Evolution And History

Sex, Gender, and the Behavior of Early Homo 175

preserved in the archaeological record, paleoanthro-

pologists began to piece together a picture of the life of

early Homo.

Sex, Gender, and the

Behavior of Early Homo

When paleoanthropologists from the 1960s and 1970s

depicted the lifeways of early Homo, they concentrated

on “man the hunter,” a tough guy with a killer instinct

wielding tools on a savannah teeming with meat, while

sharp edges, effective for cutting
and scraping. Microscopic
wear patterns show that
these flakes were used
for cutting meat, reeds,
sedges, and grasses and
for cutting and scraping
wood. Small indenta-
tions on their surfaces
suggest that the leftover
cores were transformed
into choppers for break-
ing open bones, and
they may also have been
employed to defend the
user. The appearance of
these tools marks the beginning of the Lower Paleolithic,
the first part of the Old Stone Age.
The tools from Olduvai Gorge are not the oldest stone
tools known. Paleoanthropologists have dated the start of
the Lower Paleolithic to between 2.5 and 2.6 mya from
similar assemblages recently discovered in Gona, Ethiopia.
Lower Paleolithic tools have also been found in the vicin-
ity of Lake Turkana in northwestern Kenya, in southern
Ethiopia, as well as in other sites near Gona in the Afar
Triangle of Ethiopia. Before this time, tool use among early
bipeds probably consisted of heavy sticks to dig up roots
or ward off animals, unshaped stones to throw for defense
or to crack open nuts, and perhaps simple carrying devices
made of knotted plant fibers. Perishable tools are not pre-
served in the archaeological record.
The makers of these early tools were highly skilled,
consistently and efficiently producing many well-formed
sharp-edged flakes from available raw materials with
the least effort.^2 To do this the toolmaker had to have in
mind an abstract idea of the tool to be made, as well as
a specific set of steps to transform the raw material into
finished product. Furthermore, the toolmaker would have
to know which kinds of stone have the flaking properties
that would allow the transformation to take place, as well
as where such stone could be found.
Sometimes tool fabrication required the transport
of raw materials over great distances. Such planning
for the future undoubtedly was associated with natu-
ral selection favoring changes in brain structure. These
changes mark the beginning of the genus Homo. As de-
scribed in the previous chapter, Homo habilis was the
name given to the oldest members of the genus by the
Leakeys in 1959. With larger brains and the stone tools

Gona

Addis

Ababa

Gulf of

Aden

Red Sea

ETHIOPA

SOMALIA

KENYA

SUDAN YEMEN

DJIBOUTI

ERITREA

Awa

sh^

Riv

er

Afar

Triangle

The oldest stone tools, dated to between 2.5 and 2.6 mya, were

discovered in Gona, Ethiopia, by Ethiopian paleoanthropologist

Sileshi Semaw.

© 1999 David L. Brill

(^2) Ambrose, S. H. (2001). Paleolithic technology and human evolution.
Science 291, 1749.
Lower Paleolithic The first part of the Old Stone Age be-
ginning with the earliest Oldowan tools spanning from about
200,000 or 250,000 to 2.6 million years ago.
Homo habilis “Handy man.” The first fossil members of the
genus Homo appearing 2.5 million years ago, with larger brains
and smaller faces than australopithecines.