But archeological findings indicate the apperance of a new kind of tool in Africa about 2.6 million years ago: manufactured stone tools with sharp cutting edges. There is evidence that such tools were used by Australopithecines as early as 3.4 million years ago.

The survival and reproduction of the hominins living at that time probably depended a lot on getting enough animal food. Thus, there was a high selection pressure on the use and processing of objects in order to better exploit these food sources, such as for separating the meat from the carcass, breaking up bones, and warding off predators. With manufactured stones that had sharp cutting edges, more food could be obtained more efficiently than “with bare hands” or other parts of the body. Probably representatives of Homo habilis were the manufacturers of these first stone tools.

The production of these stone tools seemingly already differed in some ways from the production and use of tools we can observe among chimpanzees today: one object (the hammerstone) was used to work on another object. It already requires higher coordination of hands and increased patience to make a useable stone flake of certain quality.

In addition, the production and use of tools among primates is learned in the course of a lifetime by observation and imitation of conspecifics as well as individual trial-and-error learning. Behavioral biologists call this form of learning “social learning”. The more complex the tools and their manufacture, the better must be the skills for social learning so that a specific toolmaking culture can spread in a population and be passed on to offspring