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Our ancestors’ toolkits

We used to be told that only Man could make tools. We now know that that’s nonsense. Here is a picture of a chimp stone hammer, used for cracking panda nuts. It comes from the Max Plank Institute. It’s not a very good picture, but the text says that the stone shows deep wear. It has clearly been used a lot.

Toolkits: Oldowan Acheulean Mousterian Aurignacian

As far as I know, no animal breaks stones up to make tools. But both great apes and birds strip leaves from twigs, so that they can poke them down into termites’ nests and such.

What makes us unique is not that we make tools, but that we make such good ones.

The Stone Age

Before we go any further, we ought to offer a word of warning. We call the last 2 million years or so ‘the Stone Age’, because stone implements are all that we find in the digs. But that doesn’t mean that folk weren’t using a wide range of other materials besides. In fact I think we’re entitled to assume that they were. As our ancestors got smarter, they will have developed more sophisticated uses for hides, bones, sinews, plants, wood and you-name-it. But we’ll never know because the evidence will all have rotted away long ago.

Take string, for example. The experimental archaeologists tell us that many fast-growing bushes like bramble (the blackberry bush) can be used to make excellent cordage. They produce long, and very strong, sinewy strands that can be extracted (with difficulty) from the prickles and fleshy parts – and twisted together to make string or even rope. When did our ancestors discover this? We will never know. But we certainly can’t assume that they weren’t using string and rope, just because we don’t find any in the digs.

However the key to exploiting all these materials is something to cut with. And until a few thousand years ago, that meant stone.

The earliest proper stone tools

The trick that our ancestors learned was to ‘knap’ a stone to produce a sharp edge. This picture comes from ‘Earth Story’ by Lamb & Sington. To you and me, it may look like any old piece of broken stone. But an experienced flint knapper will tell you at once that it has been ‘worked’ to produce a crude cutting edge. It was made about 2½ million years ago by folk who have been described as ‘brains of apes, bodies of men’ (more).

The Oldowan toolkit

Fairly soon afterwards came the first proper toolkit, the Oldowan toolkit. It must have been effective, because Oldowan technology lasted for nearly a million years, from some 2½ to around 1½ million years ago.

It’s not clear how much of the Oldowan kit was invented by the ‘ape men’, because very soon afterwards came the first ‘Homo’s (see above link), whose brains were half as large again.

The technology is called ‘Oldowan’ because the first specimens were found by Louis and Mary Leakey at Olduvai Gorge. Oldowan tools have been described as ‘crude but effective’, which these pictures illustrate very well. The photo comes from the University of California at Berkeley. The tool was made by Homo habilis between 1½ and 2 million years ago, of chert. Chert is either the same as the flint that we Brits are familiar with, or it is very similar. Sources differ. The Oldowan kit clearly served our ancestors well because it was in use, pretty well unchanged, for over a million years. Most of the tools were made by a single blow of one stone against another, to produce a sharp-edged flake. But for some of them, a softer rounded hammer stone was needed to achieve the right effect.

The drawing of an Oldowan handaxe was prepared by José-Manuel Benito, and comes from Wikipedia. It illustrates an important feature of Oldowan tools; namely that their makers didn’t bother to make them symmetrical. As we’ll see, later handaxes are usually superbly crafted to be symmetrical to a high degree.

The Acheulean toolkit

About 1½ million years ago, a much more advanced toolkit, the Acheulean suddenly appeared. The technology was developed in Africa, but the name comes from Saint Acheul in northern France, where the first of the new tools were found. Acheulean tools were in use until about 100,000 years ago.

Why did they appear so suddenly? One theory is that their inventors Homo erectus, or the ‘mighty hunter’, mastered the art of cooking at some point. This reduced dramatically the amount of energy needed to digest his food – which left more for powering his brain. Far fetched? The scientists putting the theory forward don’t think so.

Whereas the Oldowan tools come in all sorts of shapes, depending on exactly how the stone broke, the Acheulean tools were carefully worked to produce the same shape each time. This clearly involved a lot more work and a lot more skill. In particular it involved chipping the stone from both sides to produce a neat symmetrical tool. Compare this drawing of an Acheulean handaxe, also by José-Manuel Benito, with the Oldowan axe above.

Even more striking, at least for whose who dismiss all our ancestors as stupid, is this. Some smaller tools were made from large flakes that were themselves struck from carefully-prepared stone ‘cores’. It must have taken an element of real planning to produce the excellent products that have been found.

How do we know so much about how these tools were made? Because there’s a large band of modern stone-knappers, whose joy-in-life is obtained by recreating them.

There’s evidence that Acheulean artefacts were much more than just workaday tools. Many perfectly good axes have been found, discarded unused (an experienced knapper can tell at once whether an edge has been used or not). Others have been found that are far too exquisite to be ordinary workaday tools. Others still are ridiculously large. They were almost certainly used as gifts, status symbols or even money (more).

The Acheulean toolkit was invented in Africa, and took another million years to reach Europe. It never did reach Asia.

The Mousterian toolkit

The next development was the Mousterian toolkit, which appeared around 200,000 years ago, and lasted until about 40,000 years ago. It’s associated mainly with the Neanderthals although, as we’ll see later, it’s not clear who actually invented it. The name comes from Le Moustier, a rock shelter in southern France.

Mousterian technology was not a revolution, in the way that the Acheulean system was. It was more of an incremental advance.

For example, we’ve already discussed how Homo erectus prepared stone cores, so that they could strike sharp flakes off them quickly and easily. These pictures of a Mousterian core come from The World Museum of Man. With a bit of imagination, you can see the scars where flakes have been chipped off. But the Mousterian toolmakers went further. They mastered the art of producing cylindrical cores. And from these they were able to strike off longer flakes, with much longer cutting edges.

Another feature of the Mousterian toolkit is that it contained a much wider range of tools. For example, scrapers appear, specially adapted for dressing hides. I find it difficult to believe that folk hadn’t been making things from animal hides for a long time. But no doubt these scrapers made their preparation easier, and did a better job. Spear heads appear too. We know that folk were hunting with superb throwing spears some ½ million years earlier – and very effectively too (more). But they will have had much less durable points.

There’s something of a mystery about whether we, Homo sapiens, or the Neanderthals invented the Mousterian toolkit. This may seem odd. But there was a time when we took it turns to occupy an area of the Middle East (more). When a change in climate forced whichever of us invented it to retreat, we will have left tools behind for the other to copy. But it seems that by the time the technology reached Europe, we H. sapiens had already moved on. So, in Europe Mousterian tools are associated only with the Neanderthals.

The Upper Palaeolithic

‘Upper’ means later, so we’re talking quite recent now, from 40,000 years ago until around the end of the Ice age.

This is where things get complicated. The tools that people use become just part of their culture. And I’m less confident that I can make sense of it all. Part of the problem of course is – almost – a surfeit of evidence. More and more sites are being discovered. And of course they all tell a slightly different story.

It’s clear however that the Neanderthals’ Mousterian culture/technology evolved into the more sophisticated Châtelperronian culture. It is named after Châtelperron, also in France. It lasted from 35 thousand years ago, until around 29 thousand when the Neanderthals died out in most areas.

Bone artefacts start to appear. The harpoon head in the picture is clearly bone – as of course is the needle. The general assumption seems to be that folk weren’t using bone until then. I find this difficult to believe. Until persuaded otherwise, I shall prefer the thought that earlier bone artefacts have simply rotted away. You must decide for yourself what you think.

Around 40 thousand years ago, we Homo sapiens invaded Europe, bringing our Aurignacian culture with us. Again it was developed in Africa, some 90 thousand years ago I think. But again it was named after a place in France, Aurignac in this case. It held sway until about 25 thousand years ago. I’ve read that the Aurignacian technology was developed independently in southwest Asia.

It’s striking how similar the two cultures were. It’s clear that there must have been a degree of cross-fertilisation between us and the Neanderthals. We arrogant H. saps of course take it for granted that the Neanderthals were copying us. And so they may have been much of the time. But some scientists have come up with evidence that the Neanderthals sometimes got there first (more).

After that, new cultures come thick and fast. And I’ve decided to give up. Wikipedia has a fairly comprehensive account, though I suspect that even that is far from complete.