographical discoveries and travels;

Metasubject:

Regulatory:

• 
  develop the ability to formulate the topic of the lesson, the goals of the lesson, the ability to accept and maintain a learning task;
• 
  be able to organize your activities;
• 
  maintain and develop the ability to cooperate in pairs and groups; answer questions, listen and hear;
• 
  evaluate the results achieved.

• 
  develop the ability to work with information in class and express thoughts coherently;
• 
  maintain and develop the ability to work with physical and contour maps in a group and in pairs;
• 
  formulate, express and justify your point of view.

• 
  understand and integrate information into existing knowledge;
• 
  have practical skills in working with a map and a textbook for research;
• 
  transform, structure and apply taking into account the tasks being solved;
• 
  extract the necessary information.

Training and metodology complex: textbook E.M. Domogatskikh “Geography. Introduction to Geography" - 2014, workbook for the textbook - 2013, atlas "Geography. Introduction to Geography" grades 5-6, "Russian Word", 2013. contour maps “Geography. Introduction to Geography" 5th grade "Russian Word", 2014.
Equipment: map of the hemispheres, textbook, atlas, contour maps, workbook, handouts, colored pencils, multimedia complex.
Lesson type: discovery of new knowledge.
Forms of student work: independent, group, pair
DURING THE CLASSES.
Stage 1.Organizational. Preparing the classroom and school supplies for the lesson.
Stage 2.Updating knowledge.
Teacher: Today in class we are starting a big topic: listen to the poem about what it will talk about:

Leaving the cities
Hearths with burning light.
Something is pulling us there
Where the fogs argue with the wind.
Something is pulling us to the seas,
To the lakes, to the open spaces,
To uncharted fields,
Over the hills, into the gorges, into the mountains.
Float to the sky only to fall
For a homemade bake.
Kindling passion in the depths,
Trains eavesdrop on speeches...
-What does this poem say?/about travel/

Our next section is called “The History of Geographical Discoveries,” which we will study over the course of several lessons.

- Tell me, what questions interested travelers of antiquity, and maybe they interest you now?

/ - What is there, beyond the horizon? - What kind of people live behind the high mountains? - Are there other countries beyond the seas? - Is there an edge of the Earth, and if so, where is it located? These questions have always excited people's imagination./
Stage 3.Mobilization of knowledge. In the footsteps of Stone Age travelers
What will we learn today? 1. How people in ancient times traveled across the surface of the Earth. 2. Who is Thor Heyerdahl and what does he have to do with ancient travels. 3. How people settled across continents and islands.

Geography - the science of nature, population and economy of the Earth. It originated a very long time ago. To farmers she helped choose a location for the field; to seafarers - lead your ships across the seas and oceans, discover new lands; merchants - to successfully trade with other countries. It was the sailors and merchants who were the discoverers of new lands. But it was not only the desire for practical knowledge or the thirst for profit that forced people to hit the road to unknown distant lands and risk their lives. Often it was ordinary human curiosity - the desire to know something unknown.

The development of new lands continued for thousands of years. People have made many amazing discoveries. There is evidence that already in ancient times man crossed the ocean. In those days, important sea and trade routes were considered a state secret and were carefully guarded. But we know about many wonderful discoveries. Let's try to talk about some of them.
Encouraging dialogue - How do people travel?

What difficulties can any traveler face?

Why did the ancients not sit at home and what prompted the ancient people to travel?

How and on what could they travel in ancient times?

Stage 4. Creating a problematic situation.
- We know little about primitive people. We can't even call any of them by name. But we do know that they traveled. Want to make sure of this? Look at the world map. Find the Pacific Ocean on it. It's not difficult, because it's very big. Look how many islands there are. Moreover, there are many of them not only at the edge of the ocean, but also in its center. Most of these islands have been inhabited by people for a long time! People live on the islands of the Pacific Ocean, and they have lived for a very long time - tens of thousands of years. You could say since the Stone Age. Where did they come from?

??? - Guys, there is a problem:

The vast majority of the islands of the Pacific Ocean are inhabited, but not all of them. Warm climate, plants and animals and no people– the absence of what could prevent the settlement of these islands by people? Answer the questions:

- Where could the ancient man on the island come from? → Just sail!

- Can swimming be called a journey? → Of course you can!

Conclusion → WATER. Its absence prevented people from populating absolutely all the islands of the Pacific Ocean.

Stage 5. "Discovery" of new knowledge. (Read pp. 37 – 38)
- Everything that we just talked about can only be assumed, but is there evidence for this? How can this be proven to modern man? And was there such a person? Yes there was, and his name was Thor Heyerdahl (1914 - 2002) - the famous Norwegian traveler and anthropologist.

Although our conversation concerns the people of the Stone Age, we will talk about a traveler who is almost our contemporary - he lived in the second half of the last century. He made several amazing journeys, but we will only talk about his first journey.
Video “Thur Heyerdahl. Biography".
- Guys, what did the modern traveler prove based on ancient assumptions? / Thor Heyerdahl proved that ancient people could cross the Pacific Ocean on a primitive raft. He decided to cross the ocean , assembled a friendly team of young Norwegians. The Norwegians made a Raft from huge logs, because... ancient people did not know how to make a ship or a boat, they called it “Kon-Tiki”, in honor of the Indian god.

They braved storms and repaired their raft right in the ocean. During the rains, they replenished fresh water supplies and caught fish using a primitive fishing rod. They did not lose heart! Even when a huge fish approached them - a whale shark - and it was larger than their raft, they were not afraid, but continued to film this visit.
Stage 6. Modular task block.
1). Read §7.
2). Answer the questions:
A) Why have people studied geography since ancient times?

B) Who is Thor Heyerdahl? What time did he live in?

C) Make a detailed plan-description of Thor Heyerdahl’s journey.
3). Label the title of the work on the outline map on pages 6-7 of Travel. Carefully print and label all oceans and children's notebooks and travel objects. continents, and maybe you are also interested in continents now. Use the atlas map on pp. 10-11.
4). Using the map proposed here, mark on the contour map the routes and objects of travel of Thor Heyerdahl's team. (long arrows of different colors: the path from ASIA: New Guinea Island, New Zealand + Path from America)

Stage 7. Consolidation.
Work in the workbook:§7- pp. 24-26 No. 1-9.
Stage 8. Reflection. Students answer questions and draw conclusions:
Questionsfor self-test.

- How and on what did ancient people travel?

- What does this prove?

- Who proved this?

- Why do uninhabited islands exist?
1. Ancient people made long journeys. This is evidenced by the fact that even islands very remote from the continents have long been inhabited by humans.

2. Norwegian scientist Thor Heyerdahl proved that Stone Age people could cross vast expanses of sea. To do this, he and his friends tried to cross the Pacific Ocean on a raft.

Stage 9. Homework : §7, remaining tasks in the workbook pp. 26-27
***Assignment at will - Prepare a report on Thor Heyerdahl's other travels.

Charity wall newspaper for schoolchildren, parents and teachers “Briefly and clearly about the most interesting things.” Issue 90, February 2016.

Wall newspapers of the charitable educational project “Briefly and clearly about the most interesting things” (site site) are intended for schoolchildren, parents and teachers of St. Petersburg. They are delivered free of charge to most educational institutions, as well as to a number of hospitals, orphanages and other institutions in the city. The project's publications do not contain any advertising (only founders' logos), are politically and religiously neutral, written in easy language, and well illustrated. They are intended as informational “inhibition” of students, awakening cognitive activity and the desire to read. Authors and publishers, without pretending to provide academic completeness of the material, publish interesting facts, illustrations, interviews with famous figures of science and culture and thereby hope to increase the interest of schoolchildren in the educational process. Please send your comments and suggestions to: pangea@mail..

We thank the Education Department of the Kirovsky District Administration of St. Petersburg and everyone who selflessly helps in distributing our wall newspapers. The material in this issue was prepared specifically for our project by the staff of the Kostenki Museum-Reserve (authors: chief researcher Irina Kotlyarova and senior researcher Marina Pushkareva-Lavrentieva). Our sincere gratitude goes to them.

Dear friends! Our newspaper has more than once accompanied its readers on a “journey to the Stone Age.” In this issue, we traced the path that our ancestors took before becoming like you and me. In the issue, we “disassembled to the bones” the misconceptions that have developed around the most interesting topic of human origins. In the issue, we discussed the “real estate” of Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons. In the episode we studied mammoths and got acquainted with the unique exhibits of the Zoological Museum. This issue of our wall newspaper was prepared by a team of authors from the Kostenki Museum-Reserve - “the pearl of the Paleolithic,” as archaeologists call it. Thanks to the finds made here, in the Don Valley south of Voronezh, our modern idea of ​​the “Stone Age” was largely created.

What is "Paleolithic"?

"Bones in the past and present." Drawing by Inna Elnikova.

Panorama of the Don Valley in Kostenki.

Map of Stone Age sites in Kostenki.

Excavations at the Kostenki 11 site in 1960.

Excavations at the Kostenki 11 site in 2015.

Portrait reconstruction of a person from the Kostenki 2 site. Author M.M. Gerasimov. (donsmaps.com).

A dwelling made from mammoth bones on display at the museum.

Currently, many monuments of that era have been discovered all over the world, but one of the most striking and significant is Kostenki, located in the Voronezh region. Archaeologists have long called this monument the “pearl of the Paleolithic.” Now the Kostenki Museum-Reserve has been created here, which is located on the right bank of the Don River and occupies an area of ​​about 9 hectares. Scientists have been conducting research on this monument since 1879. Since that time, about 60 ancient sites have been discovered here, dating back to a huge chronological period - from 45 to 18 thousand years ago.

The people who lived in Kostenki at that time belonged to the same biological species as modern ones - Homo sapiens sapiens. During this time, humanity managed to go through a great path from small groups of the first Europeans, who had just begun to explore the new continent, to highly developed societies of “mammoth hunters”.

The discoveries of that era showed that people not only managed to survive in the extreme conditions of the periglacial zone, but also created an expressive culture: they knew how to build quite complex residential structures, make a variety of stone tools and create amazing artistic images. Thanks to the finds in Kostenki, our modern understanding of the Stone Age was largely created.

A real fragment of that era - the remains of a dwelling made of mammoth bones, inside which stone and bone tools were found - is preserved under the roof of the museum in Kostenki. This piece of ancient life, preserved through the efforts of archaeologists and museum workers, will help us uncover some of the secrets of the Stone Age.

Nature of the Ice Age

Map of the location of sites from the period of maximum Valdai glaciation.

Low sedge – “mammoth grass”.

"Landscape of the Ice Age in Kostenki." Drawing by N.V. Garoutte.

"Mammoths in the Don Valley." Drawing by I.A. Nakonechny.

Drawing of the Adams mammoth skeleton (Zoological Museum). Found in 1799 in the Lena River delta. The age of the find is 36 thousand years.

Taxidermy sculpture of a mammoth on display at the museum.

"Mammoth Kostik" Drawing by Anya Pevgova.

"Baby Mammoth Styopa." Drawing by Veronica Terekhova.

"Mammoth Hunting" Drawing by Polina Zemtsova.

"Mammoth John" Drawing by Kirill Blagodir.

The time to which the main exhibit of the museum, a dwelling made from mammoth bones, dates back can be called the harshest in the last 50 thousand years. Almost the entire north of Europe was covered by a powerful ice sheet, due to which the geographical map of the continent looked somewhat different than it does now. The total length of the glacier was about 12 thousand kilometers, with 9.5 thousand kilometers falling on the territory of the northern part of the modern Russian Federation. The southern border of the glacier passed along the Valdai Hills, because of which this glaciation got its name - Valdai.

The conditions of the periglacial steppes were very different from the modern conditions of the same latitudes. If now the climate of our Earth is characterized by a change of seasons - spring, summer, autumn and winter, each of which is characterized by special weather conditions, then 20 thousand years ago, most likely, there were two seasons. The warm season was quite short and cool, and the winter was long and very cold - the temperature could drop to 40-45º below zero. In winter, anticyclones lingered over the Don Valley for a long time, providing clear, cloudless weather. Even in summer, the soil did not thaw much at all, and the soil remained frozen throughout the year. There was little snow, so the animals could get food for themselves without much difficulty.

At that time, on the territory of Kostenki there was a completely different zone of vegetation distribution than now. Then these were meadow steppes, combined with rare birch and pine forests. In the river valleys, well protected from the wind and moistened, currants, cornflower, and impatiens grew. It was in the river valleys that small forests were hidden, protected by the slopes of the riverine hills.

One of the plants of the Ice Age has safely survived to this day - this is low sedge, which is colloquially called “mammoth grass”, since it was a contemporary of this animal. Currently, this unpretentious plant can also be found on the slopes of the Kostenki hills.

The fauna of that time was also very different from the modern one. On the Kostenki hills and in the river valley one could see herds of primitive bison, reindeer, musk oxen, and Pleistocene horses. Wolves, hares, arctic foxes, polar owls and partridges were also permanent inhabitants of these places. One of the notable differences between Ice Age animals and modern ones was their large size. Harsh natural conditions forced animals to acquire thick fur, fat and large skeletons to survive.

The “king” of the animal world of that time was the majestic giant - the mammoth, the largest land mammal of the Ice Age. It was in his honor that the entire fauna of that time began to be called “mammoth.”

Mammoths were well adapted to dry, cold climates. These animals were dressed in warm skin, even the trunk was overgrown with hair, and its ears were ten times smaller in area than those of the African elephant. Mammoths grew up to 3.5-4.5 meters in height, and their weight could be 5-7 tons.

The dental apparatus consisted of six teeth: two tusks and four molars. Tusks were the most characteristic external feature of these animals, especially males. The weight of the tusk of a large seasoned male averaged 100-150 kilograms and had a length of 3.5-4 meters. The tusks were used by animals to strip twigs and tree bark, and to crack ice to get to water. The molars, located two at a time on the upper and lower jaws, had a grooved surface that helped grind coarse plant food.

Mammoths could eat from 100 to 200 kilograms of plant food per day. In summer, the animals fed mainly on grass (meadow grasses, sedges), and the terminal shoots of shrubs (willow, birch, alder). From constant chewing, the surface of the mammoth's teeth was very worn down, which is why they changed throughout his life. In total, he had six changes of teeth during his life. After the last four teeth fell out, the animal died of old age. Mammoths lived for about 80 years.

These giants disappeared from the face of the Earth forever due to climate change that occurred following the melting of the glacier. The animals began to get bogged down in numerous swamps and overheat under their thick shaggy fur. However, most of the species of mammoth fauna did not die, but gradually adapted to the changed natural conditions, and some of the animals of that time have safely survived to this day.

Life and occupations of Stone Age people

Diagram of a dwelling with five storage pits. Parking lot Kostenki 11.

Ancient hunters. Reconstruction of I.A. Nakonechny.

Flint spear or javelin tip. Age - about 28 thousand years.

"The warmth of the hearth." Reconstruction of the dwelling in the Kostenki 11 parking lot of Nikita Smorodinov.

Working with wood carving. Reconstruction.

Scraping a fox skin with a scraper. Reconstruction.

Decorating leather clothes with bone beads. Reconstruction.

Making clothes. Reconstruction of I.A. Nakonechny.

Animal figures made of marl. Age – 22 thousand years.

Women's figurine with jewelry.

Schematic representation of a mammoth. Age – 22 thousand years.

Panorama of the museum in Anosov Log in the village of Kostenki.

Some archaeologists believe that mammoths could have disappeared due to constant hunting by primitive people. In fact, at the Kostenki sites of that time, a huge number of mammoth bones are found: only to create one ancient house, people used about 600 bones of this animal! Therefore, the people who lived in Kostenki at that time are called “mammoth hunters.” And, indeed, the mammoth was a very attractive prey for the people of that time. After all, a successful hunt for him provided almost everything necessary for life: a mountain of meat, which allowed him to forget about hunting for a long time; bones that were used to build houses; skins for insulating homes; grease for interior lighting; tusks, which were used to make various crafts.

Paleolithic man was tied to herds of mammoths: people followed the animals and were always in close proximity to them. They also learned to defeat this gigantic beast using a round-up hunt. It is believed that mammoths were very timid animals and, hearing the sudden cries of hunters who were deliberately driving them to the edge of a cliff, they took flight and fell into a natural trap. A mammoth that rolled down a steep hillside broke its limbs and sometimes even its backbone, so it was not difficult for hunters to finish off the animal. To hunt mammoths, Stone Age people used spears and darts, the tips of which were made of flint - a stone with sharp cutting edges.

Thanks to the successful hunting of mammoths, people were able to stay in one place for a long time and live relatively sedentary lives. In harsh weather conditions, it was difficult for a person to survive without a warm, comfortable home, so they had to learn how to build them from available materials - mammoth bones, earth, wooden sticks and poles, animal skins.

In Kostenki, archaeologists distinguish five types of residential structures, which differ from each other in shape and size. One of them is preserved in the museum building. It is a round house with a diameter of 9 meters with a foundation-base 60 centimeters high, made of mammoth bones and soil holding them together. At an equal distance from each other along the entire perimeter of the wall-base, 16 mammoth skulls were dug in, in order to then secure poles in them, forming both the wall of the house and at the same time its roof. Mammoth skin was not suitable for covering a home, as it was too heavy, so our ancestors chose lighter skins - for example, reindeer.

Inside the house there was a fireplace, around which once in the Stone Age the whole family gathered for meals and ordinary family conversations. They slept right there, not far from the fireplace, on warm animal skins spread on the floor. Apparently, the house also housed a workshop for the manufacture of stone tools - over 900 fragments of small flakes and flint flakes were found on one square meter of the dwelling. The list of tools of that time is very small: these are incisors, scrapers, points, piercings, knives, tips, needles. But with their help, people performed all the necessary operations: sewed clothes, cut meat, cut bone and tusk, and hunted animals.

Around the ancient house, archaeologists discovered 5 storage pits that were filled with mammoth bones. Considering the harsh climate and annual frozen ground, scientists concluded that these pits were used as refrigerators for storing food supplies. Currently, some peoples of the Far North are constructing exactly the same storage pits.

During the Ice Age, people worked tirelessly. Men hunted, brought prey home, and defended their clan. Women in the Stone Age played an important role - they were in charge of the household: they guarded the hearth in the house, prepared food, and sewed clothes from animal skins. In order to simply survive in the extreme conditions of the periglacial zone, people had to constantly work.

However, the finds of that era showed that people not only knew how to build quite complex dwellings and make a variety of stone tools, but also create amazing artistic images. A real work of art and one of the most striking finds are animal figurines made by an ancient master from dense limestone - marl. They all depict a herd of mammoths. Moreover, in this herd one can distinguish large and medium-sized individuals, as well as a small mammoth calf. What were these figurines used for? There are several answers to this question. One possibility suggests that it could have been some kind of forgotten game like modern checkers. Another is that these were primitive abacus for counting the number of mammoths. And finally, these could just be children's toys.

The so-called “Upper Paleolithic Venus” was a symbol of female beauty, motherhood and continuation of life. In Kostenki, archaeologists found a whole series of small female figurines. All these figures are very similar: a head bowed down, a huge belly and breasts filled with milk, instead of a face, as a rule, a smooth surface. These are ancient symbols of procreation. One of them was wearing a lot of jewelry: a necklace on her chest and a necklace belt above her chest, and small bracelets on her elbows and wrists. All these are ancient amulets that are designed to “protect” their owner from many problems.

Another mysterious piece of Ice Age art is a drawing done by an ancient artist on slate. This image was also found by archaeologists in Kostenki. Having carefully examined the drawing, you can easily guess the characteristic silhouette of a mammoth: high withers, strongly drooping butt, small ears... But the ladder standing next to the animal makes you wonder: were mammoths really domesticated? Or does this drawing reproduce the moment of cutting up the carcass of a defeated animal?

Despite the many years of painstaking work of archaeological scientists trying to open the veil over the secrets of the Ice Age, much remains unclear. Maybe you, dear friend, will be the one who can make an incredible discovery, take part in archaeological excavations and make a unique find. In the meantime, we invite you to the Kostenki Museum-Reserve so that you can see with your own eyes an ancient house made of mammoth bones and learn in more detail about the Stone Age era.

Kostenki is one of the oldest known settlements of modern man in Europe.

Chief researcher Irina Kotlyarova and senior researcher Marina Pushkareva-Lavrentieva. Museum-reserve "Kostenki".

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