What tools did our ancestors use to survive?

The Stone Age in Britain ended with the discovery of how to melt copper around the year 3500 BCE, and a few hundred years later people worked out that adding tin to the mixture made bronze. After this stage the advancements in tools and all the related technologies that could use metal developed rapidly, but what tools did our ancestors use to survive before metal became available?

There was only one thing hard enough to use that was also sharp enough to turn into something useful, and this was a special type of rock called flint. Most types of rock are either too brittle when struck or can’t be Knapped like flint can to create a sharp edge.

Finding this type of stone wasn’t difficult because flint is very common as part of surface rock, but how they used it was quite interesting. They used this material to replace anything that could be made using metal, like axes, spears, and working knives. They also hunted with weapons made from flint and arrowheads are one of the most common things to be found across the various Stone Age dig sites.

(modern copies of the Holmegaard bow in its original design)

The oldest bow known to man is called the Holmegaard bow, discovered in Denmark and has been dated from the year 9,000 BCE. The end of the last ice age for most of central Europe was about 10,000 BCE and it didn’t take long after this for all of the animals used to colder climates to die. This means it was unlikely that creatures such as the woolly mammoth were ever hunted using bows, and instead would have been exclusively hunted with nothing more than flint-topped spears.

Axes, knives, Spear, and all kinds of strangely shaped pieces of wood it’s possible to attach a sharp piece of flint to were used, but the problem was creating anything of length. Flint can have razor-sharp edges, but it is still a type of stone and has no flexibility when it is struck, causing it to shatter easily if it hits something hard. Swords were not possible and most of the spearheads found are rarely more than 6 inches long.

How did they find and knapp flint?

Flint is a form of sedimentary Quartz and can often be found within pieces of chalk or limestone. It appears in amounts large enough to be mined in certain areas and is often within the surface rock of other deposits. It’s easy to identify because it’s the only common type of rock that has a smooth wax-like feel when a clean surface is exposed.

(A selection of tools and weapons used by our ancestors, but the wood they were attached to rotted a long time ago)

The process of flint knapping involves hitting one piece of flint and using another to chip off tiny pieces with each hit. When this process is done carefully, it’s possible to shape the rock into something you can attach to a handle and use as a tool or weapon. The edges of flint are extremely sharp and can only be compared to a natural sharpness like obsidian.

Did they use anything other than flint?

The earliest use of pottery in the British Isles was found in the southeast of England and has been dated from the year 4000 BCE, which was only 500 years from the start of the Bronze Age. Humans have been around for close to 300,000 years, which means for the majority of our time on this planet, we didn’t know how to make something that can store water.

It has only been over the last 50,000 years that we evolved into a stage that can be recognized as anatomically the same as humans today, and it was during this time that our brains grew and we became more intelligent.

(A picture of possibly the oldest surviving evidence of rope making, dated to be at least 40,000 years old)

The only option for storing water would have been sowing leather into water skins, though all of these have long since rotted giving us no indication as to how they were made. The most likely method would have been to use the sinew fibers from the legs of deer or another similar animal as thread, and a filed-down bone for a needle.

Rope and cordage would have been available to them, but for how long is known. The first evidence of someone making string or rope is from a Neanderthal dig site in France, where several pieces of bark fiber were found twisted together and have been dated to be 45,000 years old. Rope only became common from about 25,000 BCE and numerous fragments have been found from this date onwards, but they are rare due to how easily they rot if not kept in the right conditions.

Anyone living in the Stone Age would be almost guaranteed to have clothes made of leather because even though they could make basic ropes, spinning anything into a fabric was a long way off. The oldest confirmed piece of woven fabric is called the Tarkhan dress and was made around 5,000 BCE in Egypt, with the technology of woven fabrics reaching the British Isles over 1,000 years later.

(A selection of flint arrowheads)

Their clothes would have been pieces of leather cut into shape using flint tools and then sown up using sinew fibers and bone needles. There are very few pieces of clothing remaining from anyone living in the Stone Age because of decomposition, but some of the best examples are below.