Stone tool

Stone tools have been used throughout human history and are especially linked to the Stone Age. These tools are made from stone and include things like arrowheads, spearheads, hand axes, and querns. They were made either by grinding stone or by a special process called knapping, done by a craftsman known as a flintknapper.

Because stone does not break down easily, stone tools are found often in places where people lived long ago. This makes them very important for learning about the past. By studying these tools, we can understand more about the lives of people who lived before us.

Knapped stone tools are made from special kinds of stone such as chert, flint, and obsidian. Making these tools involves breaking pieces off a larger stone in a process called lithic reduction. This can create simple flakes or more shaped tools like knives and scrapers. The way these tools were made tells us a lot about the skills and ways of life of ancient people.

Evolution

Archaeologists group stone tools into collections that share similar styles or features.

In 1969, a scholar named Grahame Clark suggested an order in which stone tool-making changed over time. He called these changes "Modes," from Mode 1 to Mode 5. He gave each Mode an approximate time period. Modes 1 and 2 were from the earlier Stone Age, Mode 3 from the middle Stone Age, Mode 4 from the later Stone Age, and Mode 5 from the following period called the Mesolithic. Each area followed its own timeline for these changes. Clark’s idea was popular because it used simple names, like "Mode 1/Mode 2 Transition." Today, the steps between these Modes are very interesting to researchers. Because of this, stone tools from the Stone Age are often talked about in terms of these four "Modes," each showing a new level of skill and usually following a general order in time.

Pre-Mode I

Kenya

Stone tools found between 2011 and 2014 at a place called Lomekwi near Lake Turkana in Kenya are about 3.3 million years old. These tools are older than the earliest known human-like species by about 1 million years. The tools might have been made by a species named Australopithecus afarensis (famous for the fossil called Lucy), another species called Kenyanthropus platyops, or perhaps an unknown type of early human.

Ethiopia

Animal bone pieces with marks from stone tools were found near the fossil of a young Australopithecus afarensis girl named Selam, who lived about 3.3 million years ago in Dikika, Ethiopia.

Mode I: The Oldowan Industry

The earliest stone tools linked to early humans are Mode 1 tools, part of what is called the Oldowan Industry. These tools get their name from Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania, where many were found. Oldowan tools are simple, often made from small stones like river pebbles. A person would hit these stones with another rock to make sharp edges. These tools were used for breaking bones or cutting plants.

The oldest Oldowan tools found so far are about 2.9 million years old, from places in Kenya and Ethiopia. These tools spread across Africa, and later, early humans carried them to places like Java and Northern China.

Mode II: The Acheulean Industry

Later, more advanced Mode 2 tools appeared, known as the Acheulean Industry, named after a place in France called Saint-Acheul. The most famous Acheulean tool is the hand axe. These tools began around 1.7 million years ago in Kenya and southern Africa.

Unlike the simpler Oldowan tools, Acheulean tools were carefully planned. A person would start with a larger stone and knock off smaller pieces to shape it. Then, using a softer hammer made of wood or bone, they would finish shaping the tool to have two curved sides meeting in a sharp edge. These tools were good for cutting but could break if used to hit something hard.

Some Acheulean tools are round, others are oval, some are leaf-shaped, and others are long with a pointy end and a blunt end, perhaps used for drilling. These tools were bigger than Oldowan tools and were used for cutting meat. They were made from a main piece of stone and used until it was small enough, then turned into a finished tool. The edges were often made sharper by extra work.

Mode III: The Mousterian Industry

In Europe, the Acheulean tools were later replaced by a new style called the Mousterian Industry, named after a place in France called Le Moustier. This style came from the Acheulean and used a method called the Levallois technique to make smaller, sharper knife-like tools and scrapers. This style was mainly used by Neanderthals, who lived in Europe and the Middle East, but similar tools were also used in Africa.

Mode IV: The Aurignacian Industry

During a time called the Upper Palaeolithic, between 50,000 and 10,000 years ago, people began using long, thin pieces of stone called blades instead of small flakes. The Aurignacian culture was among the first to use blades a lot. Using blades made tool-making more efficient than older methods.

Expansion to the New World

When humans traveled to the Americas during the time when many large animals still lived there, they brought stone tools with them. One common tool from this time is the Clovis point, which dates to about 13,000 years ago.

One of the earliest places in North America where people lived was the Channel Islands off California. Tools found there include drills, scrapers, and wood-splitting tools, showing that the people were skilled at working with wood.

Tools found on the Channel Islands also include special shaped tools made by heating stone.

In the San Francisco Bay Area, acorns were often processed with grinding tools. The tools for grinding acorns changed over time as different groups lived there.

In Central America, or Mesoamerica, there were also unique stone tool styles. One example is the Lowe industry near modern-day Belize. These tools were versatile and used for many purposes like cutting and scraping.

A famous stone tool in Mesoamerica was the Macuahuitl, used by the Aztec people. It was a flat board with small sharp pieces of stone along one edge, used in warfare and also important in ceremonies.

Stone tools in Mesoamerica were very important beyond just their practical uses. For the ancient Maya, stone axes and scepters were powerful magic tools used by gods and leaders. Special stones like obsidian were used to make tools and also for seeing into the future. Mirrors made of obsidian were used for divination. Stone tools were also used in important ceremonies.

Mode V: The Microlithic Industries

The most common idea is that tiny geometric stone pieces called microliths were used to tip weapons like harpoons.

Mode 5 stone tools are about making microliths, small pieces used in tools fastened to a stick. This was done by cultures like the Magdalenian. This way of making tools lets people use materials like flint more efficiently, even though it takes more skill to make the small pieces. Putting sharp flint edges into a handle made of wood or bone was the big new idea with microliths, because the handle kept the user safe from the sharp flint and made the tool stronger.

Neolithic industries

In prehistoric Japan, stone tools made by grinding appeared during the Japanese Paleolithic period, lasting from around 40,000 BC to 14,000 BC. In other places, tools made by grinding stone became important during the Neolithic period, starting about 10,000 BC. These tools were made from tougher rocks like basalt, jade, greenstone, and rhyolite, which could not be shaped by knocking. The greenstone industry was important in the English Lake District, known as the Langdale axe industry. These grinding tools included axes, which were made by grinding a stone against another rough stone, often with water to help. Some of these tools were used for grinding plants and got polished from use, not just from shaping. Polished stone axes helped clear forests when people began farming on a large scale. These axes were traded over long distances because the best stone was found only in certain places. They were also valued and sometimes buried with their owners.

During the Neolithic period, large axes were made from flint pieces by shaping them into a rough form, called a "rough-out." These rough-outs were traded far away. They were then polished to make a smooth, strong axe head. Polishing made the axe stronger and longer-lasting. There were many places to get these stones, such as Grimes Graves in Suffolk, Cissbury in Sussex, and Spiennes near Mons in Belgium. In Britain, many small quarries were in areas with flint for local use.

Many other rocks were used to make axes, including those from the Langdale axe industry and sites like Penmaenmawr and Tievebulliagh in Co Antrim, Ulster. In Langdale, greenstone outcrops were used, and piles of waste pieces and unfinished tools were left behind. Polishing made the tools stronger, lasting longer and working better. Many other tools were made the same way. These products were traded across the country and abroad.

Aboriginal Australian use

Stone axes from 35,000 years ago are the oldest known stone tools in Australia. Aboriginal Australians used many kinds of stone tools, and the types they used changed depending on where they lived and their culture. These tools helped mark the areas where different groups lived and showed their skills in working with stone for many uses, like tools, food items, and weapons. They kept improving their tools over time to fit new needs.

People in western Victoria, called the Gunditjmara, used complex stone tools until not too long ago. Many of these tools are now in museums.

To make sharp stone tools, people would hit a larger piece of stone, called a core, with a "hammerstone" to break off a sharp piece, called a flake. Both the flakes and the hammerstones could be used as tools. The best stones for these tools were hard and rich in silica, like quartzite, chert, flint, silcrete, and quartz. These stones were taken from the ground or picked up from rivers and beaches, and sometimes carried far away. The flakes could be used right away for cutting or scraping, but they were sometimes made sharper through a process called reduction.

In northern Australia, especially in Arnhem Land, a special stone tool called the "Leilira blade" was used. This was a flat, rectangular piece of stone made from quartzite or silcrete, used as a spear tip or a knife, sometimes as long as 30 cm (12 in). In Tasmania, people did not use spears or stone axes, but instead used tools suited to their climate, like spongolite. In north-western Australia, the Kimberleys area, people made a small triangular stone point called the "Kimberley point" using kangaroo bone shaped with stone to create small edges on the blade.

Besides weapons and cutting, stone tools were also used for grinding (grindstones), piercing, and pounding. Some stones, like ochres, were used as pigment for painting.

Oral traditions helped pass these skills down through generations.

Modern uses

Stone tools are still very useful today. In the past, people needed special stones called gunflints for making guns. Farmers have used stone tools called threshing boards for a very long time. Some groups, like the Ohlone people from the San Francisco Bay area, still remember their history by collecting old stone tools.

People have used certain stones to start fires for thousands of years. Today, we use different tools, but some special glass knives are still used in science and even in some surgeries because they are very sharp and gentle on tissues.