Six Thousand Years of Learning

This exhibition is about teaching and learning – about the transmission of understanding through time. It is about the knowledge that our ancestors gleaned from land and community, then passed down to subsequent generations, who put it to use even as they developed it further. Our Neolithic forebears were farmers, engineers, architects, astronomers and artists – trailblazers who made astounding discoveries. But the evidence tells us that many of the things they created took generations to complete. Therefore, they must have been both students and teachers, inheriting wisdom from their elders and passing it on to their children. Here we examine how skills and knowledge have been handed down since prehistoric times so that monumental achievements could be made throughout our history.