Migration and Art
Teacher Resources
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:
- Learn about the migration routes of early humans and the reasons people migrated.
- Analyze why humans created art and how it can serve as evidence for this period.
- Use the historical thinking practice of claim testing to identify, assess, and use authority when evaluating and making claims.
Vocab Terms:
Would you ask your dentist for advice on repairing a car? Probably not. We trust different authorities in different situations.
Claim testing is one of the historical thinking skills that we’ve scaffolded throughout the course. For an introduction to teaching 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.
Note: There is an ongoing debate among scholars over the dating of the arrival of humans in the Americas. For over a century, we’ve continued to push the date back. Today’s best evidence points to an arrival over 30,000 years ago. However, many Indigenous American communities assert that their ancestors have lived here since time immemorial. Because this debate might not have a “right” answer, we suggest reading our guide to teaching sensitive topics to get some ideas about how to bring up the more challenging, unanswerable historical questions that inevitably come up through the year.
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.
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Guiding Questions
Humans have been making art for tens of thousands of years, and each new discovery pushes the migration timeline back. This video was filmed at Mesa Prieta Petroglyph Project in New Mexico as part of a series about the Pueblo communities of the American Southwest. As your students watch this video focused on ancient art, it’s important to remind them that descendants of these communities still live in that region. These petroglyphs aren’t just ancient history. They represent a library of information created by generations of people over thousands of years, up to the present.
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.
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Guiding Questions
Art of the Paleolithic
In this 3-2-1 closing activity, you’ll review knowledge from previous lessons, reinforce current learning, and ask questions for understanding.
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.
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Guiding Questions
