Our ancient ancestors weren’t fumbling with crude rocks. A groundbreaking archaeological discovery in Kenya reveals they had mastered a stone tool technology so effective that they stuck with it for ...

Have you ever found yourself in a museum’s gallery of human origins, staring at a glass case full of rocks labeled “stone tools,” muttering under your breath, “How do they know it’s not just any old ...

The Pahon Cave in Gabon offers archaeologists a well-preserved look into the Late Stone Age time period in central Africa, thanks to the stratified layers of guano-based sediment. This is in contrast ...

New technologies today often involve electronic devices that are smaller and smarter than before. During the Middle Paleolithic, when Neanderthals were modern humans’ neighbors, new technologies meant ...

Humans are fundamentally technological creatures. We depend on the manufacture and use of tools for our survival to a degree qualitatively greater than any other species. Therefore, an understanding ...

Sharp stone technology chipped over three million years allowed early humans to exploit animal and plant food resources. But how did the production of stone tools -- called 'knapping' -- start?

At a site in Kenya, archaeologists recently unearthed layer upon layer of stone stools from deposits that span 300,000 years, and include a period of intense environmental upheaval. The oldest tools ...

The research is evidence that long-term stability in a technology does not necessarily indicate stagnation. In fact, it may reveal a powerful fit between a working tool and the challenges of daily ...

Sara Watson works for the FIeld Museum of Natural History and Indiana State University The Earth of the last Ice Age (about 26,000 to 19,000 years ago) was very different from today’s world. In the ...

Ben Marwick does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their ...