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Stone Age - Rolling back the years
When we think about the Stone Age (all three of them), the timescales that we are dealing with are
HUGE. 1,000,000 years ago the first Britons were here! They were arriving, surviving…probably
thriving, and we can see them in the archaeological record *waves at our ancient friends*. Let’s try
and get to grips with just how long ago they lived.
Equipment:
1 bog standard toilet roll
What we’re learning:
Time, timescale and chronology
Providing context for Stone Age studies
Numeracy
What we’re doing:
Take your toilet roll. It will have somewhere in the region of 200 sheets of clean, 21st century toilet
paper on it. This toilet roll is now the whole of British human history and prehistory…so don’t drop it
or all of the mammoths will fall out.
There are two versions of this activity described here, depending on the timescale you want to
evoke, but you can adapt it to fit whatever period you are studying.
Present Day to the Palaeolithic –
If there are 200 sheets on the roll and that humble toilet roll represents 1,000,000 years, then each
sheet represents 5,000 years (1,000,000 ÷ 200 = 5,000).
Let’s put that into perspective. Unroll one sheet and show your learners. That one sheet contains
everything from the present day to the Neolithic. 5,000 years ago, where that sheet starts, Neolithic
farmers lived in Britain – tending their crops, making pottery, building houses. In fact, at that point,
they’d already been doing it for 1,000 years (the Neolithic began 6,000 years ago, around 4,000 BC).
Now roll that toilet roll down the corridor until you reach the last sheet, the one at the centre. That’s
where it all began. We’ve come a long way baby, and everything apart from the first 2(ish) squares,
represents the Palaeolithic or Old Stone Age. Ask your learners to stand at each end and wave to
their buddies at the other end of the timeline. Ask them to think of things that have happened in the
past and to go and stand on the timeline at the right point (99.9% of these things will be on that first
sheet). Can any of them think of any Palaeolithic dates? Repeat this at the end of the topic – can any
of them add dates now?
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From now to the Neolithic –
If there are 200 sheets on the roll and that humble roll represents everything from the present day
to the Neolithic, then each square is equivalent to 30 years (6,000 years divided by 200). Unroll one
square. What has happened in the last 30 years? (The internet, One Direction, Disney smash hit
Frozen). Unroll square two. What happened on this square? (The Beatles, Star Wars Episodes 4-6,
the moon landing). Next square – WW2. Next square – WW1, Queen Victoria. By the time you’ve hit
the 18th square, you’re in the medieval period. Square 32 – the Battle of Hastings happened. Squares
33 to 53 represent the Anglo-Saxon period. 53 – 65 the Romans are in town. 65 – 90 the Iron Age. 90
– 147 the Bronze Age. Square 147 to the end of the roll is the Neolithic.
As you unroll, and gain pace, put a learner at each step on the timeline. Give them a sign to hold, or
make them call out what they represent (‘The Romans have arrived’, ‘The medieval period has
begun’, ‘The medieval period has ended, the post-medieval period has begun’).
By the time the roll is fully unrolled, across the playground or down the corridor, you will have a
visual and active map of the last 6,000 years. Getting active boosts your students learning, makes it
memorable and demonstrates how vast these timescales are.
The table below summarises what happens where on your toilet roll timeline and there are some
suggested signs for key points on a separate PDF (though feel free to add your own – there are blank
signs at the end for you to print and use).
Toilet roll sheet number
1 (present day – 1985)
2 (1985 – 1955)
3
4
18
32
33 – 53
53 - 65
65 - 90
90 - 147
147 – the end of the roll
What’s going on?
The internet, One Direction, Disney smash hit
Frozen
The Beatles, Star Wars Episodes 4-6, the moon
landing
World War Two (1939 – 1945)
World War One (1914 – 1918)
Medieval period ended (1500)
Battle of Hastings, beginning of the medieval
period (1066)
Anglo-Saxon period (410 AD – 1066)
Romano-British period (43 AD – 410 AD)
Iron Age (700 BC – 43 AD)
Bronze Age (2,400 BC – 700 BC)
Neolithic (6,000 BC – 2,400 BC)