Subject: History – Prehistory Lascaux

National Curriculum: Prehistory Units

Subject: History – Prehistory

Lascaux

Cross-curricular links: English; Art

Key Learning

Objectives

Pupil Activities

Resources

Assessment

for learning

To be aware of

the huge

timescale of

prehistory

To be aware of

change within

the long stretch

of prehistory

To understand

the nature of

archaeological

evidence

Brief introduction: Introduce idea of BC & AD

dates

 Construct a timeline: 2 million BC to 43 AD

(Roman invasion of Britain). Note: 5 cm per

1000 years back from today = 30 cm to

beginning of Neolithic; 2.5 m to first Modern

Human

 Explain that you would need to stretch 100 m

to go back to first Upright Humans.

 2,000,000 BC: Upright Humans in Africa

making stone tools and fire, hunting and

gathering, spreading out from Africa

 50,000 BC: Modern Humans (homo

sapiens) still hunting and gathering, but also

making fine tools, painting on cave walls

 4000 BC in Britain (6000 BC in the Middle

East): Neolithic (New Stone Age) begin

farming, making pottery and polished stone

tools, living in houses

 2000 BC: Bronze Age: first metal weapons

and tools

 800 BC: Iron Age: making tools and

weapons of iron

 43 AD: Roman Invasion of Britain, writing

for the first time

1-3

 What happened before writing?

 How do we know? Artefacts, monuments,

marks in the soil

 Introduce Archaeologist’s Fact File of

artefacts and dates to be used in subsequent

lessons

Strips of paper

PowerPoint

(numbers refer

to slides)

I understand

that change

occurred very

slowly in

prehistory.

I can explain

how

archaeologists

understand

the time

before

writing.

National Curriculum: Prehistory Units

Draw

conclusions

from evidence

Extension work

Lascaux and cave painting

(Do not tell pupils what they are finding out about in

advance)

Tell the story of the discovery of Lascaux

(below).

4-6. Age

 How old were the paintings? Old Stone Age

(Palaeolithic) = time of hunter-gathers who

followed herds of animals and lived in tent-

like shelters or cave mouths

 Lascaux dated by radiocarbon to 17,000 BC

7. Pose questions

 Do you think people then were as clever as

us?

 Could you take the animals deep into the

cave to draw them?

 Could they draw pictures of animals on paper

and take that down?

Drawings had to be from memory.

8-9. Activity

Ask children to draw a cow’s head from memory

(don’t give any help). Pin them up. Then show a

painting of a cow’s head from Lascaux. Is the

cow’s head painted 19,000 years ago better?

What does that tell us about how clever the

people were then?

10-11. Explore further

 Other pictures from Lascaux.

 Also www.lascaux.culture.fr → ‘visite de la

grotte’ for a virtual reality tour through the

cave.

12. Sometimes they scratched drawings instead of

painting them. Show deer’s head from cave at

Creswell Crags, Notts: first British cave art.

English

Write either a newspaper report of the discovery

or an imaginative account as if you were one of

the boys.

Art

Crush up charcoal and, if possible, bits of red

brick. Mix and use to paint a cave picture.

PowerPoint

story

National Curriculum: Prehistory Units

Additional resources

Ice Age learning resources

The discovery of the Cave of Lascaux

In September 1940, 18-year-old Marcel Ravidat was walking his dog on a hill called Lascaux near the village

of Montignac in France. His dog was chasing rabbits. It sniffed at all the rabbit holes and then began sniffing

at a hole made by the roots of a fallen tree. Ravidat realised this hole wasn’t a rabbit burrow. He peered

into the small gap at the bottom but could see nothing. When he told his friends they decided to go back

and make the hole bigger, then get inside and explore it. All they took with them when they set off was a

home-made oil lamp and a large knife. They set to work using the knife to prise out stones. The hole got

steadily wider. Then suddenly, Marcel, who was pulling out stones at the bottom, fell through. He landed

on the floor of a pitch-black cave. After shouting up that he was OK, his friends scrambled down to join

him, bringing the oil lamp. When they lit it they got a big shock. Across the walls and roof of the cave were

pictures of horses and a massive bull! Once they had recovered from the fright, they carefully explored

further. There were paintings in vivid colours everywhere.

They kept their secret for a couple of days, exploring deeper into the cave and finding more and

more paintings. As they talked excitedly about their discovery they remembered what their old teacher in

the village school had told them – that during the Ice Age, 20,000 years ago, people had sometimes painted

animals on cave walls. When they returned to the village this time they went to see him and told their

story. He couldn’t believe it at first but then, realising it was a very important discovery, he sent a letter

telling archaeologists in Paris. Within a week they had come to Montignac. After being led into the cave by

Marcel and his friends, they were astonished and declared it one of the greatest discoveries of all time.

The Prehistoric Society is a registered charity (no. 1000567) and company limited by guarantee (no. 2532446).

Registered Office: University College London, Institute of Archaeology, 31–34 Gordon Square, London WC1H 0PY.

Date updated: 9/2017.

National Curriculum: Prehistory Units

ARCHAEOLOGIST’S FACT FILE

NEOLITHIC (NEW STONE AGE)

4000–2300 BC

People start to clear the land

of forests and begin farming.

BRONZE AGE

2300–800 BC

People learn how to make

bronze weapons and tools.

IRON AGE

800 BC–43 AD

People learn how to make

iron weapons and tools.