- The document discusses early stone tool technologies, beginning with Oldowan tools dated to 3.4 million years ago which were made and used by Australopithecus afarensis. - Acheulean tools emerged around 1.8 million years ago and were more sophisticated, consisting of bifacial hand axes, cleavers, and picks. These tools spread widely and suggested more advanced cognition among humans. - Acheulean handaxes are believed to have taken on social significance beyond just functionality, with elaborate examples perhaps serving to display skills or used in mate selection by early humans.

1. Oldowan
&
Acheulean

2. Are we the only species that make and use tools?
• Crows fashion hooks from
leaves and fish for bugs
(Corballis, 2002)
• Chimps fishing for termites
e.g. Goodall 1963 (Gombe
chimps)
• Bonobos use rocks and
pieces of wood to hammer
open nuts
• Vultures use stones to open
eggs

3. Are we the only species that make and use tools?

4. Are we the only species that make and use tools?

5. Are we the only species that make and use tools?
From: Davidson, I & McGrew,
W.C. (2005). Stone tools and
the uniqueness of human
culture. J. Roy. Anthrop. Inst.
(N.S.) 11, 793-817

6. Paleolithic ChronologyPaleolithic Chronology
•Basal Paleolithic: 3.4 mya – 1.75 mya
•Lower Paleolithic: 1.75 mya – 250 kya
•Middle Paleolithic: 250 kya – 40 kya
•Upper Paleolithic: 40 kya –18 kya
•Epipaleolithic: 18 kya –12 kya
•Mesolithic: starts & ends at different times in different places.
•Neolithic: starts & ends at different times in different places.

7. Oldowan tools
• Earliest tool use…Leakey
et al. at Olduvai gorge in
1960s..hence “Oldowan” tool
industry

8. Leakey Family
Meave Leakey
Louis Leakey
Richard Leakey
Mary Leakey
Louise Leakey

9. Partially Excavated DepositsPartially Excavated Deposits

10. Archaeological BoneArchaeological Bone

11. Oldowan tools
•…originally attributed to “Zinjanthropus”, (now known as
Paranthropus boisei

12. Oldowan tools
•then thought to be the product of Homo habilis
• although Homo rudolfensis in Ethiopia may be older (2.5.
to 2.6 million years ago) and may have also used tools

13. Oldowan tools
•Then they were assigned to an Australopitchecine known
as Australopithecus garhi

15. Oldowan tools
•New studies indicate the oldest Oldowan
tools were made by Australopithecus
afarensis at about 3.4 mya.

16. A. afarensis, 3.4 mya
Nature, 2010
Dr. Zeresenay Alemseged of the California
Academy of Sciences in San Francisco

17. Nature, 2010

18. Some key sites:
Ounda Gona, Ethiopia, 2.6 million years ago:
core-flake tools and cutmarked bones (equid, bovid); highly selective raw
material use
Kada Gona, Ethiopia, 2.52-2.60 MYA - core-flake tools
Bouri, Ethopia, 2.5 MYA - cut marked animal bones,
Omo, Shungura, Ethiopia
Oldowan Industry

19. Oldowan Tool
Typology:
Toth, Nicholas. 1985. The
Oldowan Reassessed: A Close
Look at Early Stone Artifacts.
Journal of Archaeological
Science. 12, 101-120.

20. • were our ancestors scavengers? carnivore tooth marks on
bones…
from Johanson & Edgar (2001). From Lucy to Language. New
York: Nevraumont Publishing,

21. Oldowan tools
• Oldowan tools may suggest something about the
cognitive capacities of their creators. For example.
according to Toth & Schick (In Gibson and Toth, 1994)
Tools, Language etc.):
• the ability to recognise the correct angles on stone cores
for flaking
• good hand-eye coordination for hammering etc.
• strong power grip as well as precision grips? Bimanual
coordination?
• they seemed to transport their tools..carried appropriate
flints etc. a considerable distance from their source. Tools
often found in great concentrations in a single site, etc.

22. Oldowan tools
• hard hammer
percussion crucial for
creation of flake and core
tools…
• grip capabilities plus
stress resistance in fossil
hominins might indicate
crude tool use…
• A. africanus? 2.4 to 3
m.y.a.?
Panger et al. (2002)

23. Oldowan tools
Oldowan technology probably not a
major breakthrough beyond the
capacities of other ape-like species
Kanzi has learned to make stone
tools (Toth et al. 1993)

24. Acheulean
Science, 2013

25. Discovery: St Acheul
1859
Present

26. Acheulean Handaxes

27. Acheulean tools
• more sophisticated: bifacial hand axes, cleavers, picks etc.
• around 1.8 million years ago? 400 ky after the appearance of
H.ergaster
•spread to Middle East, Europe, India and Indonesia.

28. Acheulean
It was the dominant technology for the
vast majority of human history.
Their distinctive oval and pear-shaped
handaxes have been found over a
wide area and some examples
attained a very high level of
sophistication suggesting that the
roots of human art, economy and
social organization arose as a result
of their development.

30. Acheulean: predetermination of the shape!

31. Use
Use-wear analysis on Acheulean tools suggests there was generally no
specialization in the different types created and that they were multi-use
implements.
Functions included cutting animal carcasses as well as scraping and
cutting hides when necessary. Some tools may have been better suited to
digging roots or butchering animals than others however.
A large and carefully crafted handaxes may have served a social as well
as functional purpose.
Alternative theories include a use for ovate hand-axes as a kind of hunting
discus to be hurled at prey. Puzzlingly, there are also examples of sites
where hundreds of hand-axes, many impractically large and also
apparently unused, have been found in close association together.

32. Acheulian Handaxe Cache

33. Recently, it has been suggested that the Acheulean tool users adopted the
handaxe as a social artifact, meaning that it embodied something beyond
its function of a butchery or wood cutting tool.
Knowing how to create and use these tools would have been a valuable
skill and the more elaborate ones suggest that they played a role in their
owners' identity and their interactions with others.
This would help explain the apparent over-sophistication of some
examples which may represent a "historically accrued social significance".
One theory goes further and suggests that some special hand-axes were
made and displayed by males in search of mate, using a large, well-made
hand-axe to demonstrate that they possessed sufficient strength and skill
to pass on to their offspring. Once they had attracted a female at a group
gathering, it is suggested that they would discard their axes, perhaps
explaining why so many are found together.
Symbolism

34. Cleaver

35. Hallam L. Movius
The Movius Line is a theoretical line
drawn across northern India first proposed
by the American archaeologist Hallam L.
Movius in 1948 to demonstrate a
technological difference between the early
prehistoric tool technologies of the east
and west of the Old World.

36. Movius Line

37. Exceptions

38. Exceptions
Bae et al, 2012