Hunter gatherer/Food foraging

Instructions:

During the Stone Age and early prehistoric period, the main way to get food was to hunt or forage for it. Stone Age people would hunt for wild animals to eat, and also forage (search) for berries and naturally growing foods.

Some foods which grew outside were poisonous to humans – they would make people very ill, or in some cases kill them. Prehistoric people had to learn which foods were safe to eat and then be very careful about what they picked when out foraging.

Below are 24 pictures of Stone Age foods. Some of the foods are edible and some are poisonous. You should print off the pictures and hide them around your house or classroom for your pupils or children to find – when they find them, they should decide whether that food is edible. If they think it is edible, they should collect the picture and bring it back. If they think it is not edible, they should leave it where it is. Once they have ‘foraged’ all the foods they think are edible, check through the answers at the bottom of this document and see if they have accidently eaten anything poisonous!

If you don’t have a printer, you could either write the names of the food on pieces of paper, or ask your children to draw them. Then cut them up and hide them round the house.

Before you start, remind your pupils or children that they must never actually go foraging for food in the wild, unless they are with somebody very experienced. A lot of things growing outdoors nowadays are still poisonous and it can be very dangerous to eat them if you don’t know what they are.

Extra information:

By the late Bronze Age and into the Iron Age, farming was becoming much more common. This meant that people kept livestock like cattle, sheep and pigs and grew plants like wheat and barley to get their food. Foraging and hunting became less common. It also meant that more settlements grew up with people living in permanent houses. Before farming, people would move around a lot depending on where the best supply of food was. But once you had lots of animals or crops to look after, people were more likely to stay in the same place.

Food to forage

Brown Birch Bolete

Saffron Milkcap

Bladderwrack

Nettle

Wild Yellow Water Lilly

Sea Lettuce

Wild Strawberry

Wild Blackberry

Black Briony

Death Cap

Cattail

Woody Nightshade

Pine

Devil’s Bolete

Fool’s Parsley

Wood Mushroom

Hazelnuts

Fly Agaric

Sorrel

Mint

Rosehips

Elderflower

Yew

Lily-of-the-Valley

Answers:

EDIBLE FOODS

Brown Birch Bolete Saffron Milkcap Wood Mushroom Cattail Elderflower Sorrel Pine Rosehip Mint Hazelnuts Wild Strawberry Sea Lettuce Bladderwrack Wild Blackberry Nettle Wild Yellow Water Lily

TOXIC FOODS

Lily-of-the-valley Fly Agaric Black Briony Yew Devil’s Bolete Woody Nightshade Death Cap Fool’s Parsley