Ancient Drills (c. 35,000 B.C.E)

Early humans learn how to bore small holes. It is thought that early man used a primitive drill - perhaps a modified spear - to pierce wood and animal skins. Much later, the woodworker of ancient Egypt refined this technique by making any necessary holes with a bow drill. Adapted from the fire-stick, it had a cord wrapped round it and was held taut with a bow. Holding the drill vertically, the operator...

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Ancient Tally Stick (c. 35.000 B.C.E)

Counting makes its debut in Swaziland. Tally sticks, or tallies batons of bone, ivory, wood, or stone into which notches are made as a mean of recoding numbers or even messages, The archeological and historical records are rich in tallies, with the Lembombo bone as the earliest example. Found in a cave in the Lembombo Mountains in Swaziland and made form a baboon's fibula, it dated back to 35,000...

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Ancient Fishhook (c. 35,000 B.C.E.)

Early humans discover how to retain their caught fish. The major problem with dating inventions earlier than the written word is that there are no first-hand accounts documenting their conception or use. Paleoarcheologists have the difficult task of piecing together the prehistory of man based on scraps of physical evidence left behind by our ancient ancistors. The fishhook is one such ingenious...

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Ancient Spear - (c. 400,000 B.C.E)

Humans learn to skill with sharpened poles. The earliest example fo a sharpened wooden pole, or spear, comes from Schoningen in Germany. There, eight spears where dated to 400,000 B.C.E. The ancient hominid hunters who sharpened each pole used a filnt shaver to cut away the tip to form a pont and then signed the tip in the fire to harden the wood, making it a more effective weapon. A similar technique...

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Ancient Clothing - (c. 400,000 B.C.E)

Early humans cover their nakedness. Around 400,000 years ago, Homo sapiens devised a solution to protect the vulnerable naked human body from the environment - clothes. Anthropologists believe the earliest clothing was made form the fur of hunted animals or leaves creatively wrapped around the body to keep out the cold, wind and rain. Determining the date of this invention is difficult, although...

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Ancient Built Shelter - (c. 400,000 B.C.E)

Homo heidbergensis builds the first hut. The earliest evidence of built shelter appears to have been constructed by "homo heidbergensis", who lived in Europe between around 800,000 B.C.E. Anthropologists are uncertain whether these were ancestors of Homo sapiens (Humans) or Homo neanderthalensis (Neanderthals) or both. At the french site of Terra Amata, which dated back around 400,000 years, archeologists...

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Ancient Controlled Fire - (c. 1,42,000 B.C.E)

Homo erectus harness lightning Fire is an essential tool, control of which helped tostart the human race on its path to civilization. The original source of fire was probably lightning, and for generation blazes ignited in this manner remained the only source of fire. Initially Peking man, who lived around 500,000 B.C.E, was believed to be earliest user of fire, but evidence uncovered in Kenya...

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Ancient Stone Tools - (c. 2,600,000 B.C.E)

Every humankind ushers in the age of inventions. The very first human invention consisted of sharp flints, found and used in their natural state by primitive peoples, who then went on to purposely sharpen stones. The practice reaches back to the very dawn of humankind; stone tools found in 1969 in kenya are estimated to be 2,600,000 years old. The principal types of tools, which appeared in the...

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