A Prehistoric Meal Near Stonehenge: Spanish A2 Reading
A short A2 Spanish reading about a meal near Stonehenge and what it reveals about hunter-gatherers and early farmers.
Una comida prehistórica cerca de Stonehenge
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About this article
What you'll learn
Spanish prehistory vocabulary, the imperfect for past habits and the preterite for a specific archaeological discovery.
A meal near Stonehenge brought together people from different communities. Analysis of the remains reveals different origins and ways of preparing meat.
After reading
Article learning block
Phrases, words, grammar, and quick practice from this text.
Phrases for training
Add useful phrases to SRS or mark them as already known.
cazadores y recolectores
newHunters and gatherers
People who obtained food by hunting animals and collecting plants.
Key term for understanding how early humans survived.
seres humanos
newhuman beings, humans
Seres humanos is the normal Spanish way of saying humans as a species: un ser humano in the singular, seres humanos in the plural.
A fixed pair of words that turns up in every history or science text.
buscaban refugio en cuevas
newThey sought refuge in caves
When it was very cold or raining, they sought refuge in stone caves.
Caves were the first shelter for early humans.
aprender a controlar el fuego
newto learn to control fire
At first humans were afraid of fire, but later they learned to control it by rubbing two stones or sticks together.
The discovery of fire was one of the most important moments in human history.
pinturas rupestres
newcave paintings
Drawings on the walls of caves. Rupestre comes from the Latin word rupes, meaning rock.
The most famous ones in Spain are the bison on the ceiling of Altamira; in France, the horses of Lascaux.
pieles de los animales
newAnimal skins
People used the skins of hunted animals for clothing and footwear.
Useful phrase for describing prehistoric clothing.
construir las primeras aldeas
newto build the first villages
Once people no longer had to travel, they started building the first villages with huts of wood and mud.
The end of nomadic life and the beginning of civilization.
Key words
Vocabulary that carries the school-day topic.
Prehistory
prehistoria
prehistory
The long stretch of time before writing existed, when people lived in caves and hunted.
Key topic word: the whole article is about this period.
Mammoth
mamut
mammoth
A large animal with a body covered in long hair, a relative of today's elephants. Mammoths are extinct.
The animal prehistoric hunters are best known for.
Cave
cueva
Cave
A natural shelter in rock where prehistoric humans lived.
Caves were home for early humans.
Fire
fuego
fire
A great discovery of the Stone Age: people learned to make fire by rubbing two stones or sticks together.
Fire provided warmth, light, and the ability to cook food.
Stone
piedra
stone
The main material for tools in the Stone Age. The best one was flint (el sílex), because it breaks into pieces with very sharp edges.
Sharp tools for hunting and cutting were made from stone.
Tribe
tribu
Tribe
A group of people who lived together and helped each other.
Life in a group was safer for hunting.
Tool
herramienta
tool
Any object made in order to do work: a sharp stone for cutting, a spear for hunting. Plural: las herramientas.
A high-frequency everyday word that the English word tool gives you no help in guessing.
Grammar in context
Patterns from the text worth noticing after reading.
Imperfect tense: vivir → vivían
vivían
they lived, they used to live
Vivir in the pretérito imperfecto: viv- + -ían for ellos/ellas. Verbs in -er and -ir take -ía, -ías, -ía, -íamos, -íais, -ían.
The imperfect is the tense Spanish uses to describe habits and ways of life in the past.
Imperfect tense: cazar → cazaban
cazaban
they hunted, they used to hunt
Cazar in the pretérito imperfecto: caz- + -aban for ellos/ellas, the third person plural. For he or she it would be cazaba. Verbs in -ar take -aba, -abas, -aba, -ábamos, -abais, -aban.
The regular -ar pattern in the imperfect, the largest verb group in Spanish.
empezar a + infinitive
empezaron a vivir
to start doing something
empezar a + infinitive means "to start doing something": started to live.
Important pattern for describing the beginning of actions.
tener que + infinitive (negation)
no tenían que viajar
not to have to do something
tener que + infinitive = must/have to. Negation: no tenían que viajar = they didn't have to travel.
Useful for describing when an obligation disappeared in the past.
vivieron or vivían? The two Spanish pasts
vivieron / vivían
they lived (a finished fact) / they used to live (how life was)
Both forms translate as "they lived". Vivieron is the pretérito indefinido: it states the fact as one closed event. Vivían is the pretérito imperfecto: it describes how life was over a long stretch of time. The article uses the two verbs in neighbouring sentences, so you can compare them side by side.
Choosing between indefinido and imperfecto is the hardest part of talking about the past in Spanish.
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