Lithics

and early tool use / tool manufacture

In the News

"Chart of the Principal Paleolithic Industries"

Clovis point

see also
Magdalenian
Solutrean
Grevettian
Aurignacian
Châtelperronian

lithic analysis -- Wikipedia

Try "The lithics site"
-- Hugh Jarvis, SUNY Buffalo (Comprehensive)

In the news . . .

• Ancient stone tool rewrites a chapter of human history -- INVERSE (12 December 2020)
  
  
• Tools made by some of North America's earliest inhabitants were made only during a 300-year period -- PhysOrg (23 October 2020)
  
  
• Stone tools reveal epic trek of nomadic Neanderthals -- TheConversation (27 January 2020)
  
  
• Kenyan Farmer’s Unique Rock Find Uncovers New Prehistoric Clues -- Conversation (07 September 2016)
  
  
• Stone Age Hunters Really Did Hunt Well by Throwing Stones -- ScienceDaily (10 August 2016)
  
  
• Archaeology team makes world-first tool discovery -- ScienceDaily (08 August 2016)
  
  
• Well-Travelled Chimps More Likely to Pick Up Tools and Innovate -- New Scientist (19 July 2016)
  
  
• Simian Stone Age: Monkeys Used Rocks as Tools for Hundreds of Years -- LiveScience (11 July 2016)
  
  
  • Photos: Monkey Tool Use Points to a Simian 'Stone Age' -- LiveScience (11 July 2016)
    
    
• No Giant Leap for Mankind: Why We’ve Been Looking at Human Evolution in the Wrong Way -- Conversation (14 June 2016)
  
  
• Seeking Humanity's Roots -- Phys.org (09 June 2016)
  
  
• 'Oldest axe' was made by early Australians -- BBC News (11 May 2016)
  
  
• The Art and Craft of Paleo Toolmaking [Slide Show] -- Scientific American (29 March 2016)
  
  
• Chew on This: Slicing Meat Helped Shape Modern Humans -- NPR (09 March 2016)
  
  
• Meat eating accelerated face evolution -- BBC News (09 March 2016)
  
  
• How Sliced Meat Drove Human Evolution -- Science (09 March 2016)
  
  
• Paleolithic Elephant Butchering Site Found in Greece -- ScienceDaily (25 November 2015)
  
  
• Biologists trace how human innovation impacts tool evolution -- Phys.org (24 November 2015)
  
  
• Pigs Unearth Hunter-Gatherer Civilization -- Discovery News (07 October 2015)
  
  
• Sex Differences in Object Manipulation in Wild Immature Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) and Bonobos (Pan paniscus): Preparation for Tool Use? -- PLoS ONE (07 October 2015)
  
  
• How to find out about the human mind through stone -- ScienceDaily (23 September 2015)
  
  
• Mountain Came to Men: Study on Ancient Stone Tools in B.C. -- Gobal News (20 September 2015)
  
  
• Paleo people were making flour 32,000 years ago -- MPRNews (14 September 2015)
  
  
• 10,000-Year-Old Stone Tools Unearthed in Redmond Dig -- Seattle Times (11 September 2015)
  
  
• Did Chucking Stones Make Us More Human? -- National Geographic News (18 August 2015)
  
  
• Bone Marks Reveal Our Ancestors Were Eating Meat 3.4 Million Years Ago -- Forbes (14 August 2015)
  
  
• Marks on 3.4-million-year-old bones not due to trampling, analysis confirms -- ScienceDaily (13 August 2015)
  
  
• Chimps and monkeys have entered the Stone Age -- BBC News (18 August 2013)
  
  
• In Africa's 'Cradle,' an Old Fossil Site Yields New Finds -- Reuters (27 July 2015)
  
  
• Comparing Stone Tools From Major South African Sites -- Past Horizons (11 July 2015)
  
  
• The Still Bay and Howiesons Poort at Sibudu and Blombos: Understanding Middle Stone Age Technologies -- PLoS ONE (10 July 2015)
  
  
• Stone tools from Jordan point to dawn of division of labor -- ScienceDaily (12 June 2015)
  
  
• Oldest stone tools pre-date earliest humans -- BBC News (20 May 2015)
  
  
• Stone Tool Discovery Pushes Back Dawn of Culture by 700,000 Years -- Guardian (20 May 2015)
  
  
• Scientists announce the discovery of the World’s oldest stone tools -- Past Horizons (20 May 2015)
  
  
• Sophisticated Tool Kit Predates Humans -- Discovery News (20 May 2015)
  
  
• Monkeys Provide Clues to How Tool Use Developed -- New York Times (18 May 2015)
  
  
• Oldest stone tools pre-date earliest humans -- BBCNews (20 May 2015)
  
  
• From Sticks to Stones—Getting a Grip on the Human Genus -- Phys.org (24 april 2015)
  
  
• Study Shows That Making an Acheulean Hand Axe Requires Complex Brain Activity -- Past Horizons (16 April 2015)
  
  
• Complex cognition shaped the Stone Age hand axe, study shows -- Phys.org (15 April 2015)
  
  
• World’s Oldest Stone Tools Discovered in Kenya -- Science (14 April 2015)
  
  
• 500,000 year-old animal residue on stone tools -- Past Horizons (20 March 2015)
  
  
• Prehistoric stone tools bear 500,000-year-old animal residue -- Phys.org (19 March 2015)
  
  
• Fat Residue and Use-Wear Found on Acheulian Biface and Scraper Associated with Butchered Elephant Remains at the Site of Revadim, Israel -- PLoS ONE (18 March 2015)
  
  
• A Carpet of Stone Tools in the Sahara -- Past Horizons (11 March 2015)
  
  
• Lithic Landscapes: Early Human Impact from Stone Tool Production on the Central Saharan Environment -- PLoS ONE (11 March 2015)
  
  
• Maybe Early Humans Weren't the First to Get a Good Grip -- NPR (22 January 2015)
  
  
• How Human Ancestors Got a Grip -- Science (22 January 2015)
  
  
• Human Language May Have Evolved to Help Our Ancestors Make Tools -- Science (13 January 2015)
  
  
• Discovery: Oldest Stone Tool Ever Found In Turkey -- Science 2.0 (23 December 2014)
  
  
• Recreating the Neolithic Toolkit -- Past Horizons (16 November 2014)
  
  
• Tools and Primates: Opportunity, Not Necessity, Is the Mother of Invention -- Science Daily (11 November 2014)
  
  
• Archaeologists Assess Killing Power of Stone Age Weapons -- Scientific American (27 August 2014)
  
  
• An Experimental Investigation of the Functional Hypothesis and Evolutionary Advantage of Stone-Tipped Spears -- PLoS ONE (27 August 2014)
  
  
• Language and Tool-Making Skills Evolved at the Same Time -- ScienceDaily (03 September 2013)
  
  
• Shared Brain Lateralization Patterns in Language and Acheulean Stone Tool Production: A Functional Transcranial Doppler Ultrasound Study -- PLoS ONE (30 August 2013)
  
  
• New Technique Reveals Rare Pattern on Stone Age Adze -- ScienceNordic (21 February 2013)
  
  
• Did Rise of Ancient Human Ancestor Lead to New Stone Tools? -- LiveScience (28 January 2013)
  
  
• Handaxes of 1.7 Million Years Ago: 'Trust Rather Than Lust' Behind Fine Details -- ScienceDaily (21 November 2012)
  
  
• Stone me! Spears Show Early Human Species Was Sharper Than We Thought -- Guardian (15 November 2012)
  
  
• Archaeologists Identify Spear Tips Used in Hunting a Half-Million Years Ago -- ScienceDaily (15 November 2012)
  
  
• Bonobo Stone Tools as Competent as Ancient Human? -- LiveScience (20 August 2012)
  
  
• Stone Age Tools Help to Streamline Modern Manufacturing -- ScienceDaily (20 July 2012)
  
  
• 300 000 Year Old Flint Tools Found in Northern France -- Past Horizons (16 July 2012)
  
  
• Standards Needed to Record the Mark of Our Ancestors -- Past Horizons (14 April 2012)
  
  
• Flintknapper Replicates Hundreds of Levallois Artefacts -- Past Horizons (30 January 2012)
  
  
• Hand axes unearthed in Kenya are oldest advanced stone tools ever found -- Guardian (31 August 2011)
  
  
• Mandrill Monkey Makes 'Pedicuring' Tool -- BBC News (22 July 2011)
  
  
• Evolution of Human 'Super-Brain' Tied to Development of Bipedalism, Tool-Making -- EurekAlert (20 April 2011)
  
  
• Oldest tool-use claim challenged -- BBC News (16 November 2010)
  
  
• Archaeologist Recreates Stone Age Technology -- LiveScience (12 November 2010)
  
  
• World's Oldest Ax Discovered -- DiscoveryNews (05 November 2010)
  
  
• Language and Toolmaking Evolved Together, Say Researchers -- Guardian (03 November 2010)
  
  
• Humans Crafted Complex Tools Earlier Than Thought -- Discover (28 October 2010)
  
  
• Stone Tools 'Change Migration Story' -- BBC News (19 September 2010)
  
  
• Oldest Evidence of Arrows Found -- BBC News (26 August 2010)
  
  
• Hail Lucy! - The New Queen of the Stone Age -- Telegraph (11 August 2010)
  
  
• Lucy the Butcher? Tool Use Pushed Back 800,000 Years -- National Geographic News (11 August 2010)
  
  
• Tool-Making and Meat-Eating Began 3.5 Million Years Ago -- BBC News (11 August 2010)
  
  Oldest tool-use claim challenged -- BBC News (16 November 2010)
  
  
• Tool Manipulation Is Represented Similarly in the Brains of the Blind and the Sighted -- EurekAlert (23 June 2010)
  
  
• Top 100 Stories of 2009 #58: Orangutans Use Tool to Lower the Sound of Their Voices -- Discover (29 December 2009)
  
  
• Human Evolution: The Origin of Tool Use -- LiveScience (11 November 2009)
  
  
• Tool-making Human Ancestors Inhabited Grassland Environments Two Million Years Ago -- ScienceDaily (21 October 2009)
  
  
• Earliest Evidence of Humans Thriving on the Savannah -- New Scientist (21 October 2009)
  
  
• Evidence for Stone Age Multitasking -- LiveScience (28 September 2009)
  
  
• Giant Stone-Age Axes Found In African Lake Basin -- ScienceDaily (14 September 2009)

Four giant stone hand axes were recovered from the the dry basin of Lake Makgadikgadi in the Kalahari Desert.
(Credit: University of Oxford).

• Early Europeans Used Sophisticated Tools -- Science (02 September 2009)

900,000-year-old hand ax, Estrecho del Quípar, southern Spain.
Credit: Michael Walker

• Early Human Lessons: Hot Rocks Make Sharper Tools -- NPR (14 August 2009)
  
  
• Ancient Weapons Point to First Use of Fire for Tools? -- National Geographic News (13 August 2009)
  
  
• Early toolmakers were 'engineers' -- BBC News (14 August 2009)
  
  
• Stone-Age Innovation Explains Ancient Population Boom -- New Scientist (21 July 2009)

Oldest Stone Blades Uncovered -- Science (02 April 2009)

Cutting-edge technology.
A stone core (lower left) and three of the recently found blades.

Credit: Cara Roure Johnson and Sally McBrearty/University of Connecticut

"Paleoanthropologists Cara Roure Johnson and Sally McBrearty of the University of Connecticut, Storrs, recently discovered the blades at five sites in the region, including two that date to between 509,000 and 543,000 years ago. 'This is the oldest known occurrence of blades,' Johnson reported. . . ."