This is Origin Stories, the Leaky Foundation podcast.

I'm Meredith Johnson.

Humans aren't the only animals that use tools.

Capuchin monkeys use rocks to smash nuts.

Even crows and otters use tools.

I've even seen a video of an orangutan using

a saw to cut wood. But we humans and our hominant ancestors have been making and using tools

for a very long time. The oldest stone tools in the archaeological record date to 3.3 million

years ago. The most iconic stone tool, the teardrop

shape tool called the hand axe, pretty much had the same design for more than a million years

without changing, which is kind of mind-blowing, considering the pace at which our technology changes

today. We're also the only animals who take our tools with us everywhere we go.

Tools are part of our identity.

Back in the 1960s,

before Jane Goodall first saw David Greybeard the Chimp

using a stick to fish for termites,

anthropologists called us,

man the toolmaker. You've got at least

one tool with you right now for sure if you're listening to this podcast. And if you consider

really early tools and compare them to the computer or phone you're hooked up to right now,

it's easy to think that we've just gotten smarter and smarter. But John Shea doesn't see it that way.

He's a paleoanthropologist at Stony Brook University and a leaky foundation grantee.

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