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62-462: Tools described as cleavers have been in use since the Acheulean period. "Cleaver" was commonly spelled clever in the late 17th century. In contrast to other kitchen knives , the cleaver has an especially tough edge meant to withstand repeated blows directly into thick meat, dense cartilage, bone, and the cutting board below. This resilience is accomplished by using a softer, tougher steel and

124-414: A "place of origin" and that they foraged outward from this home base, returning with high-quality food to share and to be processed. Over the course of the last 30 years, a variety of competing theories about how foraging occurred have been proposed, each one implying certain kinds of social strategy. The available evidence from the distribution of tools and remains is not enough to decide which theories are

186-557: A "portable culture". At the time, this was considered very significant, as portability supported the conclusion that the Oldowan tool-makers were capable of planning for future needs, by creating the tools in a location which was distant from their use. The Swartkrans site is a cave filled with layered fossil-bearing limestone deposits. Oldowan is found in Member 1 Lower Bank at 2.2-1.8 Ma in association with Paranthropus robustus and

248-406: A branch was separated, it could be scraped clean with a scraper, or hollowed with pointed tools. Such uses are attested by characteristic microscopic alterations of edges used to scrape wood. Oldowan tools could also have been used for preparing hides. Hides must be cut by slicing, piercing and scraping them clean of residues. Flakes are most suitable for this purpose. Lawrence Keeley , following in

310-559: A higher prevalence of flake retouch. Similar tools had already been found in various locations in Europe and Asia for some time, where they were called Chellean and Abbevillian . The oldest tool sites are in the East African Rift system, on the sediments of ancient streams and lakes. This is consistent with what we surmise of the evolution of man . Abbé Breuil was the first recognized archaeologist to go on record to assert

372-419: A million years, and would fall into the pre-human period, associated with the direct australopithecine ancestors of genus Homo . It is not clear whether the tools of such a "Lomekwian industry" bear any relation to the Oldowan industry. There are articles that address how some Oldowan tools may have been found as stones with naturally occurring shapes that dictate their ideal use, or formed as such. To form

434-734: A report of Oldowan artefacts in a secure dating context of 1.9 to 2.4 Ma from Ain Boucherit (Ain Hanech) in Setif . Kanjera South, part of the Kanjera site complex, and Nyayanga are located on the Homa Peninsula . Kanjera South is estimated to around 2 Ma. while Nyayanga is estimated to 2.9 Ma. One of the significant excavations, in the area, is Leakey's expedition in 1932-35. In 1995, Oldowan and Plio-Pleistocene faunal remains surfaced from

496-456: A scientific designation. In the late 20th century, discovery of the discrepancies in date caused a crisis of definition. Because Abbevillian did not necessarily precede Acheulean and both traditions had flakes and bifaces, it became difficult to differentiate the two. It was in this spirit that many artifacts formerly considered Abbevillian were labeled Acheulean. In consideration of the difficulty, some preferred to name both phases Acheulean. When

558-467: A scraper to carry prepared ingredients to the bowls or the wok. For butchering tasks and to prepare boned meats, there is a heavier Chinese "cleaver", used in similar fashion to the Western one. In Japanese cutlery , the main cleaver used is the light-duty deba bōchō , primarily for cutting the head off fish. Cleaver (tool) In archaeology , a cleaver is a type of biface stone tool of

620-422: A single fossil attributed to Homo . The Member I assemblage also includes a shaft of pointed bone polished at the pointed end. Member I contained a high percentage of primate remains compared to other animal remains, which did not fit the hypothesis that H. habilis or P. robustus lived in the cave. C. K. Brain conducted a more detailed study and discovered the cave had been the abode of leopards, who preyed on

682-434: A small hole, at the top front corner, for hanging them on a wall. A butcher does not typically lay them flat, as the blade may dull or get damaged. Cleavers are primarily used for cutting through thin or soft bones and sinew. With a chicken, for example, it can be used to chop through the bird's thin bones or to separate ribs. Cleavers can also be used in preparation of hard vegetables and other foods, such as squash , where

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744-410: A thicker blade, because a harder steel or thinner blade might fracture or buckle under hard use. In use, it is swung like a meat tenderizer or hammer – the knife's design relies on sheer momentum to cut efficiently; to chop straight through rather than slicing in a sawing motion. Part of the momentum derives from how hard the user swings the cleaver, and the other part from how heavy

806-536: A thin slicing blade runs the risk of shattering. Cleavers are not used for cutting through solid, thick and hard bones – instead a bone saw , either manual or powered, is used. Cleavers occur with some frequency in traditional Chinese thought. A story from the Zhuangzi on the proper use of a cleaver tells of a butcher who effortlessly cut ox carcasses apart, without ever needing to sharpen his cleaver. When asked how he did so, he replied that he did not cut through

868-559: Is a currently obsolescent name for a tool tradition that is increasingly coming to be called Oldowan. The label Abbevillian prevailed until the Leakey family discovered older (yet similar) artifacts at Olduvai Gorge and promoted the African origin of man. Oldowan soon replaced Abbevillian in describing African and Asian lithics. The term Abbevillian is still used but is now restricted to Europe. The label, however, continues to lose popularity as

930-545: Is also evidence that some species of Paranthropus utilized stone tools. There is presently no evidence to show that Oldowan tools were the sole creation of members of the Homo line or that the ability to produce them was a special characteristic of only our ancestors. Research on tool use by modern wild chimpanzees in West Africa shows there is an operational sequence when chimpanzees use lithic implements to crack nuts. In

992-420: Is known from Swartkrans , where a bone shaft with a polished point was discovered in Member (layer) I, dated 1.8–1.5 Ma. The Osteodontokeratic industry , the "bone-tooth-horn" industry hypothesized by Raymond Dart, is less certain. Mary Leakey classified the Oldowan tools as Heavy Duty, Light Duty, Utilized Pieces and Debitage, or waste. Heavy-duty tools are mainly cores. A chopper has an edge on one side. It

1054-452: Is not always clear which is the flake. Later tool-makers clearly identified and reworked flakes. Complaints that artifacts could not be distinguished from naturally fractured stone have helped spark careful studies of Oldowan techniques. These techniques have now been duplicated many times by archaeologists and other knappers, making misidentification of archaeological finds less likely. Use of bone tools by hominins also producing Oldowan tools

1116-511: Is unclear from the archaeological record when the production of Oldowan technologies ended. Other tool-making traditions seem to have supplanted Oldowan technologies by 0.25 Ma. The discovery of stone tools that predate the Oldowan, dated to as early as 3.3 Ma, at the Lomekwi site in Kenya, was announced in 2015. This age pre-dates the current estimates for the age of the genus Homo by half

1178-475: Is unclear if it was used for heavy digging or not. More experiments were shown that the cleaver in Africa was more used as a butchering instrument. They were also helpful in skinning large game, and breaking bones. In Africa, cleavers first appeared from the late Oldowan to the Acheulean . In Peninj on the western shore of Lake Notron, cleavers constitute 16% of all findings. One type of cleaver made in Africa

1240-656: Is unifacial if the edge was created by flaking on one face of the core, or bifacial if on two. Discoid tools are roughly circular with a peripheral edge. Polyhedral tools are edged in the shape of a polyhedron. In addition there are spheroidal hammer stones. Light-duty tools are mainly flakes. There are scrapers , awls (with points for boring) and burins (with points for engraving). Some of these functions belong also to heavy-duty tools. For example, there are heavy-duty scrapers. Utilized pieces are tools that began with one purpose in mind but were utilized opportunistically. Because of their use and variation, opportunities lead to

1302-486: The Lower Palaeolithic . Cleavers resemble hand axes in that they are large and oblong or U-shaped tools meant to be held in the hand. But, unlike hand axes, they have a wide, straight cutting edge running at right angles to the axis of the tool. Acheulean cleavers resemble handaxes but with the pointed end truncated away. Flake cleavers have a cutting edge created by a tranchet flake being struck from

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1364-589: The Homa Peninsula in Kenya and are dated to ~2.9 Ma. The Oldowan tools were associated with Paranthropus teeth and two butchered hippo skeletons. Early Oldowan tools are also known from Gona in Ethiopia (near the Awash River ), and are dated to about 2.6 Ma. The use of tools by apes including chimpanzees and orangutans can be used to argue in favour of tool-use as an ancestral feature of

1426-524: The Leakey family, primarily Mary Leakey , but also her husband Louis and their son, Richard . Mary Leakey organized a typology of Early Pleistocene stone tools, which developed Oldowan tools into three chronological variants, A, B and C. Developed Oldowan B is of particular interest due to changes in morphology that appear to have been driven mostly by the short term availability of a chert resource from 1.65 to 1.53 Ma. The flaking properties of this new resource resulted in considerably more core reduction and

1488-519: The artifacts at sites EG10 and EG12 were composed of trachyte ) indicating a selectivity in the quality of stone used. Recent excavations have yielded tools in association with cut-marked bones, indicating that Oldowan were used in meat-processing or -acquiring activities. The second oldest known Oldowan tool site comes from the Shungura formation of the Omo River basin. This formation documents

1550-602: The artifacts found are classified as Oldowan or KBS Oldowan dated from 1.9–1.7 Ma, Karari (or "advanced Oldowan") dated to 1.6–1.4 Ma, and some early Acheulean at the end of the Karari. Over 200 hominins have been found, including Australopithecus and Homo . In the Nachukui site in West Turkana, around 500 stone tools were found at a site named Naiyena Engol 2, or NY2. The assemblage at NY2 dates back to 1.8–1.7 Ma, around

1612-562: The best meat, and the hominins had only scavenged. The counter view is that while hunting many large animals would be beyond the reach of an individual human, groups could bring down larger game, as pack hunting animals are capable of doing. Moreover, since many animals both hunt and scavenge, it is possible that hominins hunted smaller animals, but were not above driving carnivores from larger kills, as they probably were driven from kills themselves from time to time. A complete catalog of Oldowan sites would be too extensive for listing here. Some of

1674-562: The better-known sites include the following: Sites in the Gona river system in the Hadar region of the Afar triangle , excavated by Helene Roche, J. W. Harris and Sileshi Semaw, yielded some of the oldest known Oldowan assemblages, dating to about 2.6 million years ago. Raw material analysis done by Semaw showed that some assemblages in this region are biased towards a certain material (e.g.: 70% of

1736-605: The bones, but rather in the space between the bones. In explaining his ideal of junzi , Kǒng Fūzǐ remarked "Why use an ox-cleaver to carve a chicken?" on the futility of the common people seeking to emulate noblemen. The Chinese chef's knife is frequently incorrectly referred to as a "cleaver", due its similar rectangular shape. However Chinese chef’s knives are much thinner in cross-section and are intended more as general-purpose kitchen knives, and mostly used to slice boneless meats, chop, slice, dice, or mince vegetables, and to flatten garlic bulbs or ginger; while also serving as

1798-575: The central rift of Kenya since the 1970s with excavations by John Gowlett for his PhD. More recently, Oldowan technology has also been discovered in Kilombe Caldera in an unusual high altitude setting. The stone tools are associated with fossils and have been dated to 1.8 Ma, with Acheulian stone tools occurring in overlying levels. The Oldowan industry is named after discoveries made in the Olduvai Gorge of Tanzania in east Africa by

1860-491: The cleaver is. Because of this, the edge of a meat cleaver does not need to be particularly sharp – in fact, a knife-sharp edge on a cleaver is undesirable. The grind for a meat cleaver, at approximately 25°, is much blunter than for other kitchen knives. The tough metal and thick blade of a cleaver also make it a suitable tool for crushing with the side of the blade, whereas some hard, thin slicing knives could crack under such repeated stress. Some cleavers have

1922-423: The course of nut cracking, sometimes they will create unintentional flakes. Although the morphology of the chimpanzees' hammer is different from the Oldowan hammer, chimpanzees' ability to use stone tools indicates that the earliest lithic industries were probably not produced by only one kind of hominin species. Findings from fossil evidence and experimental replication of stone-tool users and manufacturers suggest

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1984-518: The desired end product that is now known as the flake-cleaver. There are collections of these flakes in the Institute of Human Paleontology in Paris. They include larger hand axes and smaller hand axes ranging from 6–26 cm, and large flake cleavers that were commonly found in this area. Another way to make the tools was known as the "Victoria West" technique, termed by Goodwin in 1934. This process

2046-619: The edges by removing very small chips so as to straighten and sharpen the edge. Typically but not necessarily the reworking is accomplished by pressure flaking. While the exact hominid is up for debate, it is believed that some of the first Oldowan makers did fall within the Homo line. However, fossil evidence showed evolutionary features for human precision grip capabilities in Australopithecines. This leads to current anthropological thinking in which Oldowan tools were made by late Australopithecus and early Homo . Homo habilis

2108-498: The existence of Oldowan tools. While his description was for "Chello- Abbevillean " tools, and post-dated Leakey's finds at Olduvai Gorge by at least ten years, his descriptions nonetheless represented the scholarly acceptance of this technology as legitimate. These findings were cited as being from the location of the Vaal River , at Vereeniging , and Breuil noted the distinct absence of a significant number of cores, suggesting

2170-533: The final product. It is not known for sure which hominin species created and used Oldowan tools. Its emergence is often associated with the species Australopithecus garhi and its flourishing with early species of Homo such as H. habilis and H. ergaster . Early Homo erectus appears to inherit Oldowan technology and refines it into the Acheulean industry beginning 1.7 million years ago. The oldest known Oldowan tools have been found at Nyayanga on

2232-413: The footsteps of Sergei Semenov, conducted microscopic studies (with a high-powered optical microscope) on the edges of tools manufactured de novo and used for the originally speculative purposes described above. He found that the marks were characteristic of the use and matched marks on prehistoric tools. Studies of the cut marks on bones using an electron microscope produce a similar result. Abbevillian

2294-492: The frequent modification of tools for either labor or forms of signaling has been proposed as a cause for the different shapes of similar tools. Oldowan tools were probably used for many purposes, which have been discovered from observation of modern apes and hunter-gatherers. Nuts and bones are cracked by hitting them with hammer stones on a stone used as an anvil. Battered and pitted stones testify to this possible use. Heavy-duty tools could be used as axes for woodworking. Once

2356-404: The general shape of an Oldowan tool, a roughly spherical hammerstone is struck on the edge, or striking platform , of a suitable core rock to produce a conchoidal fracture with sharp edges useful for various purposes. The process is often called lithic reduction . The chip removed by the blow is the flake . Some of these flakes can be used as tools, provided the aforementioned conditions for

2418-510: The hominin family. Tools made from bone, wood, or other organic materials were therefore in all probability used before the Oldowan. Oldowan stone tools are simply the oldest recognisable tools which have been preserved in the archaeological record. There is a flourishing of Oldowan tools in eastern Africa, spreading to southern Africa, between 2.4 and 1.7 Ma. At 1.7 Ma., the first Acheulean tools appear even as Oldowan assemblages continue to be produced. Both technologies are occasionally found in

2480-680: The hominins, but archaeologists believe that they would be the strongest candidates for tool manufacture. There are no hominins in those layers, but the same layers elsewhere in the Omo valley contain Paranthropus and early Homo fossils. Paranthropus occurs in the preceding layers. In the last layer at 1.4 million years ago is only Homo erectus . Along the Nile River, within the 100-foot terrace, evidence of Chellean or Oldowan cultures has been found. In November 2018 Science published

2542-434: The huge expanse of time and the multiplicity of species associated with possible Oldowan tools, it is difficult to be more precise than this, since it is almost certain that different social groupings were used at different times and in different places. There is also the question of what mix of hunting, gathering and scavenging the tool users employed. Early models focused on the tool users as hunters. The animals butchered by

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2604-514: The initial stone are met before modification. Below the point of impact on the core is a characteristic bulb with fine fissures on the fracture surface. The flake evidences ripple marks. The materials of the tools were for the most part quartz , quartzite , basalt , or obsidian , and later flint and chert . Any rock that can hold an edge will do. The main source of these rocks is river cobbles, which provide both hammer stones and striking platforms. The earliest tools were simply split cobbles. It

2666-449: The large number of bones at many sites, too large to be the work of one individual, and all of the scatter patterns implying many different individuals. Since modern primates in Africa have fluid boundaries between groups, as individuals enter, become the focus of bands, and others leave, it is also probable that the tools we find are the result of many overlapping groups working the same territories, and perhaps competing over them. Because of

2728-400: The most probable. However, three main groups of theories predominate. Each group of models implies different grouping and social strategies, from the relative altruism of central base models to the relatively disjointed search models. (See also central foraging theory and Lewis Binford .) Hominins probably lived in social groups that had contact with others. This conclusion is supported by

2790-421: The peak of the Oldowan period. At the site, freehand flaking was observed to be the most common type of technique for making these tools. A common theme among sites in West Turkana is the high percentage of small flake tools gathered in the assemblages. However, NY2 seems to lack many of these tools, indicating a low productivity rate of flakes. Acheulian stone tools have been known about at Kilombe Main site in

2852-429: The presence of physical characteristics of hand morphology for precise stone tool making. The makers of Oldowan tools were mainly right-handed. " Handedness " ( lateralization ) had thus already evolved, though it is not clear how related to modern lateralization it was, since other animals show handedness as well. In the mid-1970s, Glynn Isaac touched off a debate by proposing that human ancestors of this period had

2914-417: The primary surface. Cleavers, found in many Acheulean assemblages such as Africa, were similar in size and manner of hand axes. The differences between a hand axe and a cleaver is that a hand axe has a more pointed tip, while a cleaver will have a more transverse "bit" that consists of an untrimmed portion of the edge oriented perpendicular to the long axis of the tool. These were used in lithic technology. It

2976-455: The problematic nature of assuming use from stone artefacts. An example is Isaac et al.'s tri-modal categories of "Flaked Pieces" (cores/choppers), "Detached Pieces" (flakes and fragments), "Pounded Pieces" (cobbles utilized as hammerstones, etc.) and "Unmodified Pieces" (manuports, stones transported to sites). Oldowan tools are sometimes called "pebble tools", so named because the blanks chosen for their production already resemble, in pebble form,

3038-496: The removal of large flakes. Cleavers can also be found made from different raw materials such as flint or limestone, but these are not nearly so common. There is also a chronological gap between the two lithic assemblages of the early core and flake techniques to the later Acheulian. Central France shows that both of these existed. One of the cleavers found in Central France was a 20 cm long cleaver. This particular one

3100-886: The same areas, dating to the same time periods. This realisation required a rethinking of old cultural sequences in which the more "advanced" Acheulean was supposed to have succeeded the Oldowan. The different traditions may have been used by different species of hominins living in the same area, or multiple techniques may have been used by an individual species in response to different circumstances. Sometime before 1.8 Ma Homo erectus had spread outside of Africa, reaching as far east as Java by 1.8 Ma and in Northern China by 1.66 Ma. In these newly colonised areas, no Acheulean assemblages have been found. In China, only "Mode 1" Oldowan assemblages were produced, while in Indonesia stone tools from this age are unknown. By 1.8 Ma early Homo

3162-626: The sediments of the Plio-Pleistocene and provides a record of the hominins that lived there. Lithic assemblages have been classified as Oldowan in members E and F in the lower Omo basin. Although there have been lithic assemblages found in multiple sites in these areas, only the Omo sites 57 and 123 in member F are accepted as hominin lithic remains. The assemblages at Omo sites 71 and 84 in member E do not show evidence of hominin modification and are therefore classified as natural assemblages. The tools are never found in direct association with

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3224-411: The site. and in 2015 excavations led to the discovery of the earliest Oldowan stone tool technology in association with Paranthropus fossils and butchered hippo remains from Nyayanga. The numerous Koobi Fora sites on the east side of Lake Turkana are now part of Sibiloi National Park . Sites were initially excavated by Richard Leakey, Meave Leakey , Jack Harris, Glynn Isaac and others. Currently

3286-592: The term Mode 1 tools to designate pebble tool industries (including Oldowan), with Mode 2 designating bifacially worked tools (including Acheulean handaxes), Mode 3 designating prepared-core tools, and so forth. Classification of Oldowan tools is still somewhat contentious. Mary Leakey was the first to create a system to classify Oldowan assemblages , and built her system based on prescribed use. The system included choppers , scrapers , and pounders. However, more recent classifications of Oldowan assemblages have been made that focus primarily on manufacture due to

3348-491: The tools include waterbuck , hartebeest , springbok , pig and zebra . However, the disposition of the bones allows some question about hominin methods of obtaining meat. That they were omnivores is unquestioned, as the digging implement and the probable use of hammer stones to smash nuts indicate. Lewis Binford first noticed that the bones at Olduvai contained a disproportionately high incidence of extremities, which are low in food substance. He concluded other predators had taken

3410-446: The topic of Abbevillian came up, it was simply put down as a phase of Acheulean. Whatever was from Africa was Oldowan, and whatever from Europe, Acheulean. The solution to the definition problem is to define the types in terms of complexity. Simply struck tools are Oldowan. Retouched, or reworked tools are Acheulean. Retouching is a second working of the artifact. The manufacturer first creates an Oldowan tool. Then he reworks or retouches

3472-478: Was a widespread stone tool archaeological industry (style) in prehistory . These early tools were simple, usually made by chipping one, or a few, flakes off a stone using another stone. Oldowan tools were used during the Lower Paleolithic period, 2.9 million years ago up until at least 1.7 million years ago (Ma), by ancient Hominins (early humans) across much of Africa. This technological industry

3534-606: Was followed by the more sophisticated Acheulean industry (two sites associated with Homo erectus at Gona in the Afar Region of Ethiopia dating from 1.5 and 1.26 million years ago have both Oldowan and Acheulean tools ). The term Oldowan is taken from the site of Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania , where the first Oldowan stone tools were discovered by the archaeologist Louis Leakey in the 1930s. However, some contemporary archaeologists and palaeoanthropologists prefer to use

3596-604: Was formed by the Tavelbala Tachengit technique. This procedure was used in the north-west Sahara desert. It was done by detachment of large flakes for biface manufacture. This was a significant technological advance because the cleavers normally produced were made on large flakes, which was impossible to produce with using the nodular flint of the size used on the European continent. Once the large flakes were detached, there were only minor modifications needed to get

3658-562: Was found in the Mazieres/ Cresuse Valley, and looks slightly different from the cleavers which were found in Africa based solely on the technique used at this time period. This tool type is known from various lower Paleolithic sites across western Asia and Indian subcontinent. There are a few examples found in China too. Oldowan Fertile Crescent : Europe : Africa : Siberia : The Oldowan (or Mode I )

3720-416: Was named "skillful" because it was considered the earliest tool-using human ancestor. Indeed, the genus Homo was in origin intended to separate tool-using species from their tool-less predecessors, hence the name of Australopithecus garhi , garhi meaning "surprise", a tool-using Australopithecine discovered in 1996 and described as the "missing link" between the genera Australopithecus and Homo . There

3782-607: Was present in Europe, as shown by the discovery of fossil remains and Oldowan tools in Dmanisi , Georgia. Remains of their activities have also been excavated in Spain at sites in the Guadix-Baza basin and near Atapuerca . Most early European sites yield "Mode 1" or Oldowan assemblages. The earliest Acheulean sites in Europe only appear around 0.5 Ma. In addition, the Acheulean tradition does not seem to spread to Eastern Asia. It

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3844-619: Was used in the Middle Pleistocene of South Africa, and was the chosen method of producing large flakes that was used to create cleavers. This production date was between 285 k.A BP to 510 k.a. BP. Outside Africa where cleavers were most abundant, cleavers have appeared in Southwestern Europe. In these regions, they are more abundant than hand axes where raw material occurs in the form of large quartzite cobbles that do not need extensive decortication and shaping prior to

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