OldTools Archive
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254790 | Don Schwartz <dks@t...> | 2015‑05‑20 | oldest tools |
These aren't my tools, but they're the oldest by a long shot. Wow! http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/oldest-stone-tools-pre-date-homo- genus-1.3080763">http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/oldest-stone-tools-pre-date- homo-genus-1.3080763 Don |
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254793 | Michael Blair <branson2@s...> | 2015‑05‑20 | Re: oldest tools |
Yikes! Maybe not THE oldest, but 3.3 million years will do for now! On 2015-05-20 12:12, Don Schwartz wrote: > These aren't my tools, but they're the oldest by a long shot. Wow! > > http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/oldest-stone-tools-pre-date-homo- genus-1.3080763">http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/oldest-stone-tools-pre-date- homo-genus-1.3080763 |
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254795 | Greg Young Morris <GYoungMorris@g...> | 2015‑05‑21 | Re: oldest tools |
I'd be curious to know how they determine that they're tools and not just rocks. To the untrained observer, they look pretty similar to a lot of other rocks I've seen, and bear nothing more than a passing resemblance to a Stanley 45. Greg 2015-05-20 17:22 GMT-06:00 Michael Blair |
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254798 | Don Schwartz <dks@t...> | 2015‑05‑21 | Re: oldest tools |
On 2015-05-20 6:52 PM, Greg Young Morris wrote: > I'd be curious to know how they determine that they're tools and not just > rocks. To the untrained observer, they look pretty similar to a lot of > other rocks I've seen Where the sawdust and shavings fall helps us determine how you work, right? It's in the chips, the flakes, the crushing at places where the 'hammer' came down on the raw material, the type of rock, and the distribution of the flakes . Here's a brief video! http://humanorigins.si.edu/resources/multimedia/videos/how-tell-rock- stone-tool">http://humanorigins.si.edu/resources/multimedia/videos/how-tell- rock-stone-tool Google is sometimes your friend. Don |
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254804 | Michael Blair <branson2@s...> | 2015‑05‑21 | Re: oldest tools |
>> I'd be curious to know how they determine that they're tools and not >> just >> rocks. > Tresources/multimedia/videos/how-tell-rock-stone-tool In case the video isn't explicit enough, the clearest indication is the context in which they are found. Our ancestors kept really messy "shops" and would make a number of tools at a time. So the mess they left behind is one context that indicates they are tools rather than broken rocks. Another clue is that tools were made using particular strokes, and consistent tool making strokes aren't replicated by natural causes. A tool found without any context will be difficult to identify as a tool in many, perhaps most, cases unless the shaping of the edges shows deliberate strokes or can be well compared to another tool with known provenance. Mike in Sacto |
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254805 | KPW <kevinpatrickwilkinson@g...> | 2015‑05‑21 | Re: oldest tools |
Thank you. Sent from my iPhone > |
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254818 | Thomas Conroy | 2015‑05‑22 | Re: oldest tools |
Greg said: "I'd be curious to know how they determine that they're tools and not just rocks." They have an assemblage, something like 140 cores and flakes, not just one or two rocks. And fracture surfaces are distinctive, you see wave forms in the cleaved stone radiating from the "bulb" where the impact occurred. One way of making stone tools is to start with a big round stone. Hit it on one side and knock off a flattish flake. The flake will be shaped into a blade of some sort, or maybe used just as it came off the stone. Knock another flake off the round stone, right next to the first one. Then another. Go round and round the big stone, taking flakes off like taking leaves off an artichoke or slices of meat off a vertical rotisserie. When the stone is too narrow to provide more useful flakes, you have a "core." I think cores also have usefulness as tools, maybe as hammers, but I'm not certain. One or two stones might get naturally broken in a way that would leave you guessing if it was a tool or not. But 140 cores and flakes all in one place? Its tools, the product of deliberate manufacture. TomConroyBerkeley |
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254819 | Nichael Cramer <nichael@s...> | 2015‑05‑22 | Re: oldest tools |
Michael Blair wrote: >In case the video isn't explicit enough, the clearest indication is the >context in which they are found. Our ancestors kept really messy "shops" >and would make a number of tools at a time. So the mess they left behind >is one context that indicates they are tools rather than broken rocks. And turning once again to the Galoot Poet Laureate: Above Pate Valley By Gary Snyder We finished clearing the last Section of trail by noon, High on the ridge-side Two thousand feet above the creek Reached the pass, went on Beyond the white pine groves, Granite shoulders, to a small Green meadow watered by the snow, Edged with Aspensun Straight high and blazing But the air was cool. Ate a cold fried trout in the Trembling shadows. I spied A glitter, and found a flake Black volcanic glassobsidian By a flower. Hands and knees Pushing the Bear grass, thousands Of arrowhead leavings over a Hundred yards. Not one good Head, just razor flakes On a hill snowed all but summer, A land of fat summer deer, They came to camp. On their Own trails. I followed my own Trail here. Picked up the cold-drill, Pick, singlejack, and sack Of dynamite. Ten thousand years. N |
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