ABSTRACT
Evidence from the earliest archeological sites has played a dominant role in ideas about the evolution of human behavior. On the basis of present evidence, early hominids from the Plio-Pleistocene, 1.5 to 2.5 million years ago (Ma), were the first to make stone tools. Tools and the sites where they are found have drawn the attention of paleoanthropologists and the public alike, for they suggest a time and a place for the origins of several distinctively human traits. The manufacture of tools has long been considered a product of manipulative skill and mental facility that is special to humans. The earliest human artifacts made from stone signify an incipient technology and the ability to enter hard or tough plant foods or to open up an animal’s carcass. The implication, according to traditional views, is that these early hominids performed economic functions that once characterized all humans, the ability to hunt and to gather food. Moreover, continuity in the shape of the earliest known tools over long periods of time appears to embody the essence of cultural learning, the passing of information across generations, and a unique medium for maintaining a way of life.
