User:Omakofsky/Hand tool

Article body
Brainstorm list:

- Go into more detail on the examples of hand tools

- Time line of hand tools

- Table (Col 1: Time Period, Col 2: Purpose, Col 3: Tool Name)

- Go into more historical detail such as time periods (mesolithic)

- Add more pictures and diagrams.

- Add to the history section

What Hand Tools are Used For
Hand tools were essential to the development of human behavior, improving early human's ability to survive in the conditions they were in. Hand tools were used for a variety of needs, and varied in make-up depending on the task at hand. Early humans used hand tools to make hunting, clothes making, and preparing meat to be cooked easier.

Hunting:
Some tools that were essential to hunting were bone tools, harpoon points and projectile points. Digging is an essential part of hunting and was common for early humans to do when searching for food or other materials. Bone tools, aging back around 1.5 million years, were used for this purpose so frequently that most acquired a smooth top. To accommodate the vast amount of dietary requirements humans need, it was essential to gather all types of food sources. An important nutritional value includes protein, commonly found in fish and other aquatic life. Harpoon points, constructed from animal bones, helped early humans find those such necessities. However, not all prey are small or slow enough to be punctured by hand. Projectile points solved this issue, as they were attached to the end of pre-made weapons and thrown towards the target prey. Some more tools include stone sickle blades and punctured horse shoulder blades.

Clothing Production:
The Mousterian time period began the rise of tools which were designed for clothing production. Flake knives and scrapers were specially made to be used for removing and preparing animal skin and hide, while stone awls or burins were used to create holes in the skin or leather. These holes would allow for the ability to tie large pieces of skin or leather together to make protective clothing suitable for the cooler climate. Small rocks and colorful pebbles have also been found, which suggests they used tools to crush and make dyes for the skin to be used for clothing or other articles such as satchels. Although, since animal skin degrades faster overtime compared to stone tools, there is no way of fully knowing what the dye was for.

Food Preparation:
Stone tools were essential to butchering meat for cooking and consumption. Studies suggest that as early as 2.6 million years ago, early humans were finding new ways in which to butcher animals in the realm of stone tools. At first, humans used sharp rock fragments they stumbled across to slice open meat for consumption. However, over time, they began to create these sharp-edged cutting tools in place of finding them naturally. Oldowan choppers became a useful cutting tool for early humans that proved successful in breaking through animal skin to get to the meat of the animal. Long wooden spears came into use about 500,000 years ago with the purpose of butchering larger mammals from a safer distance than the close quarters required for use of something like a small hand axe. After this innovation, such spears became used to kill large animals while stone tools were used to carve and prepare them after they were killed.

History
Naturally, the very first hand tools consisted of sticks and stones with sharp edges that were picked up by early humans at their convenience and then were eventually discarded. As carnivores without sharp enough teeth or claws to cut through meat and skin, humans needed cutting instruments to do the decomposing for them. The three-age system, developed by Danish archaeologist, Christian Jürgensen Thomsen, uses three categories of materials: stone, bronze, and iron. These materials are used to define the periods of time in which certain tools were first created and heavily used among early humans.

Stone age tools included hammer stones which were used to chip away at other stones or hard material, and stone flakes, which were the result of chipping away at other stones. These stone flakes were used to cut scrape and carve other material by use of their sharp edges. The earliest known example of human tool usage dates back to 3.3 million years ago in Kenya's Lake Turnaka. Early tools consisted of naturally sharpened rocks, but humans began to chip away a stone with another stone, creating thinner, sharper tools. The Bronze Age is when humans began to work with metal. The Bronze Age is also when humans began to develop more weaponry like swords, helmets, and axes - all of this "new" weaponry is actually just technologically advanced from the Stone Age tools. The Iron Age is when weapons and tools were now being made of iron and steel rather than bronze. Some types of Iron age tools include Iron sickles which were used for harvesting crops, and wood lathes which are machines used to structure wood and other material into intended objects.