List of earliest tools and their use

The following table attempts to list the oldest-known Paleolithic and Paleo-Indian sites where hominin tools have been found. It includes sites where compelling evidence of hominin tool use has been found, even if no actual tools have been found.

Stone tools preserve more readily than tools of many other materials. So the oldest tools that we can find in many areas are going to be stone tools. It could be that these tools were once accompanied by, or even preceded by, non-stone tools that we cannot find because they did not preserve.

Similarly, hard materials like bone or shell are more likely than softer materials to leave discernible cut marks on bone. Bamboo has been shown to leave cut marks on bone that are harder to see than cut marks by stone. So the earliest evidence of tool use that we are likely to find are often cut marks made on bone by stone or shell tools.

Therefore the reader should not assume that the items on this list represent the earliest uses of tools in each area, but rather the earliest uses of tools that have been found.

Because it focuses on only the earliest evidence of tools, and since the earliest evidence is biased towards stone by stone's increased likelihood of preservation, this page necessarily omits mention of many significant ancient tools of non-stone materials simply because those cases are not among the earliest found within their geographic area. See Timeline of historic inventions for other noteworthy tools and other inventions.

With its focus on tools, this list also omits some sites with the earliest evidence for the existence of hominins, but without evidence for tools. Many such sites have hominin bones, teeth, or footprints, but unless they also include evidence for tools or tool use, they are omitted here.

This list excludes tools and tool use attributed to non-hominin species. See Tool use by non-humans.

Since there are far too many hominin tool sites to list on a single page, this page attempts to list the 6 or fewer top candidates for oldest tool site within each significant geographic area. These are the geographic areas covered:

• Africa
  • East Africa
  • North Africa
  • Southern Africa
  • West Africa
• Americas
  • North America
  • South America
• Asia
  • East Asia
  • Island Southeast Asia - Islands between Sunda Shelf and Sahul, not connected to either one during the Last Glacial Maximum
  • South Asia
  • Sunda Shelf
  • West Asia
• Europe
  • Eastern Europe
  • Western Europe
• Sahul - Australia and New Guinea

Due to its focus on Paleolithic and Paleo-Indian sites, this list omits areas such as Antarctica, where the earliest known tools are from the historical period, and Oceania east of Sahul, where the earliest known artifacts are Neolithic - see Polynesia, Lapita culture.

It is especially difficult to list the top few candidates for oldest tool sites in the Americas. For much of the 20th century, a "Clovis first" idea dominated American archeology. Many sites with dates too old to be compatible with "Clovis first" were published, but these were mostly dismissed under the hegemony of "Clovis first." Meanwhile some indigenous archeologists insisted throughout the "Clovis first" era that the peopling of the Americas was much older than Clovis. Recent publications with very strong evidence for pre-Clovis sites seem to have ended the hegemony of "Clovis first." It seems likely that we may soon see new papers on many pre-Clovis sites that had previously been considered highly controversial or even dismissed outright. This page lists a few of the potentially oldest sites in the Americas that seem to represent legitimate archeology and have withstood some, if not all, criticism.

See also

• Hominini
• List of human evolution fossils
• Stone Age
• Stone tool
• Timeline of historic inventions
• Tool use by non-humans

References

1. Tool
2. Control of fire by early humans
3. Oldowan
4. Machine tool
5. Stone Age
6. Hand tool
7. Paleolithic
8. Prehistoric technology
9. Prehistory
10. Electronic design automation
11. Outline of prehistoric technology
12. Multi-tool
13. Stone tool
14. Primate archaeology
15. Chopper (archaeology)
16. Human evolution
17. Origin of language
18. History of technology
19. Stone carving
20. Technical writing