Identifying flint tools is a mixed bag. In some cases, its EASY – a handaxe or arrowhead is pretty unmistakable. But tools like scrapers, flakes and blades can just look like broken bits of stone. Likewise, naturally broken bits of stone can look a bit like scrapers, flakes and blades.
In most cases we must look for signs that the stone has been intentionally modified, and this can occur in two main ways: Very coarse grained rock or rock with prominent bedding plains can be pecked into shaped by repeatedly pounding, removing small fragments and dust until it attains its desired shape.
The earliest documented stone tools have been found in eastern Africa, manufacturers unknown, at the 3.3 million year old site of Lomekwi 3 in Kenya. Better known are the later tools belonging to an industry known as Oldowan, after the type site of Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania.
Rocks have different textures, colors, weights, and uses as tools and structures. Rocks are non-living (Western science define rocks as being non-living, however living and non- living is not defined in the same way for Indigenous science. Some cultures view rocks as living). How did people use rocks as tools long ago?
demonstrate the use of rocks as tools; for scraping, mashing, crushing, sanding, cleaning, staining, etc. rocks have different textures, hardness, weight and uses. rocks have a variety of uses.
These included hand axes, spear points for hunting large game, scrapers which could be used to prepare animal hides and awls for shredding plant fibers and making clothing. Not all Stone Age tools were made of stone.
What did Stone Age people eat?
Their diets included meat from wild animals and birds, leaves, roots and fruit from plants, and fish/ shellfish. Diets would have varied according to what was available locally. Domestic animals and plants were first brought to the British Isles from the Continent in about 4000 BC at the start of the Neolithic period.
Homo habilis The early Stone Age (also known as the Lower Paleolithic) saw the development of the first stone tools by Homo habilis, one of the earliest members of the human family. These were basically stone cores with flakes removed from them to create a sharpened edge that could be used for cutting, chopping or scraping.