My great uncle, Oren Minton, had one of the largest private collections of Native American Paleo-Archaic tool collections in the world. I believe the Smithsonian has it today. He would search thru spring plowed fields after a rain with his Terrier thru the Ohio river valley, Southern Illinois and Missouri. He was a very unassuming man, but was well respected in the field and a frequent lecturer at universities.
@@tomtom8889 To us he was just Uncle Oren. A country cuss that farmed, hunted, trapped, fished and loved his chickens. He was just as comfortable in a sport coat as he was in overalls and moccasins. He had crates of fresh finds and pieces under the downspouts and yes, we learned early on that these were "REALLY" old tools. Much older than "Cowboys and Indians". My little brother is named after him, so you could say he had an impact,
Good job, Kayleigh. At the age of 76, occasionally I feel like _I'm_ the oldest living hominid on the planet, but, of course, that isn't so.. although the doctors at the Veterans Administration tell me I've survived so many health problems, I may actually be eligible to live forever. At the current rate of inflation, I'll probably starve to death soon, no matter what the docs say. As I said, this video is a very good job. Information dense, well organized, and truly informative. I'm going to share it to my Word History Face Book group, most of us enjoy this sort of thing.
Haha! The VA! My nemesis as well. As to inflation this is an experiment in adaptive biology. As you continue to do more, with less, the hope is that you will eventually be able to do everything with nothing. At this point you will be drafted, out into an empty tin can of a space craft and shot to Mars where you will build a complete civilization from scratch. At least that’s my theory. Fox out.
I hope you're just being sarcastic, but the Inflation comment is troubling, to say the least. If only because people seem to be blaming the current administration for it, when they are by no means the cause(s). Inflation isn't that bad, considering we have an extended pandemic _and_ war going on at the same time, both of which are affecting not only fuel costs but food production, as well. I'm living on a fixed budget, too, and I've had to adjust what I eat, because of prices, but there's too many places to go to for help for anyone to starve in this nation.
@@MaryAnnNytowl Yes I was making a joke. No I don’t propose to go into who caused inflation when. It’s a losing game. Kayleigh wants to avoid such topics. I intuit that I’m a lot older than you. I recall inflation in the late 70’s running a real 16% before it finally cooled off. But 8+% is not good anyway you slice it. And were not broke, yet and nobody should starve. Now. Back to stones and bones. Fox the trickster out.
74 yo Vet here.... I find the information coming out of Gobekli Teppi to be amazing, but that is ONLY about 12,000 years ago.... ten times that boggles the mind, but 291.6 times more than that leaves me close to speachless.... that is a LONG TIME!!!
So you wish that the experts would admit that they do not know what they have not learned yet? I am pretty sure all of them would do that. Congratz you got your wish!!!!!
3.3 million years ago before any evidence of anything that resembles modern homo sapiens existed. Well to me that certainly proves we can't really say that we are the sole reason we have made it to this point. we have to acknowledge our ancient ancestors, simply amazing.
Every time I hear your "Savage Daughter" song, it gives me emotions of long ago. It's like being in the past, standing at the cave entrance watching children playing in the near distance. That song does evoke imagination!
Kayleigh, you may sing about a savage daughter, but you are no savage. You are a warm, loving, kind, friendly and very very intelligent person with a great personality. If my past history teachers had a personality like yours, I wouldn’t be working on a masters in psychology I would be an anthropologist or historian or something. Your videos are such a joy to watch. Keep ‘em coming.
This really made the concept that 'we evolved to use tools' so much more salient to me. If it's been in our history for so long, there's no doubt in my mind they have made an impact on our biology.
I'm glad some people have the time and the funding to keep looking for this evidence. And I'm glad you are here sharing the information. Science rocks!
I started blacksmithing, or learning to rather, while I was finishing my bachelor's. My mentor was a modern day Chiron, he had me reading renaissance texts, learn with only hand tools, no power and to knapp flint. It isn't to hard to make a good sharp flake, but anything more requires skill and practice that he and I both found "next level"! This from two guys who make their own tools when its quicker than ordering them and convert 19th century water driven hammers to use 3phase motors instead. The beautiful hand-axes, spearheads and arrow heads are the works of masters.
Thanks Kayleigh, great video. The thought of a bunch of guys and gals with little bodies and heads sitting around the campfire, artfully smashing rocks and grunting with meaning to each other is MIND-BLOWING. I love, love, love it.
Congratulations on 3.5 million + total views. 100 thousand subs is not far off at the rate you are growing. Talent and hard work has its reward. Well done!
I did my MA in Anthropology 30 years ago. The field has changed radically since then. I love your videos. You always seem to be very up to date. You have gotten me excited about hominid evolution again.
Prime Time Kay, I love your style of straight-up research facts presented with just enough flair to keep me interested and gobbling up everything you publish. Keep it coming Love. 🤩😍🐦
I remember reading that the oldest surviving piece of cordage found was dated to 50,000 years ago in a neanderthal cave. Being a natural material, likely to rot over time, I wonder how far back the evidence for cordage use with these since tools go. It would be a neat area of study.
Note: while direct evidence of cordage made from organic materials will be sparse, at best, due to natural degradation, there should be indirect evidence of its use: For example, deformation or wear on bundles that had been tied, scarring on bones used for purposes requiring tying in some way, and the like. I’m not aware of such research at present, but I’ll point some grad students at it… maybe some will find some research, or be interested in producing their own.😎
Establing a ‘reset‘ mechanism is essential with field work and any, such as yourself Kayleigh, so absorbed and dedicated with the intensity it takes with this material.
For me, it makes so much sense that they are so old. Homo habilis's hands are already adapted quite well to tool use if I remember correctly, compared to aus. afarenis (idk if that's spelled right) and for that to have happened the austalopitchenes would have needed to be using tools at some point for that adaptation plus from endocasts we can see their brains shifting to a more homo like state. but I might be wrong I'm just an art student with a special interest in prehistory and human evolution
Tool use was already prevalent prior to Habilis yes, it can be seen in our primate cousins using long twigs to fish ants out of holes in trees for instance, or using hammer and anvil stones to crack nuts as other primates do. The use of the branch/twig could be made by stripping it down for the purpose - usually only requiring pulling on the right parts of the twig alternately to pair it down to usable form. But stone tool making in the context of flint like knapping is a different thing from that. Usually requiring a raw piece of stone to work with, and another piece of stone to wear down the flint to the desired shape - it probably requires more skill and dexterity too vs basic picking up stones and bashing them together for cracking nuts, after all even birds and fish can manage to do this with their beaks.
When you ponder what has transpired over the history of the Earth it’s incredible to know pre hominids were making stone tools over 3 million years ago! Growing up in New Jersey I was exposed to Native American culture at an early age. I was taught what to pick up and to avoid burial mounds. The artifacts we found were several thousand years old and I thought that was amazing! When Kaylie talks about 3 million year old tools it truly blows your mind. Keep up the great work Kayleigh!
Thank You for reminding me of my youth. I found many stone points in the Midwest, back in the day. I am also amazed by the incredible persistence of stone tools.
I want to thank you for making this so interesting and easy to stay involved. You have the best personality online and have really got me hooked. Keep up the great work.
Kayleigh, I like your channel but as a retired teacher I think you could have used some audio-visual material to present what is largely a list of places and dates. I certainly wanted to see what these oldest stone tools looked like--wasn't there any available photographic material? Still, your themes are excellent and provide much food for thought. Keep up the good work.
yay! I am happy to see another other newviddy from Kayleigh! Thank you! Some of the very earliest tools really puzzle me because I see archaeologist in documentary pick up rock and say "this is a tool" and it is puzzle to see how they see that when it look like just any other broken rock.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and “whacking” in the eye of the guy holding the rock. There are video conferences discussing tools. But I’m hoping she will cover this topic. Fox out.
The more we discover, the more we realize we do not know. It appears all too often we sell the early people short. What you help bring to focus is that our history is much deeper and longer than we've believed. We are learning that we've likely excelled only to be knocked down, and resurfaced again many times before the ice age, and numerous events thrown at us again and again. It is an amazing story, and all too often anthropologist have stepped over those questions if they appeared too far outside of the accepted beliefs. We are learning just the same. It really does make us appreciate the trials that faced early humans. We've lost so much to the seas! Excellent analysis!
THAT WAS A GREAT VID. THANKS KAYLEIGH!!! MIND BLOWING!!! But should keep in mind that other animals, sea otters for example, have been filmed using stone tools to open clams. They may not be shaping them, but it does show the use of tools is not limited to humans. So, you may wonder how old is the oldest tool?
I like to think that, at some point in time, a velociraptor or deinonychus picked up a rock, then thought to itself, “nah, my claws and teeth are way sharper than this piece of stone”, and totally sidestepped an evolutionary path to ape-level intelligence.
Thanks, Kayleigh, for another great video. I've got modern Kitchen-aid tools working for me right now. Knives, forks, spatula, and hunks of meat on the barbie. I just blew my Neanderthal mind!
Love you Kaleigh. Just discovered you and this series. Not only interested, but as a hobby I write mystery novels based on scientific subjects. I'm thinking of one with paleontology as my theme and your series really educating me. Good information and you present it well. Thank you. Harry
If people give you a hard time about pronunciation of odd names or frankly anything else, they sadly are unaware that even the experts vary in pronunciation, and that, regardless, I’d wonder how their Dutch is… You do a great job K! Great job… Ignore those who say otherwise… 😎😉
Amazing to me is the seeming fact that this school of technology, the tool kit itself, crossed species lines and remained intact for nearly 3 million years. Even more humbling is the fact that it was not improved on or evolved naturally into any new school of technology for that length of time. Apparently this tech was still in use in some areas when "modern man" came buy and showed them the new stuff they could do with the same stone. Apparently our ancestors were really toughing it out rather than adapting, improvising and making what they had better.
You and I were thinking along the same lines. Incredible to think it lasted for so long, although I'm not sure our ancestors were toughing it out and not adapting so much as they were using what worked. If it ain't broke don't fix it, maybe.
Hey Kayleigh, few things, First, great job, second, use a time line chart, including location and tool classification. I like how you stress on the phrase "fossil record", that is the right approach when dealing with history. Also enjoy the wedding and when dancing think of the old TV series from the 80's, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, when he danced with the draconian princess
Hi Kayleigh. I find your videos to be very interesting and informative. I am a 53 year old South African with a love of history. I live near Johannesburg and I have been to Sterkfontein and The Cradle a couple of times. Very interesting and wonderful having such an important piece of humanities heritage in my home country. Have you ever been to South Africa?
I feel like a voice in the desert. I am aware of this from probably before you were born, but, of course, information takes time to get really digested in any field of knowledge. My dad was a police officer and hunter, also a knife collector. There are strong atavistic behaviors in modern humans about knives. They are disregarded but they are inevitable at the point that modern armies couldn't get rid of them, they just get better and the systems for using them too. A Spanish writer and expert hunter wrote about an experience he had hunting wild boars. He carried a rifle, an automatic pistol as backup and his hunting knife, most probably a big bowie style knife. The boar he shot was still alive and suddenly tried to attack him. But instead of grabbing his pistol, his first response was to grab his knife. The boar fell dead and before he realized, he had his knife out instead of the pistol. He reflected about how we have evolved alongside them and how the cutting tools were even older than our species itself. Great video, stone tools are interesting and I think they deserve more attention and research.
When you mentioned "3.3 million years ago" why did I see in my head Professor trying to comprehend 88.8 Gigawatts of power needed for time travel? If I could I'd give this content 3.3 million likes!
I often think about whether these tools were disposables or were kept and carried around, and if so then what were they carried in. We may be totally underestimating the capabilities of our ancient ancestors.
I suspect they were left at the site, and would be returned to the next time the tribe visited that same site. There was probably a set of tools left at each of the locations the tribe regularly migrated to, especially after a few millenia of doing so. The 'tool-making tool' was probably carried, and a few favorite items, but little else.
@@Emily-fo6iw I can just imagine how that conversation would go. Hey that's my rock, leave it alone! I don't see your name on it. I left it here last year.
@@1pcfred It's likely that craftsmen recognized their own work, just like any other time period, but I would also expect individualism to have been less thought out or worried about, and that 'tribe' was the more common unit to think in.
@@Emily-fo6iw I'm no expert but it is my understanding that stone work was very pattern stylized. At least by the time flint knapping was done. You either did it the one right way or you were at a disadvantage to those that did. People just had a lot less time and energy back then for artistic self expression.
We know from direct observation that chimpanzees are very much capable of not just using tools, but also modifying them for a special task. So they "think ahead". Why anyone assumed that Australopithcines, though more evolved, were uncapable of the same feat, is beyond me...
Great info as always,well done. I would have loved to see examples of the tools and an overview image of the site from where they were excavated.A shot of the locatiion on a map would help me see the progression of where the tools were being made,utilised and people thrived. Maybe a chronological timeline with names of sites,dates,tools,and cultures who made them. Just an idea for the future perhaps? Thank you so much for sharing all of your videos. Yes i love Stefan Milo,a new one his name is Milo,Dr.Miano,and the Fall of Civilizations channel who is better than anything Netflix could ever hope to have. Your work is appreciated and admired Kayleigh,thanks again.
They're named after the first location usually, but after that if they're from the same "industry" (same time frame and method used to create them) they then all get the name of that stone tool industry. Like the Mousterian stone tool industry of the Neanderthals 😊
Thank you so much for your response,you have to be endlessly busy with your research! Keep up the fantastic work with all others who devote their lives to this endlessly fascinating subjects! Great work always so much appreciated for sharing with everyone!!!
Excellent, as usual. Thank you very much.😊😊. Somehow, I'm not surprised at how far back in time the use of modified stone tools goes. What does amaze me is that the line of creatures evolved from our common ancestor with chimps has managed to avoid ending totally in extinction in spite of all the adversity faced during the past 5 million years or so. How in the world did we make it?
Very enthralling video dear. Loved it. Keep it up! ! So, any ideas on who (or what?) created the 3M yr old stone tools? Oh, btw, any video on the wedding coming up soon?
Well, Australopithecines may have made the first tools, but they didn't invent the electric drill, so I'll stick with the Homo Sapien versions - they'll do me! Great video. Well presented. Enjoy your break, but remember, your loving fans always want more. Looking forward to what you'll come up with next.
I love your quirky presentation ;-) It would be nice, if those strange names of places appear on screen, to help me find them on maps or other references.
I agree. Cooking is what changed our morphology and allowed us to develop from apes to humans. But there were some pretty highly evolved apes making specific tools and sharing that knowledge.
Thanks Kayleigh. As I'm sure you know, and this was made clear by the most interesting Saudi Oil Minister of all during the moment when the US lost the weather helm in oil production to his nation (1973), Sheik Ahmed Zaki Yamani : "The Stone Age did not end for a lack of stones." The good news is that the Renewable Age will not end for a lack of Stoners. This New Age, now in the ascendancy (resistance is feudal) when and where we will live off our income and not depleted capital, is just finding its legs. All for Sun and Sun for All. You may have already done this and I apologize for missing class that day, but you spell out those dates like reporting scores from the Champion's League Quarterfinals. I suppose those figures come from the K/Ar (potassium-argon) dating method but I don't know and it would be interesting to find out how these numbers are derived. Thanks again. HH
That would seem to support the idea that tools made the man... perhaps it is the use of tools that led to the development of more advanced (?) versions of hominids. Great video and enjoy the wedding ! Thanks for sharing.
One recent hiccup is in a recent New Scientist article titled "Stones smashed by horses can be mistaken for ancient human tools". "Horses kick and stamp on rocks to keep their hooves in good shape, and archaeologists have now realised this can result in a collection of sharp stones that look like the work of an ancient human toolmaker."
Any citation there? Or a link? It sounds fascinating. As far as I can tell, though, the evidence for Homo evolution, Homo migration, and also colonization of the Americas (and the rest of the world) keeps getting pushed back in time with new discoveries. This makes sense to me, and Kayleigh is, as usual, making a great case here. I have yet to look at the literature, but I'm excited to do so. Science is great exactly because one can favor one theory over another as a personal proposition, and still wait for evidence to emerge as to whether that particular theory holds water. When the evidence comes in, it's nice when my favorite theory wins. It's also nice when it doesn't. Birds being essentially dinosaurs. Dinosaurs having feathers. Continental drift. Those are canon now, but I remember how excited I was watching the back and forth between scientists postulating different scenarios. It's great that we keep adjusting according to current data! My off-the-cuff reaction is that horse-induced breakage is probably a very small percentage of the "stone tools" that we have found. Looking forward to either being incorrect, or correct, either way. In any event, Kayleigh is a treasure. I've learned a lot from these vids, and I am both a life-long student of this stuff, and also old as fuck. Cheers!
Hi. I'm a recent viewer of your channel and a even more recent subscriber. 1st off, I want to say I like that your shows are informative and entertaining. Plus I like that you don't talk at such a high level that someone like me who is a history fan but not any kind of expert or even an amateur level history buff, needs a PHD to understand what you're saying. I also like that you defend the Neanderthals against put downs by the biased, uneducated narrow/small minded wanna be's. Now, moving on... By coincidence, I've been watching some other vids here on the history of cooking. Analysis of some artifacts indicates that control of fire (uncovered hearths), cooking (including early tools), and the use of boiling water, may date back as much as 790,000 years or more ago! There's other dates and info but they would take up too much space here. You haven't mentioned (in my limited viewing so far) if Neanderthals cooked or did some other food processing, but I think if they did, it would go further to show how much more developed they were than many others think. In order to save time, some key research words here: "Wonderwerk Cave"; Richard Wrangham's book- "Catching Fire- How Cooking Made Us Human"; and an article by JOHN D. SPETH, "When Did Humans Learn to Boil?" in a issue of Paleo Anthropology (2015??). Plus other sources too. Thank you for being informative and enjoyable to watch.
Great video, thanks! Somehow, I am not surprised that stone tools predate Homo. My suspicion was that Homo appeared because of the existence of stone tools and was impossible to exist prior to them. Australopithecus seems just about right for the transition from using stones to reshaping them into tools. On the same line of speculation, I also suspect that speech (in a narrower frequency range) appeared before Homo, most likely also among Australopithecus (like Lucy, the afarensis); obviously, not with advanced features like in the hominins of the last 500 000 years, but complex enough to "spread the word", mainly for teaching tool making and successfully migrating within the African continent. In my humble opinion, the physical disadvantages that Australopithecus had when compared to chimps had to be counterbalanced by both tools and speech. A bigger brain for the sake of just being bigger is actually a great disadvantage too, so I suspect that the gradual increase (of the brain volume) came with the gradual improvement in tools and communication, not before them.
You could be right vis a vis tool making. As to larger brains, neuro science is having a re-think on the volume-intelligence connection. It’s quite new and comes to us from the areas of neuro-plasty. Neural density, not weight or volume may rule intellect. Thus if this observation is correct it may explain the hobbit with his very small brain functioning in a par with his larger brained predecessors and related species. Now neuroplasty addresses how your brain “rewires” to effect repairs to the nervous system. As they attempt to make direct actuator to nerve connections with prosthetics a lot of research is being done. Ancillary to that research is the observation that size does not matter like they once thought it did. Which leads to speculations about big brains, thick skulls and big brown ridges. A topic for anthropology. Briefly, Kayleigh has not addressed phenotype expression yet. One element of which is why is our skull smaller and lacking the brow ridge and Sagittal crest of Neanderthal? Presuming the bone structure was for surviving the school of hard knocks, what did we lose that advantage. Why don’t we need an armoured skull. Life did not suddenly get easier. One possible answer is an un observable improvement in the soft tissue of the brain allowing for the in situ repair of minor neural damage. Thus you don’t need a thick heavy skull or a larger brain. If you can reasonably “fix” the smaller lighter one you have. Through neuroplasty. New idea. Not accepted. Intriguing to consider. Fox out.
Wow you guys are nerdy. I think this indicates that the things that really define Homo are the immeasurable qualities that could never be dug from the earth. Cognitive memory, communication, sharing knowledge must predate these tools. Otherwise we'd have to call them all convergent. It's amazing to imagine this all going on in such a primitive state. I'd love to know how far back other skills go that aren't preserved in the fossil record. My favorite; when could we tie knots? My guess, It's really really old. @Kayleigh could you do this?
@@MrJento Interesting plus there is archeological evidence of bigger brain doesn't mean smarter. Bear with me here because i cannot remember some of the important details like names, dates, and places. A tribe of prehistoric humans that had smaller brains than the other humans of the same time period were using tools that were ahead of their time. Sorry i cannot remember the rest. You might be familiar with what i am talking about but there is evidence out there that supports this.
@@mattking993 Flores man, aka “hobbit” in Indonesia is one I already mentioned. Homo luzonensis is another, though there are some who think they are also Flores, not a separate species. Then there are the red deer cave people. There may be others. In general these all seem to be occurring around 50,000 years ago in the same general period when sapians was migrating, Neanderthal was beginning the sharp decline, and the final pockets of erectus died out. Some events or combination triggered a burst of evolutionary diversity. Climate? Solar radiation? Viral epidemic? Who knows. What is observed is a vide variety in brain sizes. Some very large innovations in tool technology. Some very wide and fast migrations. The composite tool technology of Asia where stone flakes are glued to a bone core, attributed speculatively to denosovan begins to emerge at this time. Bi-facial point technology is developing and will be perfected as the clovis point in the americas and solutrian points in Iberia 25,000 years later. Take bifacial points. Conceivably one individual could just have that AHHA moment and say I’ll cut a grove down each side of my point, a flute essentially, with serrated cutting edges. But what modern flint knappers have discovered is that these bifacial points are a bitch to make. They have used jigs and modern devices to strike the long flake from each side of that thin blade without breaking it. Clovis and those guys did this by hand. A piece of leather, a hammer stone and a bit of antler. No slick stainless steel jig. Like everything else we ever did the idea was poof! there. But it took trial and error and it evolved over time, and it was passed through the population one on one. Remember no internet for communication. Well I got away from your brain size comment. To bring it back Flores with a brain half the size of sapiens was making equally complex tools and living in just as challenging an environment. Fox out.
@@MrJento The Flores man does kind of sound like the 1 i can barely remember. The part about they may have been the same as the other tribe does sound familiar so i may have just unknowingly talked about the same thing lol. Don't worry about getting off topic as long as i am learning new stuff i do not mind and our evolution is a big grey area for me.
What blows my mind, is that the creators of my lineage goes back 3.3 million years. That during that length of time, Gramma and Grampa were busy having children and passing on their skills of survival. That means a tool making person existed that had my genetic heritage as a human / austropithicus extending waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back. Humbling thought. "What did you do with your life grandson??" oiks!!!
At least 4 million more like the time when we split with the chimps. Right around the same time we domesticated fire since flint is involved in the making of both.
Just listened to your ( My mother told me ) Mesmerizing..heh..literally. I have a red-ish line across my face from where my tablet fell after I'd succumbed to the Siren's magical voice. I'm grateful for your upload, it cuts through the fog of P.T.S.D. and accompanying survives guilt. Is this available with Spotify, Amazon music, etc ? I hope that you and those you care for are safe, healthy, and happy. Semper Fidelis
Stone tools dating to 1.8 million years ago made from quartz 👀 fascinating. Although it could be chalked up to the beauty of quartz, we can’t deny the interesting properties the stone has. We wouldn’t have touch screen phones without quartz!
"We wouldn’t have touch screen phones without quartz!" Yes and no, most modern touch screen devices use Corning Gorilla Glass or some variant/copy of it. Silicon dioxide is present, but also aluminum, magnesium, and sodium. Sapphire glass screens are rarer and use predominantly aluminium oxide/alumina as found in natural sapphire gem stones - that being said many high end manufacturers use it for the camera bump on the back to afford extra scratch protection to the camera view.
Aloha, Kayleigh; I appreciate your shows, Mahalo. Significant to pre-discovery Hawaiian peoples were the use of hafted tools. It seems to me that stone tools designated for use with a handle would show accommodations for cordage as part of an attachment design. D
Found an old rock today that looked like it had been used for sharpening arrows points. The marks where wood grinding looked like it had been used for sometime.
Great video, love the information you provide in your videos, really gives you something to think about. I make and use stone tools and if they were finding quartz tools that were well made, it was made by very skilled individuals as quartz is knappable but DIFFICULT!! I have been knapping for years and make beautiful stone points but with quartz....thats a whole different game. And where you talk about them finding secondary flakes, that doesn't always mean its a reworked from new people in the area, stone tools have to be reworked to keep an edge...Like when skinning I may stop half way through and take flakes off the edge. You may start with a stone knife, rework the edge enough that its smaller and then make an arrow point from it eventually. You should try knapping sometime, once you learn it well you look at stone tools different. You can pick up an artifact (stone point) for example and see the mistakes, see why or how it was worked. Even tell whether the maker was most likely left or right handed in a lot of cases. Like turning on a light and seeing the pages vs being read the story in the dark.
Nice video. I would like a follow up video about the level of sophistication of the tools by locations and dates. I am greatly interested in any tools that had more than one part. For example, a wooden handle. Of course the wood will have deteriorated but perhaps evidence of a binding. Whatever you come up with next, I trust I will enjoy it and learn from it. All the best in the UK. I am an American in France, but greatly prefer the UK. Cheers.
Ive always wonderred why no one had made the connection between "tool age" and "mankind age". For over 50 of my yrs its been known tools were older yet researchers leave a disconnect??? Thanks for lettin an old man keep some of his marbles 👍👍
Hear hear! The real issue is the ability to age things accurately and when we do and comes out old, really old, to bias the estimate upward. Old guys must stick together. Remember, old and sneaky beats young and energetic. Every time. Fox out.
Are you suggesting reclassifying some Australopithicines as Homo? Or just that you always thought there were older Homo species yet undiscovered? Just curious what you are arguing for here. Thanks :)
@@flintknapper I think he is just grateful to hear something that resembles what we learned along time ago. Human evolution has changed so much since people like Vulpes, 1iota, and myself were in school that its not even funny. I am not sure where that part about researchers and a disconnect come from so i am assuming it is just a symptom of grumpy ol fart syndrome lol.
@@mattking993 lol no grumpy ol fart syndrome, school coriculums differ emencely within same school district nevermind globally, books & research always mentioned the tools being older than but never answerred "how" so Ive always asked... and we still dont know. And most of this "new info" has only come out over last 20 yrs on internet, not that long ago...
What do I think? I think you have one of the most robust and diverse group on your live chats. Clearly they are the air under your wings. I also just noticed your hand in plan view. One of my other interests is neurophysiology and personality expression. One theory, based upon statistical observation, is that females with the index finger longer that the ring finger have appreciably higher logical and cognitive ability. The male hand presents in the reverse correlation. I find biometrics interesting in this regard. So far I have not seen this research applied to skeletal remains in an attempt to quantify relative intellect. If your interested I can supply reading references. Casual fox comment, out.
Oooh sounds fun, love the Dirty Dancing Reference. I just love the fact that this style of tools was apparently useful for so long of a stretch of time. I guess the old saying they don’t make em like they use to applies. Lol 😂
My great uncle, Oren Minton, had one of the largest private collections of Native American Paleo-Archaic tool collections in the world. I believe the Smithsonian has it today. He would search thru spring plowed fields after a rain with his Terrier thru the Ohio river valley, Southern Illinois and Missouri. He was a very unassuming man, but was well respected in the field and a frequent lecturer at universities.
Very cool. I bet that was really neat interacting with him & learning about those when you were growing up.
@@tomtom8889 To us he was just Uncle Oren. A country cuss that farmed, hunted, trapped, fished and loved his chickens. He was just as comfortable in a sport coat as he was in overalls and moccasins. He had crates of fresh finds and pieces under the downspouts and yes, we learned early on that these were "REALLY" old tools. Much older than "Cowboys and Indians". My little brother is named after him, so you could say he had an impact,
Sooo, your saying the DENIERS of ancient history...are the ones holding the evidence
@@neilenglish8582 If you are referring to the NHM then yes.
Jamie minton...excuse my ignorance...what is NHM
Thank you for this video.
3.3 million years ago... This is simply astonishing! Fascinating!
Again, thanks for this video.
Good job, Kayleigh. At the age of 76, occasionally I feel like _I'm_ the oldest living hominid on the planet, but, of course, that isn't so.. although the doctors at the Veterans Administration tell me I've survived so many health problems, I may actually be eligible to live forever. At the current rate of inflation, I'll probably starve to death soon, no matter what the docs say.
As I said, this video is a very good job. Information dense, well organized, and truly informative. I'm going to share it to my Word History Face Book group, most of us enjoy this sort of thing.
Haha! The VA! My nemesis as well. As to inflation this is an experiment in adaptive biology. As you continue to do more, with less, the hope is that you will eventually be able to do everything with nothing. At this point you will be drafted, out into an empty tin can of a space craft and shot to Mars where you will build a complete civilization from scratch. At least that’s my theory.
Fox out.
Nice to hear from a survivor. I aint quite that old yet. Keep up the good intentions , you may live forever.
I hope you're just being sarcastic, but the Inflation comment is troubling, to say the least. If only because people seem to be blaming the current administration for it, when they are by no means the cause(s).
Inflation isn't that bad, considering we have an extended pandemic _and_ war going on at the same time, both of which are affecting not only fuel costs but food production, as well. I'm living on a fixed budget, too, and I've had to adjust what I eat, because of prices, but there's too many places to go to for help for anyone to starve in this nation.
@@MaryAnnNytowl
Yes I was making a joke.
No I don’t propose to go into who caused inflation when. It’s a losing game. Kayleigh wants to avoid such topics.
I intuit that I’m a lot older than you. I recall inflation in the late 70’s running a real 16% before it finally cooled off. But 8+% is not good anyway you slice it. And were not broke, yet and nobody should starve.
Now. Back to stones and bones.
Fox the trickster out.
74 yo Vet here.... I find the information coming out of Gobekli Teppi to be amazing, but that is ONLY about 12,000 years ago.... ten times that boggles the mind, but 291.6 times more than that leaves me close to speachless.... that is a LONG TIME!!!
As an engineer, I like it a lot. I wish the experts would just say, “we don’t know crap” I really like your content!!
So you wish that the experts would admit that they do not know what they have not learned yet? I am pretty sure all of them would do that. Congratz you got your wish!!!!!
Unfortunately, we know crap and sometimes, not much else!
Why would they say that when we have museums full of artifacts?
@@lostpony4885 no, it really wouldn't. Science is never afraid to say "we don't know."
Scott, science is never afraid to say "we don't know." It just says, "but we're working really hard to find out," as well.
Valued content Kayleigh. Life as we live it is also a touch to our past. Enjoy.
3.3 million years ago before any evidence of anything that resembles modern homo sapiens existed.
Well to me that certainly proves we can't really say that we are the sole reason we have made it to this point. we have to acknowledge our ancient ancestors, simply amazing.
Probably aliens. Stone tool aliens.
more like 3.1
@@Immortalrounin what’s spelling and punctuation?
Chimps have re-invented the spear.
@@SilverFox80521 +/-1% error is pretty good. How naive are you that you can’t quantify fault?
Every time I hear your "Savage Daughter" song, it gives me emotions of long ago. It's like being in the past, standing at the cave entrance watching children playing in the near distance. That song does evoke imagination!
🤣
Kayleigh, you may sing about a savage daughter, but you are no savage. You are a warm, loving, kind, friendly and very very intelligent person with a great personality. If my past history teachers had a personality like yours, I wouldn’t be working on a masters in psychology I would be an anthropologist or historian or something. Your videos are such a joy to watch. Keep ‘em coming.
Yess Grreat personality :)
This really made the concept that 'we evolved to use tools' so much more salient to me. If it's been in our history for so long, there's no doubt in my mind they have made an impact on our biology.
From the beginning men have had a fondness for tools. Not much we can do without tools.
Whaoo! 500th liker! What a fascinating script you put together. Thank you.
I'm glad some people have the time and the funding to keep looking for this evidence. And I'm glad you are here sharing the information. Science rocks!
I started blacksmithing, or learning to rather, while I was finishing my bachelor's. My mentor was a modern day Chiron, he had me reading renaissance texts, learn with only hand tools, no power and to knapp flint. It isn't to hard to make a good sharp flake, but anything more requires skill and practice that he and I both found "next level"! This from two guys who make their own tools when its quicker than ordering them and convert 19th century water driven hammers to use 3phase motors instead. The beautiful hand-axes, spearheads and arrow heads are the works of masters.
Thanks Kayleigh, great video. The thought of a bunch of guys and gals with little bodies and heads sitting around the campfire, artfully smashing rocks and grunting with meaning to each other is MIND-BLOWING. I love, love, love it.
I find it both fascinating and somewhat humbling to learn that tool making predates humanity itself.
If not caused it
Congratulations on 3.5 million + total views. 100 thousand subs is not far off at the rate you are growing.
Talent and hard work has its reward.
Well done!
Love your work Kayleigh from another old guy. You have turned on my fascination with archeology
Sorry I missed your live chat! Was awakened last night by earthquakes, hard to get back to sleep. 🦎
There are so many things to yet be discover and be amazed by.
The letter board is so appreciated.
I did my MA in Anthropology 30 years ago. The field has changed radically since then. I love your videos. You always seem to be very up to date. You have gotten me excited about hominid evolution again.
A very good video, mind blowing. Thank you Kayleigh.
Prime Time Kay, I love your style of straight-up research facts presented with just enough flair to keep me interested and gobbling up everything you publish. Keep it coming Love. 🤩😍🐦
If you want to keep the frequent videos coming, consider becoming a channel member or Patreon. Every little bit helps.
I remember reading that the oldest surviving piece of cordage found was dated to 50,000 years ago in a neanderthal cave. Being a natural material, likely to rot over time, I wonder how far back the evidence for cordage use with these since tools go. It would be a neat area of study.
Note: while direct evidence of cordage made from organic materials will be sparse, at best, due to natural degradation, there should be indirect evidence of its use: For example, deformation or wear on bundles that had been tied, scarring on bones used for purposes requiring tying in some way, and the like.
I’m not aware of such research at present, but I’ll point some grad students at it… maybe some will find some research, or be interested in producing their own.😎
Establing a ‘reset‘ mechanism is essential with field work and any, such as yourself Kayleigh, so absorbed and dedicated with the intensity it takes with this material.
For me, it makes so much sense that they are so old. Homo habilis's hands are already adapted quite well to tool use if I remember correctly, compared to aus. afarenis (idk if that's spelled right) and for that to have happened the austalopitchenes would have needed to be using tools at some point for that adaptation plus from endocasts we can see their brains shifting to a more homo like state.
but I might be wrong I'm just an art student with a special interest in prehistory and human evolution
Tool use was already prevalent prior to Habilis yes, it can be seen in our primate cousins using long twigs to fish ants out of holes in trees for instance, or using hammer and anvil stones to crack nuts as other primates do.
The use of the branch/twig could be made by stripping it down for the purpose - usually only requiring pulling on the right parts of the twig alternately to pair it down to usable form.
But stone tool making in the context of flint like knapping is a different thing from that.
Usually requiring a raw piece of stone to work with, and another piece of stone to wear down the flint to the desired shape - it probably requires more skill and dexterity too vs basic picking up stones and bashing them together for cracking nuts, after all even birds and fish can manage to do this with their beaks.
When you ponder what has transpired over the history of the Earth it’s incredible to know pre hominids were making stone tools over 3 million years ago! Growing up in New Jersey I was exposed to Native American culture at an early age. I was taught what to pick up and to avoid burial mounds. The artifacts we found were several thousand years old and I thought that was amazing! When Kaylie talks about 3 million year old tools it truly blows your mind. Keep up the great work Kayleigh!
Thank You for reminding me of my youth. I found many stone points in the Midwest, back in the day. I am also amazed by the incredible persistence of stone tools.
Pave over those burial mounds and put up a parking lot!
@@1pcfred Unfortunately, that’s too often how it goes
@@barrywalser2384 life is for the living.
@@1pcfred Yes, true. We can’t stay forever in the past.
3.3 millions years ago.. Australopithecus ... those guys always looked so smart to me. Another great information Kayleigh. Keep up the good work.
Smarter than SJWs today, that's for sure. I bet Australopithecus were racist bigots though.
I want to thank you for making this so interesting and easy to stay involved. You have the best personality online and have really got me hooked. Keep up the great work.
The continued inheritance of those skills is what fascinates me.
Kayleigh, I like your channel but as a retired teacher I think you could have used some audio-visual material to present what is largely a list of places and dates. I certainly wanted to see what these oldest stone tools looked like--wasn't there any available photographic material? Still, your themes are excellent and provide much food for thought. Keep up the good work.
I absolutely love this topic and all the paths of discovery it can lead to.
yay! I am happy to see another other newviddy from Kayleigh! Thank you!
Some of the very earliest tools really puzzle me because I see archaeologist in documentary pick up rock and say "this is a tool" and it is puzzle to see how they see that when it look like just any other broken rock.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and “whacking” in the eye of the guy holding the rock.
There are video conferences discussing tools. But I’m hoping she will cover this topic.
Fox out.
Absolutely astounding! I love your channel and content SO MUCH! Thank you so much for everything you share with us!
The more we discover, the more we realize we do not know. It appears all too often we sell the early people short. What you help bring to focus is that our history is much deeper and longer than we've believed. We are learning that we've likely excelled only to be knocked down, and resurfaced again many times before the ice age, and numerous events thrown at us again and again. It is an amazing story, and all too often anthropologist have stepped over those questions if they appeared too far outside of the accepted beliefs. We are learning just the same. It really does make us appreciate the trials that faced early humans. We've lost so much to the seas! Excellent analysis!
Early people were definitely short. It was OK to sell them too.
Another awesome episode !!!
THAT WAS A GREAT VID. THANKS KAYLEIGH!!!
MIND BLOWING!!! But should keep in mind that other animals, sea otters for example, have been filmed using stone tools to open clams. They may not be shaping them, but it does show the use of tools is not limited to humans. So, you may wonder how old is the oldest tool?
I like to think that, at some point in time, a velociraptor or deinonychus picked up a rock, then thought to itself, “nah, my claws and teeth are way sharper than this piece of stone”, and totally sidestepped an evolutionary path to ape-level intelligence.
@@theintrovertedarcanist984
So they missed their chance to become human. Hmmm smart move wouldn't you say.
That wedding sounds cool. Have fun!
Awesome Video Kayleigh!
Thanks, Kayleigh, for another great video. I've got modern Kitchen-aid tools working for me right now. Knives, forks, spatula, and hunks of meat on the barbie. I just blew my Neanderthal mind!
That wedding sounds fun! This was a great video as always, thank you!
Thank you for your research. I love this content.
I'm a retired exploration geologist, I worked in Africa. My knowledge is/was 30 years dated. Thanks for confirming some of my thoughts.
Love you Kaleigh. Just discovered you and this series. Not only interested, but as a hobby I write mystery novels based on scientific subjects. I'm thinking of one with paleontology as my theme and your series really educating me. Good information and you present it well. Thank you. Harry
Kayleigh, Nice song !
Thanks!
Kayleigh: you blew my mind! Now what am I gonna do‽
P.S. Hope the move went well and you're feeling at home, in your new home.
If people give you a hard time about pronunciation of odd names or frankly anything else, they sadly are unaware that even the experts vary in pronunciation, and that, regardless, I’d wonder how their Dutch is…
You do a great job K!
Great job…
Ignore those who say otherwise…
😎😉
Amazing to me is the seeming fact that this school of technology, the tool kit itself, crossed species lines and remained intact for nearly 3 million years. Even more humbling is the fact that it was not improved on or evolved naturally into any new school of technology for that length of time. Apparently this tech was still in use in some areas when "modern man" came buy and showed them the new stuff they could do with the same stone.
Apparently our ancestors were really toughing it out rather than adapting, improvising and making what they had better.
You and I were thinking along the same lines. Incredible to think it lasted for so long, although I'm not sure our ancestors were toughing it out and not adapting so much as they were using what worked. If it ain't broke don't fix it, maybe.
Hey Kayleigh, few things, First, great job, second, use a time line chart, including location and tool classification. I like how you stress on the phrase "fossil record", that is the right approach when dealing with history.
Also enjoy the wedding and when dancing think of the old TV series from the 80's, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, when he danced with the draconian princess
Hi Kayleigh. I find your videos to be very interesting and informative. I am a 53 year old South African with a love of history. I live near Johannesburg and I have been to Sterkfontein and The Cradle a couple of times. Very interesting and wonderful having such an important piece of humanities heritage in my home country.
Have you ever been to South Africa?
Welcome Kayleigh, I hope you visit the north especially Manchester.
I feel like a voice in the desert. I am aware of this from probably before you were born, but, of course, information takes time to get really digested in any field of knowledge. My dad was a police officer and hunter, also a knife collector. There are strong atavistic behaviors in modern humans about knives. They are disregarded but they are inevitable at the point that modern armies couldn't get rid of them, they just get better and the systems for using them too. A Spanish writer and expert hunter wrote about an experience he had hunting wild boars. He carried a rifle, an automatic pistol as backup and his hunting knife, most probably a big bowie style knife. The boar he shot was still alive and suddenly tried to attack him. But instead of grabbing his pistol, his first response was to grab his knife. The boar fell dead and before he realized, he had his knife out instead of the pistol. He reflected about how we have evolved alongside them and how the cutting tools were even older than our species itself. Great video, stone tools are interesting and I think they deserve more attention and research.
I wish you a warm welcome to UK, and what an excellent reason to come to 🇬🇧
Good info as usual.
Thank you for teaching me something I didn't know about.
When you mentioned "3.3 million years ago" why did I see in my head Professor trying to comprehend 88.8 Gigawatts of power needed for time travel? If I could I'd give this content 3.3 million likes!
one point twenty one jigawatts
I often think about whether these tools were disposables or were kept and carried around, and if so then what were they carried in. We may be totally underestimating the capabilities of our ancient ancestors.
I suspect they were left at the site, and would be returned to the next time the tribe visited that same site. There was probably a set of tools left at each of the locations the tribe regularly migrated to, especially after a few millenia of doing so. The 'tool-making tool' was probably carried, and a few favorite items, but little else.
@@Emily-fo6iw excellent analysis that makes sense. thanks
@@Emily-fo6iw I can just imagine how that conversation would go. Hey that's my rock, leave it alone! I don't see your name on it. I left it here last year.
@@1pcfred It's likely that craftsmen recognized their own work, just like any other time period, but I would also expect individualism to have been less thought out or worried about, and that 'tribe' was the more common unit to think in.
@@Emily-fo6iw I'm no expert but it is my understanding that stone work was very pattern stylized. At least by the time flint knapping was done. You either did it the one right way or you were at a disadvantage to those that did. People just had a lot less time and energy back then for artistic self expression.
Very good. Thanks.
We know from direct observation that chimpanzees are very much capable of not just using tools, but also modifying them for a special task. So they "think ahead". Why anyone assumed that Australopithcines, though more evolved, were uncapable of the same feat, is beyond me...
Science demands evidence. Until you can prove a hypothesis it's just an idea. Proving what happened millions of years ago is a daunting task.
Well done - and yes, surprising!
Great info as always,well done. I would have loved to see examples of the tools and an overview image of the site from where they were excavated.A shot of the locatiion on a map would help me see the progression of where the tools were being made,utilised and people thrived. Maybe a chronological timeline with names of sites,dates,tools,and cultures who made them. Just an idea for the future perhaps? Thank you so much for sharing all of your videos. Yes i love Stefan Milo,a new one his name is Milo,Dr.Miano,and the Fall of Civilizations channel who is better than anything Netflix could ever hope to have. Your work is appreciated and admired Kayleigh,thanks again.
I also wonder why they're all called Oldevai tools even though shouldn't they be named for the site they're found?? Hmm....
They're named after the first location usually, but after that if they're from the same "industry" (same time frame and method used to create them) they then all get the name of that stone tool industry. Like the Mousterian stone tool industry of the Neanderthals 😊
Thank you so much for your response,you have to be endlessly busy with your research! Keep up the fantastic work with all others who devote their lives to this endlessly fascinating subjects! Great work always so much appreciated for sharing with everyone!!!
Excellent, as usual. Thank you very much.😊😊. Somehow, I'm not surprised at how far back in time the use of modified stone tools goes. What does amaze me is that the line of creatures evolved from our common ancestor with chimps has managed to avoid ending totally in extinction in spite of all the adversity faced during the past 5 million years or so. How in the world did we make it?
Very enthralling video dear. Loved it. Keep it up! !
So, any ideas on who (or what?) created the 3M yr old stone tools?
Oh, btw, any video on the wedding coming up soon?
Nice job, very informative. When your talking about things like tools a picture or two would be nice to add in.
So...Lucy (which is mostly ape) is 2million years old, but stone tools are at least 3million years old? That's a HUGE difference.
Great video Kayleigh ❤👍
You are awesum! So interesting and so reflective and you are so easy on the eyes.
Cool, nice video. Makes this one think.
Great video and enjoy the wedding, from a UK subscriber. 🇬🇧
Good job, hon! Now have a blast in England.
Well, Australopithecines may have made the first tools, but they didn't invent the electric drill, so I'll stick with the Homo Sapien versions - they'll do me!
Great video. Well presented. Enjoy your break, but remember, your loving fans always want more. Looking forward to what you'll come up with next.
'Homo Sapiens', with an 's' at the end.
Very cool. Modern man doesn't have a monopoly on tools. Very interesting.
We do now.
I love your quirky presentation ;-) It would be nice, if those strange names of places appear on screen, to help me find them on maps or other references.
It is not the use of tools that distinguishes humans. It is the use of fire
I agree. Cooking is what changed our morphology and allowed us to develop from apes to humans. But there were some pretty highly evolved apes making specific tools and sharing that knowledge.
Thanks Kayleigh. As I'm sure you know, and this was made clear by the most interesting Saudi Oil Minister of all during the moment when the US lost the weather helm in oil production to his nation (1973), Sheik Ahmed Zaki Yamani : "The Stone Age did not end for a lack of stones." The good news is that the Renewable Age will not end for a lack of Stoners. This New Age, now in the ascendancy (resistance is feudal) when and where we will live off our income and not depleted capital, is just finding its legs. All for Sun and Sun for All. You may have already done this and I apologize for missing class that day, but you spell out those dates like reporting scores from the Champion's League Quarterfinals. I suppose those figures come from the K/Ar (potassium-argon) dating method but I don't know and it would be interesting to find out how these numbers are derived. Thanks again. HH
That would seem to support the idea that tools made the man... perhaps it is the use of tools that led to the development of more advanced (?) versions of hominids.
Great video and enjoy the wedding ! Thanks for sharing.
One recent hiccup is in a recent New Scientist article titled "Stones smashed by horses can be mistaken for ancient human tools". "Horses kick and stamp on rocks to keep their hooves in good shape, and archaeologists have now realised this can result in a collection of sharp stones that look like the work of an ancient human toolmaker."
Any citation there? Or a link? It sounds fascinating. As far as I can tell, though, the evidence for Homo evolution, Homo migration, and also colonization of the Americas (and the rest of the world) keeps getting pushed back in time with new discoveries. This makes sense to me, and Kayleigh is, as usual, making a great case here. I have yet to look at the literature, but I'm excited to do so. Science is great exactly because one can favor one theory over another as a personal proposition, and still wait for evidence to emerge as to whether that particular theory holds water. When the evidence comes in, it's nice when my favorite theory wins. It's also nice when it doesn't. Birds being essentially dinosaurs. Dinosaurs having feathers. Continental drift. Those are canon now, but I remember how excited I was watching the back and forth between scientists postulating different scenarios. It's great that we keep adjusting according to current data! My off-the-cuff reaction is that horse-induced breakage is probably a very small percentage of the "stone tools" that we have found. Looking forward to either being incorrect, or correct, either way. In any event, Kayleigh is a treasure. I've learned a lot from these vids, and I am both a life-long student of this stuff, and also old as fuck. Cheers!
Oh, also, I should clarify that I was not around during the continental drift arguments. Not THAT old.
Hi. I'm a recent viewer of your channel and a even more recent subscriber. 1st off, I want to say I like that your shows are informative and entertaining. Plus I like that you don't talk at such a high level that someone like me who is a history fan but not any kind of expert or even an amateur level history buff, needs a PHD to understand what you're saying. I also like that you defend the Neanderthals against put downs by the biased, uneducated narrow/small minded wanna be's.
Now, moving on...
By coincidence, I've been watching some other vids here on the history of cooking. Analysis of some artifacts indicates that control of fire (uncovered hearths), cooking (including early tools), and the use of boiling water, may date back as much as 790,000 years or more ago! There's other dates and info but they would take up too much space here.
You haven't mentioned (in my limited viewing so far) if Neanderthals cooked or did some other food processing, but I think if they did, it would go further to show how much more developed they were than many others think.
In order to save time, some key research words here: "Wonderwerk Cave"; Richard Wrangham's book- "Catching Fire- How Cooking Made Us Human"; and an article by JOHN D. SPETH, "When Did Humans Learn to Boil?" in a issue of Paleo Anthropology (2015??). Plus other sources too.
Thank you for being informative and enjoyable to watch.
Great video, thanks! Somehow, I am not surprised that stone tools predate Homo. My suspicion was that Homo appeared because of the existence of stone tools and was impossible to exist prior to them. Australopithecus seems just about right for the transition from using stones to reshaping them into tools.
On the same line of speculation, I also suspect that speech (in a narrower frequency range) appeared before Homo, most likely also among Australopithecus (like Lucy, the afarensis); obviously, not with advanced features like in the hominins of the last 500 000 years, but complex enough to "spread the word", mainly for teaching tool making and successfully migrating within the African continent. In my humble opinion, the physical disadvantages that Australopithecus had when compared to chimps had to be counterbalanced by both tools and speech. A bigger brain for the sake of just being bigger is actually a great disadvantage too, so I suspect that the gradual increase (of the brain volume) came with the gradual improvement in tools and communication, not before them.
You could be right vis a vis tool making. As to larger brains, neuro science is having a re-think on the volume-intelligence connection. It’s quite new and comes to us from the areas of neuro-plasty. Neural density, not weight or volume may rule intellect. Thus if this observation is correct it may explain the hobbit with his very small brain functioning in a par with his larger brained predecessors and related species.
Now neuroplasty addresses how your brain “rewires” to effect repairs to the nervous system. As they attempt to make direct actuator to nerve connections with prosthetics a lot of research is being done.
Ancillary to that research is the observation that size does not matter like they once thought it did. Which leads to speculations about big brains, thick skulls and big brown ridges. A topic for anthropology.
Briefly, Kayleigh has not addressed phenotype expression yet. One element of which is why is our skull smaller and lacking the brow ridge and Sagittal crest of Neanderthal? Presuming the bone structure was for surviving the school of hard knocks, what did we lose that advantage. Why don’t we need an armoured skull. Life did not suddenly get easier. One possible answer is an un observable improvement in the soft tissue of the brain allowing for the in situ repair of minor neural damage. Thus you don’t need a thick heavy skull or a larger brain. If you can reasonably “fix” the smaller lighter one you have. Through neuroplasty. New idea. Not accepted. Intriguing to consider.
Fox out.
Wow you guys are nerdy. I think this indicates that the things that really define Homo are the immeasurable qualities that could never be dug from the earth. Cognitive memory, communication, sharing knowledge must predate these tools. Otherwise we'd have to call them all convergent. It's amazing to imagine this all going on in such a primitive state. I'd love to know how far back other skills go that aren't preserved in the fossil record.
My favorite; when could we tie knots? My guess, It's really really old. @Kayleigh could you do this?
@@MrJento Interesting plus there is archeological evidence of bigger brain doesn't mean smarter. Bear with me here because i cannot remember some of the important details like names, dates, and places. A tribe of prehistoric humans that had smaller brains than the other humans of the same time period were using tools that were ahead of their time. Sorry i cannot remember the rest. You might be familiar with what i am talking about but there is evidence out there that supports this.
@@mattking993
Flores man, aka “hobbit” in Indonesia is one I already mentioned. Homo luzonensis is another, though there are some who think they are also Flores, not a separate species. Then there are the red deer cave people. There may be others. In general these all seem to be occurring around 50,000 years ago in the same general period when sapians was migrating, Neanderthal was beginning the sharp decline, and the final pockets of erectus died out.
Some events or combination triggered a burst of evolutionary diversity. Climate? Solar radiation? Viral epidemic? Who knows. What is observed is a vide variety in brain sizes. Some very large innovations in tool technology. Some very wide and fast migrations.
The composite tool technology of Asia where stone flakes are glued to a bone core, attributed speculatively to denosovan begins to emerge at this time. Bi-facial point technology is developing and will be perfected as the clovis point in the americas and solutrian points in Iberia 25,000 years later.
Take bifacial points. Conceivably one individual could just have that AHHA moment and say I’ll cut a grove down each side of my point, a flute essentially, with serrated cutting edges. But what modern flint knappers have discovered is that these bifacial points are a bitch to make. They have used jigs and modern devices to strike the long flake from each side of that thin blade without breaking it. Clovis and those guys did this by hand. A piece of leather, a hammer stone and a bit of antler. No slick stainless steel jig. Like everything else we ever did the idea was poof! there. But it took trial and error and it evolved over time, and it was passed through the population one on one. Remember no internet for communication.
Well I got away from your brain size comment. To bring it back Flores with a brain half the size of sapiens was making equally complex tools and living in just as challenging an environment.
Fox out.
@@MrJento The Flores man does kind of sound like the 1 i can barely remember. The part about they may have been the same as the other tribe does sound familiar so i may have just unknowingly talked about the same thing lol. Don't worry about getting off topic as long as i am learning new stuff i do not mind and our evolution is a big grey area for me.
What blows my mind, is that the creators of my lineage goes back 3.3 million years. That during that length of time, Gramma and Grampa were busy having children and passing on their skills of survival. That means a tool making person existed that had my genetic heritage as a human / austropithicus extending waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back. Humbling thought. "What did you do with your life grandson??" oiks!!!
At least 4 million more like the time when we split with the chimps. Right around the same time we domesticated fire since flint is involved in the making of both.
I LOVE to see you explain things, but it would be better to have more graphics.
Just listened to your
( My mother told me )
Mesmerizing..heh..literally. I have a red-ish line across my face from where my tablet fell after I'd succumbed to the Siren's magical voice.
I'm grateful for your upload, it cuts through the fog of P.T.S.D. and accompanying survives guilt. Is this available with Spotify, Amazon music, etc ?
I hope that you and those you care for are safe, healthy, and happy. Semper Fidelis
Stone tools dating to 1.8 million years ago made from quartz 👀 fascinating. Although it could be chalked up to the beauty of quartz, we can’t deny the interesting properties the stone has. We wouldn’t have touch screen phones without quartz!
Quartz is super hard and durable.
It makes sense to use harder wearing stone so that it lasts longer and doesn't just break when randomly dropped.
"We wouldn’t have touch screen phones without quartz!"
Yes and no, most modern touch screen devices use Corning Gorilla Glass or some variant/copy of it.
Silicon dioxide is present, but also aluminum, magnesium, and sodium.
Sapphire glass screens are rarer and use predominantly aluminium oxide/alumina as found in natural sapphire gem stones - that being said many high end manufacturers use it for the camera bump on the back to afford extra scratch protection to the camera view.
Very interesting, thank you
I have this really cool ancient stone hammer. Of course its had several new handles and a few new heads. Still pretty cool. 😁
Aloha, Kayleigh; I appreciate your shows, Mahalo. Significant to pre-discovery Hawaiian peoples were the use of hafted tools. It seems to me that stone tools designated for use with a handle would show accommodations for cordage as part of an attachment design. D
Awesome presentation about the Hardware Stone Tools of Life
Found an old rock today that looked like it had been used for sharpening arrows points. The marks where wood grinding looked like it had been used for sometime.
Great video, love the information you provide in your videos, really gives you something to think about. I make and use stone tools and if they were finding quartz tools that were well made, it was made by very skilled individuals as quartz is knappable but DIFFICULT!! I have been knapping for years and make beautiful stone points but with quartz....thats a whole different game. And where you talk about them finding secondary flakes, that doesn't always mean its a reworked from new people in the area, stone tools have to be reworked to keep an edge...Like when skinning I may stop half way through and take flakes off the edge. You may start with a stone knife, rework the edge enough that its smaller and then make an arrow point from it eventually. You should try knapping sometime, once you learn it well you look at stone tools different. You can pick up an artifact (stone point) for example and see the mistakes, see why or how it was worked. Even tell whether the maker was most likely left or right handed in a lot of cases. Like turning on a light and seeing the pages vs being read the story in the dark.
Nice video. I would like a follow up video about the level of sophistication of the tools by locations and dates. I am greatly interested in any tools that had more than one part. For example, a wooden handle. Of course the wood will have deteriorated but perhaps evidence of a binding. Whatever you come up with next, I trust I will enjoy it and learn from it. All the best in the UK. I am an American in France, but greatly prefer the UK. Cheers.
Ive always wonderred why no one had made the connection between "tool age" and "mankind age". For over 50 of my yrs its been known tools were older yet researchers leave a disconnect???
Thanks for lettin an old man keep some of his marbles 👍👍
Hear hear!
The real issue is the ability to age things accurately and when we do and comes out old, really old, to bias the estimate upward.
Old guys must stick together. Remember, old and sneaky beats young and energetic. Every time.
Fox out.
Are you suggesting reclassifying some Australopithicines as Homo? Or just that you always thought there were older Homo species yet undiscovered? Just curious what you are arguing for here. Thanks :)
@@flintknapper simple, if the tools are older than species we cant trust the narrative. If anything, it should be the other way round, right??
@@flintknapper I think he is just grateful to hear something that resembles what we learned along time ago. Human evolution has changed so much since people like Vulpes, 1iota, and myself were in school that its not even funny. I am not sure where that part about researchers and a disconnect come from so i am assuming it is just a symptom of grumpy ol fart syndrome lol.
@@mattking993 lol no grumpy ol fart syndrome, school coriculums differ emencely within same school district nevermind globally, books & research always mentioned the tools being older than but never answerred "how" so Ive always asked... and we still dont know.
And most of this "new info" has only come out over last 20 yrs on internet, not that long ago...
Good info, but it would have been nice to see some pictures of the various types of tools, scrapers, choppers, etc...
Fascinating! Although I feel 3.3 million years old sometimes, we really don't give enough props to our ancient forbearers!
Keep banging the rocks together guys. - H2G2.
Love this ancient history
That plaid is on point.
What do I think?
I think you have one of the most robust and diverse group on your live chats. Clearly they are the air under your wings.
I also just noticed your hand in plan view. One of my other interests is neurophysiology and personality expression. One theory, based upon statistical observation, is that females with the index finger longer that the ring finger have appreciably higher logical and cognitive ability. The male hand presents in the reverse correlation. I find biometrics interesting in this regard. So far I have not seen this research applied to skeletal remains in an attempt to quantify relative intellect. If your interested I can supply reading references.
Casual fox comment, out.
Oooh sounds fun, love the Dirty Dancing Reference. I just love the fact that this style of tools was apparently useful for so long of a stretch of time. I guess the old saying they don’t make em like they use to applies. Lol 😂
Wow . . Over 3 million years . . Good grief. .
Thank you for video. . 👍👍