Printable Early Humans Word Search

A Stone Age vocabulary sheet: 15 words from Hunter to Hominid in one grid, answer key on page 2.

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Early Humans Word Search

Find every word hidden in the grid. Words go across and down.

0 of 15 words found

MDWETOVUFHPVOSN

JSHLOTAIOOXHPMF

CAVEAOEFZMYUOWI

NGATHERERINNWER

HUUIBDFLINTTHUE

WTNFAFOSSILEXCL

PSHYLNOMADSRDQS

HAEUEOWINICEAGE

TOOLSTONEAGETWO

BUFARMINGAITRZW

COGIGXSRHSPEART

CZAMOFGMAMMOTHN

CWRMIGRATEYWMRY

SGDTNMOLTTTOHIN

QDENEXFAVXCFKSF

This grid is wider and taller than its box. Slide it to see every letter.To drag, hold the first letter for a moment, then slide.Keyboard: Tab to the grid, arrow keys to move, Enter on the first and last letter.

HominidHOMINID
FossilFOSSIL
FlintFLINT
ToolsTOOLS
FireFIRE
SpearSPEAR
HunterHUNTER
GathererGATHERER
NomadNOMAD
CaveCAVE
MammothMAMMOTH
Ice AgeICE AGE
MigrateMIGRATE
FarmingFARMING
Stone AgeSTONE AGE

15 words from the Early Humans list.

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Answer key: Early Humans Word Search

MDWETOVUFHPVOSN

JSHLOTAIOOXHPMF

CAVEAOEFZMYUOWI

NGATHERERINNWER

HUUIBDFLINTTHUE

WTNFAFOSSILEXCL

PSHYLNOMADSRDQS

HAEUEOWINICEAGE

TOOLSTONEAGETWO

BUFARMINGAITRZW

COGIGXSRHSPEART

CZAMOFGMAMMOTHN

CWRMIGRATEYWMRY

SGDTNMOLTTTOHIN

QDENEXFAVXCFKSF

HOMINID, FOSSIL, FLINT, TOOLS, FIRE, SPEAR, HUNTER, GATHERER, NOMAD, CAVE, MAMMOTH, ICE AGE, MIGRATE, FARMING, STONE AGE

Next step Make a puzzle from your own chapter's words Scramble these early human words

All 149 words

Early Human Species 25

Africa The continent where humans first evolved. Every early human fossil older than 2 million years comes from here.
Ancestor One from whom others descend. Humans and African apes share one that lived 8 to 6 million years ago.
Bipedal Walking on two legs. Early humans did so more than 4 million years ago.
Brain It grew larger and more complex over millions of years of human evolution.
Cro-Magnon A name for the first modern humans of Europe, taken from a rock shelter in France.
Denisovan An extinct human group first known from a finger bone found in a cave in Siberia.
Ethiopia East African country where the skeleton nicknamed Lucy was found.
Footprints About 70 of them, pressed into ash more than 3.5 million years ago, show early humans walking on two legs.
Fossil Bone or another trace of ancient life that the ground has preserved. Such finds are key clues to early humans.
Handy Man Nickname of an early human once thought to be the first maker of stone tools.
Hominid A member of the great ape family, humans included. The word once meant only humans and their extinct relatives.

Show all 149 words (138 more)

Early Human Species, continued

Hominin A modern human or an extinct relative from the human side of the split with the chimpanzees.
Homo Erectus The first early human with long legs and short arms like ours, and the first thought to have left Africa.
Homo Habilis An early human of eastern and southern Africa from about 2.4 million years ago. The name means handy man.
Homo Sapiens Our own species. It evolved in Africa about 300,000 years ago and now lives worldwide.
Kenya East African country. A boy's skeleton about 1.5 to 1.6 million years old was found near its Lake Turkana.
Laetoli Place where early humans walked across wet volcanic ash and left a trail almost 27 meters long.
Lucy Nickname of a partial skeleton about 3.2 million years old, found at Hadar in 1974.
Neanderthal Our closest extinct relative, short and stocky and built for the cold. It died out about 40,000 years ago.
Olduvai A gorge where handy man remains were dug up in the early 1960s, with thousands of stone tools.
Rift Valley A long trough in East Africa that has been a rich source of early human remains.
Skull The bones of the head. Its shape and size are clues to the brain it held.
Tanzania East African country of Olduvai Gorge and the Laetoli trail.
Teeth Their size, shape and wear tell scientists what an early human ate.
Upright Standing straight on two legs, the way people walk.

Stone Tools and Fire 29

Acheulean The toolkit of the hand axe makers, named after Saint-Acheul in France.
Antler A deer's branched horn. Later Stone Age toolmakers worked it as they worked ivory.
Arrow A thin shaft with a sharp tip, shot through the air at fast prey.
Awl A pointed tool for piercing holes in hides.
Blade A long, narrow flake of stone, at least twice as long as it is wide.
Bone Hard animal material that was shaped into needles and spear tips.
Bow A bent length of wood strung with a tight cord, for shooting arrows.
Burin A stone flake with a chisel tip, for carving designs into antler, ivory and wood.
Chopper A pebble with flakes knocked off one side to leave a rough cutting edge.
Cooking Heating food over flames. It made food easier to digest and rid some plants of poisons.
Cord Twisted plant fibers. People were making it by about 26,000 years ago.
Core The lump of stone left after sharp chips have been struck from it.
Fire Once early humans controlled it, they had warmth, light after dark and cooked food.
Fishhook A small curved barb tied to a line and dropped in the water.
Flake A sharp chip struck off a larger stone.
Flint A hard stone that chips to a sharp edge. People shaped it into tools and started fires with it.
Hammerstone A hard cobble used to strike sharp chips off another rock.
Hand Axe A large flake shaped all around its edges. It led the toolkit of early humans for over a million years.
Harpoon A barbed weapon like a spear, for catching large fish and sea mammals.
Hearth A fireplace. The earliest known date back at least 790,000 years.
Knapping Shaping flint or similar stone by striking pieces off it.
Microlith A tiny stone tool. Several were set in one shaft of wood to make a spear or a harpoon.
Needle A sliver of bone or ivory with an eye for thread. With it people sewed warm, closely fitted clothes.
Obsidian Volcanic glass with a very sharp broken edge, once worked into cutting and piercing tools.
Oldowan The earliest widespread stone toolkit: hammerstones, cores and sharp flakes.
Scraper A stone tool for preparing hides, wood and other materials.
Spear A long wooden shaft with a sharp end, thrust or thrown at large animals.
Tools Things made to do a job. The oldest known stone ones are at least 2.6 million years old.
Torch A burning stick carried for light. Marks left by them on cave walls help date the paintings.

Hunters and Gatherers 25

Aurochs The extinct wild ancestor of farm cattle, shown in Paleolithic cave paintings.
Band The simplest human society: a small group of kin, no larger than an extended family.
Berries Small soft fruits picked from wild bushes.
Bison A large wild grazer, one of the animals painted most often on cave walls.
Camp A place where a group stops and lives for a while before moving on.
Cave A natural hollow in rock. Many of the oldest paintings in the world are on the walls of one.
Clothing Coverings for the body. Neanderthals made and wore them.
Fishing Catching food from rivers, lakes and the sea. Special tools for it are 90,000 years old.
Forage To search for wild food.
Fur The thick hair on an animal skin.
Gatherer A person who lives on wild plants and other foods found, not grown.
Glacier A mass of ice on land that lasts all year and creeps slowly forward.
Herd A large group of grazing animals that travels together.
Hunter A person who follows and catches wild animals for meat.
Hut A small, simple house.
Ice Age A long cold time when glaciers and polar caps spread over more of the Earth.
Mammoth A huge hairy relative of the elephant. People ate its meat and built with its bones and tusks.
Migrate To move to a new region. Early humans first did so out of Africa about 2 million years ago.
Nomad A person whose community keeps no fixed home and regularly moves on.
Nuts Hard-shelled seeds, cracked open for the food inside.
Reindeer A deer of the Arctic and the tundra. Some herds travel long distances each year.
Roots Underground plant parts, dug up to eat.
Shellfish Food from the shore. Modern humans were collecting and cooking it 164,000 years ago.
Shelter A place that keeps out wind, rain and cold. Neanderthals lived in them.
Tundra Land where bitter cold and a short growing season keep trees from growing.

Cave Art and Symbols 23

Altamira Cave in Spain known for charcoal drawings and many-colored pictures of animals and human hands.
Beads Small pierced ornaments on a string. By 100,000 years ago people wore such things to show who they were.
Blombos Cave on the coast of South Africa that held engraved ocher and beads made of sea shells.
Burial Laying the dead in a grave. By 100,000 years ago people often placed symbolic objects there too.
Carving A shape cut out of antler, ivory or stone.
Cave Painting A picture made on a rock wall underground. The oldest known are more than 40,000 years old.
Charcoal Burnt wood, used for black drawings on rock.
Chauvet Cave in southeastern France whose walls show cave lions, bears and woolly rhinos.
Engraving A picture or pattern cut as lines into a hard surface.
Figurine A small statue. Humans were making them by 40,000 years ago.
Flute A musical pipe. Ones of bone and ivory from caves in Germany are over 35,000 years old.
Handprint The shape of a palm and fingers left on a rock wall.
Horses The animals shown most often at Lascaux: 364 of its pictures.
Ivory The hard white material of a mammoth's tusk.
Language Speech does not turn to stone, so scientists are not sure when early humans began to talk.
Lascaux Cave in southwestern France with over 600 wall pictures, mostly of large animals.
Lion Man A carving with the head of a big cave cat on a human-like body, about 40,000 years old, found in Germany.
Ocher A natural earth color, from yellow to deep orange or brown. One kind is red.
Pendant A carved ornament made to hang from a cord.
Pigment A coloring material. Flat, rubbed sides show that lumps of it were used like chunky crayons.
Rock Art Markings made by people on natural stone surfaces.
Stencil An outline left when paint is sprayed around a hand held against the rock.
Symbol A mark, color or object that stands for an idea. Written ones for words came by about 8,000 years ago.

The First Farmers 30

Agriculture The work of planting crops and keeping livestock.
Barley A grain that early farming villages of West Asia grew beside emmer and einkorn.
Çatalhöyük A large Neolithic settlement in Turkey from around 7500 BC. Most houses were entered by a hole in the ceiling.
Cattle Farm animals descended from the wild aurochs.
Crops Plants grown in fields for food or fiber.
Dog The first species to be domesticated. Hunters kept it long before anyone planted a field.
Domesticate To take over the control and care of a wild plant or animal over many generations.
Farming Growing crops and raising animals for food. It began in the last 12,000 years.
Flax A founder crop grown for its seeds and for fibers that are made into linen.
Goats Among the first livestock, domesticated in the Fertile Crescent 11,000 to 10,000 years ago.
Herding Keeping a group of animals together and moving them to grass and water.
Jericho Among the oldest cities in the world, in the Jordan Valley. A stone tower was built there around 8000 BC.
Lentils Small lens-shaped seeds, one of the eight founder crops.
Megalith A large stone used to build a prehistoric monument, alone or with others.
Mud Brick A block of wet earth dried in the air, not fired. The houses of Çatalhöyük were built of them.
Neolithic The New Stone Age, the final part of the Stone Age, which saw the invention of agriculture.
Peas Round seeds from a pod, planted by the first farmers of West Asia.
Pigs Livestock descended from wild boar.
Pottery Vessels of fired clay for storing things. People in China began making them about 20,000 years ago.
Quern A pair of stones for grinding grain by hand.
Rice A grain domesticated in China some 9,000 years ago.
Seeds Kept back from one crop and planted to grow the next.
Settle To stop wandering and make a lasting home in one place.
Sheep Flock animals domesticated about 11,000 years ago.
Sickle A curved tool for cutting grain. Early ones had a wooden handle set with flint.
Surplus More food than a group needs right away, which can be stored.
Trade Swapping goods between groups. Obsidian blades traveled far from their volcano this way.
Village A small community of houses where people stay all year.
Weaving Crossing fibers over and under one another to make cloth, cords or baskets.
Wheat A grain. Two old kinds, emmer and einkorn, were among the founder crops of West Asia.

Ages and Migrations 17

Americas People first came to these two continents in roughly the last 30,000 years.
Anthropology The study of humans: their biology, societies and cultures.
Artifact A thing made by people. Stone ones last better than bones, so they are the best record of early humans.
Asia Early humans first reached this continent some 1.8 to 2 million years ago.
Australia People first came to this continent likely in the last 60,000 years.
Beringia A prehistoric region around the Bering Strait, dry land when the sea stood lower.
Bronze Age The period that followed the time of stone tools in the three-part system of prehistory.
Europe Early humans entered this continent some 1 to 1.5 million years ago.
Evidence Bones, tools, footprints and hearths: the clues left by earlier people.
Holocene The epoch we live in. It began about 11,700 years ago.
Land Bridge A strip of dry ground that joins two larger masses until the sea covers it.
Mesolithic The period between the Old Stone Age and the New, known for toolkits of very small stone blades.
Out of Africa A theory that people elsewhere descend mainly from one wave of modern humans who left a single continent.
Paleolithic The Old Stone Age, when people lived in small bands by gathering plants, fishing and hunting.
Pleistocene The epoch often called the Ice Age, from about 2.58 million to 11,700 years ago.
Prehistory The human past from the first stone tools to the invention of writing.
Stone Age The span of more than 2.5 million years in which people made edged tools of rock, before metalworking.

How this list was compiled: Own work: the 149 words and every meaning were written for this page. Dates, places and names were checked on October 12, 2026 against the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History's human origins pages (https://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/human-fossils/species, https://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/behavior/stone-tools, https://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/behavior/footprints/laetoli-footprint-trails, https://humanorigins.si.edu/human-characteristics/tools-food, https://humanorigins.si.edu/human-characteristics/language-symbols and https://humanorigins.si.edu/education/introduction-human-evolution) and the English Wikipedia article (CC BY-SA 4.0) on each word, among them https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter-gatherer, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neolithic_Revolution and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lascaux. Licence: own work

How it works

This printable early humans word search hides 15 words: Hunter, Gatherer, Nomad, Flint, Fire, Tools, Spear, Cave, Mammoth and six more. Six further lists follow the unit from the first hominids to the first farming villages.

Read the full guide

Six lists, from Lucy to Jericho

Start from a list splits the 149 words: Early Human Species (25) has Homo Habilis, Neanderthal and Lucy; Stone Tools and Fire (29) has Hand Axe, Obsidian and Hearth; Hunters and Gatherers (25); Cave Art and Symbols (23) has Lascaux and Ocher; The First Farmers (30) has Domesticate, Jericho and Çatalhöyük; Ages and Migrations (17) has Paleolithic and Beringia.

Meanings that carry the chapter's facts

"A fireplace. The earliest known date back at least 790,000 years." is Hearth. "The first species to be domesticated. Hunters kept it long before anyone planted a field." is Dog. Under More options, tick Show clues, not words, and the sheet becomes a review of the unit.

Easy Early Humans keeps to 46 words of 3 to 5 letters, such as Cave, Fire, Flint, Bow and Dog.
The grid drops spaces, hyphens and accents, so look for HANDAXE, CROMAGNON, OUTOFAFRICA and CATALHOYUK.

Questions and answers

Who were the early humans?

Most scientists recognize some 15 to 20 species of early humans, the Smithsonian says. Among the best known are Lucy's species, Homo habilis, Homo erectus and the Neanderthals. Our own species, Homo sapiens, evolved in Africa about 300,000 years ago.

What is the difference between a hominid and a hominin?

Hominid now means any great ape, humans included. Hominin means modern humans and the extinct relatives on our side of the split from the chimpanzees. Hominid first meant that smaller group, so both words are in the lists.

What tools did early humans use?

The oldest known are hammerstones, cores and sharp flakes, at least 2.6 million years old. Hand axes came next, then spears, scrapers and awls, and later needles, harpoons and bows. All of them are in the Stone Tools and Fire list.

When did early humans start farming?

In the last 12,000 years, according to the Smithsonian. Before that everyone lived by hunting and gathering, which takes up at least 90 percent of human history. The First Farmers list runs from Wheat and Goats to Jericho.

What is the difference between the Paleolithic and the Neolithic?

The Paleolithic, or Old Stone Age, is the long time of hunters and gatherers. The Neolithic, or New Stone Age, is the final part of the Stone Age, when farming was invented. For the words of the dig itself, print the archaeology word search.

All 149 words

Early Human Species 25

Early Human Species, continued

Stone Tools and Fire 29

Hunters and Gatherers 25

Cave Art and Symbols 23

The First Farmers 30

Ages and Migrations 17

How it works

Six lists, from Lucy to Jericho

Meanings that carry the chapter's facts

Questions and answers

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