A tool isn’t just a tool
Part 3: Technological progress and the history of mankind
Stone tools were the first technology humans used to shape our world. This extension of the human body and mind gave us certain evolutionary advantages. Both apes and archaic humans were able to use tools, but the latter made a crucial difference. They didn’t just use the tools at hand, they made them.
The first stone tools were basically stone cores with flakes removed from them to create a sharpened edge that could be used for cutting, chopping or scraping.
However, these tools, just like our technologies today, saw 2.0 and 3.0 versions. In science, these different versions are called modes:
Mode I: Oldowan Industry
When? Circa 2.6 million to 1.7 million years ago.
What? The earliest known stone tools such as choppers and flakes. Associated with Homo habilis and possibly some of the later Australopithecines.
Mode II: Acheulean Industry
When? circa 1.7 million to 300,000 years ago.
What? More advanced tools, including hand axes and cleavers. Associated with Homo erectus.
Mode III: Mousterian Industry
When? Circa 160,000 to 40,000 years ago.
What? Tools such as scrapers, points, and denticulates. Associated with Neanderthals and early modern humans (Homo sapiens).
Mode IV: Aurignacian Industry
When? circa 43,000 to 26,000 years ago).
What? More sophisticated tools, including blades, burins, and bone tools. Associated with early modern humans.
Mode V: The Microlithic Industries
When? Circa 20,000 to 6000 years ago.
What? Complex and specialized tools, including microliths, harpoons, and needles. Extensive use of bone, antler, and ivory. Associated with Homo sapiens.
More than Stone
The stone tools in the early modes weren’t invented by modern humans, but by our ancestors long before first Homo sapiens arrive.
When Homo sapiens appeared as a separate species in Africa, several other species of the genus Homo still roamed the earth, including Homo erectus, Homo neanderthalensis, and Homo heidelbergensis. It was from the last one that we probably diverged around 300.000.
By the time modern humans emerged, Homo erectus had already been using stone tools and even invented fire. Like stone tools, fire was crucial to our evolution. Homo erectus evolved around two million years ago, around the same time that there was evidence of use of fire. Archaic humans thus first used fire around two million years ago, and by about 400,000 years ago humans were using fire in many aspects of daily life such as cooking, hunting, and making tools.
Homo erectus, however, used “least-effort strategies” for tool making and resource gathering. At least according to research on the Arabian Peninsula. Along with, again, climate change, they eventually went extinct. Homo heidelbergensis, from which we modern humans diverged, was also replaced. This left only a few hominin species like Homo sapiens, Homo denovisans and Homo neanderthalensis. The last two groups also eventually disappeared.
Neanderthals went extinct about 40,000 years ago. There are many hypotheses as to why this happened, such as climate change, disease (from humans), interbreeding (with humans) and competitive replacement. About the last point, humans were in larger groups, this means that they could easily exchange goods and ideas. One of those ideas is simple to us. It’s the needle. They were used for sewing clothes. The first have been found in Russia and Central Europe and date to 30,000 years ago.
Though it may be interesting to note that in the Denisovan Cave, Siberia, a needle dating back to around 50,000 years ago was already discovered. It is believed to have been used by the Denisovans, a hominin species or subspecies of archaic humans. Denisovans may have survived until 25,000 years ago.
Crucial Inventions
In the early and middle Stone Age, various inventions by different human subspecies played a large role in human progress. Stone tools or fire alone didn’t make a difference, but cumulatively they made faster human progress possible.
So inventions are not just something of modern times, but of all times. Here is a list of some of the most important inventions of the Stone Age and when they first appeared:
- Stone tools (~3,3 million years ago, Kenya)
- Stone hand axe (~1,6 million years ago)
- Fire (~1 million years ago)
- Boats (~900.000 years ago)
- Spears (~460,000 years ago, South Africa)
- Pigments (Color powder) (~400.000 years ago, Zambia)
- Glue (~200.000 years ago, Italy)
- Harpoon (~100.000 years ago, Kongo)
- Bow (~72.000 years ago, South Africa)
- Cave paintings (~60.000 years ago, Spain)
- Needle (~50.000 years ago, Russia)
- Axe (~44,000 years ago, Australia)
What this list shows is that technology didn’t evolve recently, but evolved over time. The first use is already more than 3,3 million years ago. This was still opportunistic. People just took what was available at the moment. Then they shaped them actively for better use.
A lot of the first use was not done by Homo sapiens, but by other hominins like Home erectus, Homo heidelbergensis, Homo ergaster or Homo neanderthalensis. It’s not improbable to say that many tools were invented:
- Multiple times
- By multiple human species
- All over the world
Technological progress is thus a gradual and erratic process. Every invention created some advantage, but it was the combination of several technologies that accelerated the process. The way to contain, spread and active seeking advancement is what it made possible that humans mastered its surroundings.
This history of technology is not well known. Not well known among engineers, technicians or programmers, and surely not by the generally public. Being educated and understanding how humans advanced with the help of tools, and technological progress works, helps us understand our modern world where technology is all around better. It also understands the moment when the combined technologies accelerate the pace of human progress and a lot of new inventions were made. This is the subject of the next chapter.
