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Many such sites have hominin bones, teeth, or footprints, but unless they also include evidence for tools or tool use, they are omitted here. This list excludes tools and tool use attributed to non-hominin species. See Tool use by non-humans. Since there are far too many hominin tool sites to list on a single page, this page attempts to list ...
Oldowan tools were probably used for many purposes, which have been discovered from observation of modern apes and hunter-gatherers. Nuts and bones are cracked by hitting them with hammer stones on a stone used as an anvil. Battered and pitted stones testify to this possible use. Heavy-duty tools could be used as axes for woodworking.
Stone tool use – early human (hominid) use of stone tool technology, such as the hand axe, was similar to that of primates, which is found to be limited to the intelligence levels of modern children aged 3 to 5 years. Ancestors of homo sapiens (modern man) used stone tools as follows: Homo habilis ("handy man") – first "homo" species.
Tool use by animals is a phenomenon in which an animal uses any kind of tool in order to achieve a goal such as acquiring food and water, grooming, defense, communication, recreation or construction. [42] Originally thought to be a skill possessed only by humans, some tool use requires a sophisticated level of cognition. [43]
This era of stone tool use is called the Paleolithic, or "Old stone age", and spans all of human history up to the development of agriculture approximately 12,000 years ago. To make a stone tool, a " core " of hard stone with specific flaking properties (such as flint ) was struck with a hammerstone .
It was one of the first tools where hominins took separate elements and united them into a single tool. The development of hafting is considered by archaeologists to have been a significant milestone. It was not only an improvement in the technology at the time; it also showed the progression of the human mind toward a world of complex tool-making.
Stone tools are still one of the most successful technologies used by humans. [28] The invention of the flintlock gun mechanism in the sixteenth century produced a demand for specially shaped gunflints. [31] The gunflint industry survived until the middle of the twentieth century in some places, including in the English town of Brandon. [32]
The earliest alloy used for the production of tools was arsenical bronze/copper, of which e.g. the tools used at Old Kingdom Giza were manufactured. [19] This alloy is harder than the "pure copper", presumed to be used by ancient Egyptians in earlier, now outdated works. [20] In the New Kingdom, the predominant practical alloy was tin bronze. [21]