Stone Age Skills Celebration
Saturday, October 9, 2010 – 10:00 AM-5:00 PM
Join us for a day of fun, hands-on discovery. Explore and experience some of the skills our ancestors around the world utilized to survive and evolve long before the advent of written history.
Activities will include:
ISAC Atlatl and Dart Toss
The atlatl and dart were developed at least 15,000 years ago, giving the hunter the ability to harvest big game, and in Europe, the great mastodons and mammoths.
Primitive Archery
The bow and arrow are thought to have been developed during the Mesolithic (middle) Stone Age, and gave the hunter dramatic advantages over the older spear throwers.
The Bola
From the Spanish word for ball, the bola is an ancient weapon consisting of three round weights attached to ropes of different lengths, swung in unison over the head and tossed at high velocity to entangle or kill prey.
Throwing & Thrusting Spears
Recent archeological discoveries have dated the wooden throwing spear to approximately 450,000 years ago. Spears are one of humanity’s oldest weapons, and still play a role even now in modern hunter gathering societies, with sport fishermen, and even in warfare in the form of the rifle and bayonet.
Ancient Music: Bullroars, Shell Horns, Drums
Music has been an intrinsic part of the human experience long before the advent of written notation, perhaps for religious ceremonies, perhaps for signaling and communicating, and perhaps even for entertainment.
Ice Age Cave Painting & Mesolithic Stone Pendants: Hands-on Art Projects
The original artists were those long-ago hunters who painted breathtaking scenes in French and Spanish caves. Other forms of art nearly as ancient pointed the way to today’s visual arts. This project is kid friendly, and will use the same pigments and tools that were used 12,000 years ago. These projects are easy, fun, and will make a nice keepsake and reminder of the visionaries who long preceded Da Vinci, Monet, and Pollack.
Skin & Frame Boat Building
Most likely the hollowed out log was the first true watercraft of our ancestors, and frame and hide boats date back as far before the advent of history.
Stone Circles: Megalithic Structures in Miniature
While we don’t have the thousands of years it would take to build a full-scale replica of Stonehenge, we can still explore and create stone circles of our own using tiny stones and a huge sand table.
This event is family-friendly. Instruction on the atlatl and other ancient hunting weapons will be happily provided to adults and to age-appropriate kids. Food and drink will be available for sale. Entrance is free to the general public.
Deerfield Education & Conservation Corporation
(along with Franklin County Sportsmen’s Club
721 River Road • East Deerfield, Massachusetts 01342
For more info, email Dane Donato:
danemitchell@comcast.net 
