Before hominins intentionally chipped stone to make tools, they likely used sharp rocks already shaped by natural forces.

Ivory doesn’t hold up as well against weathering as bone, making it a less suitable material for toolmaking, researchers said. It also breaks into smaller pieces, making it harder to use with any deal ...

I got a wonderful response to my piece about inspired objects. I’ll be showing them over the next few issues. This is ...

Bone tools have been created by hominins for millions of years, with the earliest evidence for the manufacture of ...

It’s much easier to come up with a world-changing invention if there are examples of it lying around without you having to ...

But how did the production of stone tools—called "knapping"—start? "I don't think it was a 'Eureka!' moment whereby hominins first made a sharp stone flake by intention or by accident and then ...

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?

The idea might refashion how we envisage a step in our development as more important than any specific tool. “The secret is to bang the rocks together, guys,” a pan-galactic announcer in The ...

Archaeologists have discovered the world’s oldest known bone tools—dated to 1.5 million years ago—at Tanzania’s Olduvai Gorge ...

The ancestors of humans started making tools about 3.3 million years ago. First they made them out of stone, then they switched to bone as a raw material. Until recently, the earliest clear evidence ...

The process for the bone tools seems to be similar to how they crafted stone tools, a process dubbed “knapping,” as workers chipped small flakes away to form sharp edges. The markings on the ...