Prehistoric Summary for GCSE Medicine Through Time

Slide 1: Medicine Through Time Revision Series Session 2 Medicine in Prehistoric times

Slide 2: What held back Prehistoric medicine? Starter 2. Use your prior learning to draw a spider diagram Why was there so little medical progress in Prehistoric times? E.g. Government People lived in small tribes. No central government to make big decisions.

Slide 3: What’s Prehistory Copy the keyword and it’s meaning: • Prehistoric = something that happened before written records were kept. Bonus tasks 6. Where do you think historians get their evidence from when examining prehistoric periods? 7. What problems could we find with such evidence?

Slide 4: How do we know about Prehistoric medicine? How do we know about what life was like so long ago? There were no written records available at this time, so we have to rely on the findings of archaeologists. Archaeologists have studied skeletons from prehistoric times (including ones found individually and those found in large tombs) and well-preserved bodies found in peat bogs. Cave paintings can also give evidence of what life was like. What type of evidence do you think can be discovered from the study of skeletons?

Slide 5: Pickled evidence The study of skeletons and preserved bodies can yield the following evidence: what sorts of diseases prehistoric people suffered from what condition their bones and teeth were in whether physical work or warfare caused death or deformity what they ate for their last meal how old they were when they died.

Slide 6: How healthy were people in Prehistory? Copy the table below: You will use the information on the next slide to fill in your table What was the How was the Did the illness/medical illness treated? treatment problem? work? Girl Woman Boy Man

Slide 7: The Villagers at Isbister 3000 BC

Slide 8: Use your work to answer these Q’s What did they think caused Who treated the sick? disease? How did they treat the sick? Prehistoric Medicine •Why do you think the life expectancy was so low 7000 years ago? •Choose one of the illnesses/conditions form your table: describe how it would be treated today.

Slide 9: Features of health and medicine in Prehistoric times Government Communications People lived in small tribes. No central • No written language, so government information could only be to make big decisions. passed on by word of mouth. Only limited information Economy and Wealth could be passed on. • People hunted for food. Only had just enough to survive on. Education • No written language. No Technology schools. Skills and ideas can only be taught by word of • Only had primitive tools e.g. flints mouth. and arrow heads Religion • Very important. Believed in supernatural – evil spirits caused disease. To cure illness, evil spirits must be removed.

Slide 10: Extra information: add this to your mind map How were illnesses treated? Who treated illness? • Use of herbs. Use of magic charms to protect • Women were the against evil spirits. primary carers. Trephining (drilling a hole Medicine men in the head) to remove “removed” evil spirits evil spirits from the from the body. body.