Tool Making Techniques of Early Stone Tool Making
By Vinayak (faculty, Department of history, IP College, DU)
Popular perception is that prehistoric humans lacked complex history of production and therefore of labour. The assumption is that production began with the formation of states. But here’s what we will discover in this lecture: early hominids produced and used a panoply of tools. We will talk about the early and complicated story of stone tools and their production, a timeframe that extends to about half of human history. Unlike chimpanzees and guerrillas, who used simple tools, hominids produced tool as their evolved biologically and culturally. Much of it started in Africa but with time, as hominids migrated to the rest of the world, the tools and their uses only increased in sophistication. Here we focus on the Indian sub-continent. We will not only see the various kinds of stone tools used, but also how these tools were produced.
About the Speaker: Vinayak is faculty at Indraprastha College, Delhi University in the Department of History. An archaeologist by training, he did his PhD in Centre for Historical Studies, JawaharLal Nehru University.
Other Useful Links: