Important scientific advances are changing what we know about the technological, social, and cognitive traits of our ancient human ancestors.
The invention of the first stone tools was a hugely significant milestone along the human evolutionary highway, one that would change our lifeways and, ultimately, distinguish our genus Homo from all other living beings on the planet.
Many very significant discoveries have been brought to light only over the last 25 years or so, deepening our knowledge about where, why, and how the first primitive technologies occurred.
Meanwhile, a state of angst resulting from our growing alienation from Nature is sharpening our need to understand how the evolution of technology has brought us to this point.
In order to understand this phenomenon, it is vital that we turn our gaze toward the distant past.
read more: https://rozenbergquarterly.com/was-the-sphere-the-first-geometrical-form-made-by-humans/
archive link: https://archive.ph/4cFbk
How do we define “made?” Arguably cylinders came first, dietary variance notwithstanding.
wouldnt the circle have to come before the sphere?
What tool would use a circle?
the title was first geometrical form. but the post is about early tools. last i read the first tools were the slope and the wedge.
but to answer your question? a roller.
I guessed a cone, like any pile of sand, or a rectangular prism, like any useful brick. But it looks like they were making palm-fitting faceted sphere for hammering long before anyone thought to build a house or flaunt their stores of colorful dry powders.
I would guess triangle, because stick.
But if we’re talking three-dimensional shapes in rigid objects, spherical stones were presumably the endgame form of many tools, before any deliberate shaping would occur. Once people really stuck with The Good Rock versus grabbing whichever nearby seemed appropriate, surely they’d just grind down any harsh edges on the grippy side, using the complex volumetric planning of rubbing the annoying part against a bigger rock.
