Paleolithic (2.5 million – 10,000 BC)

The use of tools by early humans was partly a process of discovery, partly of evolution. Early humans evolved from a species of foraging hominids which were already bipedal,^[17] with a brain mass approximately one third that of modern humans.^[18] Tool use remained relatively unchanged for most of early human history, but approximately 50,000 years ago, a complex set of behaviors and tool use emerged, believed by many archaeologists to be connected to the emergence of fully modern language.^[19]

Stone tools

Human ancestors have been using stone and other tools since long before the emergence of Homo sapiens approximately 200,000 years ago.^[20] The earliest methods of stone tool making, known as the Oldowan "industry", date back to at least 2.3 million years ago,^[21] with the earliest direct evidence of tool usage found in Ethiopia within the Great Rift Valley, dating back to 2.5 million years ago.^[22] This era of stone tool use is called the Paleolithic, or "Old stone age", and spans all of human history up to the development of agriculture approximately 12,000 years ago.
To make a stone tool, a "core" of hard stone with specific flaking properties (such as flint) was struck with a hammerstone. This flaking produced a sharp edge on the core stone as well as on the flakes, either of which could be used as tools, primarily in the form of choppers or scrapers.^[23] These tools greatly aided the early humans in their hunter-gatherer lifestyle to perform a variety of tasks including butchering carcasses (and breaking bones to get at the marrow); chopping wood; cracking open nuts; skinning an animal for its hide; and even forming other tools out of softer materials such as bone and wood