Transcript Evolution of Tools

THE EVOLUTION OF TOOLS
AND HOW THEY’VE MADE US HUMAN
CHIMPANZEE TOOLS
 Stones for cracking nuts
 Branches for termite fishing
 Spears to hunt bush babies
EARLIEST TOOLS
 3.3 million years old
 Lomekwi 3 site, Kenya
 Australopithecus
OLDOWAN TOOLS
 2.5 mya—Gona, Ethiopia
 Homo habilis
 Earliest consistent manufacture of
stone tools
 Need based manufacture
OLDOWAN TOOLS
 Percussion Flaking
 Flake Tools
 Cutting
 Core Tools
 Hammering, chopping, and digging
ACHEULEAN TOOLS
 1.8—1.5 mya
 Homo erectus
 More sophisticated technology
 Brains-for-Guts Hypothesis
ACHEULEAN HAND AXES
 Fairly standard shape
 Advanced percussion flaking
 Paleolithic Swiss Army knife
ZHOUKOUDIAN
 Late Homo erectus site
 700,000—200,000 years ago
 Evidence of the change in
subsistence patterns
EXPANDING TO NEW ENVIRONMENTS
 Homo erectus was the first species to move from tropical and
subtropical climates to temperate climates
 500,000 years ago in Asia
 Earlier in Europe
 Technological advancements & new subsistence patterns
MOUSTERIAN TOOLS
 100,000 years ago
 Neanderthals
 Levallois core technique
FIRE
 First fire evidence
 790,000 years ago in Israel
 For cooking and heating
 780,000—400,000 years ago in
Zhoukoudian
BIOCULTURAL EVOLUTION
 When natural selection is altered
by cultural advancements
 Culture can create non-biological
solutions to environmental
challenges, which potentially
reduces the need for genetic
responses to evolve
KNAPPING EXPERIMENT
 Stone tool making and brain function using PET scans
 Adequate force, correct position, and correct angle
 Heavy activation in cortical and subcortical regions
 Indicates knapping requires some degree of sophisticated cognitive
function
SO, HOW HAVE TOOLS MADE US HUMAN?
 Biological evolution
 Helped exploit environmental resources
 Protect against predation
 Tools allowed us not to adapt to our environments, but to adapt
environments to us