How Our First Ancestors Lived 3 



hands and teeth m hunting and in fighting their enemies. 

 Finally some of the brighter ones discovered that a stick or 

 club served better than the bare hands. 



The use of flint knives may have been brought about 

 through some one cutting himself accidentally upon a piece 

 of flint sticking out of the ground. If he happened to be 

 very bright, he would at once see the value of such a piece 

 of stone tied on the end of an arrow or club. By such 

 means, perhaps, implements of wood, bone, and stone came 

 into use. 



We have discovered the sites of many of the villages as 

 well as the caves in which the ancient inhabitants of the 

 earth lived. The implements of bone and stone which we 

 have dug up in such places enable us to learn a great deal 

 about their Hves. 



There was a time when people did not know the use of 

 fire. What a fearful thing fire must have seemed to them, 

 at first. Their knowledge of it probably came from hght- 

 ning or from hot lava flowing from a volcano. After they 

 had learned to control fire, and to make it by rubbing two 

 sticks together, they must have felt rich indeed. The dis- 

 covery of fixe was one of their greatest triumphs. It kept 

 the cold, damp cave warm and dry, even though it filled 

 their eyes with smoke. It was a means of keeping them 

 safe from the dangerous wild beasts when they had to sleep 

 out in the open. It was useful in cooking their food, and 

 by and by it was to prove valuable in still other ways, when 

 they began to make things as well as to find things. 



They began, by and by, to build rude shelters, — huts 

 and wigwams, low houses of dried mud, and dugouts in the 

 hillside. They learned to weave simple coverings out of 



