Stone Age tools - this is how, simply and clearly, the most ancient section in the museum is called. The exhibits presented in it, a modern person, with a slight indifference and obvious superiority, just examines and passes by. But maybe it is worth taking a closer look at the world of the past, listening to the silence of centuries and discovering new facts from the life of primitive people.
Listen to how the stones come to life, how they become not silent and empty witnesses of the past, but interesting interlocutors who know exactly what tools the ancient people used. The narrative can take you far back, but open an understanding of the modern world and find out what kind of work the stone tools of primitive people required and how they became the basis of the struggle for survival.
The first tools of labor of primitive man
A tool of labor - sounds normal for a modern person, but not for primitive apes (human ancestors). The path to understanding labor and the need to apply labor lasted more than one century and began with a simple understanding that collected stones and sticks, processed by nature, are effective in the fight against animals and in protection. Human ancestors simply picked up the necessary stones or sticks, as needed, and after use they threw them away. Over time, it became clear that finding a suitable stone processed by nature is not always easy, and sometimes even impossible. I had to accumulate suitable stones or, using my own labor, modify the existing stones and sticks. So, slowly and gradually, the process of accumulating knowledge and applying one's own labor in practice took place.
Listen, because you can hear how the museum exhibits tell how stones, hitting stones, turn into a universal tool of ancient people. So the first and universal was the ancient chopping tool or stone chopper. The stone ax appeared in the early Paleolithic, when primitive man began to make unhurried and imprecise blows to the stone.
The chopper is the first human tool of labor, which was an almond-shaped stone with one thickened end at the base and the second pointed end.
It was very difficult to make a handy chopper out of a small stone. The slow movements of the first people were not always accurate and correct, and the chips on the stone were of the required shape. In the silence of the museum, the panorama of the creation of the first tools of labor comes to life, which has changed not for hours or days, but for centuries. Trace the appearance of the first tools of labor, the ancestors of modern man, more conveniently relying on the chronology of the development of primitive people: from Australopithecus and Pithecanthropus, to Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon. Let the stones speak ...
Australopithecus: tools
Australopithecus is an interesting species of ancient hominids. This is a great ape, which is the most ancient ancestor of modern man.
Hominids are a family of progressive primates that include great apes and humans.
The main occupation of Austrolopithecus is gathering. To make the process of picking berries and roots more productive, and effective protection from wild animals, the ancient human ancestors began to master stone, pebbles, bones and sticks. Titanic efforts had to be made to make a small cleavage of the correct shape on the stone, but when the first chopper appeared, which was convenient to hold in the hand, to extract roots with it and kill animals, a new stage in the life of primitive man began.
In addition to the stone chopper, Austrolopithecus made scrapers, cutting, knives, and pointed points. For the manufacture of tools, sharp stones were collected near reservoirs and rivers, which have already been sharpened by nature and gave them the desired shape (eoliths). To make the tool comfortable and not cut the hands, one edge was left not sharpened. Each weapon was produced with great difficulty, as it was necessary to inflict more than 100 blows on the stone. The whole work took a lot of time, and the first tools weighed more than 50 kilograms, but this was a huge step forward, towards understanding oneself and the need not to be content with the gifts of nature, but to take everything you needed yourself.
Pithecanthropus: tools of labor
Pithecanthropus belonged to the genus "People" and were an early form of Homo erectus. It is difficult for archaeologists to talk about the tools of labor of this period, since there are very few finds and they all belong to the later periods of the Acheulean culture.
Historical fact: the Acheulean culture is a term used to denote stone tools of the Early Paleolithic. The most prominent representative of the culture is the hand ax.
For the manufacture of tools, Pithecanthropus used bone, wood and stone. All raw materials were amenable to very primitive processing, because the chips on the stones are random and completely devoid of regularity. They continued to use Pithecanthropus and Eoliths (stones split by nature). the tools of labor of this period are represented by hand choppers made of stone, flakes with cutting edges and sharp blades.
Neanderthal: tools of labor
The tools of the Neanderthals were slightly different from the tools used by the Pithecanthropus, but they became lighter and more professional. Over time, new forms appeared and gradually replaced the old and inconvenient ones. All tools of this period are usually called Mousterian.
Neanderthal tools are called Mousterian because of the name of the Le Moustier cave in France, where numerous tools were found.
Neanderthals lived in a difficult climatic period, in the Ice Age. And all the tools were aimed not only at the ability to get food, but also at the production of clothing. Therefore, the spear, scraper and needle were very popular. The tools of labor continued to be made of flint, but in a new form and more complex technique. They became diversified, but belonged to three main types of tools: side-scrapers, sharp points of a ruber. The Rubilze is a miniature hand chopper for Pithecanthropus. The scrapers were used as a tool for butchering animals, for dressing hides and for working wood. Pointed points performed the function of a knife for meat, wood, leather, or were used as tips for darts and spears.
The bone tools that archaeologists managed to find are not distinguished by their perfection and rather resemble primitive tools: spatulas, awls, clubs, points, daggers. It is worth remembering that the tools of labor of the Neanderthals were very different based on the geography of their settlement. In the European set of tools, some objects prevailed, and in the African set, others.
Cro-Magnon: tools of labor
In the Late Paleolithic, the Cro-Magnons entered the world stage, completing all stages of the development of primitive man. These were people of large stature, with a well-developed physique and skills. It was the Cro-Magnons who successfully used all the achievements of their predecessors and came up with new ones. They continued to use tools made of stone, learned how to make all kinds of tools from bone, weapons and devices from tusks, deer antlers and wood, and also continued to pick berries and roots. On the new path of development, tools of labor became perfect and diverse. Cro-Magnons were the first to invent the burning of pottery, which made it possible to use pottery in everyday life. The masterful processing of tools made it possible to make them more convenient, smaller, of better quality, and led to the emergence of new tools. In the Cro-Magnon arsenal, the following were widely used: side-scrapers, incisors, knives with sharpened and blunt blades, scrapers with a ledge, sharp blades, arrowheads, punctures, harpoons from a deer horn, bone fishhooks, and tips.
Conclusion
The stones fell silent ... silence settled in the museum again. Yes, now we know which tool of human labor was the most ancient and what efforts our ancestors had to face. Now, passing by the long shelves with museum exhibits, we know for sure that they are not silent. They talk, you just need to learn to listen ...
The Lower (early) Paleolithic lasted from the emergence of primitive man (about 2 million years ago) to about the 40th millennium BC. NS. This period of time is divided sequentially into four cultures: Dochelle (pebble), Chelle (town of Chelle), Acheule (Saint-Acheul area), Mousterian (Le Moustier cave).
In the pre-Chelian period, the land was inhabited by the Pithecanthropes, which were replaced by the Sinanthropes in the Chellean period, and the Neanderthals in the Asheul and Moustereki periods. All of them experienced an era of savagery, which corresponded to the appropriating branches of the economy, first gathering (first stage), then supplemented by hunting (second stage), and subsequently by fishing (third stage). Their primitive communal formation fits into two stages: the primitive human herd - in the pre-Shelley period and the early matriarchal tribal community of gatherers, hunters and fishermen - in subsequent cultures (Shelley, Asheul and Mousterian).
Prechelle culture. The appearance of the first guns
The preschelle (pebble) culture represents the earliest period in history (about 2 million - 100 thousand years ago), when people learned to use sticks and stones as tools and mastered the initial methods of processing them.
If the very first tools used by Australo-Pitecs were random, untreated stones with sharp edges and ordinary sticks, then primitive people (Pithecanthropus) began to subject them to primitive processing - to split stones and sharpen sticks.The latter can only be assumed, since wood products have not survived to this day.
Rough tools made of whole pebbles, roughly hewn from only one side, "as well as coarse massive flakes obtained by splitting large stones, were characteristic of this period. Therefore, the Dozhel culture was called pebble.
Shelley culture ". Improvement of stone tools and techniques for their manufacture
In the Schelle period (about 400-100 thousand years ago), the technique of making and using stone tools by primitive man (Sinanthropus) was already quite well developed. The material most often served as flint - a fairly widespread and extremely hard mineral that could split into thin sharp-edged flakes (flakes) with excellent cutting properties.
The main tool of labor was the "Chelle ruby-lo *" - a massive almond-shaped, oval or spear-shaped stone with a smooth heel for palm rest and a pointed cutting part. The chopper was universal in its purpose and made it possible to chop, cut and dig the ground with the help of powerful blows. In addition, it was an indispensable weapon for hunting, defense and attack.
Chops were made by rough, double-sided upholstery of the blade with another stone - a bump stop. The upholstery was carried out with strong and sharp blows, leading to the separation of large pieces, which did not allow obtaining a high-quality and sharp blade.
Fig. 1. Tools of the Stone Age: a - eolith, b - digging stick, c - club, d - ax, e - scraper, f - pointed points, g - stone ax, h - spear with a stone tip, and - harpoon with bone tip
In addition to chopped synanthropes, we also used flakes obtained as a result of cutting off the original nodule or pebbles. Flakes were most often used without further processing as primitive cutting tools for dismemberment of prey, as well as for the manufacture of wood products. In addition, chopping and stabbing tools of other designs were used - disc-shaped and in the form of massive pointed points.
The meaning of the manufacture of most primitive tools consisted in giving their working part the shape of a wedge, which in itself became the first outstanding invention of primitive man. It is the wedge that forms the basis of all modern cutting tools, the external shape of bullets, shells, rockets, aircraft, boats and many other modern structures designed to move in various media (solid, liquid, gaseous) is formed in the form of a wedge.
Ashel culture. Mastering the technique of retouching and the use of fire
In the Asheul period (about 100-40 thousand years ago), stone tools continued to improve, the technique of their manufacture was improved, new types of them appeared, such as a stone scraper for scraping and drills for drilling depressions and holes.
Along with the technique of large rocks, the Ashel man also mastered the technique of retouching (from the French retouche - correction), which consists in “correcting” the shape of the original workpiece by separating small plates from it with the help of frequent gentle blows. This technique, combined with the precision of striking by the skilled hand of the master, made it possible to give the tools more correct geometric shapes, and their blades - straightness and sharpness. Instruments have become not only more elegant, but also lighter in weight.
For housing, the Asheul man most often adapted caves, grottoes and other natural, natural shelters, but gradually he began to master the technique of building artificial dwellings. At first, these were the simplest huts of poles, resting on a central pillar and covered with branches, with a hearth in the middle.
Fire began to play a huge role, which the Ashel man used not only to heat his dwelling, but also to protect him from predators, as well as to fry animal meat, edible fruits and roots. This improved and diversified human nutrition, provided more comfortable conditions for his existence and allowed him to survive in conditions of a sharp cold snap associated with the longest glaciation in the history of the Earth. In addition, an even sharper line was drawn between man and the rest of the animal world.
A sharp cold snap forced a person to invent clothes, as which the skins of killed animals were used, at first in an unmanufactured form, and then a person began to master the technology of leather dressing.
Mousterian culture. Differentiation of tools by purpose and manufacturing technology
Ashel culture was replaced by Mousterian culture, and Pithecanthropus and Sinanthropus were replaced by Neanderthals with a more developed culture. By this time, the range of stone tools had significantly expanded and their differentiation by purpose and manufacturing technology began. The forms of stone tools became more complete and definite, and bone tools began to appear.
For the Mousterian, the most characteristic were points and side-scrapers - the first specialized male and female tools. A male point was used for processing wood and finishing off animals, a female scraper - for stripping skins, scraping off fat from them and preparing them for making clothes. A scraper has also appeared, which differs from the scraping by a notch in the middle part and is better suited for planing wood and peeling off leather. Bilaterally sharpened points began to be used as daggers, and could also be attached to the end of a stick. This is how the spear appeared, which became the most common weapon of the Neander Talts, indispensable when hunting a large game.
Mastering counter-retouching. The emergence of tools
The technique of stone processing was supplemented by counter-impact retouching, with the help of which the cutting blades and tips of weapons and tools were processed, and more often than not. For this, the object to be processed was placed on a massive stone anvil and struck with a wooden mallet. As a result of the collision with the anvil of the sharpened blade, very small scales peeled off from it and it acquired the correct geometric shape and high sharpness.
Drummers, retouchers, hammers, anvils, drills and other tools, with the help of which all the rest were made, became the first tools standing at the origins of civilization, without which the life of a modern man is inconceivable.
Transportation of prey by land was carried out in shoulder bags and by dragging, trees, bundles of brushwood and reeds served to force water obstacles, rowing was carried out with hands and feet. This was the beginning of the birth of land and water transport.
Mastering the technique of making fire. The most important technical achievement of the Mousterian culture was the mastery of the methods of artificially producing fire, which was previously used as obtained by chance and was called natural ("wild").
To obtain fire, the method of friction of a stick was used, which was also used for drilling holes, and it is not exactly established what was the primary, the detection of the ignition of a stick when drilling a hole or vice versa. The second way to get fire was to strike sparks when a stone hits a stone - a phenomenon that a person previously noticed when processing blanks with a chipper. As F. Engels noted, the mastery of fire "... for the first time gave man dominion over a certain force of nature and thus finally separated man from the animal kingdom."
Dyatchin N.I.
From the book "History of the Development of Technology"
A hammer, a saw, a sewing machine, a car, a tractor - these are all tools that make life much easier for a person. But how did the most ancient people live if they did not have this?
If we could miraculously travel back to that time, we would see a strange picture for us. Men of the ancient tribe wander all day along the banks of the river. They carefully look for such stones from which they can make a sharp object. Having found the necessary stones, they hit one stone on another, getting a sharpened edge. Small stones make knives, and large ones make axes. The stones were also tied to strong sticks, receiving sharp clubs, with which they hunted animals and fish. And from a thick tree branch and a sharp stone, you could make a digging stick. With its help, the edible roots of plants were dug up.
Spears for hunting in humans were first made from wooden sticks. They were made with very sharp stone chops and burned at the stake for strength. Then they learned to put tips of sharp stones on them. They were tied with fine plant fibers. Such arrows have become a reliable weapon in the fight against wild animals.
Ancient people sewed clothes for themselves from animal skins. The needles were thin pointed wooden sticks, and the threads were sturdy plants or thin leather straps. They even sewed their shoes from skins!
The big event for the earliest people was that they learned how to handle fire. At first, the man was very afraid of him. If lightning suddenly set fire to a grass or tree, all people and animals fled from there, and the birds flew away. But one day the most courageous people managed to get close to the fire. Maybe it was a tree lit in a thunderstorm, or maybe boiling lava from a volcano. For the first time, a man managed to catch fire by stretching a branch towards it. The branch caught fire - the man had his own home fire! People loved the charcoal-grilled meat and fish. In cold weather, the fire warmed up, frightened the prey on the hunt, and at night drove away terrible animals. People treasured fire very much, and if the fire in their dwelling was extinguished, then it was a great misfortune.
Then the man realized that it is not necessary to walk for a long time and collect only wild plants, but it is possible to grow them near the dwelling. To plant something in the ground, they first dug it up with a wooden hoe. This is a simple stick with a short knot.
Seeds were placed in the resulting holes, covered with earth and watered with water. And the ripe crop from the ears of barley or wheat was cut with a sickle. It was made of wood, inserting sharp pebbles inside, or from animal bones. 
Once a man realized that grains baked in a fire are tastier than raw grains. And later I realized that you can bake cakes from flour. How did you get the flour? For this, the women took two flat stones, put grains between them and ground them into flour. Here is such an ancient mill - a grain grater.
Primitive people needed baskets. They learned to weave them from thin twigs of plants. In such baskets, they collected berries, fruits, fish.
But baskets were needed to store flour and grain. And the man thought - from a basket made of twigs, all the grain spills out, maybe smear it with clay? But such a basket turned out to be uncomfortable - when it rained, the clay got wet.
Once such a basket of clay accidentally fell into a fire, and a person suddenly noticed that the rods had burned out, and the clay had become very hard. This is how a person got dishes, and he could cook food in it already at the stake.
Women learned to weave clothes. First, they wove wood bast or straw rugs. And then they came up with the idea of making yarn from flax and animal wool. And they invented the primitive loom. With the help of him, they completely acquired a human appearance - they began to wear clothes instead of animal skins.
Macroliths or stone tools of labor are the tools of labor of primitive people, which were made from various types of stone, pebbles using the stone upholstery method.
The first stone tools
The first stone tools were pebble tools. The earliest find is a found chopper dating back to 2, 7 million years BC. NS. The first archaeological culture to use stone tools was the Olduvai archaeological culture. This culture existed in the period from 2, 7 to 1 million years BC. NS.
Choppers also used Australopithecines, but with their disappearance, the manufacture of such tools did not stop, many cultures used pebbles as a material until the beginning of the Bronze Age.
Australopithecus made tools in a primitive way: they simply smashed one stone against another, and then simply chose the appropriate shard. Soon the Australopithecines learned how to handle such chops with bones or other stones. They worked with another stone like a chopper, making the sharp end even sharper.
So the Australopithecus got something like a cutter, which was a flat stone with one sharp edge. The main difference between it and the chopper was that, for example, a tree was not hollowed out with such a cutter, but was cut.
Revolution in the manufacture of stone tools
About 100 thousand years ago, people realized that it was more effective to first give a large stone simple geometric shapes, and then chip off thin stone plates from it.
Often, such an insert no longer required further processing, since the cutting side became sharp after chipping.
Breakthrough in gun activity
Around 20 thousand years BC. NS. the ancestors of people guessed that stone tools would become more effective if wooden handles, or bone handles, animal horns were attached to them. It was during this period that the first primitive axes appeared. In addition, people began to make the first spears with stone points, they were much stronger than ordinary wooden points.
When they came up with the idea of attaching a stone to a tree, then the size of these tools decreased significantly, so the so-called microliths appeared.
Microliths are small stone tools. Macroliths, in turn, are large stone tools, ranging in size from 3 cm, in total, up to 3 cm - microliths.
In Paleolithic times, a primitive knife was made from a long piece of stone that was sharp at one or both ends. Now the technology has changed: small fragments of stone (microliths) were glued to the wooden handle with the help of resin, so a primitive blade was obtained. Such a tool could serve as a weapon, and was much longer than an ordinary knife, but it was not durable, since microliths often broke on impact. Such a tool or weapon was very simple to manufacture.
At a time when the last ice age came on Earth, or rather when it was already coming to an end, many tribes had a demand for a partially sedentary life, and this way of life required some kind of technical revolution, the tools had to become more advanced.
Mesolithic tools
In this time period, people learned new methods of processing stone tools, including grinding, drilling and sawing stone.
The stone was polished in the following way: they took a stone and rubbed it on wet sand, this could last for several tens of hours, but such a blade was already lighter and sharper.
The drilling technique also significantly improved the tools, since it was easier to connect the stone to the shaft this way, and this design was much stronger than the previous one.
Grinding spread very slowly, the widespread use of such technology took place only in the fourth millennium BC. At the same time, in Egypt already used tools made of copper, the Egyptians did not master the technique of grinding.
Stone tools in the Neolithic era
In this period, the production of microliths, small stone tools, was significantly improved. Now they already had the correct geometric shape, by themselves they formed even blades. The dimensions of such guns became standard, which means that they were very easy to replace. To make such identical blades, the stone was split into several plates.
When the first states appeared on the territory of the Middle East, the profession of a bricklayer appeared, who specialized in the professional processing of stone tools. So on the territory of Ancient Egypt and Central America, the first masons could carve even long stone daggers.
Soon microliths replaced macroliths, now the technology of plates was forgotten. In order to take stone tools somewhere, it was necessary to find accumulations of stone on the surface, in such places primitive quarries appeared.
The reason for the emergence of quarries was a small amount of suitable stone for creating tools. For the manufacture of high-quality, sharp and fairly light tools, obsidian, flint, jasper or quartz were needed.
When the population density increased, the first states began to be created, migrations to the stone were already difficult, then primitive trade arose, in places where there were deposits of stone, local tribes took it to where this stone was not enough. It was the stone that became the first trade item between the tribes.
Obsidian tools were especially valuable as they were sharp and hard. Obsidian is volcanic glass. The main drawback of obsidian was its scarcity. Quartz with its varieties and jasper were most often used. Minerals such as jade and shale were also used.
Many Aboriginal tribes still use stone tools. In places where he did not get, shells of mollusks and bones were used as tools, in the worst cases people only used wooden tools.
First, the hunter had to find a suitable stone. He already knew from which stones the best tools were made, and sometimes he went far from the camp in search of the necessary material (see the article ““). As a bump stop, he used a round pebble, which he methodically beat on the stone. 
By accurately calculating the direction of the blows, he could give the weapon the required shape. So, the ancient master beat off several large fragments from the stone in order to give his product a very approximate shape. If the stone broke in the wrong place, he had to start all over again. He then used the animal's bone as a hammer, chipping small plates off the edge of the stone with it. Now the tool has acquired a very thin and sharp cutting edge. Shards of stone were used to cut meat. This finished weapon is called with a chopper... It has a pointed end, a sharp cutting edge and a rounded base that fits in the palm of a hunter.
The history of the guns
The first stone choppers (left) were used for a variety of purposes. In the future, people began to make more specialized tools and stopped using such axes. About a million years ago, people made big chops with blunt ends. Their edges were very roughly worked, and these tools were used mainly for digging and for dismembering animal carcasses. And this sharp-edged chopper (right) was made about 300,000 years ago. As you can see, its cutting edge is cut very skillfully. With such a tool it was possible to strip the skins from animals, as well as cut or scrape off meat from bones (read the article ““). 
Over time, primitive people learned to make a wide variety of tools from stone fragments. This is a weapon called scraper(left), was used to shave off sticks from which wooden spears were made. About 40,000 years ago, people began to make sharp blades from stone fragments, similar to knives (right). In addition, they made chisel-like incisors, with the help of which they gave the desired shape to bone needles and spearheads from deer antlers. The Paleolithic, or ancient Stone Age, lasted from 2.5 million to 10,000 years ago. About 40,000 years ago, humans stopped making hand axes and started making all of their tools from shards of stone.
Special human grip
A person can connect their thumb with their middle and index fingers. Such a grip is inherent only in humans. Chimpanzees and other primates are only able to squeeze the palm, grabbing the object with all fingers at once (see article ""). Thanks to this grip, a person can hold objects with their fingertips. This allows him to make tools that require very delicate processing and perform complex manipulations with them. Chimpanzees sometimes use very simple hand-made tools. For example, they remove leaves from rods and use them to extract larvae from termite nests.