The First Invention
The first invention was made 2.6 million years ago. It was made by the homo habilis (stone tool makers) that took stone cores and carved those cores to make them sharp and attach them to a stick. This created the stone tools. It was used for hunting and arts.
About 2.6 million years ago, there weren’t that many ways to get food besides hunting. These people back then didn’t have a restaurant to go to, so hunting was one of the most important things to survive among the tribes. And back then there were no iron knives, guns, or anything that could help people to hunt for food except wooden spears. But then, one of the earliest races of man (the homo habilis) made the first greatest invention for mankind. It was the Stone tools.
The stone tools were created when the tribes that were in the Stone Age started to realize that they had been getting less food due to the current tools that they had. So they tried different ways to find and make tools for hunting animals. Then they found a type of stone called “stone cores''. They had made the stone tools by taking The stone cores and they chip the stone flakes off other stone cores or even sticks and rocks, making them sharpen edges. This was used to make stone tools like daggers and later on spears, axes and much more. They also used hammerstones to break apart nuts, seeds and bones and to grind clay into pigment. Many tribes used these weapons to protect themselves from other tribes and dangerous animals. They also used these tools for art. Fun fact, the oldest known art from the Stone Age was found in parts of Europe, the near east, Asia and Africa. They used the stone cores to carve into other stones to draw and make art. Even if you look at it today, you can see that they carved their tools to draw objects, animals and other tribes! They also carved drawings and writings inside of caves, mountains and rocks.
So, why are stone tools very important? It is because this gives us evidence about the skills and different kinds of innovations that were within these toolmakers.
Later on, these toolmakers started to make more hunting weapons. Such as arrowheads, spears, and other weapons that could pierce through most of the animal skins. So this was the beginning of the Stone Age. It’s also important because, without these stone tool makers, we would not be here in the world of technology if they hadn’t found the stone cores. Just imagine what the world would have been like today without these great stone tool creators! We might not have had other greater tools such as iron tools, bronze tools, and we might have gone extinct by hunger. we would not have phones, televisions, personal computers and much more if homo habilis had not discovered the stone tools.
Did you know, the Stone Age lasted up to over three million years! And it ended between 8700 BC and 2000 BC. After this was the start of the Bronze Age where they discovered the Bronze. With the help of stone tools, it was easier for homo habilis to extract meat and animal skin and fur out of the hunted animal from the huge help from the stone tools.
The very existence of stone tools was first discovered by us (homo sapiens) in Tanzania in the year 1930. The person who found out about these stone tools was archaeologist Louis Leakey. The archaeologists realized most of the toolmakers were right handed which made experts believe that handedness evolved early through humanity's history. This means that humans mostly used their hands to hunt or do many types of tasks. If they didn’t use their hands to do any types of tasks, we would currently be walking on all of our four limbs. Imagine how hard it would be if that happened. In conclusion, the making of the stone tools was the first invention and the first biggest step that humans took in evolution. And without this, we might not even be here on this very Earth.
References
Author biography
Ahmed Ryaan Nishah, born in 2008 in Male’, Maldives, is a student from the 7th grade and a student of Professor Ugail’s Leaders of Tomorrow programme. Ryaan is fascinated by electronics and chemistry. He has enjoyed the topic he was given in the History of Humanity project on the first invention. In his spare time, he likes to experiment a lot on how electronics work with the help of his father. He always looks into how an old electric gadget can be turned into a useful item that can help others. He also likes to do chemistry experiments and see how to make many liquids or objects with the help of chemicals.
Cite this article as:
Ahmed Ryaan, The First Invention, theCircle Composition, Volume 1, (2021). https://thecirclecomposition.org/the-first-invention/