Stone tool
A tool made from stone, often by flaking or grinding, used by humans and other hominins for cutting, scraping, pounding, or similar tasks.
Knapping: The deliberate shaping of stone by striking or pressing it to detach flakes. Knapping produces the sharp edges characteristic of many stone tools.
Lomekwian: A stone-tool technology represented at Lomekwi 3 in Kenya, dating to about 3.3 million years ago. Its artifacts are among the oldest known stone tools.
Conchoidal fracture: A curved, shell-like fracture that can occur when brittle materials such as flint are struck. This fracture lets knappers detach flakes with controllable sharp edges.
Hand axe: A large bifacial stone tool, commonly shaped into a pointed or oval form. Handaxes could cut, butcher, and process materials through much of the Lower Paleolithic.
Oldowan animal butchery: The cutting and carcass-processing activities associated with early Oldowan stone tools. Cut marks and artifacts provide evidence of how early hominins accessed animal resources.
Lithic flake: A fragment detached from a stone core during toolmaking, often retaining a sharp cutting edge. Flakes could serve directly as tools or be shaped into more specialized forms.
Oldowan: An early stone-tool industry characterized by simple cores, flakes, and other percussion-produced artifacts. Oldowan assemblages document widespread early stone-tool production.
Hard-hammer percussion: Stoneworking by striking a core with a hard hammerstone to detach flakes. It is a direct method for producing flakes and shaping cores.
Scraper (archaeology): A stone tool with a worked edge suited to scraping materials such as hides or wood. Scrapers illustrate how edge shape relates to a specific working motion.
Hominin diet: The foods consumed by extinct human relatives and ancestors, reconstructed from fossils and archaeological evidence. Stone tools offer evidence for cutting, processing, and accessing varied foods.