Stone Age to Iron Age

Author(s): Tim Taylor

Theme: UK Prehistory

Main Curriculum Focus
History:
- Study changes in Britain from the Stone Age to the Iron Age
- Study life in a Neolithic hunter-gather community
- Changes in technology between the Neolithic and Iron Age
- Development of settlements between the Neolithic and Iron Age
- Role of ceremonies, stories, music, and art in culture
- Myth and memory – burial practices and rituals
- Religion and belief – animism and relationship with nature
- Changing landscape – flooding of Doggerland, the construction of stone monuments
- Food and agriculture – changing diet, farming of animals and crops

Inquiry Question
"- How did society change over the period between the Stone Age and the Iron Age?
- How did changes in the climate affect the environment, the landscape, and people’s lives?
- What technology was there during this long period in time, how did it change, and how did these changes affect people’s lives?
- What skills and knowledge did people have and how did they pass them on to future generations?
- What religious beliefs did people have and how did they practice them?
- What do we know about the culture of prehistory society?
- What remains from this period of the past? What can we know about these people and their society?
- What is the work of archaeologists? How do they use artefacts to make meaning of the past?
- How different where people of the past? In what ways are they similar?
- What were prehistory settlements like? How did they change?"

Expert Team: A community of people living in Doggerland who are forced to flee when the land floods.

Client(s): The people of the community

Commission
Three commissions:
1. To successfully flee the floods and find a safe new home for the people of the Doggerland community.
2. To create a burial ceremony following the death of the ruler of the Iron Age settlement.
3. To excavate the burial mound of an Iron Age ruler and create a visitors’ centre for people to learn about how life changed on the ancient site between the Stone Age and the Iron Age.

Context
 Three parts:
1. Many thousands of years ago a family live on a stretch of land between Britain and Europe called Doggerland. They are forced to leave their home when the sea floods the land. After many adventures they encounter a settlement and are welcomed and invited to make a new home.
2. Over time the settlement becomes a place of culture – developing religion, and the technology to make metal, art, and farming. Beside the settlement is a piece of land that becomes a holy site for burying the dead.
3. Eventually the people of the settlement leave and the place is forgotten. Thousands of years later the burial site is rediscovered and excavated by a team of archaeologists who uncover the settlement and build a visitors’ centre for people interested in finding out more about the people who lived there.
Resources:

Downloads
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Contexts