THE MAKING HISTORY PROJECT

SOME GUIDING QUESTIONS FOR STUDY

What is culture? What is society? What is the difference?
What generalizations may be made about how cultures and civilizations evolved?
What is similar and different between cultures around the world?

What is the relationship between culture and geography? How can the land and its resources shape or limit a culture?
How did prehistoric and ancient people survive? What skills were necessary to know?
What natural and civic calamities have impacted cultures over the last 40,000 years?
How did societies adapt to their environments, which were sometimes harsh or unstable?

How did prehistoric humans survive?
How did they create and control fire?
How did they get food? How did they hunt? What foods did they gather?
How did they cook their food?
How did they build or find shelter?

What important goods or materials did hunted or domesticated animals provide early humans?
What role did agriculture, including plant and animal domestication, play in history?
How did the first villages, towns, and cities form?
What cultural advantages and new technologies were available to large population centers? Why?

What are myths? What do they mean to the societies that have them?
What is the relationship between religion and culture?
How did religious beliefs connect with a culture's arts and folklore?

What sorts of goods were traded between prehistoric and ancient societies?
What are some ways that neighboring societies influenced each other's cultures?
Why did/do wars occur? What frictions or tensions existed between ancient societies?

How did prehistoric people use fibers to create cordage, baskets, rope, and textiles?
What fibers were commonly used, or had special properties that made their use prevalent?
How did/do indigenous people use color? How did they get colors from nature?
What is the difference between paint and dye? What materials can be used as natural pigments for paint? For dye?

How and where did pottery and ceramics begin? Who started it, and how long ago?
How were metals used by early people? Which metals could be easily found in nature?
How were tougher metals—such as bronze, iron, and steel—developed and used? Who discovered metallurgy? How? When?