Hand Axe

This is a picture of a hand axe that would be dated back to 350,000 to 300,000 years ago. This can relate to the article “Paleolithic Technology and Human Evolution”, which is about the emergence of tools and the first tool users, Chimpanzees. Chimpanzees used many different kinds of tools for many reasons. For example, some tools are leaf sponges, termite and ant fishing wands, marrow picks, stone hammers and anvils. They would use these tools for everyday activities like cracking nuts or grabbing things that were out of their reach. I can assume this hand axe was used for simple tasks like breaking things or making weapons. The article states that female chimpanzees showed skills in tool using activities more then male chimpanzees. This probably played a major role in technological evolution. This hand axe definitely did since now in modern time the axe is still a tool commonly used. We can trace back the earliest direct hominid technology to 2.5 million years ago in the Ethiopian rift valley. Hominids were highly skilled in direct percussion flaking by this time and this axe is a stone tool and stone tools were usually used for meat eating. I can imagine them using this in hunting or preparing the meat after catching the prey. Hominids at this time had developed Broca’s area, which does motor control and language so they were aware of hand tools and how they could fit them into tasks that they previously weren’t able to accomplish. This hand axe marks the beginning of a change in evolution.

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