In the valleys of Jordan, in Israel, archaeologists are excavating the fascinating remnants of an ancient settlement. And as the team recovers relics and artifacts from the site, a startling picture begins to emerge one that's shedding new light on the lives of the humans who lived there over 10,000 years ago. Archaeologists on Earth Day Stone Age village in Israel that could help rewrite human history. Beginning some 2 million years ago, the Stone Age ushered in a time of great change for real humans. Yes, having learned to craft weapons and tools, they took their first steps on the long road to civilization as we know and recognize it today. Having spanned a duration of around 3 million years all told, the Stone Age is now typically broken up into three distinct periods. They are the Paleolithic, the Mesolithic, and the Neolithic stages. And by the time the great prehistoric period drew to a close, mankind was no longer and nomadic hunter-gatherer.

Instead, we had become relatively sophisticated beings capable of skilled tasks such as working with metal. Today, many aspects of the Stone Age remain a mystery, though. Yet thanks to archaeology, we are always learning more about the world that our ancestors inhabited. Across the globe sites continually reveal incredible relics from this fascinating bygone time. And these discoveries, in turn, give us priceless insights into where we came from, and who we are. For example, the Neolithic village of Skara Brae in Scotland's Orkney Islands has allowed experts to reconstruct what life was like more than 5000 years ago, in France. Meanwhile, paleolithic cave paintings have taught us much about early human's approach to culture and art.