Quiz on The Stone Age

Learning to control which of these let early humans cook meals and stay warm?

• Steam
• Fire ✓ (Correct answer)
• Wind
• Electricity

Source: Cooked food gave more usable energy, helping fuel the growth of the human brain.

Before farming began, how did Stone Age people mainly obtain their food?

• Farming crops
• Hunting and gathering ✓ (Correct answer)
• Herding cattle
• Trading at markets

Source: Hunting and foraging fed humanity for over 95% of our entire history.

Woolly mammoths, hunted across the Ice Age, are most closely related to which living animal?

• Rhinoceros
• Elephant ✓ (Correct answer)
• Hippopotamus
• Bison

Source: Mammoths are cousins of today's elephants, and some survived until the pyramids were rising.

The Neolithic period is best known for humans first starting to do what?

• Writing
• Metalworking
• Sailing oceans
• Farming ✓ (Correct answer)

Source: Planting crops replaced endless wandering, and settled villages were the result.

Which animal is widely believed to have been the very first domesticated by humans?

• Dog ✓ (Correct answer)
• Sheep
• Horse
• Cow

Source: Dogs joined humans as hunting partners thousands of years before any farm animal.

The giant standing stones of Stonehenge rise from a plain in which country?

• Ireland
• France
• England ✓ (Correct answer)
• Egypt

Source: Some Stonehenge bluestones were hauled roughly 150 miles from the hills of Wales.

Stone Age cutting blades were mostly chipped from which hard, easily flaked rock?

• Flint ✓ (Correct answer)
• Marble
• Granite
• Sandstone

Source: Flint fractures into razor-sharp edges, making it the steel of the Stone Age toolkit.

The famous Lascaux prehistoric cave paintings are located in which country?

• Spain
• Italy
• France ✓ (Correct answer)
• Greece

Source: Four teenagers chasing a lost dog stumbled onto Lascaux's 17,000-year-old gallery in 1940.

Otzi the Iceman, a naturally preserved prehistoric man, was found frozen in what?

• A peat bog
• Desert sand
• A deep cave
• Alpine ice ✓ (Correct answer)

Source: A melting glacier in the Alps revealed Otzi's 5,300-year-old body in 1991, arrow wound and all.

Which metal did humans first work with, marking the end of the pure Stone Age?

• Copper ✓ (Correct answer)
• Iron
• Bronze
• Gold

Source: Soft, easily hammered copper was the gateway metal long before bronze or iron.

Which crop was among the very first plants domesticated in the Fertile Crescent?

• Potatoes
• Corn
• Rice
• Wheat ✓ (Correct answer)

Source: Wild wheat fed the first farmers; potatoes and corn came much later and from the Americas.

The small carved 'Venus' statues of the Stone Age are thought to mainly symbolize what?

• Fertility ✓ (Correct answer)
• Hunting magic
• Calendars
• Maps

Source: These curvy figurines, like the Venus of Willendorf, are among the oldest known sculptures of people.

The earliest pottery made by Stone Age people was used chiefly for what?

• Storing food ✓ (Correct answer)
• Religious idols
• Children's toys
• Musical instruments

Source: Clay pots let early farmers store and cook grain, a quiet revolution in the kitchen.

Which of these Stone Age subdivisions came first in time?

• Mesolithic
• Neolithic
• Paleolithic ✓ (Correct answer)
• Iron Age

Source: Paleolithic literally means 'Old Stone', and it covers nearly the whole Stone Age.

Cave artists got their warm red and brown paint colors mainly from what natural material?

• Animal blood
• Iron-rich ochre ✓ (Correct answer)
• Plant sap
• Crushed shells

Source: Ground ochre, an iron oxide clay, gave cave art its earthy reds and lasted tens of thousands of years.

Gobekli Tepe, one of the world's oldest known temple sites, stands in which modern country?

• Iraq
• Turkey ✓ (Correct answer)
• Egypt
• Greece

Source: Gobekli Tepe predates Stonehenge by 6,000 years, suggesting worship may have come before farming.

The wheel first changed daily life in the Stone Age through which surprising early use?

• War chariots
• Children's toys
• Shaping pottery ✓ (Correct answer)
• Hauling carts

Source: The potter's wheel spun clay long before anyone bolted wheels onto a cart for transport.

Neanderthals, who lived through much of the Stone Age, vanished roughly how long ago?

• 10,000 years ago
• 40,000 years ago ✓ (Correct answer)
• 200,000 years ago
• 1 million years ago

Source: Neanderthals disappeared around 40,000 years ago, yet their DNA still lingers in most people today.

Roughly how long ago did the Stone Age begin with the first known stone tools?

• About 1 million years
• About 100,000 years
• About 3 million years ✓ (Correct answer)
• About 500,000 years

Source: Tools dating back about 3.3 million years predate even our own genus, Homo.

The Mesolithic period is best characterized by the spread of which kind of technology?

• Bronze weapons
• Iron plows
• Wheeled carts
• Tiny composite blade tools ✓ (Correct answer)

Source: Mesolithic toolmakers set tiny stone microliths into wood and bone to craft arrows and sickles.