Written By: Natalie Yeung

What is this you have in your hand? Or what is currently beneath your fingertips? Be it a mobile phone, a MacBook or another form of modern technological tool, the beginning of humanity’s technological development dates back to aeons ago–not even in a figurative sense. Yet, first, we must travel back to the first stage of human history, our “one great leap of mankind”.

The Paleolithic Age

The Paleolithic Age (approximately 2.5 million years ago), also known as the earlier stage of the Stone Age, was a groundbreaking chapter documenting the transformational rebirth of humankind. After all, we all had to start somewhere.

Our ancestors’ tools in the Paleolithic Age were in many ways distinct from the technological advancement that followed later in the Mesolithic and Neolithic Ages. In the early Paleolithic Age, we began developing what is known as the Oldowan toolkit, a “primitive of primitive” form of human-made tools (Rotheimer). As illustrated by the image, what appears to be mere lumps of rock were considered relatively advanced technological objects in those times. Paleolithic stone tools were created by the removal of flakes of stone from large pieces of rock known as stone cores. The flakes themselves were often used for other purposes simultaneously. Yet, these tools were modern anthropological discoveries to the inhabitants of the Paleolithic age (Britannica).

Afterwards, more precise tools began to emerge known as microliths, allowing us to glimpse into our gradual advancement towards more effective hunting and foraging practices (Hardy). At this point, the biological development of humanity alone has grown quite lucid; these tools serve as testimonies of humanity’s transitioning into a period of ostensible brain development and the development of cognitive abilities. As brain sizes grew and as we began to better craft the natural resources around us into more nuanced tools, the evolution of communities also began to arise, where Paleolithic inhabitants started to grasp the concept of collaborative subsistence and survival; stone tool production could be seen as the “first specialised profession in history” (The Paleolithic Age: Tools & Characteristics Video).

The birth of relatively complex tool development also serves as a testimony to the emergence of tool-makers–or what could be known as “inventors”–who supported the needs of providers–or hunters–in the community. The division of labour began to appear in the Paleolithic Age and is embodied in the idea of tool development as a more complex work that smaller organisations within Paleolithic communities specialised in.

The Mesolithic Age

Following the Paleolithic Age, humanity stepped into a new era known as the Mesolithic Age (approximately 9,000 to 6,000 years ago).

Microlithic tools began to evolve from their more crude forms to more sophisticated forms. While the Paleolithic tools used were predominantly multi-purpose, the stone tools of the Mesolithic Age began to be tailored towards more specialised individual purposes. Large stone tools transformed into tools much smaller in scale which even reached 1 cm in length (“The Mesolithic Age”).

The dexterity of the Mesolithic Age’s humankind began to surge, with the growing variety of stone tools in this era attesting to the concurring advancement of anthropological activities; what was once the food-hunting and food-gathering practice of humanity significantly transitioned to food production, a truly appropriate circumstance for the phrase “Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” Early farming practices of the Mesolithic Age, consisting of both early forms of animal and plant domestication, began seeing the use of paradoxically primitive yet advanced farming tools such as sickles for crop harvesting and scrapers for leather-making.

These tools are products of the biological advancement of the human brain as well, with which the innovation and utilisation of these complex tools were possible. The 700 cubic centimetre brain size of the average Paleolithic man remarkably spanned into the 1,200 cubic centimetre brain size of the average Mesolithic man (Britannica, “Human Evolution – Increasing Brain Size”). In that sense, we were “brainier” in the Mesolithic Age than in the Paleolithic Age, and demonstrated biological and cultural behaviours that would eventually bridge the final period of the Stone Age to that of the earliest Paleolithic Age.

The Neolithic Age

The Neolithic Age (approximately 4,000 years ago), prepared humanity’s transition into the “age of civilisation”, although at this point it has not entirely entered its door.

Neolithic stone tools were characterised by refining and polishing techniques that–quite literally–sharpened the functionality of each purpose-oriented tool, as opposed to the chipped, primaeval versions of tools that belonged to the Mesolithic Age.

The development of particular tools also points to the more and more sophisticated sedentary lifestyle that Neolithic communities began to transition into–that is, these communities began to dwell in a more permanent geographic location (Latham); an axe-like tool known as the adze was used for land clearance, the Neolithic chisel was used for anthropological construction, and the Neolithic knife was used for food processing and preparation (The Paleolithic Age: Tools & Characteristics Video).

With that, as the variety of stone tools used in this age evolved, so did the moulding of the structure of Neolithic communities. A much more defined pattern of community organisation through labour division began to emerge, much like the concept of structural occupational fields that are present in the 21st century.

Even then, the story of how stones became phones is not quite finished yet.