Editing Hammer (section)

== History ==
The use of simple hammers dates to around 3.3 million years ago according to the 2012 find made by [[Sonia Harmand]] and Jason Lewis of [[Stony Brook University]], who while excavating a site near [[Kenya]]'s [[Lake Turkana]] discovered a very large deposit of various shaped stones including those used to strike [[wood]], [[bone]], or other stones to break them apart and shape them.<ref name="SA">{{cite news|url=http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2015/04/15/archaeologists-take-wrong-turn-find-worlds-oldest-stone-tools/|title=Archaeologists Take Wrong Turn, Find World's Oldest Stone Tools|author=Kate Wong|date=15 April 2015|work=[[Scientific American]]|access-date=18 April 2015}}</ref><ref name=":0">{{Cite journal|last=Hovers|first=Erella|date=May 2015|title=Archaeology: Tools go back in time|journal=Nature|language=en|volume=521|issue=7552|pages=294–295|doi=10.1038/521294a|pmid=25993954|bibcode=2015Natur.521..294H|s2cid=205085058|issn=1476-4687|doi-access=free}}</ref> The first hammers were made without handles. Stones attached to sticks with strips of [[leather]] or [[Tendon|animal sinew]] were being used as hammers with handles by about 30,000 BCE during the middle of the [[Paleolithic|Paleolithic Stone Age]]. The addition of a handle gave the user better control and less accidents. The hammer became the primary tool used for building, food, and protection.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://langs.co.uk/blog/2017/06/30/the-history-of-the-hammer-from-its-prehistoric-beginnings/|title=The history of the hammer from its prehistoric beginnings. {{!}} Tool Blogger UK|website=langs.co.uk|date=30 June 2017 |access-date=2019-05-31}}</ref>

The hammer's archaeological record shows that it may be the oldest tool for which definite evidence exists.<ref name="SA" /><ref name=":0" />

<gallery class="center">
File:StoneHammerDoverMN.JPG|A stone hammer found in [[Dover Township, Olmsted County, Minnesota|Dover Township, Minnesota]] dated to 8000–3000 BCE, the [[North American Archaic period]] 
File:Hammer stone tapping.jpg|Stone tapping hammer
File:Hammer stone head.jpg|Perforated hammer head of stone
File:Sacrificial hammer Dodona Louvre Br1183 n2.jpg|Ancient Greek bronze sacrificial hammer, 7th century BCE, from [[Dodona]]
File:Melencolia I (Durero) hammer crop.jpg|16th-century claw hammer; detail from [[Albrecht Dürer|Dürer]]'s ''[[Melencolia I]]'' (c. 1514)
</gallery>