Finely crafted rocks, flintknapped by a contemporary artisan was one of the sharpest, useful, and deadly weapons in the world. Precision made after years of practise, as if one’s life depended on it. We should be so industrious these days.
Have you ever thought about how much time was needed and devoted to making tools every day just to maintain calories? The amount of tools lost, broken and the time used up to find and recover them?
I can see the huge advantage in having small clans so that this huge demand of time and labor to survive could be shared.
Just So that more hunting could be done by a few while the others searched for and collected suitable cores to make tools all day long to supply the hunters need.
I think the calorie “profit margin” was very slim for the lone wolf verses the members of a clan.