Development Of Tools Throughout Time Essay Research

Development Of Tools Throughout Time Essay, Research Paper

Our world today has many different kinds of tools. I realized this when I was walking through The Home Depot a few weeks ago. On one isle are nails, and screws, the next isle there are power drills to go along with power saws and power sanders. Now imagine the world with no tools, no nails or screws. It would be pretty difficult to do most anything. We would have no houses to live in, no cars to travel to work in, and we would have no place of employment in which to work. Without tools our world would be nothing. This is the world our ancestors faced, and they had nothing but rocks and sticks. Homo Habilis had the challenge of being the first hominid with a larger brain, which allowed him to have the ability to do more things. With early hominids lacking size and strength to kill large animals they used certain objects to kill and devour these animals. This ultimately led to the development of tools.

By 2.5 million years ago, a new human evolutionary trend had begun. The change to a upright bipedal posture, and existing flexibility at the shoulder, arms, and hands allowed hominids to carry and manipulate objects much more readily. Early hominids began to manipulate the physical world, inventing solutions to the problems of human existence. Instead of foraging, as do most primates, on a more or less individualistic basis for food sources, early hominids invented stone tools with which they could slay larger animals. This began a switch from scavenging to hunting as the main means by which meat was acquired.

The earliest known tools yet discovered were found by Louis and Mary

Leakey at Olduvai Gorge dating back to about two million years ago. They originally thought that these tools were made by the Australopithecus, but later determined that they were made by the Homo Habilis . The first tools found were classified as lower paleolithic tools. These tools belong to the Oldowan tool tradition. These tools which were opportunist in nature were characterized by an all-purpose generalized chopping tool. These were produced by removing a few flakes from a stone either by using another stone as a hammer or by striking a pebble against a large rock. Manufacturing tools this way is called the percussion method. Many of these tools were made out of quartz or lava; which were not the most common stones but were the easiest to chip.

For a long time, paleontologists believed that the shaped core in itself represented the final product – the tool – and that the flakes were to be regarded as waste or leftovers from the manufacturing procedure. Close examination has shown, however, that much of the variation among chopping tools was due to the deliberate production of flakes which then could be used as knives, scrapers, or other tools. “Tool makers apparently were concerned mostly with producing sharp flakes without any regard to shape(Leaky 55).” These tools could be used to make clothes, woodwork, gather products, and process meat. Crude as they were, Oldowan choppers and flakes mark an important technological advance for early hominids; previously they depended on found objects that required little or no modifications (Wallbank 3). The advent of these Oldowan blades made possible the addition of meat to their diet on a more frequent basis.

The next grouping of early hominids is Homo Erectus, discovered in Java in

1891. Associated with the remains of Homo Erectus are tools of the Acheulean tradition. The Acheulean period lasted from 1.5 million until between 200,000 and 150,000 years ago. The most prominent characteristic of this period are hand axes: pear shaped tools pointed at one end with a sharp cutting edge all around. “The subtriangular hand ax probably had a wide range of use such as cutting, digging, and scraping, and was often shaped into a neat but very efficient tool(Burenholt 75).” These hand axes weighed as much as 20 pounds a piece. The hand ax was probably one of only about a dozen tool forms in the Acheulean kit and was produced according to some form of mental template. Most of the other items in the assemblage were Oldowan in many ways. These other tools only displayed a minimal imposition of form. Besides hand axes, they also used antler spear throwers , for spear hunting, adorned with life like animal carvings. Other tools were used as cleavers to cut meat. During this period they discovered Flint which was used in the production of smaller lighter tools, whereas the oldowan tool makers used heavier coarse-grained stones. The greatest tool of this period however, was the invention of fire. Originally, fire was used for protection from predators. Later it was used to provide warmth, and to cook foods. Once Homo Erectus discovered how to cook foods many problems were alleviated. Poisons in foods were burned away, and smaller tooth size came about since foods were now softer. Fire gave people more control over their environment. Fire also provided light in caves, or at night time which before this was unavailable. “Research shows that early Homo erectus controlled and used fire in eastern Africa, adding about a

million years to the time when human ancestors faced fire – not as an object of terror – but as a source of comfort and protection. Extensive and varied analyses show that more than six red patches discovered at the famous hominid site of Koobi For