Nov 10, 2024
I recently had the chance to hold a genuine 2-million-year-old stone tool made by Homo erectus in my prehistoric archaeology class. That`s some religious experience indeed.
That one post by @/gallusrostromegalus is so real
seen from Australia
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Sweden
seen from China
seen from Vietnam
seen from Maldives
seen from Sweden
seen from Germany
seen from China
seen from Sweden
seen from Germany
seen from China
seen from Sweden
seen from Canada
seen from Japan
seen from Russia
seen from Germany
seen from Germany
I recently had the chance to hold a genuine 2-million-year-old stone tool made by Homo erectus in my prehistoric archaeology class. That`s some religious experience indeed.
That one post by @/gallusrostromegalus is so real
(via "Shattered Shatter" Magnet for Sale by Trowel-Tales)
Har har, shatter.
All Swords: wood, stone, iron, gold, diamond, netherite (2048 x 2048)
Why is obsidian so useful for tools?
The ancient inhabitants of many continents knew the properties of obsidian. This black volcanic glass was a key component in tools and hunting weapons; arrowheads and shards from their production are found all over the world and trading paths between different civilizations can even be tracked using obsidian.
The reason why this rock was so useful comes from the structure of the rock. Obsidian isn’t a mineral, by definition. Minerals have a defined structure that repeats over and over again. Obsidian is what we’d call a “glass”. A mineral growing from lava needs time to grow; atoms need time to move together and form a defined structure. If lava cools off too quickly, it can instead have all its atoms locked into whatever format sat there when the magma was molten, a state we call a glass.
A glass has no defined, long-term structure, so it doesn’t break into crystal faces. This property means glasses are strong in all directions and when broken they will have what we call “conchoidal fractures”. This is different from crystals; they tend to break along fracture or “cleavage” plains controlled by the arrangement of the atoms. You can see the remnant of those fractures in the rippled breaks at the edge of this stone tool artifact; the fractures formed at a single point and widened as they broke outwards.
A skilled worker using obsidian can create a series of conchoidal fractures around the edge that bring the rock to an extremely sharp point. The angle of the tip won’t be limited by the natural crystal shape; instead the spear tip can be made both strong and sharp.
Obsidian is generally made out of high silica, rhyolitic lava. These high silica lavas are very viscous and therefore crystals don’t grow rapidly on them, making obsidian formation easy. Different obsidian compositions and structures do behave differently during processing, so some obsidian sources were highly prized and rocks that match in chemistry were traded across thousands of kilometers, covering entire continents.
-JBB
Image credit: John Atherton (Creative Commons):https://www.flickr.com/photos/gbaku/1287124990/
Read more: http://www.texasbeyondhistory.net/st-plains/prehistory/images/distant.html http://volcano.oregonstate.edu/obsidian http://www.public.asu.edu/~mesmith9/1-CompleteSet/MES-10-TradeEncyc.pdf http://www.fieldmuseum.org/node/4766
Drill
Red jasper
Origin, age and manufacture unknown
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Our Evolution of Humanity exhibit seems to have outgrown its pair of shelves! Today we added cast skulls of Neanderthal (top left) Australopithecus (top centre) and Homo erectus (bottom left). Right now things aren't in chronological order just to cram things in, but expect some big changes in every exhibit at the Prehistoria Natural History Centre (#PNHC) in the coming weeks! We're honored to display some of the world's oldest tools, crafted by Homo habilis 2.2 million years ago! These sharpened rocks symbolize the invention of invention itself, and are potentially the first time our species modified the world (instead of our bodies) to increase our odds of survival. Our Neanderthal butchering tool and deformed Mayan skull are pretty nifty too.
Tool sharpens focus on Stone Age networking in the Middle East
A stone tool found in Syria more than 80 years ago has sharpened scientists’ understanding of Stone Age networking.
Small enough to fit in the palm of an adult’s hand, this chipped piece of obsidian dates to between 41,000 and 32,000 years ago, say archaeologists Ellery Frahm and Thomas Hauck. It was fashioned out of volcanic rock from outcrops in central Turkey, a minimum of 700 kilometers from where the artifact was found, the researchers report in the June Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports. Until now, the earliest transport of obsidian into the Middle East was thought to have occurred between 14,500 and 11,500 years ago, when Natufian foragers began to live in year-round settlements. Read more.
All Pickaxes: wood, stone, iron, gold, diamond, netherite (1664 x 1664)