Suggested Activities for Dar and the Spear-Thrower

DAR AND THE SPEAR-THROWER

Suggested Activities to Bring Prehistory into the Classroom

1. Tools and Artifacts: Plan a field trip to a museum that exhibits ancient tools and artifacts or invite someone to the classroom who has such a collection. Ask your students to chose an object and write a story about someone inventing and then using that tool or artifact.

2. Make the Class into a Clan: Have the class become a clan or several clans, with designated ages and roles (child, hunter, mother, shaman, young girl, grandfather, etc.). Each day the group must meet new problems and challenges, such as a food shortage, a dispute between two hunters, or an illness or injury. How will each clan member and the group as a whole deal with the issues? Impress upon the clan members how each person is dependent upon other people. (i.e., Who does the young mother depend upon? Who depends upon her? Who does the old hunter depend on? Who depends on him? Who does the young girl depend on? Who depends on her? etc.)

3. Drawing the Animals: Using photographs of cave art as models, have the students draw the animals on butcher paper. Combine them in order to make them look like the paintings on cave walls. For accuracy, use only the colors of black, red, and yellow.

4. Initiation Ceremony: Create an initiation ceremony with the painted cave walls as a backdrop. Give everyone a part or repeat the ceremony with a different cast. Choose 8-10 initiates (girls and boys), a shaman, musicians, and torch bearers. The spoken parts can be written by each student or jointly as a class project with the most eloquent speeches chosen. Plan and rehearse the ceremony. In a darkened classroom illuminated by torches (concealed flashlights inside red tissue paper attached to wood handles), the subdued initiates enter the cave. Waiting for them is the shaman and clan members (some of whom play drums or flutes). The initiates can receive manmarks as well as adding a crayoned hand print to the cave wall (there are many in the actual caves). All participants should be dressed in simple but appropriate clothing and jewelry. Invite another class or parents (or both) to the ceremony. Note: This ceremony can be extremely powerful just before a school graduation.

5. Survival Game #1:
Almost all hunter-gatherer societies share certain characteristics. The size of the group is usually small so the resources of the area (plants and animals) will not become exhausted too quickly. Because these societies usually move when resources eventually get depleted, their possessions must be limited to those that are both vital and easily carried. In order to impress upon students the survival value of each possession, this Game (see attachment on page 14) is strongly recommended. NASA has their astronauts-in-training play a variation of the game and many law schools use it.

Divide your class into groups of five or so students and have each group sit together. Read the following sheet to the entire class to make sure that everyone understands the Game, then give a copy to each group. Tell your students that good thinking is required, plus the ability to change your mind if other peoples choices are better than yours. Do not tell them that there are no right answers, only thoughtful ones. The Game is and should be–noisy!

After the Survival Game has been played:

a) Ask your students what they thought was the point of the Game.
(To think about and try to agree on basic needs in a difficult situation.) What are some of these needs? (Food, water, protection, shelter, health, the education and care of the young, knowledge of the area, the ability to solve problems and get along together, etc.)
b) Tell the class that they are archeologists coming upon the 13 listed items one thousand years later. What can they say about the people who left these things behind? Have your students make careful distinctions between intelligent guessing or assumptions (i.e. they seemed to have been concerned about health; maybe they used the wheel to move things; perhaps they were a religious people; etc.) and factual evidence. (i.e. they had developed a written language; they knew how to produce metal; it takes intelligence to invent a battery radio; they made and used tools; nylon is a man-made material; etc.) Throughout this part of the Game, the goal is to invite your students to think like archaeologists who must try to distinguish between a fact and an assumption.

6. Survival Game #2

A plane carrying only the people in this classroom has crashed in a deserted area that has a temperate climate, water, and considerable plant and animal life. All of us are uninjured and safe from the burning plane. We have only a short time to make some very important decisions.

We have to choose 5 items to rescue from the plane out of the 13 listed below. With the help of our choices, we will start a new life together. We will never meet any other people again.

Each of us will take 5 minutes to silently make our own choices. Then, for 10 minutes, we will discuss and agree upon choices within our group, checking them off on this sheet. We’ll choose a spokesperson who will come before the class at the end of the 15 minute period to present our group’s choices and why each item was chosen.

Our teacher will keep a tally on the blackboard as each group makes its report. Listen and keep an open mind to other ideas we may have overlooked when our group was making its decisions.

THINK CAREFULLY ABOUT THE CHOICES BELOW:

• 20 feet of nylon rope
• First Aid book
• magnifying glass
• one orange
• metal hammer
• one-way battery radio
• rubber and metal wheel
• steel knife
• unopened tin can of soup
• First Aid kit
• book of matches
• the Bible
• compass