Skip to content

technology

Members Public

Four amazing Stone Age sites with wooden artifacts

From Africa, Asia, and Europe, these sites give us a rare window into the ways that organic technology shaped ancestral lives.

Four views of a double-pointed throwing stick in center, with detail of sharpened points at top left and bottom right.
Members Public

Guide to Paranthropus species

Long known as a group of human relatives with big teeth and jaws, these ancient species lived for at least two million years alongside our ancestors.

A closeup of the front of the SK 48 fossil skull showing the eye orbits
Members Public

All the hominins made tools

A study of associations between stone tool evidence and fossil hominin remains shows that a wide range of species made stone artifacts.

Chimpanzee holding a stick wrapped around its hand and placing lips on the stick
Members Public

Understanding numbers as cognitive technology

The Whorf hypothesis says language shapes human thought. A small indigenous group with few number words puts the idea to the test.

Dominoes with colorful dots
Members Public

Neandertals hunted dangerous prey. How they killed them.

With deep experience in the hunt, Neandertals could anticipate the behavior of many of the most dangerous prey animals.

A faunal mandible surrounded by other bone fragments on an excavated surface
Members Public

Looking at the traces of wear on tools used by capuchin monkeys

Studying microscopic traces of wear on tools helps create a comparative body of data for early hominin use of tools.

A small capuchin monkey is holding a rock with one hand and using the other hand to hold a seed on a stone on the ground
Members Public

The earliest stone toolmakers had some technological sophistication

Several studies consider the stone flaking decisions necessary for Oldowan tool manufacture.