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
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
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 :

> 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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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
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
254805 KPW <kevinpatrickwilkinson@g...> 2015‑05‑21 Re: oldest tools
Thank you.

Sent from my iPhone
>
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
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 Aspen—sun
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 glass—obsidian—
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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