Prehistory Chapter Notes | Social Studies for Grade 6 PDF Download

Introduction

Prehistory is the time long ago when people did not write down their history. This chapter focuses on the Neolithic Period, which was a special time when life for people changed a lot. During this period, people started doing new things like farming and living in one place instead of moving around. They also learned to make tools and objects in new ways. This chapter will explain how these changes happened and why they were important for the people back then.

The Neolithic Period

The Neolithic Period was a time when many important changes started happening in people's lives.

• Agriculture, or farming, was a big change, but it was not the only one that took place during this time.
• In the early days of the Neolithic Period, some groups of people decided to stop moving from place to place.
• Instead, they began to build and live in villages where they stayed all year long.
• This decision to settle in villages came about because of various reasons that influenced their choices.
• Some of these reasons were called push factors, which were difficult or bad situations that made them want to leave their old way of life, like hunting and gathering.
  • For example, they might have faced problems like not finding enough food while moving around.
• Other reasons were called pull factors, which were good things that made living in villages seem better and safer.
• These good things could include having a steady supply of food from farming or feeling more secure in a community.
• During this time, people also developed new technologies that helped them improve their lives.
• One of these new technologies was smelting, a special process used to separate metal from rocks.
• With smelting, people learned how to take metal out of rocks and shape it into useful objects.
• One metal they worked with was copper, which became very important during this period.
• At the beginning, only a small number of people knew the secret of how to smelt copper.
• Because it was hard to find copper and difficult to make, these objects were considered very precious.
• Only the wealthiest and most powerful families in the villages could afford to own copper items.
• This made copper objects more than just tools; they became symbols that showed a person’s wealth and strength.
• If someone in the village owned copper objects, other people looked at them and thought they were rich and had a lot of power.
• This new technology and the value of copper helped some people stand out and become leaders in their communities.