Stone tools

The oldest stone tools that are widely accepted are about 3.3 million years old, from Lomekwi in Kenya, older than the genus Homo. Later, the Oldowan toolkit, from about 2.6 million years ago, is the familiar sharp flakes struck off a core.

A flake is a cutting edge you cannot get from a fist or a tooth. It opens meat, hides, and plants that were closed before. The contribution is not the rock. It is the idea that you change a material so it does a job, and you can do it again.

Every later blade, from bronze to a robot's cutter, is that same move: shape a material until it cuts, holds, or strikes. Fire and metal still need this habit of making. The people or near-people who made the first flakes did not farm, write, or build engines. They made the precondition.

Dates move when new sites are found. 3.3 million years is the Lomekwi claim. Some researchers want more evidence before they treat it as definite toolmaking. The Oldowan, younger, is not in serious doubt.