For our final week, we’re digging deeper into early technology. You get to make your own stone age tools and art!
Your kit has materials to make 3 different tools. Make these tools in the order listed; your paper will have to dry and you’ll need brushes to use the paint. Then, use the tools you made to create your own art piece!
- Make your own PAPER
- Make your own PAINTBRUSHES
- Make your own PAINT
But first, consider this: What is Technology?
Check out the Smithsonian’s “What does it mean to be Human?” online gallery to explore and submit your own answer!
1. Make your own Paper!
Before you make your own paper, check out this awesome video of traditional papermaking!
Now grab a large bowl and try your hand at making paper!
What are all those cave art symbols? Watch this rock art researcher’s TED Talk!
Written language, the hallmark of human civilization, didn’t just suddenly appear one day. Thousands of years before the first fully developed writing systems, our ancestors scrawled geometric signs across the walls of the caves they sheltered in. Paleoanthropologist and rock art researcher Genevieve von Petzinger has studied and codified these ancient markings in caves across Europe. The uniformity of her findings suggest that graphic communication, and the ability to preserve and transmit messages beyond a single moment in time, may be much older than we think. Here’s an article version of this TED Talk.
