technology
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)
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](/content/images/size/w1460/2022/09/dominoes-mike-haupt-unsplash.jpg)
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](/content/images/size/w1460/2023/10/faunal-bones-in-excavation-mauran-france-c-farizy-in-bachellerie-et-al-2011.jpg)
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](/content/images/size/w1460/2022/01/capuchin-monkey-tool-use-wikipedia.jpg)
The earliest stone toolmakers had some technological sophistication
Several studies consider the stone flaking decisions necessary for Oldowan tool manufacture.