Rock selection for Stone Age tools - Popular Archeology

PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES—A study finds that Stone Age toolmakers likely understood the mechanical properties of rocks they selected as raw materials for toolmaking. The Stone Age is marked by the use of rocks as tools, a process that requires the selection of rocks that not only flake easily so that they can be shaped but are also tough and durable. The factors underlying the selection of rocks to make tools is not well understood. Patrick Schmidt and colleagues analyzed the mechanical properties of stone tools found at the Diepkloof Rock Shelter site in South Africa, representing the Middle Stone Age. The primary types of rocks shaped into tools at the site were hydrothermal quartz, quartzite, hornfels, and silcrete. The authors developed a physical model of rock characteristics to estimate the force needed to flake pieces of rock and to determine the rocks’ strength during projectile impact. The modeled physical properties explain the selection of quartzite, silcrete, and hydrothermal quartz raw materials at the Middle Stone Age site, suggesting that toolmakers understood the tradeoffs of ease of tool shaping and mechanical strength. According to the authors, the results* suggest that Stone Age toolmakers had the engineering skills required to fashion tools with desirable qualities at a reasonable cost.

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Stone tools and other artifacts offer evidence about how early humans made things, how they lived, interacted with their surroundings, and evolved over time.

Spanning the past 2.6 million years, many thousands of archeological sites have been excavated, studied, and dated. These sites often consist of the accumulated debris from making and using stone tools. Because stone tools are less susceptible to destruction than bones, stone artifacts typically offer the best evidence of where and when early humans lived, their geographic dispersal, and their ability to survive in a variety of habitats. But since multiple hominin species often existed at the same time, it can be difficult to determine which species made the tools at any given site.

Most important is that stone tools provide evidence about the technologies, dexterity, particular kinds of mental skills, and innovations that were within the grasp of early human toolmakers.

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