Types of Early Modern Human Tools

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microliths

Modern human tools included bone needles, fish hooks, harpoons, antler batons, and a wide assortment of scrapers, knives and engravers. Archaeological evidence from 30,000 to 10,000 B.C. shows that our ancestors were able to fracture, chip and shape rocks into a number of useful tools; use stone awls and burins (incising tools) to make barbed bone and antler harpoon points, atlatl throwing boards for spears and animal bone needles used for making animal-skin clothing.

Archaeologists recognize four kinds of tools, listed here in ascending order of development: 1) choppers, crude tools made by shearing one or a few pieces off a stone; 2) flake tools, implements made with numerous flakes, or small pieces chiseled off; 3) crude biface tools , ax-like tools or tools with a point made from stone, wood antler or bone that are fashioned by chipping way material from two or more sides; and 4) hand axes, which are similar to biface tools except they are made with more advanced skills. Sophisticated Acheulean hand axes are named after a site in southern France. They were also produced in Africa and the Middle East. [Source: World Almanac]

Acheulean hand axes are thought to have first been made by Homo erectus — an ancestor of modern humans and Neanderthals — about half a million years ago. Similar tools have been found throughout Africa, Asia and Europe — the earliest from around 1.76 million years ago. Hand axes were widely used by modern humans for cutting the skin and meat of hunted or scavenged animals. They were made by chipping away at the edges of hard rocks, such as flint, obsidian and granite, to make sharp edges. [Source: Tom Metcalfe, Live Science, June 24, 2019]

In the 1960s, as part of an effort to make sense of the evolution of stone tools globally, Grahame Clark devised a system based on five lithic modes, based primarily on European stone tools but applied worldwide. The modes are:
Mode 1 Tools include Pebble cores and flake tools. They date to the Early Lower Paleolithic period (about 2.6 million to 1 million years ago), and embrace Chellean, Clactonian, Tayacian tools found in Western Europe.
Mode 2 Tools include Large bifacial cutting tools made from flakes and cores. They date to the later Lower Paleolithic period (about 1 million to 300,000 years ago) and embrace Abbevillian, Acheulian tools found in Western Europe.
Mode 3 Tools include Flake tools struck from prepared cores. They date to the Middle Paleolithic period (300,000 to 30,000 years ago) and embrace Levalloisian Mousterian tools found in Western Europe.
Mode 4 Tools include Punch-struck prismatic blades retouched into various specialized forms. They date to the Upper Paleolithic period (35,000 to 10,000 years ago) and embrace Aurignacian, Gravettian, Solutrean tools found in Western Europe. The Aurignacian culture is a good example of mode 4 tool production. Long blades (rather than flakes) appeared during this time.
Mode 5 Tools include Retouched microliths and other retouched components of composite tools. They date to the Later Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic period 15,000 to 10,000 years ago. and embrace Azilian, Magdalenian, Maglemosian, Sauveterrian, Tardenoisian tools found in Western Europe.

Websites and Resources on Hominins and Human Origins: Smithsonian Human Origins Program humanorigins.si.edu ; Institute of Human Origins iho.asu.edu ; Becoming Human University of Arizona site becominghuman.org ; Hall of Human Origins American Museum of Natural History amnh.org/exhibitions ; The Bradshaw Foundation bradshawfoundation.com ; Britannica Human Evolution britannica.com ; Human Evolution handprint.com ; University of California Museum of Anthropology ucmp.berkeley.edu; John Hawks' Anthropology Weblog johnhawks.net/ ; New Scientist: Human Evolution newscientist.com/article-topic/human-evolution

Mousterian Tools

The Mousterian industry is a lithic technology that replaced the Acheulean industry in Europe. Believed to have originated more than 300,000 years ago, it is named after the site of Le Moustier in France, where examples were first uncovered in the 1860s, and is associated with both Neanderthal and the earliest modern humans but is believed to have been refined and used primarily by the Neanderthals. Examples of Mousterian tools have been found in Europe and Africa. In Europe, when Mousterian tools are found, it is often assumed that it is a Neanderthal site. [Source: The Guardian, Wikipedia +]

Mousterian tool

Mousterian tools evolved from Acheulean tools, which are named after the site of Saint-Acheul in France and developed 1.76 million years ago. Acheulean tools were characterized not by a core, but by a biface, the most notable form of which was the hand axe. The earliest Acheulean ax appeared in the West Turkana area of Kenya and around the same time in southern Africa. Acheulean axes are larger, heavier and have sharp cutting edges that are chipped from opposite sides into a teardrop shape.

Mousterian technology it adopted the Levallois technique — a distinctive type of stone knapping — to produce smaller and sharper knife-like tools as well as scrapers. According to the University of California at Santa Barbara: “The Levallois technique of core preparation and flake removal is the earliest of the core preparation technologies. The technology works in four distinct stages. First the edges of a cobble are trimmed into a rough shape. Second, the upper surface of the core is trimmed to remove cortex and to produce a ridge running the length of the core, Third, a platform preparation flake is removed from one end of the core to produce an even, flat striking platform for the blow that will detach the flake. Finally, the end of the core is struck at the prepared platform site, driving a longitudinal flake off of the core following the longitudinal ridge. [Source: University of California at Santa Barbara =|=]

“There are two distinct advantages to this technique. The first is that the flakes removed in this manner are already in a preliminary shape, and only require minor modification before being put to use. Second, more usable cutting edge per pound of raw material can be made this way than can be made by producing core tools. Note how the final shape of this tool closely corresponds to the initial shape of the core from which it was struck. Also, notice how little edge trimming was necessary in order to get a very keen cutting edge on this tool. With care, a number of flakes could be removed from one core, producing much more usable cutting edge with less waste than if the core were thinned into a tool itself.” =|=

World’s Oldest Known Axe — 49,000 Years Old — Found in Australia

In 2016, scientists claimed that a small fragment found in cave, dated to 49,000 years ago, was part of the world’s oldest ax (not a hand ax). Michael Slezak wrote in The Guardian: “It is about the size of a thumbnail and might look like any old piece of rock, but scientists say it is a fragment of the oldest axe ever discovered, created up to 49,000 years ago. Found in Australia, it further undermines ideas that Europe was the birthplace of technology, revealing people developed complex tools not long after they set foot in Australia. [Source: Michael Slezak, The Guardian May 10, 2016 |=|]

“The fragment was excavated in the early 1990s from a cave in the Windjana Gorge national park in the Kimberley region of Western Australia, but only examined recently. New analysis and dating suggests it is a fragment of the cutting edge of an axe that would have had a handle, used between 46,000 and 49,000 years ago. The find pre-dates another axe found in Arnhem Land in Australia dated to 35,000 years ago, and independently invented axes in Japan dated to about 38,000 years ago. |=|

Australian ax

“The fact that the discovery is just a fragment does not matter, according to Peter Hiscock from the University of Sydney, who made the recent discovery. “The great thing about it is it’s really distinctive – it has both polished surfaces coming together on the chip. While you don’t have the axe, you actually have a really good record of what the contact edge looks like.” Although there is no handle, Hiscock says it is not a simple “hand axe” – a sharp tool held directly in the hand – because it has been polished and made of a heavy material, which would not help much for a tool intended to be used by a hand. |=|

“The researchers say the axe was probably invented in Australia, since there is no evidence of similar tools in south-east Asia, from where the migrants came. “This is the earliest evidence of hafted axes [axes with a handle] in the world. Nowhere else in the world do you get axes at this date,” said Sue O’Connor from the the Australian National University, who originally excavated the tool in the 1990s. “In Japan such axes appear about 35,000 years ago. But in most countries in the world they arrive with agriculture 10,000 years ago,” she said. |=|

“Hiscock says the find adds further weight to the idea that humans colonised the world not because they were endowed with some particular skill they could apply everywhere, but because they were creative and could innovate. “We’re looking at people who moved through south-east Asia, where they probably used a lot of bamboo, which is sharp and hard and fantastic for tools. But when they get to Australia, there’s no bamboo so they’re inventing new tools to help them adapt to the exploitation of this new landscape. It’s a fascinating inversion of what European scholars thought in the 19th century. Their presumption was that all the innovations happened in Europe and far-flung places like Australia were simplistic and had little innovation. And it’s turned out that there’s a long history of discovery of axes of progressively earlier ages. This is the place where that sort of technology was invented and it only reached Europe relatively recently.” |=|

Aurignacian Tools

The Aurignacian Culture (42,000 to 27,000 years ago) is named after the French site that tools associated with it were found. The site has tools, weapons and adornment associated with it. The Aurignacian Period, Gravettian (26,000 to 22,000 years ago), Solutrean (22,000 to 17,000 years ago) and Magdalenian (17,000 to 12,000 years ago) cultures are all named French sites. Each site has tools, weapons and adornment associated with it.

Aurignacian Tools

Aurignacian tools are named after the French site of Auriganc where the tools were first found. They consisted of blades and advanced bone tools. Because the oldest Aurignacian tools predate the earliest modern human fossils in Europe, some scientists think they have been made by Neanderthals. The people of this culture also produced some of the earliest known cave art,

The long blades (rather than flakes) of the Upper Palaeolithic Mode 4 industries appeared during the Upper Palaeolithic between 50,000 and 10,000 years ago. The Aurignacian culture is a good example of mode 4 tool production. [Source: Wikipedia]

The Aurignacian industry is characterized by worked bone or antler points with grooves cut in the bottom and included tools, double end scrapers, burins, pins and awls. Their flint tools include fine blades and bladelets struck from prepared cores rather than using crude flakes. The most durable and physical evidence the Aurignacian culture left behind are stone tools. They refined their core and blade lithic technology to a high level.

Stone tools from the Aurignacian culture are known as Mode 4, characterized by blades (rather than flakes, typical of mode 2 Acheulean and mode 3 Mousterian) from prepared cores. Also seen throughout the Upper Paleolithic is a greater degree of tool standardization and the use of bone and antler for tools. Based on the research of scraper reduction and paleoenvironment, the early Aurignacian group moved seasonally over greater distance to procure reindeer herds within cold and open environment than those of the earlier tool cultures. The burin — a tool with a narrow sharp face at the tip used for engraving and other purposes — is often found at Aurignacian sites

Aurignacian tools appeared when it is believed modern humans developed language and boats. This was a period when humans reached points all over the globe. Many of the sites where Aurignacian tools are found also contain art: sculptures or cave paintings.

It is believed that early modern humans were trading quality stone as early as 100,000 years ago. Shells have been found hundreds of miles from where they originated. Unlike most of their ancestors who made stone tools from localized sources, modern humans quarried fine-grained and colorful flints from as far away as 250 miles away from they lived and most likely formed trade networks to efficiently distribute these flints to a large number of people. Based on the presence of tools found at one site that were made from materials found at a distant site it appears that other hominids, including relatively primitive Australopithecus , also engaged in trade or migrated to sites to obtain quality stone. [Source: John Pfieffer, Smithsonian magazine, October 1986]

Gravettian Tools

The Gravettian Culture (36,000 to 22,000 years ago) is named after the French site that tools associated with it were found. The site has tools, weapons and adornment associated with it. Gravettian tools include hand-held spears, which made the hunting of large animals more feasible. The Gravettian culture is named after the site of La Gravette in Southwestern France. [Source: Wikipedia +]

The Gravettian culture is archaeologically the last European culture many consider unified. It had mostly disappeared by 22,000 years ago, close to the Last Glacial Maximum, although some elements lasted until c. 17,000 years ago. At this point, it was replaced abruptly by the Solutrean in France and Spain, and developed into or continued as the Epigravettian in Italy, the Balkans, Ukraine and Russia. The Gravettian culture is famous for Venus figurines, which were typically made as either ivory or limestone carvings. +

Clubs, stones and sticks were the primary hunting tools during the Upper Paleolithic period. Bone, antler and ivory points have all been found at sites in France; but proper stone arrowheads and throwing spears did not appear until the Solutrean period (~20,000 Before Present). Due to the primitive tools, many animals were hunted at close range. The typical artefact of Gravettian industry, once considered diagnostic, is the small pointed blade with a straight blunt back. They are today known as the Gravette point, and were used to hunt big game. Gravettians used nets to hunt small game, and are credited with inventing the bow and arrow. Gravettian burin was a tool with a narrow sharp face at the tip used for engraving and other purposes.

Gravettian awl

The Gravettians were hunter-gatherers who lived in a bitterly cold period of European prehistory, and Gravettian lifestyle was shaped by the climate. Pleniglacial environmental changes forced them to adapt. West and Central Europe were extremely cold during this period. Archaeologists usually describe two regional variants: the western Gravettian, known mainly from cave sites in France, Spain and Britain, and the eastern Gravettian in Central Europe and Russia. The eastern Gravettians, which include the Pavlovian culture, were specialized mammoth hunters, whose remains are usually found not in caves but in open air sites.

Gravettian culture thrived on their ability to hunt animals. They utilized a variety of tools and hunting strategies. Compared to theorized hunting techniques of Neanderthals and earlier human groups, Gravettian hunting culture appears much more mobile and complex. They lived in caves or semi-subterranean or rounded dwellings which were typically arranged in small "villages". Gravettians are thought to have been innovative in the development of tools such as blunted black knives, tanged arrowheads and boomerangs. Other innovations include the use of woven nets and stone-lamps. Blades and bladelets were used to make decorations and bone tools from animal remains. Sites including CPM II, CPM III, Casal de Felipe, and Fonte Santa (all in Spain) have evidence the use of blade and bladelet technology during the period. The objects were often made of quartz and rock crystals, and varied in terms of platforms, abrasions, endscrapers and burins. They were formed by hammering bones and rocks together until they formed sharp shards, in a process known as lithic reduction. The blades were used to skin animals or sharpen sticks.

Gravettian culture extended across a large geographic region, but is relatively homogeneous until about 27,000 years ago. They developed burial rites, which included the inclusion of simple, purpose built, offerings and or personal ornaments owned by the deceased, placed within the grave or tomb. Surviving Gravettian art includes numerous cave paintings and small, portable Venus figurines figurines made from clay or ivory, as well as jewelry objects. The fertility deities mostly date from the early period, and consist of over 100 known surviving examples. They conform to a very specific physical type of large breasts, broad hips and prominent posteriors. The statuettes tend to lack facial details, with limbs that are often broken off.

There is evidence of trade of amber and exotic stones in Europe in 28,000 B.C. Based on the large variety of artifacts found, A large cave called Mas-d'-Azil in southern France was regarded as a gathering place for people to exchange gods and gifts and possible find mates.

Solutrean tools

Solutrean Tools

The Solutrean Period (22,000 to 17,000 years ago) is named after the French site — the Crôt du Charnier site in Solutré-Pouilly, in Saône-et-Loire. — that tools associated with it were found. The site has tools, weapons and adornment associated with it. The people of Solutré specialised in the hunting of horses and they appeared to have occupied the site periodically, presumably in the hunting season. It does not include living areas occupied for long periods, but there are specialised areas of activity, especially the processing of game after the hunt.[Source: Donsmaps.com ==]

According to Donsmaps.com: “Some tools - pointes à face plane, laurel leaves, shouldered points - were made by a sophisticated retouch that was obtained by a new technique called pressure flaking, on flint which had been heat treated to make it much more workable. To make these lanceolate (leaf-shaped) points, the Solutrean people developed an exceptionally deft technique of pressure flaking – pressing with a soft tool such as an antler tine or bone point – instead of striking directly with a soft or hard hammer. There are other examples of this technique in prehistoric implements but the Solutrean people raised this technique to an artform where their arrowheads and spearpoints were as efficient as possible and like many optimum designs - an aircraft's wing, say – they also exhibit a form of beauty. ==

“The Solutrean technology is largely isolated in the prehistoric record. It was preceded by an industry based on Acheulian bifaces and scraper tools and it was succeeded by the widespread adoption of microlith technology in the Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic periods. It was the dominant technology for the relatively short space of time from 21 000 years ago to circa 15 000 years ago.”

Magdalenian Tools

The Magdalenian Period (17,000 to 12,000 years ago) is named after the French site — La Madeleine, a rock shelter in the Vézère valley, in the Dordogne region of France — that tools associated with it were found. The site has tools, weapons and adornment associated with it. The culture existed toward the end of the last ice age.

According to Les Eyzies Tourist Information: “The Magdalenien is characterised by regular blade industries struck from carinated cores. Typologically the Magdalenian is divided into six phases which are generally agreed to have chronological significance. The earliest phases are recognised by the varying proportion of blades and specific varieties of scrapers, the middle phases marked by the emergence of a microlithic component (particularly the distinctive denticulated microliths) and the later phases by the presence of uniserial (phase 5) and biserial ‘harpoons’ (phase 6) made of bone, antler and ivory. [Source: leseyzies-tourist.info +/]

Magdalenian Tools

“By the end of the Magdalenian, the lithic technology shows a pronounced trend towards increased microlithisation. The bone harpoons and points are the most distinctive chronological markers within the typological sequence. As well as flint tools, the Magdalenians are best known for their elaborate worked bone, antler and ivory which served both functional and aesthetic purposes including bâtons de commandement. Examples of Magdalenian mobile art include figurines and intrically engraved projectile points, as well as items of personal adornment including sea shells, perforated carnivore teeth (presumably necklaces) and fossils. +/

“The sea shells and fossils found in Magdalenian sites can be sourced to relatively precise areas of origin, and so have been used to support hypothesis of Magdalenian hunter-gatherer seasonal ranges, and perhaps trade routes. Cave sites such as the world famous Lascaux contain the best known examples of Magdalenian cave art. The site of Altamira in Spain, with its extensive and varied forms of Magdalenian mobillary art has been suggested to be an agglomeration site where multiple small groups of Magdalenian hunter-gatherers congregated.” +/

Blades and Needles

Unlike the chunky flaked tools made by Neanderthals, early modern humans made long blades, sharpened on both sides that showed signs of precise geometry and were crafted to standardized sizes. These blades were used in hunting — as spear points on throwing and thrusting spears — and ax heads for chopping and dismembering carcasses.

Blades may have been made by toolmakers who chopped flakes off cylindrical pieces of flint with a bone punch and a hammer stone — something that requires great skill. Spear points were made of chipped flint and sandstone-sharpened slivers of bone. Antlers engraved with a flint burin may have been fashioned into a spear thrower. [Source: John Pfieffer, Smithsonian magazine, October 1986]

The first needles appeared about 20,000 years ago. For small precision tools such as needles less brittle materials than stone were required. "People of the Upper Paleolithic," wrote John Pfieffer in Smithsonian magazine, "could probably produced sufficiently fine splinters, but putting eyes in needles would have been something else again. That called for a less-brittle raw material — bone or ivory. (the Neanderthals used little if any bone, confining themselves almost exclusively to stone.) The trick was to incise two deep parallel grooves in a suitable piece of bone , pry out the narrow strip between grooves, shape it and then bore an eye hole with a tiny flint perforator — a process that [takes about] three minutes."

Microlithic Industries

Magdalenian needles

Mode 5 stone tools involve the production of microliths, which were used in composite tools, mainly fastened to a haft. Examples include the Magdalenian culture. Such a technology makes much more efficient use of available materials like flint, although required greater skill in manufacturing the small flakes. [Source: Wikipedia +]

In prehistoric Japan, ground stone tools appear during the Japanese Paleolithic period, that lasted from around 40,000 BC to 14,000 BC. Elsewhere, ground stone tools became important during the Neolithic period beginning about 10,000 BC. These ground or polished implements are manufactured from larger-grained materials such as basalt, jade and jadeite, greenstone and some forms of rhyolite which are not suitable for flaking. The greenstone industry was important in the English Lake District, and is known as the Langdale axe industry. +

Ground stone implements included adzes, celts, and axes, which were manufactured using a labour-intensive, time-consuming method of repeated grinding against an abrasive stone, often using water as a lubricant. Because of their coarse surfaces, some ground stone tools were used for grinding plant foods and were polished not just by intentional shaping, but also by use. Celts (polished axes) are small axes, often beautifully finished and used to shape wooden objects. Manos are hand stones used in conjunction with metates for grinding corn or grain. Polishing increased the intrinsic mechanical strength of the axe. Polished stone axes were important for the widespread clearance of woods and forest during the Neolithic period, when crop and livestock farming developed on a large scale. They are distributed very widely and were traded over great distances since the best rock types were often very local. They also became venerated objects, and were frequently buried in long barrows or round barrows with their former owners. +

During the Neolithic period, large axes were made from flint nodules by chipping a rough shape, a so-called "rough-out". Such products were traded across a wide area. The rough-outs were then polished to give the surface a fine finish to create the axe head. Polishing not only increased the final strength of the product but also meant that the head could penetrate wood more easily. There were many sources of supply, including Grimes Graves in Suffolk, Cissbury in Sussex and Spiennes near Mons in Belgium to mention but a few. In Britain, there were numerous small quarries in downland areas where flint was removed for local use, for example.

Many other rocks were used to make axes from stones, including the Langdale axe industry as well as numerous other sites such as Penmaenmawr and Tievebulliagh in Co Antrim, Ulster. In Langdale, there many outcrops of the greenstone were exploited, and knapped where the stone was extracted. The sites exhibit piles of waste flakes, as well as rejected rough-outs. Polishing improved the mechanical strength of the tools, so increasing their life and effectiveness. Many other tools were developed using the same techniques. Such products were traded across the country and abroad.

Japan, Home of the Oldest Polished Tools in the World

Polished tools from Japan

Japan is the home of the oldest known ground stone tools and polished stone tools in the world, dated to around 30,000 B.C. This technology typically associated with the beginning of the Neolithic Period, around 10,000 B.C., in the rest of the world. It is not known why such tools were created so early in Japan, although the period is associated with a warmer climate worldwide. [Source: Wikipedia +]

Keiji Imamura wrote in “Prehistoric Japan, New Perspectives on Insular East Asia", “In prehistoric Japan, ground stone tools appear during the Japanese Paleolithic period. Elsewhere, ground stone tools became important during the Neolithic period. These ground or polished implements are manufactured from larger-grained materials such as basalt, jade and jadeite, greenstone and some forms of rhyolite which are not suitable for flaking. [Source: Prehistoric Japan, New Perspectives on Insular East Asia", Keiji Imamura, University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu]

Aileen Kawagoe wrote in the Heritage of Japan website: “Because of this originality, the Japanese Paleolithic period in Japan does not exactly match the traditional definition of Paleolithic based on stone technology (chipped stone tools). Japanese Paleolithic tool implements thus display Mesolithic and Neolithic traits as early as 30,000 B.C. Polished stone tools are strongly associated with the Neolithic period, although they have been around since the Paleolithic era and such products were traded across a wide area. Polishing rough-cut stone axes not only increased the intrinsic mechanical strength of the axe but also meant that the head could penetrate wood more easily. Polished stone axes were important for the widespread clearance of woods and forest during the Neolithic period, when crop and livestock farming developed on a large scale. Such axe heads were needed in large numbers for forest clearance and the establishment of settlements and farmsteads. By comparison the oldest polished stones in China — axes, adzes, cutters with polished blades — came from the 22,000- to 24,000-year-old Bailiandong site in southern China. In Europe, polished stone axes and adzes appeared in Bohemia in the present-day Czech Republic first in the Early Neolithic with the Lbk Culture. [Source: Aileen Kawagoe, Heritage of Japan website, heritageofjapan.wordpress.com ]

“Elsewhere, polished stone axes and adzes appeared in Bohemia (Czech territory in Central Europe) first in the Early Neolithic with the Lbk Culture (Source: Stone axes as tools, valuables and symbols (3300-1900 B.C.) by Jan Turek). Early Neolithic polished stone tools were also recovered from the village of Dobroslavtsi, in the Sofia basin in Southwestern Bulgaria (Source). Polished stone tool techniques of grinding, pounding, hammering and abrading activities were seen in the Early Neolithic of north-western Europe (Linearbandkeramik and Villeneuve-Saint-Germain cultures, 5100-4700 B.C.) The origins of and the diffusion and spread of polished stone tools in the world is still currently an ongoing topic of comparative study by experts and scholars.”

Polished Stone Tools in China

The earliest polished stone tools in China, dated to 24,000-22,000 years ago, were found at the Bailiandong site in southern China. They include axes, adzes, cutters with polished blades. But these only had polished blades. Fully polished stone tools would appear only thousands of years later (Source: “Early polished stone tools in South China evidence of transition from Palaeolithic to Neolithic“, “UDK 903(510)633/634?Documenta Praehistorica XXXI).

Stone tools of Southern China have been broken down into three stages of development: 1) blade polished only; 2) entire tool finely ground with blade polished; 3) entirely polished. The oldest polished tools in the world were discovered in Japan. See Japan, History.

To read more about the transition from the Paleolithic to Neolithic Bailiandong culture in Southern China, see “C AMS dating the transition from the Paleolithic to the Neolithic of Southern China," by SixunYuan et al. According to a report, inhabitants of the Xiaohexi site, in Inner Mongolia, the earliest prehistoric settlement in the northeast, knew how to make polished stone tools 8,500 years ago."Source: Aileen Kawagoe, Heritage of Japan website, heritageofjapan.wordpress.com]

Tools from Japan

Bamboo Tools: Why There's a Scarcity of Stone Tools in East Asia?

Kathleen Tibbetts of SMU wrote: “The long-held theory that prehistoric humans in East Asia crafted tools from bamboo was devised to explain a lack of evidence for advanced prehistoric stone tool-making processes. But can complex bamboo tools even be made with simple stone tools? A new study suggests the “bamboo hypothesis” is more complicated than conceived, says SMU archaeologist Metin I. Eren. [Source: Kathleen Tibbetts, Southern Methodist University (SMU), April 12, 2011 |::|]

“Research until now has failed to address a fundamental question: Is it even possible to make complex bamboo tools with simple stone tools? Now an experimental archaeological study – in which a modern-day flint knapper replicated the crafting of bamboo knives – confirms that it is possible to make a variety of bamboo tools with the simplest stone tools. |::|

“However, rather than confirming the long-held “bamboo hypothesis," the new research shows there's more to the theory, says Eren, the expert knapper who crafted the tools for the study.

The researchers found that crudely knapped stone choppers made from round rock “cobbles” performed remarkably well for chopping down bamboo. In addition, bamboo knives were efficiently crafted with stone tools. While the knives easily cut meat, they weren't effective at cutting animal hides, however, possibly discouraging their use during the Stone Age, say the authors. Some knives made from a softer bamboo species entirely failed to produce and hold a sharp edge. |::|

“The ‘bamboo hypothesis’ has been around for quite awhile, but was always represented simply, as if all bamboo species, and bamboo tool-making were equal," says Eren, a doctoral candidate in anthropology in SMU's Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences. “Our research does not debunk the idea that prehistoric people could have made and used bamboo implements, but instead suggests that upon arriving in East and Southeast Asia they probably did not suddenly start churning out all of their tools on bamboo raw materials either." |::|

World's Oldest Fishhooks in Okinawa

In September 2016, scientists announced that they found the oldest known fishhooks in the world on a limestone cave on the Japanese island of Okinawa according to a report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States (PNAS). Believed to be about 23,000 years old, the hooks are carved from sea snail shells and are thought to have been used to catch crabs and freshwater snails from a stream on the island. This find displaces another set of ancient fishhooks found in East Timor in 2011. The East Timorese hooks were dated between 16,000 and 23,000 years old. The Okinawan ones were carbon datied to between 22,380 and 22,770 years of age. [Source: The Week, Bonnie Kristian September 18, 2016]

The Guardian reported: “ Researchers say the fish-hooks, made from the shells of sea snails and found in the Sakitari cave, show the development of fishing technology at an earlier stage than previously thought and more widespread than previously known...Researchers, from a range of Japanese institutes and universities, have been excavating three areas of the Sakitari cave, a limestone structure on the southern coast of Okinawa, since 2009 and have published their findings in the PNAS journal. [Source: Kate Lyons, The Guardian, September 18, 2016 /=]

“It was previously believed resources were too scarce on the island for it to have supported life for long periods of time. But the excavation of the cave found evidence of eels, frogs, fish, birds and small mammals, which had been charred, suggesting consumption by humans, in various layers of rock. Researchers believe this and the other findings of their excavation indicates the island has been nearly continuously occupied since 35,000 years ago. As well as the fish-hooks and remains of animals, researchers also found human remains, seashell beads, as well as something they believe might have been a grindstone. The discovery of the charred remains of the crab is also significant, say the researchers, in that it provides evidence of seasonal eating habits. The size of the crab remains indicate they were captured in the autumn when they were larger and were migrating downstream for reproduction, which is “also the season when they are the most delicious”. /=\

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons

Text Sources: National Geographic, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Smithsonian magazine, Nature, Scientific American. Live Science, Discover magazine, Discovery News, Ancient Foods ancientfoods.wordpress.com ; Times of London, Natural History magazine, Archaeology magazine, The New Yorker, Time, Newsweek, BBC, The Guardian, Reuters, AP, AFP, Lonely Planet Guides, “World Religions” edited by Geoffrey Parrinder (Facts on File Publications, New York); “History of Warfare” by John Keegan (Vintage Books); “History of Art” by H.W. Janson (Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.), Compton’s Encyclopedia and various books and other publications.

Last updated May 2024