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To form the general shape of an Oldowan tool, a roughly spherical hammerstone is struck on the edge, or striking platform, of a suitable core rock to produce a conchoidal fracture with sharp edges useful for various purposes. The process is often called lithic reduction. The chip removed by the blow is the flake.
One of the main uses of choppers was to cut through the meat and skins of hunted animals to obtain food, hide, and fur. The sharpness of the tool improved the overall process. Ridges and cut marks on bones can prove their use for the task. Also, these tools were used on plants, such as digging up roots and shaving and chopping wood. [6]
The earliest stone tools to date have been found at the site of Lomekwi 3 (LOM3) in Kenya and they have been dated to around 3.3 million years ago. [1] The archaeological record of lithic technology is divided into three major time periods: the Paleolithic (Old Stone Age), Mesolithic (Middle Stone Age), and Neolithic (New Stone Age).
The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic (c. 3.3 million – c. 11,700 years ago) (/ ˌ p eɪ l i oʊ ˈ l ɪ θ ɪ k, ˌ p æ l i-/ PAY-lee-oh-LITH-ik, PAL-ee-), also called the Old Stone Age (from Ancient Greek παλαιός (palaiós) 'old' and λίθος (líthos) 'stone'), is a period in human prehistory that is distinguished by the original development of stone tools, and which represents almost ...
Evidence dating to roughly 164,000 years ago indicates that early humans in South Africa during the Middle Stone Age used fire to alter the mechanical properties of tool materials applying heat treatment to a fine-grained rock called silcrete. [40] The heated rocks were then tempered into crescent-shaped blades or arrowheads for hunting and ...
The La Prele Mammoth site was discovered in 1986, and archaeologists believe a group of prehistoric people either killed or scavenged a young mammoth there, setting up a temporary camp to process ...
The following table attempts to list the oldest-known Paleolithic and Paleo-Indian sites where hominin tools have been found. It includes sites where compelling evidence of hominin tool use has been found, even if no actual tools have been found. Stone tools preserve more readily than tools of many other materials.
Tools – included Aurignacian tools, such as stone bladed tools, tools made of antlers, and tools made of bones. [20] Clothing – evidence, such as possible sewing needles from around 40,000 years ago and [21] dyed flax fibers dated 36,000 BP found in a prehistoric cave in the Republic of Georgia suggest that people were wearing clothes at ...