Early Stone Age
Why did the ancients make gigantic handaxes?
Looking at new research on the distribution and function of curiously large bifacial tools
![Two very large handaxes](/content/images/size/w1460/2024/04/giant-handaxes-biddenham-canterbury-west-dale-2024.jpg)
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.](/content/images/size/w1460/2024/04/milks-double-pointed-stick-schoningen-plos-2023.jpg)
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](/content/images/size/w1460/2024/01/SK-48-visor-johnhawks.jpg)
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](/content/images/size/w1460/2023/12/chimpanzee-algae-fishing-tool-use-bossou-wikipedia-anup-shah.jpg)
Did Acheulean hominins have long-distance obsidian trade?
I review several papers looking into the occurrence of obsidian artifacts in the Acheulean of eastern Ethiopia.
![J. Desmond Clark photographing artifacts on a desert landscape](/content/images/size/w1460/2022/01/desmond-clark-Adrar_Bous-andrew-smith-wikimedia.jpg)
The earliest stone toolmakers had some technological sophistication
Several studies consider the stone flaking decisions necessary for Oldowan tool manufacture.