An oil lamp found in Lascaux cave in FranceSémhur CC BY-SA 4.0
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In the prehistoric opening of 2001: A Space Odyssey, the first tool is a club: a long limb bone that proves handy for killing prey animals, murdering the leader of a rival hominin group and, finally, for throwing into the air ready for a dramatic jump cut. In this view, the first tool was a weapon.
This interpretation can be neatly fitted onto the earliest stone tools. Rounded rocks were used for hitting things, sharp ones for cutting and stabbing. We imagine that early stone tools were used for breaking things open, for hunting, for killing.
However, early people probably used other kinds of tools as well, ones made of other materials. Plant materials like wood were probably used all the time; it’s just that they are less likely to be preserved. The Stone Age was also the Botanic Age (and if you haven’t read Sophie Berdugo’s 2024 feature on this, I urge you to do so).
