Lithic Technology

Humans first used stone tools about 2.5 million years before contact.  Tool use, including use of stone tools,  is a common sign of potential.  Indeed unmodified chimps understand the concept with minimal prompting, and thereafter continue to manufacture such tools by methods not demonstrated to them.  However, clients are normally adopted within 2¹³ to 2¹⁷  hab-years of adopting methods of tool manufacture.  Humans developed lithic technologies to an unusual degree.  Some Humans and Neo-Chimps still manufacture stone tools as a symbol of clan pride and an artistic craft in its own right.
 

Olduwan Technologies:

Olduwan lithic technologies are evident in the paleontological record between 2.5 MY and 1.5 MY before contact.  Olduwan tools were made by using various percussion techniques to remove flakes from a core stone.  The flakes, and sometimes the core, could then be used as tools.  There were four principle techniques of manufacture:

1. Hard hammer percussion:  a hammer stone was held in the dominant hand (forensic evidence shows that by this time 90% of tool makers were right-handed) and hit the core stone in the other hand.  This was the most common technique.
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3. Bipolar:  The core stone was balanced on a hard surface, such as a large boulder, and hit with the hammer.  This technique removed flakes from both ends of the core.  It is thought to have been used when there was a significant risk of the core shattering under impact.
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5. Anvil technique:  The core stone was held in both hands and forcefully swung at a large anvil.  This technique was used when the core stone was too large to be comfortably held in one hand, but involved a significant risk that fragments would impact the hominid using this technique.
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7. Throwing: This technique is the crudest, and one of the most commonly used by proto-clients.  The core stone is simply thrown at some suitable anvil.  This technique is not capable of producing as sharp an edge as the others and was the least commonly used by homnids.

In general, stones with glass or ceramic properties produce superior tools.  The preferred stones were hard, fine grained, unweathered and isotropic. Obsidian, cryptocrystalline siliceous rocks (e.g. flint, chert, chalcedony and so on), pure quartz and indurated shale were among the most suitable materials.  Olduwan tools show much less media selectivity that later lithic traditions.  Olduwan tools are more likely to have been made using less promising media, such as quartz with many inclusions or basalt.  Olduwan tools lack any aesthetic quality.  They are just roughly shaped stones, principally distinguishable from unaltered rocks by virtue of the acute conchoidal fractures produced by the manufacture process.

These tools were used for several purposes.  Nut cracking was done by almost the same method as used in the biploar technique. This could significantly improve the range of foodstuffs available to early hominids.  Woodworking was another probable application.  Branches naturally fallen from trees are too weak to be used as effective digging sticks.  Instead sharp flakes were used to sever the branches and to shape the severed branches.  Stone tools also allowed the immediate penetration of pachyderm skins.  Most other animals were unable to bite through these thick skins and had to wait until the flesh had started to rot, but hominids used Olduwan grade tools to cut the skin away, (though probably not preserving it for use as clothing or shelter at this developmental level) and to fillet the pachyderm.  Even the crudest tools could be used to extract marrow from bones using the basic hammer-and-anvil nut-cracking technique, providing a valuable source of nutrients --especially fat.  (by Robert Shaw)

  

Achulean Technology (1.5 MY to 0.5 MY before contact.):

Whereas the Olduwan toolmakers had no preconceived designs for their tools, Achulean tools are made to more-or-less standard designs, with attention being paid to aesthetics and ergonomics.  One additional technique, soft hammer percussion, was introduced.  By using a soft material as the hammer --for example, word or horn --different effects were obtained.  The three principle designs for core (as opposed to flake) tools were:

1. Hand axes, which were bifacially flaked.  They hand ax is metonymic for the Achulean lithic tradition.  There are are places on Earth where hand axes virtually cover the soil over several hectares.
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3. Teardrop shaped picks that have less of a cutting edge than a hand ax, and a more triangular cross-section,
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5. Cleavers with a  flat or U-shaped cutting edge opposite a rounded handle.

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