Hacker News Reader

Comment by ryan_j_naughton | Hacker News Reader

The first identified tools were 3.3 million years ago, which is before the homo genus emerges. Thus, those were either by Australopithecus afarensis or by a yet unidentified hominid species -- they were still very likely our ancestors (but technically TBD).

Then around 2-2.5 million years ago you get the first homo species in the genus homo such as Homo habilis and they created the Oldowan tool culture.

Both Australopithecus afarensis and Homo habilis are our ancestors -- however they are also the ancestors of other homo lines that diverged from us that we are not descendents of (which are now extinct).

People often forget how widespread and varied the Homo genus was before all our cousin species went extinct (likely in part due to us).[1] Homo erectus colonized the entire old world very effectively 1.5 million years ago!

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo#/media/File:The_hominin_f...

View on HN

Last I knew, the 3.3 mya evidence from the site Lomekwi 3 in Kenya was debatable, though a serious possibility, and the 2.58 mya evidence from the Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania was considered the sure thing.

Also, more than primates use tools: Many corvids (crows, ravens, etc.) do, as do other animals. Look up New Caledonian Crows in particular.

But don't take all this from HN commenters debating each other; find some authoritative sources. A recent review article in a scientific journal would be a great start. Google Scholar lets you search for review articles.

Most recently (January 19, 2026): cows

>Flexible use of a multi-purpose tool by a cow

https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(25)...

Did they look like this?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cow_tools#/media/File:Cow_Tool...

This reminds me of "koko the gorilla can speak English" stuff. Need to disambiguate learned mimickry from the real thing.

Multi-purpose egocentric tool use.

We are talking about tool manufacture here, however, not just about tool use.

That's a difficult distinction to make - at which point does tool selection differ from modification for use as a tool - any animal that strips the leaves off a twig in order to use it as a tool has manufactured the tool.

The people of the Olduvan industry from 2.58 mya tools (the earliest accepted by consensus [0]) manufactured their tools - that's exactly what archaeologists are talking about.

Chimps and New Caledonian Crows (and maybe some other animals) also manufacture their tools, at least sometimes, BTW. IIRC the crows strip sticks and bend them into hooks to grab at objects.

Why would someone imply otherwise if they don't know? What are people trying to prove in this discussion?

[0] There's strong evidence of 3.3 mya; see other comments.

Not sure what you are asking. My point was that animals using objects as tools is a different thing than the Oldowan stone tool manufacturing “industry”. I wasn’t saying that tool manufacture is exclusive to primates. However, pointing out mere tool use by non-primates is sort of beside the point of the TFA topic, IMO.

> My point was that animals using objects as tools is a different thing than the Oldowan stone tool manufacturing “industry”.

Agreed, though the dividing line is tricky.

(Your prior comment didn't say 95% of that; for example, it doesn't mention animals. Because the parent comments were focused on human ancestors, that's what I thought you were addressing.)

I think the whole interest in tool making is we're looking for clues to intelligence and tools are just one of the few things they left behind. It's much less satisfying to discover an animal's tool making is an instinctual behavior like burrowing animals making their own holes to sleep in, than that they worked it out using more generalized thinking.

> The first identified tools were 3.3 million years ago

I assume these are made of stone? What kind of tools?

I believe the evidence is animal bones that show marks from butchery, as well as actual sharpened stone flakes and other things found primarily in what is now Kenya: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lomekwi

So cool! Thanks for the info.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com