page_title: Homo ergaster
section_title: Tool production
hierarchical_section_title: Homo ergaster / Culture / Technology / Tool production
caption_attribution_description: Español: Dibujo didáctico de una mano cogiendo un bifaz English: Didactic drawing of a hand holding a hand axe
context_page_description: Homo ergaster is an extinct species or subspecies of archaic humans who lived in Africa in the Early Pleistocene. Whether H. ergaster constitutes a species of its own or if it should be subsumed into H. erectus is an ongoing and unresolved dispute within palaeoanthropology. Proponents of synonymisation typically designate H. ergaster as "African Homo erectus" or "Homo erectus ergaster". The name Homo ergaster roughly translates to "working man", a reference to the more advanced tools used by the species in comparison to those of their ancestors.
  The fossil range of H. ergaster mainly covers the period of 1.8 to 1.7 million years ago, with a handful of older and younger specimens extending the range to about 2 and 1.5 million years ago respectively. Though fossils are known from across East and Southern Africa, most H. ergaster fossils have been found along the shores of Lake Turkana in Kenya. There are later African fossils, some younger than 1 million years ago, that indicate long-term anatomical continuity, though it is unclear if they can be formally regarded as H. ergaster specimens.
context_section_description: Early H. ergaster inherited the Oldowan culture of tools from australopithecines and earlier Homo, though quickly learnt to strike much larger stone flakes than their predecessors and contemporaries. By 1.65 million years ago, H. ergaster had created the extensively flaked artefacts and early hand axes that mark the Acheulean culture, and by 1.6–1.4 million years ago, the new tool industry was widely established in East Africa. Acheulean tools differ from Oldowan tools in that the core forms of the tools were clearly deliberate. Whereas the shape of the core forms in Oldowan tools, which were probably used mostly as hammers to crack bones for marrow, appears to not have mattered much, the hand axes of the Acheulean culture demonstrate an intent to produce narrow and sharp objects, typically in teardrop, oval or triangular shapes. Once in place, the Acheulean industry remained unchanged throughout H. ergaster's existence and later times, with tools produced near its end about 250,000 years ago not being significantly different from tools produced 1.65 million years ago.
  The oldest Acheulean assemblages also preserve core forms similar to those in Oldowan tools, but there are no known true intermediate forms between the two, suggesting that the appearance of Acheulean tools was an abrupt and sudden development. The most significant development that led to the Acheulean tools was likely early hominins learning the ability to strike large flakes, up to 30 cm (1 ft) or more in length, from larger boulders, from which they could manufacture new tools such as hand axes. Though "hand axe" implies that all hand axes were used for chopping and were hand-held, they came in a variety of different shapes and size and probably served several different functions. Carefully shaped and symmetric examples may have been hurled at prey akin to modern discuses, more casually made examples may simply have served as portable sources for sharp flakes and some could have been used for scraping or chopping wood. Additionally, hand axes are effective butchering tools and were possibly also used for dismembering carcasses of large animals.
  There are preserved hand axes that are too unwieldy and large to be used for any apparent practical purpose. The use of these larger hand axes, and for some discovered collections of hundreds of hand axes without obvious signs of use, is speculative and conjectural. An idea that has been popular in the popular press, and frequently cited in academia, is that large and impressive hand axes might have been emblems used for attracting mates, with makers of large axes showing strength, coordination and determination, qualities that may have been regarded as attractive. Palaeoanthropologists April Nowell and Melanie Lee Chang noted in 2009 that though this theory is "both intriguing and emotionally appealing", there is little evidence for it and it is untestable. They considered it more probable that variations in hand axe morphology over the course of hundreds of thousands of years was the result of various different factors rather than a single, overarching factor in sexual selection.
caption: Drawing of a hand holding a hand axe
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