Early people had to learn to adapt to new environments. The places to which they migrated were often much colder than the places they left and often had strange plants and animals.

To keep warm, they used fire and learned to sew animal skins together to make clothing. At first, they took shelter in caves. When they moved to areas with no caves, they built their own shelters. At first, these shelters were pits in the ground with roofs of branches and leaves. Later, people learned to build more permanent structures with wood, stone, clay, or other materials, even bones from large animals such as mammoths. They covered frames with animal hides to form solid roofs and walls.

People also began to make new types of tools. These tools were smaller and more complex than tools from the Paleolithic Era. These new tools included hooks and spears for fishing and bows and arrows for hunting. People learned how to make pots from clay, how to hollow out logs to make canoes, and how to use dogs for protection and to help them hunt.