Who Made the Oldowan Tools? Fossil Evidence for Tool Behavior in Plio-Pleistocene Hominids

Paleoanthropologists, while expending great effort to recover archaeological evidence of early hominid activities in the Plio-Pleistocene of Africa, have devoted almost no attention to the question of which early hominid(s) authored the Oldowan Industrial Complex. Weak and indirect evidence has been adduced for the propositions that (1) Homo habilis alone made the first stone tools (even though Homo is not found at this early time) and (2) Paranthropus was not a toolmaker (mainly because it was a vegetarian with a smaller cranial volume than Homo habilis). The most parsimonious interpretation of all present evidence, including geochronological, archaeological, and diagnostic fossil evidence of the hands of Australopithecus spp., Paranthropus robustus, and Homo habilis, indicates that Paranthropus and Homo habilis were both early toolmakers. Paranthropus may have been the first maker of stone tools, and these "robust" australopithecines may have relied heavily on lithic and bone technology to procure (and process) plant foods.