Chapter 7 Section 2 Stonebreaker

The reason why human beings can surpass all animals and become the masters of the earth is mainly because human beings have mastered the skill of making tools, and can continuously develop this skill to create the utensils they need.The fire-making skills mentioned above are also included in this category in essence, and fire is also a tool in a broad sense.From simple tools to complex tools, from mechanical appliances to intelligent machines, human beings are no longer satisfied with being the masters of the earth, and have already opened up a voyage into the universe. The first tools used by humans did not have a complicated manufacturing process, and nature gave humans many tools that can be picked up at will, such as dead branches and cracked stones.When humans germinated the desire to change the shape of stones to make them more suitable for use, once this desire was put into practice, the era of tool making began, which was the starting point of the long Paleolithic Age.

The production of stone tools has gone through two major development processes, the first is grinding, and later the grinding technology is invented, which is the division between the Neolithic and Paleolithic ages.The earliest stone tools can be used after simple forging, with rough appearance, simple shape and no strict distinction of use.Generally, stone flakes are laid directly on the stones for a little trimming. The common types of tools include chopping tools, pointed tools and scrapers.Some man-made stone tools seem to have similarities with naturally broken stones, but the actual man-made stone tools have clearly observable traces of making, trimming and use, and it is not difficult to distinguish them from natural stones (Fig. 3 ).

By the end of the Paleolithic Age, stone tool technology had developed significantly, and the indirect strike method was invented, which is a method of peeling off stone flakes and stone leaves from the stone core by means of indirect force.The obtained stone flakes and leaves are small and thin, and can be used to make small sharp tools; the stone leaves can be made into compound tools such as knives when they are assembled on the bone handle.The technology of making stone tools has thus reached its peak, and the Paleolithic Age is about to come to an end.

There are two other achievements in tool making technology in the late Paleolithic Age: grinding and drilling.The cavemen in the top of the mountain had sharp bone needles with thread holes, and animal teeth, sea clam shells, stone beads, small gravels, and herring bones were used as ornaments after piercing. Stone tool sites have also been found. The production of stone tools may have been carried out anytime and anywhere, but some specialized production sites have also been excavated.In Dayao Village near Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, a Paleolithic tool production site was discovered. Around the large flint, there are layers of stones, flakes, and chips, many of which are semi-finished and waste products of stone tools.This stone tool production site reveals that people in the Paleolithic Age mined stones from primary rock layers and made tools on the spot, providing important information for the study of Paleolithic production procedures and techniques.

The appearance of polished stone tools is one of the important signs of the arrival of the Neolithic Age.The production of polished stone tools is more demanding. The stone is first beaten into the expected blank, and then polished carefully, and finally polished.At first it was just the blade, but later the whole thing was polished very smooth.The types of stone tools in the Neolithic Age are obviously different from those in the past. The most common types are not chopping tools and scrapers, but axes, shovels, adzes (ben Ben), chisels, knives, etc. Many types of tools need to be longer The handle forms a composite tool, which significantly improves labor efficiency.

In the middle of the Neolithic Age, the technology of grinding stone tools has improved again. The surface of the stone tools is quite smooth, and some of them are polished with leather.Cutting stone and tube drilling techniques were also invented, resulting in fairly neat holes.These successful techniques for processing stone tools were also adopted and developed in the production of jade wares, which we will discuss later. Archaeologists have discovered that there were also some places dedicated to making stone tools in the Neolithic Age.This kind of stone tool manufacturing site has been excavated in Emaokou, Huairen County, Shanxi Province, and Xiqiao Mountain, Nanhai County, Guangdong Province.Xiqiao Mountain is an isolated volcanic hill on the plain of the Pearl River Delta. Around the mountain, there are caves opened up by people for quarrying at that time. There are a large number of stone fragments, semi-finished stone tools and waste products nearby, and a small amount of finished stone tools, including some polished stones. Stone tools, and piles of testicles discarded by people were also found.

Stone tools in prehistoric China have their own characteristics, which are also the main characteristics of Chinese prehistoric culture.For example, among the Paleolithic tools, flake stone tools have always been dominant, gravel tools are less, and scrapers and pointed tools are the most types of tools, which constitute the main body of Chinese Paleolithic tools.At the same time, it also shows the characteristics of zoning, and there are certain differences between the north and the south. Neolithic stone tools also have some obvious regional characteristics.In the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River in the early period, more finely ground tongue-shaped stone shovels, stone sickles, and stone grinding discs with feet were produced; the Yangshao Culture stone tools increased in shape, and perforated stone axes and stone knives were seen, as well as gaps on both sides. rectangular stone knives; the Longshan culture has newly seen half-moon-shaped stone knives and stone arrowheads, which are finely ground.The ground stone tools in the Yellow River Basin are characterized by many rectangular stone knives, many stone axes, few stone adzes, and most of them are thick axes.

The earlier polished stone tools in the Yangtze River Basin were slightly smaller, as seen in the Hemudu Culture.Larger stone tools appeared later, as seen in the Majiabang and Daxi cultures, generally polished all over, with edges and corners, and pierced by pipe drilling.Among the polished stone tools in the Yangtze River Valley, most of the axes and shovels are flat, and there are also many adzes, and there are a certain number of stone tools with double shoulders. In the early Neolithic period in South China, hammered stone tools were mostly used, and there were few types of polished stone tools. Knife-shaped tools were rare, but axes and shovels with shoulders were popular, and adze-shaped tools accounted for a large proportion, and there were high-level Stoneware polishing techniques.

Small and exquisite microlithic tools are popular in the northern region, and there are also a certain number of ground and polished stone tools, but the grinding is not very fine. The difference in stone tool production technology resulted in the difference in the types and shapes of stone tools, and these differences were ultimately caused by different needs, which were obviously related to differences in production methods.There are many adzes and chisels in the south, which are generally in line with the developed carpentry; the stone knives in the Yellow River Basin are used for harvesting and harvesting millet ears; the microlith tools are mostly seen in the north, which is considered to be the product of a developed animal husbandry economy.

The main labor tools in prehistoric times were stone tools, and there were also many auxiliary tools, including wooden tools, bone horn tools, clam tools, etc.Because wooden utensils are not easy to preserve, there are not many discoveries. A batch of utensils were unearthed at the Hemudu site, including shovels, plows, mallets, spears, daggers, oars, and bowls.In many prehistoric cultures, bone and horn tools are the most used utensils besides stone tools, including plows, shovels, and hoes as agricultural tools, and arrowheads as hunting tools.More than a thousand bone arrowheads were unearthed from the Hemudu site, and as many as 300 bone arrowheads were unearthed from the Banpo site.Animal bones are also widely used to make household utensils, such as hairpins, beads, spoons, needles and hair combs.The most common shovels, knives, and sickles in clamware are commonly used agricultural production tools.

In addition, there is a kind of utensils made of clay, such as spinning wheels, files, etc., and some rectangular pottery knives processed from broken pottery fragments. Prehistoric stone tools, bone tools, clam tools, etc. did not die out due to the extinction of the era in which they were invented. They still played a leading role in production at the beginning of the civilization era.Not many production tools of the Bronze Age were made of bronze, but quite a few production tools of stone, bone, and mussels were unearthed from the Yin Ruins in Anyang.Later, many bronze tools were imitated from stone tools, clearly showing a kind of inheritance relationship.