1000 generations? Why is the claimed early man clever enough to use tools... but... so slow in new tools?

Question

In the claimed ape to man examples , early man has the ingenuity of making a few tools, some difficult to make rock tools which takes a but of skill and yet, they are claimed to go like 500,000 years before learning a new trick and learninga new tool... wouldnt you think if their main thing was a stone tool, they would quickly lean allot of other tricks and toolsmithery Is it really plausible man would go 1000 generations for each new step of primitive toolmaking? or is this a hint that maybe the dates are way off?

Is it possible that the way of looking at early man by evolutionists is just off? force fit to preconceptions?

Answer 1

The thing is with 'learning' new tools works in close relationship with needs and all. Early man caught up with stone-tool making and used it up until new needs came up where he made metal-tools. They also made a choice... as you made the choice to write with a pen or a pencil... lots of things comes into play: the environement, their culture, their society, their needs and choices...

Answer 2

Chimpanzees also make and use tools, including primitive spears. One hypothesis is that early man was not numerous, and managed to out compete other hominids, at first, by provisioning the females & young, through walking upright and carrying food in the arms, (as chimpanzees do, sometimes). Then, one group of these hominins (on our evolutionary line) developed the method of scavenging/hunting/gathering in the hotter part of the day, when others were resting in the shade, enabling them to out provision, and out reproduce similar groups. Thinning body hair was a factor in this, and increased perspiration (we are like weak, hairless, big brained sponges, compared to other great apes). Once again outcompeting and displacing similar groups, there may have come a point where an improvement in tool manufacturing methods, or the quality of the stone used: chert V flint, etc., may have given an additional advantage to one group, enabling them to thrive, where others couldn't, or to win in the occasional skirmishes over territorial disputes. Other factors are involved, too, such as the co evolution of man & dog, resulting in their domestication, as they hunted herds of wild game together. A spear thrown into a passing herd from ambush, after they had been stampeded by the dogs, wounding and weakening one or two, would have increased the frequency of a successful hunt, much more than the stabbing spears used hitherto. Although the estimates as to time may be a little off the mark, they should certainly be in the same ballpark.

Answer 3

They call it the stone age because stone simply survives better. There are virtually no surviving examples of wood or bone even though obviously they are a lot easier to create. New tools could've been a weekly occurrence but new stone tools would be the only ones to survive.

Answer 4

The important thing to consider is why people were making tools. Were they doing it just because they were bored? Unlikely. Tools are a non-biological adaptation for dealing with environmental conditions. We generally don't see large scale tool assemblage changes until the environment changes, too, or until people move to a new environment, or something along that line.

Early on anyway, humans were rather conservative technologically. Why make a new tool when the one you have works fine?

But the current timescale could be wrong. There's no evidence that it is wrong, and so it would be foolish to actually assume that it is. The evidence shows a very slow, long-term progression of tool technologies that gradually picks up speed as time goes on.