Editing Stone tool (section)

===Mode I: The Oldowan Industry===
{{Main|Oldowan}}
[[File:Chopping tool.gif|thumb|upright=1.25|A typical Oldowan simple chopping-tool. This example is from the Duero Valley, [[Valladolid]].]]
{{Commons category|Oldowan}}
The earliest stone tools in the era of genus ''[[Homo]]'' are [[Oldowan|Mode 1]] tools,<ref>Clarke's "chopper tools and flakes."</ref> and come from what has been termed the [[Oldowan Industry]], named after the type of site (many sites, actually) found in [[Olduvai Gorge]], [[Tanzania]], where they were discovered in large quantities. Oldowan tools were characterised by their simple construction, predominantly using [[lithic core|core]] forms. These cores were river pebbles, or rocks similar to them, that had been struck by a spherical [[hammerstone]] to cause [[conchoidal fracture]]s removing flakes from one surface, creating an edge and often a sharp tip. The blunt end is the proximal surface; the sharp, the distal. Oldowan is a percussion technology. Grasping the proximal surface, the hominid brought the distal surface down hard on an object he wished to detach or shatter, such as a bone or tuber.{{citation needed|date=May 2020}} Experiments with modern humans found that all four Oldowan knapping techniques can be invented by knapping-naive participants, and that the resulting Oldowan tools were used by the experiment participants to access a money-baited box.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Snyder |first1=William |last2=Reeves |first2=Jonathan |last3=Tennie |first3=Claudio  |title=Early knapping techniques do not necessitate cultural transmission |year=2022 |journal=Science Advances |volume=8 |issue=27 |pages=eabo2894 |doi=10.1126/sciadv.abo2894 |pmid=35857472 |pmc=9258951 |bibcode=2022SciA....8O2894S }}</ref>

The earliest known Oldowan tools yet found date from 2.6&nbsp;million years ago, during the [[Lower Palaeolithic]] period, and have been uncovered at [[Gona, Ethiopia|Gona]] in Ethiopia.<ref>{{cite journal | author=Semaw, S. |author2=M. J. Rogers |author3=J. Quade |author4=P. R. Renne |author5=R. F. Butler |author6=M. Domínguez-Rodrigo |author7=D. Stout |author8=W. S. Hart |author9=T. Pickering |author10= S. W. Simpson  | year=2003 |title=2.6-Million-year-old stone tools and associated bones from OGS-6 and OGS-7, Gona, Afar, Ethiopia | journal=Journal of Human Evolution |volume=45 |issue=2 |pages=169–177 | doi=10.1016/S0047-2484(03)00093-9 | pmid=14529651|bibcode=2003JHumE..45..169S }}</ref> After this date, the Oldowan Industry subsequently spread throughout much of Africa, although archaeologists are currently unsure which [[Hominan]] species first developed them, with some speculating that it was ''[[Australopithecus garhi]]'', and others believing that it was in fact ''[[Homo habilis]]''.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Toth |first1=Nicholas |last2=Schick |first2=Kathy |chapter=African Origins |pages=46–83 |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/humanpastworldpr0000unse/page/48 |editor1-last=Scarre |editor1-first=Christopher |title=The Human Past: World Prehistory & the Development of Human Societies |date=2005 |publisher=Thames & Hudson |isbn=978-0-500-28531-2 |oclc=1091012125 }}</ref> ''Homo habilis'' was the hominin who used the tools for most of the Oldowan in Africa, but at about 1.9-1.8 million years ago ''[[Homo erectus]]'' inherited them. The Industry flourished in southern and eastern Africa between 2.6 and 1.7&nbsp;million years ago, but was also spread out of Africa and into [[Eurasia]] by travelling bands of ''H. erectus'', who took it as far east as [[Java]] by 1.8&nbsp;million years ago and [[North China (continent)|Northern China]] by 1.6&nbsp;million years ago.{{citation needed|date=May 2020}}