Tools

Question 1

What is stasis?

Answer 1

Lack of change

Question 2

Do chimpanzees use tools?

Answer 2

Yes. However they don’t alter the tool in any way, which is a key difference

Question 3

What is the earliest tool use?

Answer 3

Cut marked herbivore bones from 3.4 million years ago (A. afarensis). From the Dikika area, no actual stone tools were found

Question 4

What are the oldest actual stone tools?

Answer 4

• From Lomekwi, Kenya (Lake Turkana Basin) dated to 3.3 million years ago
• Referred to as the Lomekwian industry
• Made by kenyanthropus and/or A. afarensis

Question 5

What is the Oldowan industry?

Answer 5

• Named after Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania
• Found in same beds as H. habilis
• Mostly in east Africa, dated between 1.6 - 2.5 million years ago
• 1 million year long industry

Question 6

What are mode 1 stone tools?

Answer 6

Remove flakes from cores. Flakes and cores used as tools (no actual shapes)
- Oldowan, Lomekwian

Question 7

What are mode 2 stone tools?

Answer 7

Cores shaped into symmetrical bifaces; cores used as tools.
- Acheulean

Question 8

What are mode 3 stone tools?

Answer 8

Cores shaped to give many types of flakes. Both cores and flakes are used as tools, and is reused/re-sharpened
- Levallois, Mousterian

Question 9

What do the tools look like in the Oldowan industry?

Answer 9

• Understanding of fracture mechanics
• Cores: flakes removed, sharp edges and tips
• Flakes: products of flaking
• Hammerstones: used for flaking other rocks

Question 10

How were Oldowan tools made?

Answer 10

Hard hammer percussion. Made up mostly of detached flakes.

Question 11

What are Oldowan tools used for?

Answer 11

• Flakes are used for a variety of tasks, like cutting scraps of meat
• Cores are used for chopping trees or smashing open bones to get to the marrow (has nutrience)

Question 12

What were Oldowan bone tools used for?

Answer 12

• Found in Sterkfontein and dated to 2 million years ago
• Probably used for digging tubers and termite mounds

Question 13

What are some evidence of meat eating in association with stone tools?

Answer 13

• Olduvia Gorge and Koobi Fora are littered with animal bones dated from 1.5 - 2 million years ago
• Could be carnivore site, hominin butchery site, or natural process (like floods)
• Association of bones and stones show evidence of meat eating
• Marks on animal bones seem to be from stones and not teeth

Question 14

What hominins made/used Oldowan tools?

Answer 14

• Homo habilis
• Homo erectus
• Australopithecus garhi
• Australopithecus africanus
• all Paranthropus’
  This is in a 1.6 - 2.6 million year time span

Question 15

What are Acheulean tools?

Answer 15

• Appears 1.8 million years ago in Africa then Eurasia (until 300k years ago, a period of stasis)
• Biface replaces core as main
• Predefined shape, sharp edge all around
• Requires an image of final form (symmetry)
• Oldowan tools were still being used

Question 16

What are Acheulean axes?

Answer 16

• Large bifaces
• Long, sharp edge, rounded side suggest butchery
• Microwear pattern suggest meat and plant processing
• Flakes still used

Question 17

Who made Acheulean tools?

Answer 17

• Homo erectus 1.8 million years ago
• Increased cranial capacity and reliance with meat supports that theory (later hominins also use these type of tools)

Question 18

Where are Acheulean tools found?

Answer 18

Africa and south/west Eurasia
- Not associated with asian Homo erectus or Dmansi hominins

Question 19

What are the food resources types?

Answer 19

Collected foods: ripe fruit and leaves

Extracted foods: (protection) tubers, termites, honey, fruits with hard shells, nuts

Hunted foods: must be caught or trapped

Hunting and extracting are complex skills requiring learning. Collecting favoured larger brains (earlier birth and longer juvenile periods which means longer learning periods)