The question of when stone tool use began has a history. At one time, Max Planck Institute evolutionary anthropologist Tracy L. Kivell tells us, paleontologists believed that only humans used stone tools. Then, figures such as chimpanzee expert Jane Goodall (1934– ) looked into the matter more closely and discovered that a number of primates wield sticks and stones to get things done. She wonders if Lucy, a hominin fossil from 3.2 million years ago, could use tools:

The idea that Lucy could use and most likely make stone tools is further supported by all we have learned about nonhuman primate tool use since her discovery. In the early 1980s, building on Goodall’s work, two primatologists, Hedwige Boesch-Achermann and the late Christophe Boesch, documented chimpanzees cracking nuts with stone and wooden hammers in Taï National Park in Ivory Coast. We now know from archaeological evidence that Taï chimpanzees have been cracking nuts with tools for at least 4,000 years. It is also clear that there are numerous cultural variations in how different chimpanzee communities crack nuts or fish for termites. Furthermore, savanna-dwelling chimpanzees even create and use wood spears to hunt other primates. Capuchin monkeys can wield hammerstones that are nearly half their body weight to crack nuts. And long-tailed macaques use stones to precisely crack open oysters. These monkeys can even unintentionally produce stone flakes that look identical to ones found in the hominin archaeological record from two million years ago. 

“When Did Human Ancestors Start Using Tools?” November 21, 2024

To cut the suspense, it would be impossible to know when stone tool use started. For one thing, setting aside the question of whether the various groups mentioned in the article are our ancestors, stone tool use is not even confined to primates. Otters, for example, dive for stones and use them to crack open mussels.

Tool use in general is widespread among mammals. Bottlenose dolphins tear off pieces of sponge and wrap them around their noses, to protect them when hunting on the sea floor.They also scoop up fish in conch shells and carry them to the surface so as to swallow them.

And Then There Are the Birds…

The Egyptian vulture uses rocks to crack ostrich eggs.

Crows, known for learning ability, can build tools out of multiple parts that are individually useless (Science Alert).

Some crows have refined a technique for cracking nuts that seems to have arisen only arose after automobiles became numerous:

But Surely Fish and Crustaceans Don’t Use Tools?

Well, we are told that the orange-spotted tuskfish “digs a clam out of the sand, carries it over to a rock, and repeatedly throws the clam against the rock to crush it.” (Science Daily)

Of course, the fish aren’t picking up the rocks and throwing them, so this example depends on how you define tool use.

But then there is the “decorator crab.” From the Monterey Bay Aquarium:

If you see a rock moving in one of our exhibits, look closer. It might be a decorator crab that has camouflaged itself with tiny algae and anils like anemones, sponges and bryozoans. The crabs elects pieces of algae and small animals from its habitat and fastens them to hooked, Velcrolike bristles called setae on the bsack of its carapace or upper shell.

The decorator crab recycles its living decorations during the molting process. It removes the anemones, sponges and other decorations from its old shell and uses them to adorn its new shell.

From the Introduction to the video: “Decorator crabs are known for their ability to attach algae and small animals to their shells to conceal themselves from predators, but the process is more complex than it appears, and it suggests higher intelligence than we once understood these crabs to have. If the shells of these crabs are cleaned, they will immediately set about replacing their camouflage with the same care and precision as they showed in their first concealment… ”

Crabs, of course, are invertebrates like the octopus — which is famously intelligent. Here’s one example, from the British Museum:

Small individuals of the common blanket octopus, Tremoctopus violaceus, carry tentacles from the Portuguese man o’ war as a weapon. These tentacles carry a potent and painful venom — the common blanket octopus is immune but can inflict their effects on unwitting predators and prey.

Clearly, tool use, however it develops, is very widespread among animals. And yet, the article in Scientific American closes with

Lucy’s impact on our understanding of the evolution of human dexterity and tool use stems in large part from the fact that at the time of her discovery, she was much older than any archaeological evidence of stone tool behaviors, yet her hand showed some humanlike features. She ignited novel investigations into what exactly makes the human hand distinct from that of other primates and why. Lucy inspired scientists to consider the possibility that enhanced hand dexterity evolved not only for stone tool behaviors but also for food processing or organic tool use or even as a by-product of bipedalism. Most importantly, Lucy, together with studies of ape and monkey tool use, greatly contributed to our recognition that stone tool behaviors are not exclusive to humans.

“Start Using Tools?”

Well no. It’s not stone tool use that is exclusive to humans; vultures can do that too. It’s the ability to form abstract ideas, ideas like the study of tool use among animals and the question of whether “Lucy” might have used tools. We can ignore the principal difference between ourselves and the rest of nature, but it is not going away.

Cross-posted at Mind Matters News.