Tools: Did you mean...?

The appearance of simple stone tools, widely known as Oldowan tools or the Oldowan industry, marked the beginning of our technological revolution. To our knowledge, these artifacts appeared around 2.6 million years ago in the savannahs of...

As the Stone Age covers around 99% of our human technological history, it would seem there is a lot to talk about when looking at the development of tools in this period. Despite our reliance on the sometimes scarce archaeological record...

From the dawn of our species to the present day, stone-made artefacts are the dominant form of material remains that have survived to today concerning human technology. The term “Stone Age” was coined in the late 19th century CE by the Danish...

Homo habilis ("handy man") is an extinct species of human that lived in East and South Africa between 2.3 and 1.5 million years ago and plays an interesting role in the discussion surrounding the dawn of our genus of Homo, which is thought...

The Palaeolithic ('Old Stone Age') makes up the earliest chunk of the Stone Age – the large swathe of time during which hominins used stone to make tools – and ranges from the first known tool use roughly 2,6 million years ago to the end...

Hunter-gatherer societies are – true to their astoundingly descriptive name – cultures in which human beings obtain their food by hunting, fishing, scavenging, and gathering wild plants and other edibles. Although there are still groups of...

A collection of modern recreations of Stone Age tools. The picture above shows (from top right to bottom left): A hatchet with a wing spar, used for felling trees A straight hatchet for shortening smaller pieces of wood (with a piece...

A board showing the tools commonly used by stone masons in the Middle Ages in Europe. On display at Guédelon castle in Treigny, Burgundy, France.

Drawings of stone tools belonging to the Middle Palaeolithic (sometimes called 'Mousterian') industries, found from Europe and the Near East to Africa between approximately 250,000 and 30,000 years ago. It is associated with archaic homo...

A board showing the carpentry tools commonly used in the Middle Ages in Europe. On display at Guédelon castle in Treigny, Burgundy, France.