Creative ways to teach the stone age in KS2

You could spend a lifetime studying the millennia between the Stone Age and the Iron Age, so how can you squeeze it all into KS2? Alf Wilkinson starts by picking through the remains of the day...

The new KS2 curriculum asks children to study changes from the Stone Age to the Iron Age, but 10,000 years is a very long time – from the end of the Ice Age to the coming of the Romans. We can’t do it all. In one sense, for much of the period, not a lot happens; yet in another sense, there are dramatic changes. The other thing to acknowledge is that, with the exception of a few Greek and Roman writers, there is no written evidence to examine, so we are entirely dependent on artefacts and the work of archaeologists. And, surprise, surprise, just like historians, archaeologists disagree.

In Middle Stone Age (Mesolithic) Britain, the population was only around 5,000 people – small groups, scattered around the country, following herds of wild animals, hunting and gathering for a living. They ate whatever they could get their hands on, but seem to have had seasonal camps – by rivers when the salmon were running, near fruit and nuts at harvest time, and so on. By the New Stone Age (Neolithic) farming had come to Britain. This was around 4,000BC. Life became more settled – the forest was cleared, cattle, sheep and pigs were kept, and early forms of wheat and barley grown. It was the introduction of metal working, firstly copper and then bronze (around 2,000BC) and then iron that really changed Britain. By the time Julius Caesar invaded in 55BC the population was perhaps one million, in small villages surrounded by fields, and Britain was a prosperous country. Why else would the Romans have wanted to conquer Britain?

So how do we plan to teach all this? It is, to my mind, a real opportunity for ‘overview’ and ‘depth’. In some aspects, houses for instance, there is very little change. You could use images of Stone Age, Bronze Age and Iron Age homes and look at what has changed (not much) and what has stayed the same. You could look at tools and weapons over the whole period. The materials may change, from flint and stone to iron, but they look remarkably similar. Pottery is another example.

Skeletal evidence

I would choose to round this out with some detailed examples, to get to the personal details that children love. Cheddar Man, for instance, is the first complete skeleton found in Britain, in a cave in Somerset. He is around 9,000 years old. What can we tell about Stone Age Life from him and the remains found in the cave? What did he eat? What did he wear? Oh, and after he died he might have been eaten by his friends – there are butchery marks on his legs. Equally important is what we cannot tell about Stone Age life from him. He is, after all, the remains of only one man. You might compare the evidence from Cheddar Man with that of Howick House, in Northumberland, discovered in 2010. You can see a team reconstructing the house on the BBC website. Howick House is about the same age as Cheddar Man – give or take 500 years – but the archaeologists are suggesting that rather than nomads living in it, a family lived in this house most of the year round. According to the text books that just did not happen in Mesolithic times. See what I mean about archaeologists disagreeing?

Recent finds have similarly altered our view of the Bronze Age and Iron Age. The Amesbury Archer, for example, found near Stonehenge buried with over 100 objects, was born and brought up in the Alps. What was he doing living in what is now Wiltshire? And what can we tell about life 4,000 years ago from the goods buried with him? A similar recent discovery, of a 3,000 year old shipwreck off the coast of Salcombe in Devon, gives an image of thriving trade between Britain and Europe, which may have been going on for years – we know that farming, bronze-making and iron-making technology all came from Europe at various times.

Mysteries to solve

Older finds can still be problematic too. Lindow Man, or ‘Pete Marsh’ as he was dubbed by the press, was discovered in a peat bog in Cheshire in 1984. Bodies do turn up from time to time in peat bogs, preserved by the acid in the peat. What makes Lindow Man special is the fact that he is the most complete body found so far. Some things archaeologists agree on – he was in his twenties, quite tall for the time, and had not done manual work – his fingernails were well manicured. His hair was neatly trimmed and he had healthy teeth. He died in Spring (there were traces of mistletoe in his stomach) and had been killed (he was strangled, hit over the head and then his throat was cut!) and placed face down into a pool in the peat bog. His last meal was bread cooked on a fire stoked with heather. Yet there is still plenty to disagree about – radiocarbon dating shows he died between 3BC (Iron Age) and 119AD (Roman Britain). Was he a murder victim, or a ritual offering to the gods? Had he met an accident or was his death deliberate? We can tell a lot about Iron Age people from Lindow Man – and similar remains elsewhere in the country – but there is huge disagreement over what happened to him and why. Perhaps we’ll never know.

Of course this period is a great opportunity to incorporate local history into your course. You may be fortunate enough to have a burial barrow, henge, hill fort or body near you. And if you do, your local history society will know someone who is researching it. The Portable Antiquities Scheme (finds.org.uk) in each county collects information on finds, and the local officer may come to school and talk to you. My local museum, The Collection in Lincoln, has a superb display of artefacts, including a hollowed-out log boat, hundreds of flint tools, coins, etc, all found in the area. Museums often have loan collections – there is nothing as exciting as holding in your own hands a Stone Age axe last used around 5,000 years ago. There are also plenty of re-enactors who will come in to school – at a price – and show you how tools were made. On the BBC website you can see a modern blacksmith use the old ways to make a bronze sword, and there are museums to visit. Cresswell Crags, in Nottinghamshire, shows life at the time of the Ice Age; Grimes Graves in Norfolk is a flint mine; Flag Fen, near Peterborough, a Bronze Age village; and Butser Iron Age Farm is in Hampshire.

My final message is to be selective. As I said earlier, you can’t do it all, but there is lots of exciting content to engage your pupils. Whether you take the long view, or the detailed example view, the important thing is to give your pupils enough time to explore the conflicting ideas and evidence and try to come to their own conclusions about what was, and what was not, important about Stone Age to Iron Age.

About the author

Alf Wilkinson is CPD Manager for the Historical Association. He is a former head of history and ICT co-ordinator.