The following table attempts to list the oldest-known Paleolithic and Paleo-Indian sites where hominin tools have been found. It includes sites where compelling evidence of hominin tool use has been found, even if no actual tools have been found.
Stone tools preserve more readily than tools of many other materials. [1] [2] So the oldest tools that we can find in many areas are going to be stone tools. It could be that these tools were once accompanied by, or even preceded by, non-stone tools that we cannot find because they did not preserve.
Similarly, hard materials like bone or shell are more likely than softer materials to leave discernible cut marks on bone. Bamboo has been shown to leave cut marks on bone that are harder to see than cut marks by stone. [3] So the earliest evidence of tool use that we are likely to find are often cut marks made on bone by stone or shell tools. Therefore the reader should not assume that the items on this list represent the earliest uses of tools in each area, but rather the earliest uses of tools that have been found.
Because it focuses on only the earliest evidence of tools, and since the earliest evidence is biased towards stone by stone's increased likelihood of preservation, this page necessarily omits mention of many significant ancient tools of non-stone materials simply because those cases are not among the earliest found within their geographic area. See Timeline of historic inventions for other noteworthy tools and other inventions.
With its focus on tools, this list also omits some sites with the earliest evidence for the existence of hominins, but without evidence for tools. Many such sites have hominin bones, teeth, or footprints, but unless they also include evidence for tools or tool use, they are omitted here.
This list excludes tools and tool use attributed to non-hominin species. See Tool use by non-humans. Since there are far too many hominin tool sites to list on a single page, this page attempts to list the 6 or fewer top candidates for oldest tool site within each significant geographic area.
For much of the 20th century, a "Clovis first" idea dominated American archeology. Many sites with dates too old to be compatible with "Clovis first" were published, but these were mostly dismissed under the hegemony of "Clovis first." [5] [6] Meanwhile some indigenous archeologists insisted throughout the "Clovis first" era that the peopling of the Americas was much older than Clovis. [7] Recent publications with very strong evidence for pre-Clovis sites seem to have ended the hegemony of "Clovis first." [8] [7] [6] [9]
Name | Date (Ma) | Location | Geographic area | Species | Type | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Dikika [10] | 3.39 | Hadar, Ethiopia | East Africa | A. afarensis (presumed) | Cut marks on bone | Controversial [11] [12] [13] |
Lomekwi 3 [14] | 3.3 | West Turkana, Kenya | East Africa | Stone tools | Mode 0 or Pre-Mode 1 stone tools are named after this site - see Stone tool | |
Nyayanga [15] | 3.0–2.6 | Nyayanga, Kenya | East Africa | Paranthropus (associated) | Hominin remains, stone tools | Some, e.g. Kathy Shick, [16] have suggested that the user of the tools may have been early Homo butchering Paranthropus as food. |
Masol [17] [18] | 2.9–2.7 | Chandigarh, India | South Asia | Stone tools and cut marks on bone | Controversial [19] | |
Bokol Dora 1 [20] (BD 1) | 2.6 | Ledi-Geraru, Ethiopia | East Africa | Stone tools | ||
Gona [21] | 2.6 | Ethiopia | East Africa | Stone tools and cut marks on bone | ||
Perdikkas [22] | 3.0–2.5 | Perdikkas, Greece | Eastern Europe | ”Butchered” mammoth bones, stone tools | Controversial | |
Bouri Hatayae layer [24] | 2.5 | Ethiopia | East Africa | Cut marks and percussion marks on bone | ||
Longgupo [25] | 2.48 [26] | Longgupo, southwest China | East Asia | Stone tools and dental fragments | Controversial. Russell L. Ciochon has retracted the attribution to Homo and casts doubt on the dates of the tools: "Although I no longer consider the Longgupo jaw to be human, the two stone tools still stand as described. They must have been more recent additions to the site." [27] Ciochon provides no direct evidence for his conclusion that the tools were "more recent additions." See Wushan Man | |
Aïn Boucherit [28] | 2.4 | Algeria | North Africa | Stone tools | ||
Xihoudu [29] | 2.4 | Shanxi Province, China | East Asia | Stone tools | ||
Renzidong [30] [31] (Renzi Cave) | 2.4–2.0 [32] | Renzidong, southeast China | East Asia | Stone tools | Controversial [33] [34] | |
Shangchen [35] | 2.1 | Shaanxi, China | East Asia | Stone tools and much later hominin remains (H. erectus) | ||
Drimolen Main Quarry (DMQ) [36] [37] | 2 | South Africa | Southern Africa | H. erectus, P. robustus (associated) | Hominin remains, stone tools, bone tools | |
Riwat [38] | 1.9 | Riwat, Pakistan | South Asia | Stone tools | Controversial - the tools were found in a "secondary context" [39] | |
Aïn al Fil [40] | 1.8 | El Kowm, Syria | West Asia | Stone tools | ||
Dmanisi [41] | 1.8 | Dmanisi, Georgia | West Asia | H. erectus (associated) | Hominin remains, stone tools, butchery | |
Swartkrans [42] | 1.8 | South Africa | Southern Africa | Homo, P. robustus (associated) | Hominin remains, bone tools | |
Sterkfontein StW 53 [43] | 1.8–1.5 [44] | South Africa | Southern Africa | Cut marks on hominin bone | Controversial [45] | |
Sangiran [46] | 1.6–1.5 | Java, Indonesia | Sunda Shelf | H. erectus (associated) | Hominin remains, shell tool cut marks on bone | |
Socotra Island [47] | 2.5–1.4 | Socotra Island | Indian Ocean | H. erectus (presumed) | Stone tools | Oldowan stone tools. May very well be earliest evidence of seafaring. |
Kozarnika, Dimovo Municipality [48] | 1.4-1.6 | Bulgaria | Eastern Europe | H. erectus (associated) | Stone tools, hominin remains, cut marks on bone | |
Pirro Nord [49] | 1.3-1.6 [50] | Italy | Western Europe | Stone tools | ||
Sterkfontein Member 5 [51] | 1.1-1.6 | South Africa | Southern Africa | Stone tools, Homo and Paranthropus remains | ||
Barranco León [52] | 1.2-1.4 | Spain | Western Europe | Stone tools, animal bones, bone flakes | ||
Bois de Riquet US 2 [53] [54] | 1.2 | France | Western Europe | Stone tools | ||
Wolo Sege, So'a Basin [55] | 1 | Flores, Indonesia | Island Southeast Asia | H. floresiensis (presumed) | Stone tools | |
Happisburgh [56] | 0.9–0.7 | Great Britain | Western Europe | Stone tools | ||
Kalinga site [57] | 0.7 | Luzon, Philippines | Island Southeast Asia | H. luzonensis (presumed) | Stone tools, cut marks on bone | See Nesorhinus |
Mata Menge, So'a Basin [58] | 0.7 | Flores, Indonesia | Island Southeast Asia | H. floresiensis (presumed) | Stone tools | |
Ounjougou [59] | 0.5–0.15 | Mali | West Africa | Stone tools | ||
Talepu [60] | 0.2 | Sulawesi | Island Southeast Asia | Stone tools | ||
Cerutti Mastodon site [61] | 0.13 | California | North America | Cobbles, percussion marks on bones | Controversial [62] [63] [64] | |
Warratyi Rockshelter [65] | 0.049 | South Australia | Sahul | H. sapiens (presumed) | Stone and bone tools, numerous animal remains | |
Carpenter's Gap Shelter 1 [66] | 0.049–0.044 | Western Australia | Sahul | H. sapiens (presumed) | Ground stone axe flake | |
Pedra Furada [67] | 0.048–0.023 | Brazil | South America | H. sapiens (presumed) | Stone tools | Controversial [68] [69] |
Topper site [70] | 0.05–0.016 | South Carolina, USA | North America | H. sapiens (presumed) | Stone tools | Controversial [71] [72] [73] |
Hartley Mammoth Site [74] | 0.037 | New Mexico | North America | Butchered bones | Controversial [75] [76] | |
Arroyo del Viscaino [77] | 0.03 | Uruguay | South America | Cut marks on bone | Controversial [78] [79] | |
Chiquihuite cave [80] | 0.03 | Mexico | North America | H. sapiens (presumed) | Stone tools, animal bones, charcoal | Controversial [81] [82] |
Santa Elina Shelter [83] [84] | 0.027 [85] | Brazil | South America | Stone tools, animal bones | Controversial [86] | |
Cactus Hill [87] | 0.018 | Virginia, USA | North America | H. sapiens (presumed) | Stone tools | Controversial [88] |
Rimrock Draw Rockshelter [89] | 0.018–0.017 | Oregon, USA | North America | H. sapiens (presumed) | Stone tools, animal bones | |
Monte Verde I [90] | 0.018–0.014 | Chile | South America | H. sapiens (presumed) | Stone tools, bone fragments, charcoal | |
Arroyo Seco 2 [91] | 0.014 | Argentina | South America | H. sapiens (presumed) | Stone tools, cut marks on bone |
The Oldowan was a widespread stone tool archaeological industry (style) in prehistory. These early tools were simple, usually made by chipping one, or a few, flakes off a stone using another stone. Oldowan tools were used during the Lower Paleolithic period, 2.9 million years ago up until at least 1.7 million years ago (Ma), by ancient Hominins across much of Africa. This technological industry was followed by the more sophisticated Acheulean industry.
The Solutrean industry is a relatively advanced flint tool-making style of the Upper Paleolithic of the Final Gravettian, from around 22,000 to 17,000 BP. Solutrean sites have been found in modern-day France, Spain and Portugal.
Africa has the longest record of human habitation in the world. The first hominins emerged 6–7 million years ago, and among the earliest anatomically modern human skulls found so far were discovered at Omo Kibish,Jebel Irhoud, and Florisbad.
Stegodon is an extinct genus of proboscidean, related to elephants. It was originally assigned to the family Elephantidae along with modern elephants but is now placed in the extinct family Stegodontidae. Like elephants, Stegodon had teeth with plate-like lophs that are different from those of more primitive proboscideans like gomphotheres and mammutids. Fossils of the genus are known from Africa and across much of Asia, as far southeast as Timor. The oldest fossils of the genus are found in Late Miocene strata in Asia, likely originating from the more archaic Stegolophodon, subsequently migrating into Africa. While the genus became extinct in Africa during the Pliocene, Stegodon persisted in South, Southeast and Eastern Asia into the Late Pleistocene.
Dmanisi is a town and archaeological site in the Kvemo Kartli region of Georgia approximately 93 km southwest of the nation’s capital Tbilisi in the river valley of Mashavera. The hominin site is dated to 1.8 million years ago. It was the earliest known evidence of hominins outside Africa before stone tools dated to 2.1 million years were discovered in 2018 in Shangchen, China.
Liang Bua is a limestone cave on the island of Flores, Indonesia, slightly north of the town of Ruteng in Manggarai Regency, East Nusa Tenggara. The cave demonstrated archaeological and paleontological potential in the 1950s and 1960s as described by the Dutch missionary and archaeologist Theodor L. Verhoeven.
The Late Pleistocene is an unofficial age in the international geologic timescale in chronostratigraphy, also known as the Upper Pleistocene from a stratigraphic perspective. It is intended to be the fourth division of the Pleistocene Epoch within the ongoing Quaternary Period. It is currently defined as the time between c. 129,000 and c. 11,700 years ago. The late Pleistocene equates to the proposed Tarantian Age of the geologic time scale, preceded by the officially ratified Chibanian. The beginning of the Late Pleistocene is the transition between the end of the Penultimate Glacial Period and the beginning of the Last Interglacial around 130,000 years ago. The Late Pleistocene ends with the termination of the Younger Dryas, some 11,700 years ago when the Holocene Epoch began.
Jebel Irhoud or Adrar n Ighoud, is an archaeological site located just north of the town of Tlet Ighoud in Youssoufia Province, approximately 50 km (30 mi) south-east of the city of Safi in Morocco. It is noted for the hominin fossils that have been found there since the discovery of the site in 1961. Originally thought to be Neanderthals, the specimens have since been assigned to Homo sapiens and, as reported in 2017, have been dated to roughly 300,000 years ago.
The Schöningen spears are a set of ten wooden weapons from the Palaeolithic Age that were excavated between 1994 and 1999 from the 'Spear Horizon' in the open-cast lignite mine in Schöningen, Helmstedt district, Germany. The spears are among the oldest hunting weapons discovered and were found together with animal bones and stone and bone tools. Being used by the oldest known group of hunters, they provided unique proof that early human ancestors were much closer to modern humans in both complex social structure and technical ability than thought before. The excavations took place under the management of Hartmut Thieme of the Lower Saxony State Service for Cultural Heritage (NLD).
Homo erectus is an extinct species of archaic human from the Pleistocene, with its earliest occurrence about 2 million years ago. Its specimens are among the first recognizable members of the genus Homo.
Qesem cave is a Lower Paleolithic archaeological site near the town of Kafr Qasim in Israel. Early humans were occupying the site by 400,000 until c. 200,000 years ago.
Denisova Cave is a cave in the Bashelaksky Range of the Altai Mountains in Siberia, Russia.
Homo luzonensis, also known as Callao Man and locally called "Ubag" after a mythical caveman, is an extinct, possibly pygmy, species of archaic human from the Late Pleistocene of Luzon, the Philippines. Their remains, teeth and phalanges, are known only from Callao Cave in the northern part of the island dating to before 50,000 years ago. They were initially identified as belonging to modern humans in 2010, but in 2019, after the discovery of more specimens, they were placed into a new species based on the presence of a wide range of traits similar to modern humans as well as to Australopithecus and early Homo. In 2023, a study found that the fossilized remains were 134,000 ± 14,000 years old, much older than previously thought.
Several expansions of populations of archaic humans out of Africa and throughout Eurasia took place in the course of the Lower Paleolithic, and into the beginning Middle Paleolithic, between about 2.1 million and 0.2 million years ago (Ma). These expansions are collectively known as Out of Africa I, in contrast to the expansion of Homo sapiens (anatomically modern humans) into Eurasia, which may have begun shortly after 0.2 million years ago.
Mata Menge is an early Middle Pleistocene paleoanthropological site located in the Ola Bula Formation in the So'a Basin on the island of Flores, Indonesia. Lithic artefacts and hominin remains have been discovered at the site. The level of sophistication of the Mata Menge lithic artefacts is described as being 'simple'.
The region of Southeast Asia is considered a possible place for the evidence of archaic human remains that could be found due to the pathway between Australia and mainland Southeast Asia, where the migration of multiple early humans has occurred out of Africa. One of many pieces of evidence is of the early human found in central Java of Indonesia in the late 19th century by Eugene Dubois, and later in 1937 at Sangiran site by G.H.R. van Koenigswald. These skull and fossil materials are Homo erectus, named Pithecanthropus erectus by Dubois and Meganthropus palaeojavanicus by van Koenigswald. They were dated to c. 1.88 and 1.66 Ma, as suggested by Swisher et al. by analysis of volcanic rocks.
The Untermassfeld fossil site is a palaeontological site in Thuringia, Germany. Excavated continuously since its discovery in 1978, it has produced many fossils dating to the late Early Pleistocene or Epivillafranchian geologic period, approximately 1.2 – 0.9 million years before present (BP). Claims that hominins were also present at the site have sparked a major controversy.
The peopling of the Americas began when Paleolithic hunter-gatherers (Paleo-Indians) entered North America from the North Asian Mammoth steppe via the Beringia land bridge, which had formed between northeastern Siberia and western Alaska due to the lowering of sea level during the Last Glacial Maximum. These populations expanded south of the Laurentide Ice Sheet and spread rapidly southward, occupying both North and South America by 12,000 to 14,000 years ago. The earliest populations in the Americas, before roughly 10,000 years ago, are known as Paleo-Indians. Indigenous peoples of the Americas have been linked to Siberian populations by proposed linguistic factors, the distribution of blood types, and in genetic composition as reflected by molecular data, such as DNA.
Chiquihuite Cave is a possible Upper Paleolithic archaeological site in the Astillero Mountains, Zacatecas State, in North-Central Mexico. Chiquihuite Cave may be evidence of early human presence in the Western Hemisphere up to 33,000 years ago. It is located 2,740 meters above sea level and about 1 kilometer higher than the valley below. Stones discovered here, thought to be lithic artifacts, have been dated to 26,000 years ago based on more than 50 samples of animal bone and charcoal found in association with these stones. However, there is scholarly debate over whether the stones are truly artifacts, human-made tools that are evidence of human presence, or if they were formed naturally. No evidence of human DNA or hearth have been unearthed.
Fishtail points, also known as Fell points are a style of Paleoindian projectile point widespread across much of South America at the end of the Late Pleistocene, around 13-12,000 years ago. They are thought to have been multifunctional, serving as cutting tools, as well as hafted to spears to use as hunting weapons, possibly in combination with spear throwers.
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