Our prehistoric human ancestors relied on deliberately modified and sharpened stone tools as early as 3.3 million years ago.

The Nyayanga excavation site in Kenya, in July 2025. Fossils and Oldowan tools have been excavated from the tan and reddish-brown sediments, which date to more than 2.6 million years old. T. W.

Oldowan stone tools made from a variety of raw materials sourced more than 6 miles away from where they were found in southwestern Kenya. The development of the Oldowan toolkit made it possible for ...

Oldowan stone tools made from a variety of raw materials sourced more than six miles away from where they were found in southwestern Kenya. In southwestern Kenya more than 2.6 million years ago, ...

Learn about a 500,000-year old hammer made from elephant bone, used by early humans in England to sharpen stone tools.

Early humans who made some of the oldest known stone tools might have traveled miles to secure the best materials for their construction, new research suggests. Archaeologists traced the origins of ...

While early human ancestors started making stone tools at least 2.6 million years ago, bone tools took much longer to appear. The earliest signs of a regular use of bone tools hadn’t shown up in the ...

Deep in a trench in Tanzania, researchers found dozens of tools crafted from animal bones some 1.5 million years old. By Carl Zimmer Humans, unlike most other species, have a knack for making tools.

Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more. Archaeologists have ...

A roughly 500,000-year-old elephant bone hammer has been discovered in Boxgrove, England. This find ...

The earliest hominins in Europe shared their environment with large mammals and elephants were some of the largest animals ...