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Migration and Art

Driving Question: Why did early humans move to new places and create art during this period?

Our species—Homo sapiens—started out in small communities in Africa. About 80,000 years ago, our ancestors began migrating to other regions. As these early humans migrated, they created art—thousands of years before anyone developed writing. What can we learn from the evidence they left behind?

Learning Objectives:

  1. Learn about the migration routes of early humans and the reasons people migrated.
  2. Analyze why humans created art and how it can serve as evidence for this period.
  3. Use the historical thinking practice of claim testing to identify, assess, and use authority when evaluating and making claims.

Vocab Terms:

  • chronology
  • migration
  • Paleolithic
  • petroglyph
STEP 1

Opener: Migration and Art

Teaching Tools

Do your students need more familiarity with what different disciplines do and what authority they have? Take a look at the Disciplines Cards.

STEP 2

Authority and Migration

Teaching Tools

For a refresher on claim testing, check out this one-pager.

People have made a lot of claims about the origins and migrations of our early ancestors. But whom should you listen to? One way to answer that question is by developing your claim-testing skills.

STEP 3

Human Migration

Teaching Tools

Check out our Reading Guide to learn about the Three-Step Reading approach.

Want to see how other teachers approach this activity? Take a look at this conversation External link in the OER Project Teacher Community.

Our species began an epic series of migrations 80,000 years ago, beginning in East Africa and ending in South America. In these materials, you’ll evaluate the evidence about when humans reached the Americas.

STEP 4

Early Art

Teaching Tools

Looking for tips on using video in an instructionally sound way? Look no further than the OER Project Video Guide.

Humans were creating art tens of thousands of years before the development of written language. These materials will help you understand what art can tell us about early human communities.

Written in Stone: Petroglyphs External link

What counts as a written source? Matthew Martinez explains how hundreds of thousands of Ancestral Puebloan rock carvings communicate ceremonial, practical, and astronomical knowledge across generations.

Key Ideas

As this video progresses, key ideas will be introduced to invoke discussion.
STEP 5

Closer: Migration and Art

Teaching Tools

Closers are a great way to formatively assess student learning. Learn more in our Openers and Closers Guide.

In this 3-2-1 closing activity, you’ll review knowledge from previous lessons, reinforce current learning, and ask questions for understanding.

Extension Materials
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Use the articles below to extend your exploration of how early human communities understood their world and the evidence our ancestors left behind.
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Art and Time

Early humans had complex relationships with the world around them. These two articles will help you evaluate how they understood time and how they expressed themselves in art.