The Shapes, Forms, Use, and Functions of Stone “Lithic” Tools in the Paleolithic Age

NB: We do not resell your papers. Upon ordering, we do an original paper exclusively for you.

NB: All your data is kept safe from the public.

Introduction

Stone tools were used during the Paleolithic era by Homo habilis and Homo erectus. Stone was the main raw material, which was touched and refined to produce the desired product. Remains of stone tools provide archaeologists with clues on how human beings made objects using these tools.

Some of the earliest discoveries include the discovery of a hand axe in elephant remains which have been associated with the Pleistocene period in Europe. Lithic tool evolution is dated around 2.6 ma in Ethiopia’s Afar triangle. It was accompanied by emergence of the tradition of Oldowan and the Acheulian tools.

The lithic tool evolution was accompanied with industries like the Oldowan industry and the famous Acheulian industry in the West Turkana region of Kenya during the Paleolithic era.

Acheulian industry came after the Oldowan industry around 1.7 ma. The Mousterian industry followed afterwards and is commonly identified alongside the homo neanderthalensis. Many more stone industries followed suit until when iron and copper industries came into sight.

Stone tool research is also referred to as lithic technology among archaeologists worldwide. Research in this field started in the Scandinavia in the 1830s. These studies help in archaeological analysis so that archaeologists can be able to deduce certain facts in relation to the artifacts made by the lithic tools.

They are pretty important in documenting various facets of prehistoric activities of the Homo sapiens and in exposing their behavioral characteristics. This work tries to explain the forms of stone tools, how they were made and for what purpose.

Stone Tools

The characteristic features of stone were the main determinants of the kind of tool to be made from the raw material. Such characteristic diagnostic features include fracture, cleavage, hardness and density among others. Stones which had even fractures were mostly used as raw materials in making flaked tools.

This is because percussion or pressure flaking, a method of manufacturing stone tools, made them to have a smooth concavo-convex finish. Fractures of such materials are found in rocks which have microscopic mineral grains and include rocks which do not cleave. Chalcedony, Chert, and flints are good example of these rocks (Kher & Aggarwal 11).

The presence of such tools like the hand axe, choppers, grinding tools among many others indicated the kind of domestic activity which prevailed during those times (Fleagle 54). The most common raw materials used for making lithic tools were Obsidian, Chert, Flint, Chalcedony, Basalt, and Quartzite and Cryptocrystalline materials (The Silent Stones Speak 2).

Various excavations done in East Africa indicate evidence of quartz and chalcedony flakes which were used during this era (Oula 26). Another evidence of this fact, although from a different region, comes from Sierra de Atapuerca whereby some herbivore fossils were found one meter below the Matuyama-Bruhnes boundary with marks of tools and carnivores together with some associations of quartzite tools (Herrero 3).

This is a strong indication of the spread in the use of lithic stone tools. The manufacturing process of these tools had a high demand for skills and strength. This is because huge rock boulders were first broken down into smaller rocks after which the heavy blades were shaped into bifaces that were then refined and retouched to give a finer finish.

The finished products came in various shapes and sizes according to the desired tool. In addition some of the tools were often combined with other components such as handles and shafts. Thus, due to the combination, the finished tools were used in various applications such as in dressing hides, shaping other tools like wooden tools and hunting large wild animals.

There were basically four traditions which accompanied the culture of stone tool making. These traditions are classified as follows;

Pebble tools
Bi-facial tools
Flake tools and
Blade tools

The above traditions are seldom found in their pure form (Guisepi 5). Pebble tools were simple single edged tools while bi-facial tools include the hand axe. It is worth noting that the use of one tradition could also be an indication of the type of economic and social activities of the people in a particular place (Galup 36).

The above categorized traditions are arranged according to their increasing order of complexity and time. Below are the main stone tools which were manufactured during the Paleolithic era;

Choppers

Choppers are nearly spherical stone tools which were formed by breaking large flakes so that an artifact which has a sharp edge is formed as a final product (Moore 1). The cutting edges are natural breaks or cleavages, with some modification done so that its dimension is lengthened.

The lengthening is often produced by removal of flakes. These tools were among the first to be manufactured and used in the Oldowan age by the Homo habilis. They were first found in Olduvai Gorge in northern Tanzania.

Hand axes

Homo erectus was the first human being to use hand axe. This was during the Acheulian industrial technology. The hand axes were an advance form of choppers which were flatter and also chipped all round. These hand axes had smaller flakes and a typical individual hand axe was quite smaller and showed evidence of more orderly removal of flint. As a result hand axes produced longer and better cutting edges (Moore 2).

They were more suited for heavier jobs. In addition they were also better to be used in cutting of finer works which resulted into a finer finish. Hand axes came in a range of diverse forms. Some would have blunt ends which offered a good place to be held by the hand. Others were chipped on all sides to provide various sizes of sharp edges. The latter would be held by a piece of leather to protect the hand.

Scrapers

Scrapers were a special type of Paleolithic tool which were used to scrap off the hair from animal skins. They were also used to scrap the inside part of the animal skins. Other uses include in vegetable preparation and in cloth making.

These tools had long, flat and curved edges which were sharpened to improve their efficiency as cutting tools (Moore 3). There was a special kind of scraper called “burin”, which was used, specific during the upper Paleolithic era, to cut bones or ivory and also in breaking bones parts to produce needles which were used in cloth making.

Points

Points were manufactured and mounted on wooden shafts to make projectiles. Their shapes and sizes together with those of spear points depended on their use. That is to say that each point was manufactured depending on the type of prey to be hunted and also depending on the type of the raw material to be used, which in this case was stone (Moore 4).

Blades

A blade is a tool whose length is twice its width and has parallel sides which meet at the pointed end (Rosen 31). This tool first appeared in the upper Paleolithic era especially in the East Africa region. A typical blade was made by detaching the longest possible flake from a nodule and modifying the edges according to the purpose of the desired finished product.

The level of expertise required for manufacturing blades was higher than the level needed in manufacturing other tools because they were thin and could break easily. Blades were also mounted on a wooden handle. Other handles used were antlers which were similarly mounted on the blade to provide the handle. The tool was then used for making deep holes and in wounding preys (Anon 79).

In addition to blades, flakes which were quite similar to cutters were used in dissecting hunted herbivore or in tearing tough fibrous plants. The tool making culture often shows an amazing diversification of the kinds of tools during the Paleolithic era.

How Stone Tools were formed

Stone tools were manufactured using the crudest techniques ever in mankind history. The techniques involved include anvil percussion whereby the raw materials would be struck at the core against another stone which was laid on the ground. Direct percussion involved striking the nodule or the core of the raw material to remove the flakes. The striking is done either by a hand held hammer stone or by using a billet.

A typical billet was made of a heavy antler which provided the extra weight needed. Bipolar percussion is done by placing the core on a hard surface on the ground after which it is smashed to remove the flakes. Indirect percussion involves the use of a punch to remove the flakes directly from the raw materials.

The punch is made of a pointed antler or bone in the middle. The tip of the raw material is placed on the core edge and then struck at the end of the punch with a hummer stone. The artifact is finally shaped, sometimes using a deer antler, by pressing along the edge of the tool to remove small flakes (The Silent Stones Speak 4).

Stone would often be heated, as a prerequisite stage, during the tool making process. This was done especially if the raw material was tough or if it had plenty of nodules of flint or other macro impurities. This voluntary thermal alteration had an effect on the structure of the raw material such that it became more brittle and easier to flake (The Silent Stones Speak 5).

The heating made the molecules of chert form stronger bonds, become glassier thus improving the effectiveness of the final product. There were also other instances where the tools would be manufactured naturally by fracturing of the raw materials. However, the fracturing would be modified by human beings to make them more effective in their use.

Striking platforms were used in shaping and finalizing the manufacturing process of the stone tools. The platform types changed from one stage to another. The amount of striking platform also increased from the original nodule to a finished biface according to the level of the stage of production (Andrefsky 90).

In addition to these methods, grinding also provided another means by which stone tools were manufactured. Most of the time, grinding would be used in maintenance of the lithic tools like sharpening. Sharpening the cutting age of the tool required a friction fit which was accompanied with binding. Grinding was the only means of shaping some of the raw materials like nephrite (Odell 36).

Functions of Stone

Stone was basically the raw material used in the manufacture of lithic tools. The tools were used during the lower Paleolithic by the early Homo sapiens who were the then new world hunters and gatherers. In Egypt, stone tools were used for cutting and sawing. They were also used in cutting oxen during cetain rituals like in entombment processes.

Tomb paintings in parts of the areas in the Middle East also signified an essence of flaking of large stone knives (The Silent Stones Speak 12). Stone products were also used in social activities like war and politics (McCannon 46).

In addition to this, stones were also used in domestic purposes such as grinding grains (Walker 17). According to recently discovered fossils, it is revealed that in the paleolitihc era, stones were used in breaking marrow cavities and also for shelter (Life Magazine 81). They were also used in scratching and digging the ground to harvest tubers and underground dwelling insects. The other use of stone also includes the control of fires.

Conclusion

It has been established that the three species of human beings employed a variety of stone tools in their socioeconomic activities. The tools include choppers, hand axes, points, blades and scrapers. The uses of these tools include cutting, digging, scratching, trapping and wounding game. Choppers were used for skinning animals together with scrapers.

Hand axes could be used for defense purposes while points and blades were also used in hunting and wounding game. Other uses of blades include skinning while points were shafted into wooden or antler handles and used in hunting or digging the ground in search for tubers.

Stone tools were made from different kinds of rocks which include chert, flint, obsidian, basalt, quartzite, chalcedony and other cryptocrystalline rocks. As it has been discussed, stone was the major raw material used in the tool industry alongside other raw materials such as bones and wood. Other uses of stones include grinding of grains and sharpening other objects just to mention but a few.

Works Cited

Andrefsky, William Jr. Lithics, Macroscopic Approaches to Analysis, Ed 2, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Print.

Anon. “Chapter 4: Egyptian Prehistory: The Paleolithic and Neolithic.” Wiley, 2007.

Fleagle, John. Out of Africa I: The First Hominin Colonization of Eurasia, Springer Dordrecht Heidelberg London New York, 2010. Print.

Galup, Sheila. Postclassic Maya Lithic Tool Maintenance, Recycling, and Consumption Patterns at Laguna de On Island, Occasional Publication No. 13.

Institute for Mesoamerican Studies, Department of Anthropology, University of Albany, 2007. Print.

Guisepi, Robert. “The Stone Age; Prehistoric Cultural Stage, or Level of Human Development, Characterized by the Creation and use of Stone Tools, A project by History World International,” World History Center, 2000. Web.

Herrero, Sergio. Human Evolution and Sierra de Atapuerca: Reshaping the Current Theories with new Findings, The Long Way towards Homo sapiens, Kher, N & Aggarwal, Jaideep. A Textbook of Social Sciences, Vol. 1, Pittambar Publishing Co. Ltd., 2009. Print.

Life Magazine. An Epic of Man: Man Inherits the Earth, Vol. 39, No. 19, 1955.

McCannon, John. How to prepare for the AP world history examination, Ed 2, Barron’s Educational Series, New York. 2002. Print.

Moore, Elise. “Paleolithic stone tools.” eHow, 2010. Web.

Odell, George. Stone Tools: Theoretical Insights into Human Prehistory. Interdisciplinary Contribution to Archaeology, Plenium Press, New York, 1996. Print.

Oula, Seitsonen. Lithics after Stone Age in East Africa, Wadh Lang’o Case Study University of Helsinki, Institute for Cultural Studies, Archaeology, 2004.

Rosen, Steven. Lithics after the Stone Age: A Handbook of Stone Tools from the Levant. AltaMira Press, 1977. Print.

The Silent Stones Speak. “Homo habilis, Homo erectus, Homo sapiens, An Introduction to Flint working,” Net Industries, 2010. Web.

Walker, Tamsin. “Archeology, Paleolithic Humans Refined Grains in Addition to Eating Meat,” Deutsche Welle. 2010. Web.

Click Here To Order Now!