Whizz Pop Bang Science Magazine for Kids! Issue 76: SURVIVING THE STONE AGE

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THE AWESOME SCIENCE MAGAZINE FOR KIDS!

Mix your prehistorown ic pa i nts Craft an awesome model axe

Put on a shadow puppet show

Journey back in time for some prehistoric science

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Make a Stone Age poo!

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Would you like to be an archae ancient artifacts and discove ologist? You’d get to unearth r what people’s lives might ha ve be like thousands of years ago.

This issue we’re using archae en ology to step back through time int o the Stone Age – you can try your hand at cave painting, craft a model Stone Age axe and fin how Stonehenge was built. Y ou can even read an intervie d out w with an archaeologist who specialises in Stone Age poo, and then have a go at making a replica Stone Age poo for yourself – all in the name of science!

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Welcome to WHIZZ POP BANG – the magazine bursting with enticing articles, mind-boggling facts and hands-on experiments to get your child hooked on science! Whizz Pop Bang is a gender-neutral magazine with plenty of inspirational male and female scientists and content that appeals to all children.

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Editor-in-Chief: Jenny Inglis Editor: Tammy Osborne Assistant Editor: Tara Pardo Designers: Rachael Fisher and Simon Oliver Illustrator: Clive Goodyer Staff writer: Joanna Tubbs Contributors: Sarah Bearchell, Jess Bradley, Anna Claybourne, Claire Cock-Starkey and Joe Inglis

I’ve made a Stone Age story with puppets!

Gakk

Emmi

Let’s travel back 2.5 million years to when early humans started making tools!

CONTENTS Atom

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AWESOME NEWS AND AMAZING FACTS

Check out science’s wackiest awards, plus pottytrained cows and a new species of ancient humans.

STONE AGE SCIENCE

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Step back in time and mix your own prehistoric paints, make a Stone Age poo and investigate clues left by our ancestors.

ANIMAL ANTICS

Say hello to Smilodon and discover why it was one of the Stone Age’s most terrifying predators.

SILLY SCIENCE

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Collect food and take it safely back to your cave in this epic hunting and gathering game!

© Dan

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EMMI’S ECO CLUB

Use papier-mâché to craft an awesome model axe! axe

PULLOUT

Put on a Stone Age shadow puppet show, show then solve a shadow puppet puzzle!

INTERVIEW WITH A SCIENCE HERO

Dr Lisa-Marie Shillito studies fossilised poos to discover how people lived in the past...

30 32 34 35

Find out how scientists think the incredible structure of Stonehenge was constructed.

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TEN AWESOMELY AMAZING…

Ice Age animals – meet the mega ground sloth, the elk with 3 m antlers, a giant kangaroo and more!

Wi e/ Quin © Thomas

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HOW STUFF WORKS

ia ed kim

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SENSATIONAL SCIENTISTS

Amazing archaeologist Dorothy Garrod encouraged many women to follow in her footsteps.

Y’S WONDER CLUB

Ask our robot, Y, your burning science questions and share all of your adventures in science with the club.

QUIZ POP BANG AND COMPETITION

Test your knowledge with our super-duper science quiz and win a rock tumbler kit!

JOKES AND ANSWERS

Laugh out loud at some awesome jokes and find the answers to all of our quizzes, puzzles and riddles.

SPECTACULAR SCIENCE

Visit Cueva de las Manos, the Argentinian cave decorated with ancient hand paintings!

I’d love to see pictures of your experiments! Send them to Y@whizzpopbang.com and ask an adult to tag us on social media @whizzpopbangmag FIND THE SCIENCE EQUIPMENT Hidden on each double page is a piece of science equipment. Tick each one to find the complete kit!

s Awesome New cts and Amazing Fa

© Improbable Research

The 2021 Ig Nobel Prizes Each autumn, science’s wackiest awards celebrate research that makes you laugh, then think.

Usually, the awards are presented in a very silly ceremony, in which the audience throws hundreds of paper aeroplanes at the stage.

But for the second year running, self-assembled paper awards were presented online because of the pandemic (though the audience at home was still encouraged to throw paper planes!). Watch the ceremony here improbable.com/2021-ceremony/

Here are a few of our favourite winners…

HAIRY FACE ARMOUR

The Transportation Prize was awarded to a team of scientists from Namibia, South Africa and America whose research involved dangling rhinoceroses upside down! They were investigating whether it was safer for the rhinos to be transported this way or the usual way, lying on their sides. Conservation workers often need to move rhinos between areas of fragmented habitat, and it turns out that upside down is the best way to do it! © Shutterstock.com

The Peace Prize was won by American researchers who asked, ‘what is the point of beards?’ After repeatedly dropping weights onto a bone-like material covered with sheep fleece, they concluded that beards evolved to protect faces from punches. The ‘bone’ was less likely to shatter when covered with fleece, which absorbed some of the energy from the blow.

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RHINO RELOCATION

CAT CODE The Biology Prize went to Swedish scientists who looked at how cats ‘talk’ to humans. Their meows, purrs, trills, yowls and growls were analysed using techniques used to study human speech.

The researchers also looked at how humans interpret this ‘meowsic’ and found that cat owners are very good at guessing their cats’ feelings from their meows.

© Shutterstock.com

DRAGON MAN Scientists think they may have discovered a new species of ancient human. An unusually large skull was discovered in China in the 1930s. It lay hidden in a well for over 80 years before being rediscovered and donated to a university to be studied. Now a group of scientists think this could be a newly discovered human species, which they’ve named Homo longi or ‘Dragon Man’, and that this species could be the closest known relative of modern humans. Geochemical analyses suggest the skull is at least 146,000 years old, and that Dragon man lived among woolly mammoths in the palaeolithic (Old Stone Age) period. The results have sparked a lively debate among scientists, some of whom think the skull could be a Denisovan (say de-NEE-so-van) – a mysterious group of extinct humans.

Ka iG en g

A reconstruct ion of Dragon Ma n in his habitat

In an effort to tackle climate change, scientists have taught a herd of calves to use a ‘MooLoo’ – a toilet area in their barn. The calves were rewarded with sweet treats when they weed in their toilet and sprayed with water when they went elsewhere. In a few weeks, most of the calves were successfully potty trained. The researchers think the rest just need more time. Cows’ wees and poos contaminate soil and water and contribute to the release of greenhouse gases.

Next, the researchers hope to train the calves to poo in their MooLoo too!

© Chuang Zhao

THE FIRST ARTISTS WERE KIDS Wave hello to some kids from 200,000 years ago! These hand and footprints recently discovered in Tibet are thought to represent the oldest works of art ever created. They were made deliberately by children of about 7 and 12 years old, who pushed their hands and feet into soft, muddy limestone deposits, which later hardened and became trace fossils.

We still don’t know which human species these children belonged to, but the researchers think they may have been Denisovans.

© Zhang et al

© Dudarev Mikhail / Shutterstock.com

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POTTY-TRAINED COWS

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, For most of the time humans have existed, we ve lived in the Stone Age! Step back in time to find out what life was like back then.

By A

STONE AGE SCIENCE When was the Stone Age? The Stone Age started when early humans first made stone tools, about 2.5 million years ago. It ended around 5,000 years ago, when they learned how to make things from the metal bronze, and the Bronze Age began.

We divide the Stone Age into three periods: the Palaeolithic, the Mesolithic and the Neolithic.

Look what I’ve made!

During the Palaeolithic era, the world was in an Ice Age. It was much colder than it is today.

Glaciers covered large areas of land and it was harder for humans to survive.

Palaeolithic Old Stone Age

Around 2.5 million years ago

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© ABB Photo / Shutterstock.c

Ancient clues How do we know about the Stone Age? Through archaeology, the study of objects and buildings that people long ago left behind.

Archaeologists explore ancient Stone Age homes, tools and everyday items, often digging them up from underground. They’ve found all kinds of stuff that reveals clues about Stone Age life, such as…

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1. Stone tools Over time, Stone Age people developed many types of stone tools. They included hammers, axes, sharp blades for cutting meat and wood, and tips or heads for arrows, axes and spears, for hunting wild animals.

Chopping tool

Flint arrowhead

Hand mill, or quern, for grinding grain into flour.

Co part Ice

2. Stone buildings There are also some remains of Stone Age homes, such as the 5,000-year-old Neolithic village at Skara Brae in Orkney, Scotland.

It looks pretty cosy!

Good job we invented cooking!

I’m freezing!

What do you think these Stone Age objects were for? Check your answers on page 34.

e urn

Each of these periods started and ended at different times in different places around the world.

A B C D

The age of farming begins

Middle Stone Age

Around 20,000 years ago

Around 12,000 years ago

3. Stone Age creations Rock art, jewellery and even musical instruments survive from the Stone Age too, showing that early people were creative, just like us.

Shell beads from South Africa, 70,000 years old

35,000-year-old flute from Germany, made from a vulture bone

Neolithic New Stone Age

Around 8,000 years ago

Bronze Age

Mesolithic

Coldest part of the Ice Age

Around 5,000 years ago

Make Stone Age jewellery Mix 125 g plain flour with 63 g salt, then gradually stir in 60-70 ml water. Knead the dough, then divide it into small lumps and shape these into beads (e.g. teeth, bones, shells and stones). Make holes with a wooden skewer, then bake on a lined tray at your oven’s lowest setting until they are completely hard (about 3 hours). Leave to cool, then paint your beads using neutral colours.

Thread the beads onto twine or string to make a necklace or bracelet.

, It wasn t just stone!

Stone Age people often worked with stone, but also used other materials like animal skins, as well as bones, feathers, wood, clay and seashells. We just find more of the stone objects, as they last longer!

LUNCHTIME! Everyone has to eat – so with no supermarkets, what did Stone Age people do?

Hunting and gathering For most of the Stone Age, humans were hunter-gatherers. They hunted wild animals, caught fish and collected plant foods, like nuts and berries.

Hunters used bows and arrows, spears, clubs or sharpened sticks. Working as a team, they could even catch large ON THE MENU animals like woolly mammoths.

If you lived in Br itain 10,000 year s ago, you might be ea Ooh, there’s ting this kind of thing…

Of course, people ate lots here, Mum. different things in different ~ Freshly caught ~ places. For example, while Mussels and clam s Europeans were eating Salmon, trout an d eels hares and hazelnuts, Wild boar, deer an d hare people in central America ate armadillos and ~ Vegetarian op tions ~ avocados. People living Acorns near the sea also collected Nettle and sorrel leaves seafood, such as mussels.

Plant roots Wild mushrooms ~ For dessert ~ Hazelnuts Blackberries Crab apples Cherries Honey

Don’t eat them all!

How do we know?

Archaeologists have several ways of finding out what people ate long ago.

Middens, or prehistoric rubbish piles, can contain seashells or animal bones that reveal what people were eating.

Stone Age stew

Cut marks on animal bones can show that someone cut meat off them.

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Some Stone Age people used clay cooking pots.

Archaeologists sometimes find traces of ancient food inside them.

Stone Age people hunted dinosaurs.

Stone Age people also left clues in their poos! Archaeologists can look for evidence of food, such as seeds and fruit skins, in fossilised poo. Meet a poo archaeologist on page 22!

M fr ar th

Friction and heat

There it is!

Shhh!

Fire had many uses for early people:

How can rubbing sticks together make fire?

Rubbing causes friction, which generates heat.

Try rubbing your hands together quickly for 30 seconds – do they get warmer?

Fire scares away wild animals

Mmmm, smells delicious!

Making friends around the fire

Keeping warm

I wonder if the saus-age came after the Stone Age!'

Cooking food, making it easier and safer to eat See for yourself how Stone Age people started fires bit.ly/3oBZgEl

Make Stone Age poo Make a lifelike prehistoric poo with this revolting recipe!

You will need: • 2 cupfuls of flour • 1 cupful of salt • 2 tablespoons vegetable oil • Vegetable stock cube • Warm water • Red and green food colourings • Mixing bowl

• • • • •

Spoon Plate Lolly or cocktail sticks Pencil and paper Food, such as raisins, popping corn, herbs, pumpkin or sunflower seeds, tomato skin, vegetable stalks

Bee-licious!

Before sweets, cakes and chocolate existed, honey was the ultimate sweet treat! People probably risked getting stung to collect it from wild honeybee nests.

An 8,000-year-old cave painting from Spain is thought to show someone climbing vines to collect honey, surrounded by buzzing bees.

What you do:

ons

No one knows exactly when humans began using fire, but it was probably over a million years ago. At first, people probably used natural wildfires.

Later, they learned to start their own fires by hitting rocks together to make sparks, or by rubbing dry sticks until they got hot enough to burn.

© Achillea / Wi kimedia Comm

, Let s get cooking!

1. Mix the stock cube with a few tablespoons of warm water and a few drops of red and green food colouring to make a gloopy brown paste.

2. Add the oil, flour and salt, and mix together with your hands. Add more water if needed, to make a poo-like dough (yuck!).

3. Press food bits into the mixture and mix them in well. Now shape your dough into a realistic-looking poo and plop it on a plate!

4. A sk a friend or family member to excavate the poo, using lolly or cocktail sticks, and write down each type of food they find. Did they spot everything?

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MEET THE FAMILY Did you know that for most of the Stone Age, we weren’t the only humans around!? Long ago, there were actually several different species of humans.

Meet some of them in this family tree!

Today

What do you call a Stone Age person who wanders off all the time?

A meander-thal!

Homo sapiens (‘Smart human’ – that’s us!)

Homo neanderthalensis (Neanderthals, who were still around until just 40,000 years ago!)

Ancient artists Stone Age people left lots of amazing art and crafty creations behind. They show how creative and clever humans were, even an incredibly long time ago, and they also tell us about Stone Age life.

Rock carvings of giraffes in Niger, made around 10,000 years ago.

Homo floresiensis (who was only one metre tall)

dr M a

Denisovans

Homo heidelbergensis Homo erectus (‘upright human’)

2.5 million years ago

© trevor kittelty / Shutterstock.com

Homo habilis (‘handy human’)

Prehistoric paint To paint in different colours, Stone Age artists used various rocks and minerals, clay, earth or charcoal (charred wood). This mostly gave them yellows, reds, white and black.

Can you find all of these animals in the cave art above? Tick them off and check your answer on page 34.

m

Go on a virtual tour of the Lascaux cave: bit.ly/2X7gRIq

Artworks of animals and people in the Lascaux cave in France, 17,000 years old.

Into the cave!

Why did people paint inside caves? Stone Age people sometimes used caves as homes, but probably also for special ceremonies. And because paintings inside caves are sheltered from the weather, they’ve lasted longer!

© spatuletail / Shutterstock.com © Prof saxx / Wikimedia Commons

Rock drawings from Mozambique, around 8,000 years old

© Yury Birukov / Shutterstock.com

Be a cave painter Experience what it’s like to paint a cave like a Stone Age artist. Ask an adult first, as this could get messy!

You will need: • Brown parcel paper (you could reuse packaging paper, but any kind will do) • Sticky tape

• Black, brown, red and yellow paint • Twigs and cocktail sticks • A torch or lantern

What you do: 1. First, crumple up a sheet of paper and smooth it out again to make it more like a rocky surface. Tape it to the underneath of a table and/or to the wall so it’s like a cave.

2. Decide what you want to paint – patterns, everyday scenes, your pets or wild animals? If you don’t have the right animals nearby, look up pictures of them in books or online.

3. Get your paints ready to use. Turn off or dim the lights and use your torch or lantern to light your work surface.

4. Use twigs or cocktail sticks – or your fingers – dipped in paint to create your artwork, copying the Stone Age styles on this page. Let each colour dry before adding another.

Farming revolution The Neolithic period, the most recent part of the Stone Age, brought a BIG change: the agricultural revolution, when farming became widespread. Around 12,000 years ago, in several parts of the world, people realised that they could grow food plants and keep animals, instead of hunting and gathering. By about 5,000 years ago, farming had spread to most parts of the world.

This led to many more changes…

•P eople began settling down and building the first towns.

• They started cutting down forests to make more farmland.

•T hey had more spare time, leading to new inventions such as wheels and writing.

• They developed metalwork, leading to the Bronze Age. These innovations are all still used by humans today.

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AL ANIM S TIC

AN

Smilodon Grinning like a prehistoric cat, our vet Joe Inglis is peering back in time to meet one of the Stone Age’s most fearsome predators.

Prehistoric puss Back in the Stone Age, many animals roamed the planet that are not alive today, from woolly mammoths to giant kangaroos. One of the deadliest hunters was the Smilodon, a large cat that hunted prey in North and South America for over 2 million years. Although it’s often called a sabre-toothed tiger, Smilodon wasn’t closely related to tigers or other modern cats.

14,000 How many years ago the last Smilodon lived. It is thought they died out due to their prey species becoming extinct, and because of being hunted by humans.

Big beasts With a heavier build than any modern big cat, and weighing up to 430 kg, these were seriously powerful predators.

They needed to be, as their prey included giant Stone Age bison and camels.

Scalpel tooth © Daniel Eskridge / Shutterstock.com

First discovered in the 1830s, Smilodon was identified from fossilised bones and teeth found in remote caves in Brazil. One of the most remarkable features of these early finds were the animals’ enormous and super-sharp canine teeth. This gave rise to the name Smilodon, which comes from the Greek words for scalpel, or double-edged knife, and tooth.

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rdzija / Shutters

© Sasha Sama

Killer cats

I’ve got the toothiest smile in the Stone Age!

The giant teeth that these cats are famous for were as deadly as they looked. It’s thought that Smilodon would leap at their prey, dragging them down with their powerful forelimbs, and then sink their teeth in to finish them off.

A sticky end…

Many fossilised Smilodon bones have been recovered from ancient tar pits, such as those at La Brea in Los Angeles.

Tar pits are pools of super-sticky tar that oozes out of the ground. Predators, including Smilodon, came to prey on other animals that got stuck in the pools – but many of them got stuck themselves and ended up sharing the same fate as their prey. An amazing 166,000 Smilodon bones have been found in the La Brea tar pits.

In the grid, cross out each letter of the riddle below once, then arrange the remaining letters to spell out the answer.

IF FOUR SMILODONS CAN EAT FOUR HARES IN FOUR MINUTES HOW LONG WILL IT TAKE FORTY SMILODONS TO EAT FORTY HARES?

F

Lions have been fitted with false Smilodon fangs

S

E

O

S M O W I

U A

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D R N O N S

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F U F H

A T K M S

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A O R U Y U G A

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R O N H

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S N O

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Answer:

_ _ _ _

S

_ _ _ _ _ _ _

Find out why on page 34.

HUNT AND G Stone Age people didn’t eat woolly mammoths for breakfast, lunch and dinner!

They mainly ate plants, fruit, nuts, fish and small animals. Collect some food and make it to the safety of the cave, avoiding the dangers along the way. The first player to collect three food tokens and arrive at the cave is the winner!

You will need: • • • •

2-6 players A dice The counters and tokens from page 19 Some dried beans or other small objects, such as coins or beads to use as food tokens.

What you do: 1. Cut out the player counters and board tokens from page 19. Fold the player counters like this:

2. Turn the board tokens face down, mix them up and then place them on the purple spaces on the board without looking at them.

3. Players should choose their counters, place them at the start and then roll the dice. The player with the highest score goes first and then play moves clockwise.

Can you spot 5 differences between this Smilodon and the other Smilodon that's prowling around this page?

4. Throw the dice to move around the board. When you get to a junction, you can turn along any path.

5. When you land on a space with a token on it, turn it over and follow the instructions. If it tells you to move backwards, go back the way you came by the number of spaces it says. Replace the card on its space, face down. Try to remember what it was in case you need it again!

6. Move around the board until you have collected three food tokens, then you can head towards the cave. The winner is the first player to reach the cave with their food.

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START

On which day is a Smilodon most dangerous?

Chews-day!

D GATHER GAME!

FINISH

b... clu O C E

Emmi's

MAKE A STONE AGE AXE

Early humans made the first tools by sharpening the edges of stones.

Use paper scraps and a stick to make your own papier-mâché axe!

You will need: • Thick cardboard about 20 cm x 20 cm • Pencil • Scissors • Thin, uncoated paper (e.g. newspaper, clean kitchen roll, tissue paper, paper bags, packaging paper, non-shiny leaflets) • Masking tape • Mixing bowl

1

• ½ cup flour • ¾ cup warm water • Fork or whisk • Black and white paint • Paintbrush • Piece of old sponge or rag • A stick, about 30 cm long and at least 3 cm diameter • String or twine

2

Draw an axe head shape onto the cardboard, then cut it out.

4

3

Whisk or stir the flour and water together to form a smooth mixture.

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Add screwed-up paper to the whole of one side of the axe head using masking tape to form a 3D stone shape. Repeat on the other side, but this time, leave an empty channel for the handle to rest in.

Top tip: use a different colour of paper for each layer to help you keep track of how many you have added.

k one piece at a Tear more paper into strips. Soa through your fingers so time in the mixture, then run it of paper onto the axe it’s not too wet. Smooth a strip g is covered (including head. Repeat until the whole thin l), then repeat until the edges and the empty channe ers all over. you have added three or four lay

Continued on page 21 ➜

es

PULLOUT STONE AGE

PULL OUT PAGES 17-20 AND GET MAKING!

SHADOW PUPPETS Perhaps our Stone Age ancestors used firelight to create shadows with their hands or other objects. Do you think they told each other stories? Make these fun shadow puppets and create your own Stone Age tales!

Smilodon

Woolly mammoth

whizzpopbang.com 17

You will need: • • • •

The templates below and right Scissors Sharp pencil Some transparent or translucent packaging, such as sticky tape, coloured sweet wrappers, baking paper or the bag from a cereal packet

• • • • •

Glue A torch Toothpicks Wooden skewers or paper straws Sticky tape or hot glue gun

What you do: 1. Cut out the shadow puppet templates.

2. Using the pencil, make holes for the animals’ eyes and the Smilodon’s spots.

3. Cut small pieces of transparent or translucent packaging and stick them to the back of the templates over the eye holes.

4. Attach toothpicks to the people’s hands to make spears.

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5. Attach a skewer or a paper straw to the back of each puppet using sticky tape or ask an adult to stick them on using a hot glue gun.

6. Find a plain, light-coloured wall. With the lights off and the curtains closed, shine light from the torch onto the puppets, with the wall behind them. You could lay the torch on a table so you don’t have to hold it.

7. Now create a story for your puppet show!

Board tokens

You should find: The puppets block the light from the torch, creating shadows on the wall.

This is because the paper is opaque, meaning it doesn’t let light through.

Move the torch until you find the position that makes the best shadows.

If you move your puppets closer to the torch and further away from the wall, the shadows get larger and the edges might get blurry. If you move your puppets further from the torch and closer to the wall, the shadows get smaller and darker. What happens if you change the angle of the light?

Can you make your puppets taller?

Is there a shadow where you have punched out the eye holes? The translucent packaging should be letting light through, but it might not be letting as much light through as the Smilodon’s spots, where there is no packaging. Experiment with different materials to find out how much light they allow through.

Find a printable version of the pullout here: bit.ly/3ajcpK1

Player counters for game on page 14

Deer

There’s a Smilodon prowling around.

Go back 3 spaces.

You trip and fall!

Miss a turn.

You run away from a cave hyena.

Go back 3 spaces.

A wild dog steals some food. Lose 1 food token if you have any.

You stop for a snack.

Lose 1 food token if you have any.

A woolly rhino is charging this way. Go back 3 spaces.

You find a berry bush.

Collect 1 food token.

You’ve caught some fish. Collect 1 food token.

You pick some hazelnuts. Collect 1 food token.

You gather some tasty insects. Collect 1 food token.

You harvest some mushrooms.

Collect 1 food token.

You gather some leaves and grasses. Collect 1 food token.

You’ve found some eggs.

Collect 1 food token.

You’ve hunted a deer. Collect 2 food tokens.

Woolly rhino

You hide from a charging bison.

Miss a turn.

Riddles

Check your answers on page 34.

1. A Smilodon stands on one side of a wide 2. I draw the squares In white or black. river and spies a deer on the other side.

Throw a stone, The Smilodon immediately crosses the river Hop up and back. without getting wet and without a bridge, What am I doing? stepping stones or floating on anything. How did the Smilodon get across the river?

Which of these is the correct shadow? Write your answer here and check it on page 34.

a

b

c

d

5

6

Slot the stick into the channel on the axe head, then use twine to tie it in place.

Leave the axe head to dry – this could take up to a week. Next, mix a little black into some white paint to make light grey and paint the whole axe head. When it is dry, add a blob more black paint to make a darker grey and dab this over the axe head using a sponge or piece of rag to create a stone-like texture.

I’d love to see your axe!

Take a photo and ask an adult to tag us on social media @whizzpopbangmag and email it to Y@whizzpopbang.com Early Stone Age hand axes were simple sharpened stones, designed to be held in the hand. They were probably used for many different tasks, from butchering animals to digging up edible roots.

Shac © D an

ECO

More

ideas...

e tissue paper Low-quality paper, lik usually and kitchen roll, isn’t facilities as accepted by recycling all to be recycled the fibres are too sm r papier-mâché again. It’s perfect fo eat way to reuse though, so this is a gr an). it (as long as it’s cle

Continued from page 16

har / S

hutters

tock .co

m

It’s up to us to save the planet. Lots of small actions can make a BIG difference!

Why not use papier-mâché to e make more Stone Ag a objects, like a spear, tooth sickle or a Smilodon ce? la ck ne to thread onto a

whizzpopbang.com 21

➜

Interview with a SCIENCE HERO

In my job I get to... investigate ancient poo!

Lisa-Marie is a geoarchaeologist who uses science to work out how people lived thousands of years ago by examining their rubbish, including poo! If you have any questions of your own for Lisa-Marie, you can email her on Lisa-Marie.Shillito@newcastle.ac.uk

“

Dr Lisa-M Archaeologist, N arie Shillito ewcastle Univer

sity

Archaeologists study every aspect of how people lived in the past, including the remains they left behind.

”

People sometimes think archaeology is all about artefacts like coins, pottery and tools.

They are important, but more important is understanding where they came from, how they were discarded and which ones are found together. Geoarchaeologists use geosciences to study the soil that buildings and artefacts are buried in and made from. Pottery is made from clay, and people often add things to it like sand or grit.

A geoarchaeologist could tell you what type of clay it is and what type of minerals are in the sand, which reveals where people got their materials – was it somewhere local, or did they bring it from far away?

Have you ever wondered what an ancient poo looks like under a microscope?

22 whizzpopbang.com

“

Ancient poos are really important sources of information.

”

On archaeological sites, the soil has a lot of stuff in it that has built up over the hundreds or thousands of years that people lived there.

Sometimes people dumped their rubbish in the same area over many years, forming what we call a midden, and toilet waste is often found in middens! Coprolites (fossilised poos) are one of the only types of archaeological material that show what people ate over several days, how healthy they were and how their diet varied seasonally.

pe to take a closer Lisa-Marie uses a microsco aeological digs. look at samples found on arch

“

Some coprolites contain very unusual things!

”

In the early Stone Age (Palaeolithic), people had not yet started farming – they hunted, fished, foraged and gathered food. I’ve found all sorts of unusual things in Palaeolithic coprolites – rodent bones and insects, along with the fish bones and wild plants we’d expect to find.

We can think about what seasons these plants and animals were around, and work out what time of year people lived in the caves where they were discovered. During the later Stone Age (Neolithic), people started farming and diets and lifestyle changed. We found coprolites at a Neolithic site in Catalhoyuk, Turkey, that contained remains of whipworm eggs. These types of infections may be related to people living closely together in permanent settlements.

Interview with a SCIENCE HERO

“

I get to work on sites from different time periods all around the world!

”

I’ve worked on Stone Age and medieval sites, and now I’m working on my first Roman site, called Birdoswald, UK. I tend to ask the same questions at each site: what were people eating, what types of plants were they using for food and fuel, how did they dispose of their rubbish and what impact did they have on the environment? The Roman period is exciting as there are so many different types of evidence we can draw on to answer these questions – we can use pottery and written evidence, too.

“

There are loads of exciting science subjects that you don’t get a chance to study at school.

”

I’ve always been interested in ancient history, geography and chemistry. I studied geography at university but I might have studied archaeology if I’d known it was an option! There are a lot of similarities – they’re both about understanding people and their environments. It’s a good idea to talk to as many people as you can about what interests you to find out what your options are.

Reach out to scientists who are doing things that interest you – we are usually really happy to find people who are excited by what we do, and will be happy to answer questions and offer advice on career options!

Lisa-Marie at a dig site in

“

Olynthos, Greece.

It’s hard to choose the most exciting thing I’ve found…

”

… but of course, it is a coprolite! On the site of a 10,000-year-old early Neolithic village called Sheik e Abad, Iran, we found a lot of wild goat bones and an enclosure that was full of squashed orange-coloured sediment. We examined it under a microscope and realised it was a thick layer of trampled goat dung! This shows that people had started keeping wild goats in a penned area – the very beginning of how people started to domesticate animals.

Find out more about xxxxxx

Birdoswald is an exciting site for Lisa-Marie because she grew up close by, in Wallsend.

HOW STUFF

WORKS

Stonehenge One of the most famous structures built in the Stone Age is Stonehenge, a massive circle of standing stones in Wiltshire in the UK. Here’s how we think the ancient Britons built this amazing structure…

The earliest structure at Stonehenge, built in around 3000 BC, was a simple circular enclosure made from a ditch with banks on either side and 56 stone or wooden posts.

Around 500 years later, work began on the stone circles we can still see today.

2

3

4

1

The largest stones on the site are known as sarsens and these were quarried on the Marlborough Downs, around 20 miles away from Stonehenge. Scientists found this out using geochemical analysis.

The sarsens were roughly cut into shape using wooden wedges hammered into cracks in the stone.

Weighing up to 30 tonnes each, the sarsen stones were dragged to the site from the quarry on giant sledges running over wooden rollers. The stones were so heavy that vast teams of men and oxen would have been needed to pull the sledges, and the journey would have taken many weeks.

Smaller bluestones were brought in from much further away – from the Preseli hills in West Wales more than 175 miles from Stonehenge. Some of these stones, which weigh up to 5 tonnes, were probably taken from another stone circle in Wales where empty stone holes have been found.

8

The horizontal lintels that sit on top of the upright stones were raised up on timber platforms and then set in place using finely carved stone joints.

7

To raise the stones, the builders dug deep holes and tipped the stones into them, then pulled them upright using ropes and giant wooden A frames. The holes were then filled in with earth and small stones to hold them in place.

Sacred site No one knows for sure why Stonehenge was built, but there is evidence that it was used as a burial site for at least some of its history. It’s also thought that it was an important religious site used for ceremonies, especially at the midsummer and midwinter solstices. The stones are positioned so that on the summer solstice, the Sun rises directly behind the main entrance of the monument.

6

Near to the Stonehenge site, flint hammerstones were used to carve the stones into smooth, regular shapes.

5

The bluestones were either dragged overland from Wales or floated around the coast on rafts before being hauled up from the coast.

whizzpopbang.com 25

g... in z a m A ly e m o s e w A 0 1 eird Meet some of the w res tu ea and wonderful cr et that roamed the plan e… during the Ice Ag

1

A E G A IC E 2 The woolly mammoth had long fur and a thick layer of fat to keep it warm. Some scientists are trying to bring back woolly mammoths using 10,000-year-old mammoth DNA.

Cave hyenas are closely related to today’s spotted hyenas in Africa, although they were much bigger. They are thought to have competed with Neanderthals for caves and food.

3

The dire wolf’s sharp teeth meant it could hunt large prey, including wild horses and bison.

Despite looking like supersized grey wolves, dire wolves were only distant cousins of modern species.

5

4

The woolly rhinoceros had long, thick hair to keep it warm, and two horns which could have been used to fight predators or move snow when looking for plants to eat.

The cave lion lived alongside early humans for thousands of years and can be seen in prehistoric cave paintings. It was larger than modern lions and was one of the top predators of its time.

© 1

S L A M E A NI 6 7 8

The giant short-faced kangaroo was the biggest kangaroo that ever existed. It lived in Australia and was around 2 metres tall but, unlike modern kangaroos, it couldn’t jump!

Megatherium was a massive ground sloth that lived in South America. Unlike modern sloths, which are quite small, megatherium was the size of an elephant, standing 3.5 metres tall.

9 10

Although it looked a bit like a mammoth, the mastodon was shorter and its tusks were straighter.

It became extinct about 11,000 years ago, after the last Ice Age.

Cave bears looked like modern brown bears but were the size of polar bears. In 2020, a perfectly preserved Ice Age cave bear was found frozen in the Russian permafrost.

One of the largest deer ever to have lived, the Irish elk roamed in areas spanning from Ireland to China. Its enormous antlers were more than 3 metres across!

© 1. Thomas Quine / Wikimedia Commons , 2. PierreSelim / Wikimedia Commons, 3. Catmando / Shutterstock.com. , 4. aleks1949 / Shutterstock.com, 5. Panthera / Wikimedia Commons, 6. Nobu Tamura / Wikimedia Commons, 7. Esteban De Armas / Shutterstock.com, 8. Dantheman9758 / Wikimedia Commons, 9. Sergiodlarosa / Wikimedia Commons, 10. Daniel Eskridge / Shutterstock.com.

whizzpopbang.com 27

Sensational Scientists

By Claire Cock-Starkey

Dorothy Garrod Dorothy Garrod was a trailblazing archaeologist whose discoveries changed how we think about human evolution.

TH Y D ORO OD GA R R N R O B S WA ON, D N I N L O N D, A E NG L 2 .

9 I N 18

Dorothy came from a family of high achievers – her father, Sir Archibald Garrod, was a celebrated biochemist. Dorothy and her three brothers were all very clever and were expected to have great futures.

But then World War I broke out. Two of Dorothy’s brothers were killed in action and the third died of flu soon after the war.

This made her determined to become successful to honour their memory.

After the war, Dorothy travelled to Malta. She was fascinated by the ancient ruins there, and returned to England to study anthropology at Oxford University, where she learned all about prehistoric humans.

Determined to become a Palaeolithic archaeologist, Dorothy went to France to learn from Henri Breuil, the world expert on Stone Age paintings.

In the 1920s, archaeological excavation – digging up ancient artefacts – was thought of as a man’s job, so it was difficult for Dorothy to get work. At her first archaeological dig, at the Devil’s Tower cave in Gibraltar, Dorothy made an astounding discovery – the skull of a Neanderthal child. This was only the second Neanderthal skull to have ever been found.

28 whizzpopbang.com

a Neanderthals were ans. m hu species of ancient and They lived in Europe laeolithic Asia during the Pa d, (Old Stone Age) perio – s an m when modern hu sapiens our species, Homo Africa.

– were evolving in e of Neanderthals are on relatives our closest hu man helped and their discovery modern us understand how hu mans evolved.

Following Dorothy’s brilliant work at Devil’s Tower, in 1929 she was invited to lead the excavations at Mount Carmel in Palestine. There, she built a team of mainly female researchers and local excavators. Together, they uncovered more than 87,000 stone tools and the first Neanderthal skeleton to be found outside Europe.

In the same cave system, they also found early Homo sapiens skeletons. These astonishing finds were the first evidence for a Mesolithic (Middle Stone Age) culture in Palestine and helped Dorothy to build a much better timeline of human evolution.

Dorothy wanted to become a professor at Cambridge University. It seemed an impossible dream, because no woman had ever done that before. But Dorothy’s talents and achievements could not be ignored and she was made a professor of archaeology.

Dorothy taught at Cambridge University for thirteen years, but she really missed being out in the field. As soon as she could, she retired from her university post and went back to excavation – her true passion.

Yusra was a key part of the Mount Carmel group and worked with Dorothy on the project for six years, discovering a famous Neanderthal skull fossil.

The discoveries were Dorothy made rtant, extremely impo has and her impact with been recognised the awards, such as uaries Society of Antiq gold medal, and in buildings named her honour.

Dorothy’s greatest legacy was how she encouraged others. She created a supportive network of female researchers who helped each other to succeed in a field dominated by men.

Email me at Y@whizzpopbang.com

der Club!

Welcome to Y’s Won to share your This page is for you with our adventures in science hizz Pop Bang robot, Y, and other W atured on readers! Everyone fe an this page will receive e! enamel pin badg

H I, Y ! How do

bananas go black?

From Isabella, aged 8

F oR

CURIoUS K I DS

Look at some of the amazing sock insects from Issue 72 that you made!

Ripening fruits produce a gas called ethylene and bananas make a lot more than most! Eth ylene breaks down the acids inside the fruit to make the flesh soft, sweet and delicious. It also changes a ban ana skin from green to yellow, and eventually to blackbrown. This happens more quickly if the skin is damaged – notice how quickly the peel changes colour after you ’ve bent it during peeling.

You can also see the reaction if you use a cocktail stick to draw on a yellow banana. In a few minutes, the damaged peel turns brown, and you can see your drawing!

Molly, aged 9, g tray made the bu ting ec ll o -c ct and inse e 72, su Is m o fr el funn te ri u but her favo e th as w activity sock insect.

I have called him Daffy because I think he looks like Daffy Duck!

Gruff, aged 9

James, aged 6 8, Abigail, aged ck so er h made insect out of , erials recycled mat ade m so and she al om fr in ff u the p Issue 74.

5, Charlie, aged 3, ed ag and Flynn, t to couldn’t wai on d te ar st get their sock insects!

Y’s Wonder Club Badges Help local wildlife to earn your Wildlife Watcher badge.

Investigate scientific questions to earn your Super Scientist badge.

Collectable enamel badges for you to earn!

Help save the planet to earn your Eco Hero badge.

E

you Hi Y, I made pe ho from Lego. I rom you like it. F 9 Carys, aged

Henry, aged 7, loved making the flapping Atlas moth in Issue 72.

D E A R Y, why is a delay between a fla there sh lightning and a clap of of thunder?

From your biggest fan Ot

It was hard, but it was fun and worth it.

Thunder and lightning are made at the sam e time when a thunderstorm releases ener gy. Light travels at about 300,000 kilometres per second, so it reaches you almost straight away. Sou nd waves move about a thousand times slow er, so it takes much longer for the thunder soun d to reach our ears. You can use the differenc e to give you a rough guide to how far away a stor m is.

Just count the number of seconds between the flash and the rumble, then divide by 5 to give the number of miles away, or divide by 3 for the number of kilometres.

7, Charlie, aged y b ed ir was insp t si vi to 72 Issue er tt u fly Ditchling’s B e he h Garden, w er found a real Atlas moth!

7, Frankie, aged alked w 5, ed ag , ie and Lou s three month 100 miles in forest. They in to save the ra r The World fo 7 0 raised £6 hich means Land Trust, w y six acres bu that they can keep safe. to of rainforest rk guys!

Fantastic wo

AS K Y, When you’re moving

to

S TA RE R L ET T

8, Sophie, aged le p am ex found an g in rm fa ts of an nt la p a n o s id aph . en in her gard

e

v You’ a fast, why do far away things move n o w er! slower than the things up close? Is bind they so ler, smal are they use it beca take longer to go across your sight?

Clement, aged 10

You are right, Clement! Imagine you are sitting on a beach and looking straight ahead. What you can see is your field of view. It spreads out like a fan shape; narrow close-up and getting wider the further away you look. Your field of view can be miles wide at the horizon! A seagull flying past your nose would look big and go past in a flash. However, if it flew across the horizon at the same speed, it would look tiny and take a loooong time to travel the greater distance – and that makes it look slower.

Get problem solving to earn your Epic Engineer badge.

Write a report or a review to earn your Science Reporter badge.

ng, Dear Whizz Pop Ba e magazine for th g in tt ge n e be I have d have been inspire I d an rs a ye e re th rtists and readers by the talented a . I had some old I’m loving of Whizz Pop Bang d chip the models you’ve wooden forks from the fish an ally with a fork. I re been making! shop, so I made Y hope you like it.

Love from Pippa, aged 11

Read any good science books recently? Done any cool experiments? Write to Y@whizzpopbang.com to tell us all about them!

Send your experiments, ideas, photos, reviews and questions to Y@whizzpopbang.com or Y, Whizz Pop Bang, Unit 7, Global Business Park, 14 Wilkinson Road, Cirencester, GL7 1YZ. Don’t forget to include your name, age and address. We can’t return any post, sorry.

To find out how to earn your badges, go to whizzpopbang.com/wonder-club. Schools can get involved too! Find out how here: bit.ly/39xNQqV More badges will be launched soon... watch this space!

whizzpopbang.com 31

How much can you remember from this issue?

um/Dad/ Test your M ed tiger sabre-tooth

see what (or cat!) to they know!

1

Test your knowledge with our super-duper quiz. Just tick the answers you think are correct, mark them using the answers on page 34 and then add up your score. If you need some help, check out the hints at the bottom of the page.

Which scientific investigation did NOT win an Ig Nobel Prize this year?

2

a) Can you safely dangle a rhino upside down?

What do you call a Stone Age human’s fart?

A blast from the past!

A Smilodon is sometimes called a...

a) Sabre-toothed tiger oolly rhinoceros b) W c) Cave bear

b) How do wombats produce cube-shaped poos? c) What’s the point of beards?

3

hed A layer of squas t en orange sedim isa-Marie discovered by L e from...

Shillito was mad

4

a) The Cave of Hand

s

b) The Cave of Man atees

a) Orange peel

c) Mancave

s

otten carrot b) R

c) Trampled goat

5

dung

A quern was used for...

6

b) 1 m

b) M aking shells into beads

c) 3.5 m

c) G rinding grain into flour

hy Garrod What did Dorot Devil’s discover at The Tower cave? a) A gold medal 7,000 stone b) 8

tools

he skull of a c) T Neanderthal child

How tall was Homo floresiensis? a) 1.5 m

a) Cutting sarsen stones

7

What does Cueva de las Manos mean?

8

Answers on page 34.

How heavy are the bluestones used in Stonehenge? a) Up to 5 tonnes b) Around 3 tonnes c) Over 15 tonnes

Need a hint? Find the answers by reading these pages…

1) Page 4 2) Page 12 3) Page 23 4) Page 35 5) Page 6 6) Page 10 7) Page 28 8) Page 24

I scored: ..........

1-3: Bright Neanderthal!

4-6: H omo sapiens (smart human)!

7-8: Stone Age superstar!

W !

IN

Prehistoric picture!

We’ve got three fantastic rock tumbler kits to give away to three lucky readers. Simply colour in the picture to reveal a Stone Age animal, then send in its name to be in with a chance of winning.

The number of arms that three cavewomen had The number of long fangs a Smilodon had The number of fingers a caveman had on one hand (the same as you!)

The number of rock tumbler kits we’ve got to give away!

The number of legs a woolly rhinoceros had

The number of trunks a woolly mammoth had

National Geographic rock tumbler kit The National Geographic rock tumbler starter kit from www.shopdisney.co.uk has everything you’ll need to transform rough rocks into shiny pebbles and gemstones and start an awesome rock collection. It includes a tumbling barrel and four-stage grit polishing system, easy-to-follow instructions and lots of rocks to get you started!

WINNERS

Issue 74 competition winners Thank you to all of you who sent in your entries to our Eco competition. The answer was 300,000 km². These five lucky winners will each receive a solar-powered rovers kit from brightminds.co.uk Ned Hull, 7 Lesley Corbitt, 11 Winston Li, 6

Mia Crede, 8 Otto Mills-Arends, 10

3

0

0

2

0

9

0

1

6

1

3

1

9

5

8

0

6

km

0

Send your answer to win@whizzpopbang.com with ‘Stone Age competition’ as the subject of your email. Alternatively, post your entry to Stone Age competition, Whizz Pop Bang, Unit 7, Global Business Park, 14 Wilkinson Road, Cirencester, GL7 1YZ. Please don’t forget to include your name, age and address.

Deadline: December 8th 2021. UK residents only. Full terms and conditions available at whizzpopbang.com

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9

7

8

0

whizzpopbang.com 33

4 2

JOKES vemen tell a c ’t n id d Why jokes? knock knock rs hadn’t o o d e s u a c Be ed! been invent

Why can mammoths swim whenever they want?

They always have their trunks with them!

What is a mammoth’s favourite sport?

Squash!

What do y cross a m ou get if you ammo a kangaro th with o?

Big holes all o the place! ver

u get if o y o d t a h W milodon S a t e e m you orm? in a snowst Frostbite!

What did the cavew oman say when she was bitten by a cave lio n?

Me ow!

Page 7 – Stone Age objects puzzle

Page 13 – True/Untrue

a) A knife blade, b) Stone beads, c) An oil lamp, d) A hammer head, which would be attached to a wooden handle.

TRUE: A team of filmmakers fitted fake Smilodon fangs to lions to see whether they could still eat their prey – and it turned out that they could.

Page 8 – True/Untrue

Page 13 – Smilodon puzzle

UNTRUE: Dinosaurs had died out 60 million years before humans existed!

The answer to the riddle is four minutes.

Each Smilodon eats one hare in four minutes, so forty can eat forty hares in four minutes.

Page 10 – Cave art puzzle

Pages 14 and 15 – Spot the difference

Answers Page 20 – Riddles 1. It walked across because the river was frozen.

2. I am playing hopscotch!

Page 20 – Shadow puzzle The correct shadow is d.

Page 32 – Quiz 1) b 2) a 3) c 4) a 5) c 6) b 7) c 8) a

R A L U C A T C E SP

e c n e i c s

High five!

These beautiful hand paintings are in Cueva de las Manos, meaning the Cave of Hands, in Argentina. People occupied the cave over thousands of years and the art dates from 11,000-7,000 BC. There are over 2,000 hand paintings in and around the cave. Some are handprints but most are stencilled, meaning the paint was sprayed around a person’s hand onto the wall. Archaeologists have found the remains of bone pipes, which were used for spraying the paint. Most paintings are of left hands, showing that the painters held the spray pipe in their right hands. © sunsinger / Shutterstock.com

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