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What Species May Have Been the First to Use Crude Tools?

Tool use is not unique to human beings, with chimpanzees being known to use twigs to root out grubs and elephants to swat flies with branches. Evidence of animal tool use dates back hundreds of millions of years, perhaps originating with sea scorpions, according to an April 2009 article for "National Geographic News." The more sophisticated tools used by our human ancestors known as hominids are first known to have been used over three million years ago by a small, bipedal chimp-like species named Australopithecus afarensis, most famous for the fossil known as "Lucy".

Out of the Sea
- The earliest evidence of animals using objects as tools comes not from apes but from sea scorpions, ancient horseshoe-crab-like marine creatures thought to be among the first animals to venture out of the oceans. Research by James Whitey Hagadorn of Amherst College suggests the creatures used the shells of other animals to trap moist air around their gills, helping them to crawl on dry land 500 million years ago.
First Butchers
- Marks left on the fossilized bones of mammals discovered near the Afar region of Ethiopia by palaeontologist Shannon McPheron of the Max Plank Institute indicate that the early hominid Australopithecus afarensis used sharp stones to carve meat from carcasses 3.4 million years ago. The species had a small brain, however, and McPheron told "Discovery News" in a 2010 article that evidence of shaping of the tools had not been found.
Choppers
- The oldest stone tools that have been discovered are 2.5 million years old and belonged to Homo habilis, an early hominid thought to have used the tools to scavenge remains left by fiercer predators, according to the BBC's "Prehistoric Life" series. Known as "Oldowan" tools, they are identified by "choppers," stones with flakes knocked from the tip by another stone to form a sharpened edge. Oldowan tools were used until 1.2 million years ago, to be replaced by teardrop-shaped "Acheulean" hand axes.
Cutting Edge
- Also known as "Handy Man," H. habilis had relatively small teeth and jaws, and neither Handy Man nor Lucy could bring down large prey such as antelope or wildebeest. The BBC notes that, unlike chimpanzees, however, H. habilus was capable of understanding how precisely to strike two stones together to sharpen an edge. The new technology allowed H. habilus to crack open bones and gain access to highly nutritious bone marrow, helping to spur the evolution of large, intelligent brains.

Artifacts