[SunkenCiv]

The carpet of lithics -- a view across a valley in the Messak landscape. Image: Foley/Mirazón Lahr

[Gen.Blather]

Anthropologists have determined from cave paintings that early hominids died off because they reached the period of “peak stone.” After peak stone the material was increasingly more expensive and only the rich 1% had it. Attempts to switch to the solar powered wood technology were continuously thwarted be the 1% who pointed out that wood spears required more stone use than stone ax heads by themselves. Despite daily warnings by the stoners that stone use was unsustainable and that wood technology required subsidies to become competitive nobody listened. The last alive were the 1% who ate the last stoners and then died surrounded by their incredible wealth.

[Rebelbase]

Stone age swap meet?

[TXnMA]

Excellent article -- Thanks!!

That's a bit mind-blowing to a lithicist from the New World...

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BTW, there are several other interesting lithics aricles linked at the bottom of the posted page -- including

"oldest-butchery-tools-drove-human-evolution"

I had a good chuckle at the knapping demo movie, where the Brit post-doc in psychology points out his planned striking platform -- and then hits 'way to his left of it, and right on the edge. (Of course, the thin edge just crumbles and produces nothing but shattered debris...)

Instead of saying something meaningful (like "Ugh!") and taking another shot, he tries to bluff his way through by picking up a thumbnail-sized shard, and pontificating on it -- as if that was what he intended to make! LOL!!

But, he redeems himself by doing it right on the second shot.

Been there -- done that! <GRIN>.

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Again, thanks for a most interesting post!

[JoeFromSidney]

At Flint Ridge, in Ohio, there is an outcropping of flint where Indians used to make their flint tools. It was designated as a "peace" area. No fighting among different tribes as they worked there. As they knapped their flint tools, the debris was left behind. When I was there, a few years ago, you could buy a bucket of flint chips for a few bucks, to make your own knives or arrowheads or whatever. Haven't been back in a while, so I don't know what it's like now.

Quite a few years ago there was an article in the journal TECHNOLOGICAL FORECASTING AND SOCIAL CHANGE that traced improvements in flint tools over the ages. The measure of improvement was centimeters of cutting edge per kilogram of flint consumed in the manufacture of the tools. Steady progress over a period of several hundred thousand years. Our ancestors weren't stupid.