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3rd grade · Social Studies · Unit 7 of 10

Digging Up the Past

Archaeologists, mounds and four ancient periods

What your child practices

What anthropologists, archaeologists and paleontologists do, and how life changed in the Southeast through the Paleo, Archaic, Woodland and Mississippian periods, including Moundville and Russell Cave.

Alabama Course of Study content standard: 3.7; 3.8 · the roles of anthropologists, archaeologists and paleontologists, and changes in pre-contact cultures of the Southeast

How we explain it

Children can open this short lesson before they practice.

  1. Archaeologists study things people left behind. Paleontologists study fossils.
  2. Four periods: Paleo (hunters), Archaic, Woodland (pottery) and Mississippian (towns with mounds).
  3. Sites like Moundville and Russell Cave show how people lived long ago.

Example: Who would dig up old stone tools at a cave? Fossils are for paleontologists. Tools people made are studied by archaeologists. Answer: an archaeologist

Digging Up the Past in Alabama

In the Alabama Course of Study, this is unit 7 of 10 in 3rd grade Social Studies, after People & the Environment and before Native Nations of Alabama.

Gradelings describes a child's practice on this unit as Beginning, Approaching, Meeting or Exceeding (Four practice steps). That reflects practice, not a report-card mark: the teacher decides the mark.

Source: Alabama State Department of Education (ALSDE)

Sample questions

A taste of this unit. In the app, questions change every time and get easier or harder to match your child.

  1. Question 1

    Who would most likely dig up a fire pit and stone tools at Russell Cave?

    • a pilot
    • a paleontologist
    • an astronaut
    • an archaeologist

  2. Question 2

    An archaeologist studies people of the past by looking at…

    • objects and places they left behind
    • dinosaur bones only
    • today's weather
    • the stars

  3. Question 3

    Moundville is on the banks of the…

    • Chattahoochee River
    • Perdido River
    • Black Warrior River
    • Tennessee River

  4. Question 4

    A paleontologist studies…

    • the human body only
    • today's cities
    • how to grow crops
    • fossils of ancient plants and animals

  5. Question 5

    Paleo people hunted large animals such as…

    • horses brought from Spain
    • mastodons
    • chickens
    • cattle

  6. Question 6

    A change from hunting big animals to farming corn shows that people's…

    • foodways changed over time
    • life stayed the same
    • tools never changed
    • towns got smaller

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