Part 6, Chapter 29 Summary and Analysis

About 1.5 million years ago, the first hand axe was shaped with a stone. It was an elaborate tool, representing the best technology yet available. Over millions of years, thousands of this tool were created in some locations. One of these is found in Olorgesailic, Nairobi where a primitive stone axe factory seems to have existed for over a million years.

The stone axes were not used merely for utilitarian purposes. They were as long as 18 inches and weighed up to 25 pounds. The largest examples of Acheulean tools, as they are called, seem to have had ceremonial significance. They replaced the older, less effective Oldowan tools. Apparently, when modern man traveled to Asia, he didn't take the tools with him, as he did when he traveled to Europe.

Just how humans became dispersed across the planet is a mystery. Australia...