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

"Researchers have argued for decades that while hominins in Africa and western Europe demonstrated significant technological ...

The latest discoveries in Central China's Henan province are filling critical gaps in understanding East Asia's role in human ...

A newly excavated archaeological site in central China is reshaping long-held assumptions about early hominin behavior in ...

WASHINGTON (Nov. 4, 2025)--Imagine early humans meticulously crafting stone tools for nearly 300,000 years, all while contending with recurring wildfires, droughts, and dramatic environmental shifts.

OUR prehistoric human ancestors relied on deliberately modified and sharpened stone tools as early as 3.3 million years ago. The selection of rock type depended on how easily the material could be ...

Archaeologists in central China have uncovered evidence that early humans were far more inventive than long assumed. Excavations at the Xigou site reveal advanced stone tools, including the earliest ...

Archaeologists have found the oldest known evidence of hafted tools in East Asia, and they challenge a previously held ...

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, ...

ANTH copy has bookplate: Smithsonian Institution Libraries, Gift from the Margery Masinter Foundation Endowment for Illustrated Books. "In Stone Tools in Human Evolution, John J. Shea argues that over ...

We humans are nothing if not inventive. Our innovations have come to underpin virtually every facet of daily life—from what we eat to how we communicate. This ingenuity is intrinsically linked to both ...