Australopithecus afarensis lived in eastern Africa about 3.85–2.95 million years ago. Its anatomy combines habitual upright walking with features useful for climbing. Homo habilis, about 2.4–1.4 million years ago, is associated with early stone-tool contexts, but its name does not establish that it invented tools. Homo erectus, appearing about 1.9 million years ago, had body proportions better suited to long-distance travel and spread well beyond Africa. The boundaries and relationships of these fossil groups remain subjects of research.

Neanderthals lived in Europe and parts of Asia roughly 400,000–40,000 years ago. They made varied tools, used fire and exploited both animal and plant foods. Homo sapiens is documented in Africa by about 300,000 years ago. The two lineages overlapped and interbred; Neanderthals were not simply an unfinished version of us. Fossils and ancient DNA answer complementary questions, while neither preserves a complete record of every population.

Researchers compare teeth, skulls and postcranial bones, considering development, variation and preservation. The age of a fossil often comes from its geological context rather than from the bone itself. Keep three statements separate: what was found, how its age was estimated and why it was assigned to a particular group. A reconstruction of a face adds informed choices about soft tissue that a skull alone cannot determine.

Mobility could be seasonal, repeated along familiar routes or organised around particular resources. Shelter included open-air structures, rock shelters and caves. A settlement plan is not a photograph of one evening: remains may accumulate over many visits. When imagining a camp, ask which features belong together in time and which may represent separate occupations.

A garment involves more than a skin. Preparing material, cutting it, making holes and joining pieces require different tools and knowledge. Bone needles and awls can preserve evidence of some of those operations when the clothing itself has disappeared. Material survival is unequal: a durable implement may remain while fibres, hide and thread are lost. We should not draw a complete wardrobe from a single tool.

A useful investigation begins with a specific question: was this material cut, scraped or pierced? Tool shape suggests possibilities; wear, residues and experimental comparisons can narrow them. Experiments show that an operation is possible, not that every ancient person performed it in exactly that way. Likewise, assigning a task to a particular sex or age requires evidence beyond a modern stereotype. Think of knowledge transmission as part of technology: skilled work has to be learned.

Do not assume that sleeping, cooking and painting happened in the same part of a cave. The Altamira museum distinguishes evidence of daily occupation in the entrance area from its decorated spaces. Light, access and the arrangement of remains matter. A deep decorated wall can raise different questions from a hearth near daylight. The existence of an image alone does not tell us how often its makers visited that chamber.

Lascaux provides an exceptional study of painting, engraving and their relationship with the wall. Chauvet-Pont d’Arc preserves very early decorated surfaces and animal representations of extraordinary complexity. Altamira offers both a major archaeological record and a museum reconstruction that helps visitors understand it. These are selected European examples, not a claim that symbolic expression began in Europe or only inside caves. Consult the institutional links for the history and conditions of each site.

A layer can contain objects left by people, material carried by water and later disturbance. Before linking a tool to a painted wall, researchers need a reason to connect their dates and contexts. Conservation adds another question: what changes when people enter? A replica allows close looking without treating the original cave as an ordinary gallery. Always distinguish photographs of originals, replicas and modern reconstructions when comparing images.

At Lascaux, study the difference between drawing a contour, applying a field of colour and removing material by engraving. Iron and manganese compounds and charcoal are among prehistoric colouring materials, but identifying a particular image requires site-specific analysis. The surface is active: texture, curves and relief can guide an outline or alter the effect of light. Do not assume a universal recipe using blood or animal fat; a binder must be demonstrated, not supplied from imagination.

Hunting magic, ritual, storytelling and social communication are interpretations, not a single decoded message. Their strength depends on the pattern of images, context and comparisons. A painted animal is not automatically a record of a hunt. Likewise, the name “Venus” for a prehistoric figurine does not prove a fertility cult. Description should come before explanation: identify what is visible, then state what remains uncertain.

Choose one institutional image. Describe the contour, the relation between colour and rock, and any overlap between marks. Ask whether a line is painted, engraved or a natural crack. Then make two separate notes: observation and hypothesis. Overlap may indicate a relative sequence, but does not by itself give a calendar date. Dating charcoal can concern the material sampled; it does not automatically date every image in the chamber.

Burned material is not automatically a human hearth. At Wonderwerk Cave, microscopic evidence of burned bone and plant ash in deposits around one million years old supports fire occurring inside the cave in an archaeological context. That finding is not a dated certificate for the invention of fire, nor proof of the ability to ignite it at will. Distinguish encountering fire, maintaining it, repeatedly using it and producing it.

At Xianrendong Cave in China, pottery fragments were found in contexts dated to about 20,000–19,000 calendar years before present, well before agriculture there. So pottery cannot be defined as something invented everywhere by Neolithic farmers. Clay vessels can belong to different economies. The Egyptian bowl in the gallery is much later; it illustrates a particular object and craft tradition, not the earliest pottery.

For a stone object, separate selecting raw material, striking, shaping, use and later damage. For pottery, distinguish shaping clay, surface treatment and firing. An image can show form and visible surface, but it cannot establish firing temperature, mineral composition or residues on its own. A responsible technical caption states which features are visible and which require analysis. This is the same discipline used when looking at a Renaissance painting or a modern sculpture.

Çatalhöyük in present-day Türkiye offers evidence of dense settlement, houses and practices that changed through long occupation. Its eastern mound spans approximately 7400–6200 BCE. Walls, floors and rebuilding can be read as a history of repeated decisions. Settlement encourages questions about shared space, storage and work; it does not mean that community or cooperation had previously been absent.

In southern Mesopotamia, Uruk became a major urban centre in the fourth millennium BCE. Monumental buildings and administrative practices form part of that history. Early writing there appears toward the end of the millennium. The small tablet shown below concerns grain accounting, rather than a modern-style historical narrative. Writing helped preserve information beyond a single encounter, while also serving institutions that organised goods and labour.

Look for the difference between numerical impressions and other signs, and notice how a soft support receives marks. The Met dates the illustrated tablet to about 3100–2900 BCE. Its interpretation is qualified: early texts may lack features that make later writing easier to read. The conventional boundary between prehistory and history therefore varies by region. Communities without writing still had histories, knowledge and political lives; the boundary describes available records, not their value.