Summary of Francis Pryor's Britain BC

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview:

#1 The Three-Age System of Stone, Bronze, and Iron was developed by a museum curator in 1836. It is based on the relative technological difficulty of fashioning stone, bronze, and iron. It was revolutionary stuff a full eighteen years before the appearance of On the Origin of Species.

#2 The first three chapters of this book will be about the earliest archaeological period, the Palaeolithic, or Old Stone Age. The archaeologists and anthropologists who study the Old Stone Age are grappling with concepts of universal, or fundamental, importance. When and where did humankind originate.

#3 The study of genetics has been transformed by molecular biology, but it is not always realized how profound that transformation has been. Human beings and the great apes share a common ancestor who lived around five million years ago, but our roots are more like those of grasses and shrubs.

#4 The dating of the bones and rocks used to date them depends on various scientific techniques, but not on radiocarbon, which is ineffective on samples over about forty thousand years old. Palaeolithic archaeology relies more on the dating of geological deposits than on dating the finds themselves.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: May 4, 2022
• ISBN: 9798822502727

IRB Media

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Insights on Francis Pryor's Britain BC

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 5

Insights from Chapter 6

Insights from Chapter 7

Insights from Chapter 8

Insights from Chapter 9

Insights from Chapter 10

Insights from Chapter 11

Insights from Chapter 12

Insights from Chapter 13

Insights from Chapter 14

Insights from Chapter 15

Insights from Chapter 16

Insights from Chapter 17

Insights from Chapter 18

Insights from Chapter 19

Insights from Chapter 20

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The Three-Age System of Stone, Bronze, and Iron was developed by a museum curator in 1836. It is based on the relative technological difficulty of fashioning stone, bronze, and iron. It was revolutionary stuff a full eighteen years before the appearance of On the Origin of Species.

#2

The first three chapters of this book will be about the earliest archaeological period, the Palaeolithic, or Old Stone Age. The archaeologists and anthropologists who study the Old Stone Age are grappling with concepts of universal, or fundamental, importance. When and where did humankind originate.

#3

The study of genetics has been transformed by molecular biology, but it is not always realized how profound that transformation has been. Human beings and the great apes share a common ancestor who lived around five million years ago, but our roots are more like those of grasses and shrubs.

#4

The dating of the bones and rocks used to date them depends on various scientific techniques, but not on radiocarbon, which is ineffective on samples over about forty thousand years old. Palaeolithic archaeology relies more on the dating of geological deposits than on dating the finds themselves.

#5

The stone tools used by the earliest people in Africa were simple but effective. They were made from flakes and pebbles, and were used to break bones and sever tendons to remove the meat. It was not easy to detach initial flakes cleanly.

#6

The first tool-using groups were made up of people who were both physically adaptive and who possessed mental capabilities that were comparable to ours. The hand-axe was the main component of the earliest tool-using groups, but around 1. 6 million years ago a new style of tool began to appear in Africa.

#7

The prehistoric tradition of flint-working ended in Britain around 500 BC, when the ability to produce stone tools died out. The last tools reflected the widespread adoption of metal, which supplied people’s need for cutting implements.

#8

The flint tools were very useful, and could be used to cut the tarpaulin to size and trim the rope that was used to tie it to the A-frame.

#9

The term Pleistocene was coined by the geologist Edward Forbes in 1846, when writing about the period of geological time known as the Pleistocene. The Pleistocene was marked by a series of extremely cold phases, which are known as glacials, and warm phases, which are known as interglacials.

#10

The plaque was erected by the local archaeological society, with the help of money raised from archaeologists and others all over Britain. It was decided to place the memorial in the church in Finningham, Suffolk, after a visit by the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History on 22 June 1997.

#11

The earliest period of human settlement in what are now the British Isles predates the most extensive glaciation of Britain, known as the Anglian glaciation, which began around 480,000 years ago. There are only a handful of sites that belong to this period of prehistory.

#12

The most important Palaeolithic discovery in Britain was at Boxgrove, West Sussex, which was home to the Clactonian. It was a local adaptation and inventiveness when people made pebble tools because the gravels produced nice fist-sized, rounded pebbles that were too small to be made into hand-axes.

#13

The key to the dating of the finds at Boxgrove was the cliff that provided the site, which was smoothed out by the wind. It was this cliff that provided the key to the dating of the finds, as it was half