IN THE BEGINNING THERE WAS THE
"FLAKE"
RESEARCH STUDIES OF PRIMITIVE STONE TOOL MAKING WITH THIS BONOBO CHIMP IS ONE OF THE WAYS SCIENTISTS ARE SHEDDING LIGHT ON EARLY TOOL MAKING.

Kanzi making a stone tool.
PICTURE CREDIT R.A.SEVCIK AND THE LANGUAGE RESEARCH CENTER IN ATLANTA GEORGIA

Uniface Flakes,

Choppers & Cores
-
"THE SIMPLEST of all FLAKED

STONE Tools"
Oldowan flake from Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania.
From Kanzi To Olduvai

    Not long ago I was told an interesting story from someone who buys painted Australian aboriginal art. While he was riding in a car with a well known aboriginal artist a kangaroo was struck and killed. When they stopped the car the aborigine quickly jumped out and ran to the ditch where he searched for and found two rocks that were suitable for the job he was about to do. He then struck the rocks together to make a stone flake and walked over to the kangaroo where he then quickly cut off the tail with the sharp edge of the flake. He jumped back into the car making the comment that it was a good tail or he could use the tail or something like that. It's a great account of a spontaneous use of a stone tool in the modern world.
   I have heard other stories about using stone flakes from hunters who have experimented with skinning & butchering a deer or rabbit and experimental archaeologists doing the same thing with everything from goats to elephants. But the spontaneous manufacture and use of a stone tool from someone whose individual history is still so very close to the natural world is unique.
The man who cut off the tail is a living monument of sorts who
represents a still unbroken link to a simple stone tool making technology that reaches back in time millions of years.
   It's hard to believe but the sharpest knives that have ever been used in recent years were mounted with stone flakes made of obsidian. A company called Aztecnics was manufacturing and selling surgical scalpels mounted with different sizes and shapes of obsidian blades. Good quality obsidian fractures down to single molecules which can produce a cutting edge 500 times sharper than the sharpest steel scalpel blade ("American Medical News", Nov. 2, 1984:21). On the cellular level an obsidian knife can cut between cells rather than tear the cells as a steel knife will do. A sharper cut will allow a wound to heal more rapidly with less scarring. High magnification of a steel scalpel blade edge looks like a serrated saw blade but an obsidian edge looks smooth. I know an archaeologist who had some surgery done a few years ago using obsidian knives. In the tape of the operation at the initial cut to open the abdomen the doctor remarks
"oouuu that's sharp"!

Kanzi making a stone tool.

KANZI THE CHIMP MAKING A

STONE FLAKE TOOL THAT HE WILL USE

TO OPEN A BOX OF FOOD
PICTURE CREDIT R.A. SEVCIK AND THE LANGUAGE RESEARCH CENTER IN ATLANTA, GEORGIA

   The most recent study of stone tool making by using apes was begun about 1990 and has continued for some years. The study was proposed by Kathy Schick and Nick Toth of the Craft Research Center. They were able to do the study and collaborate with E. Sue Savage-Rumbaugh, Duane Rumbaugh and Rose Sevcik at the Language Research Center in Atlanta, Georgia where the now famous chimpanzee known as Kanzi is kept. Previous to this project, an Australian archaeologist Richard Wright in the 1970's was able to show that an orangutan that lived in a local zoo could be taught to make stone tools and cut ropes off a box containing food.
   The study that was done with Kanzi was different though. Kanzi was not taught, as in the 1970's project,  all the different ways that a sharp flake could be produced. This more recent study began with two basic goals in mind. One was to compare the tools he would make to early Oldowan stone tool assemblages from Africa. The other was to study his behavior to possibly gain some insight into early hominid stone tool use.
   He was initially shown what sharp flakes could do and only a basic demonstration of how hard hammer percussion (striking one hand held rock against another) could produce these flakes. He was eventually able to invent different ways of making flakes on his own other than hand held percussion flaking. Although he was never known to do much throwing as some of the other chimps in the facility were known to do. He began to make sharp flakes by throwing a rock on the hard floor indoors. When placed outdoors he reverted back to hard hammer percussion flaking and became fairly good at producing a flake in a short time. He also broke off flakes by placing one stone on the ground and striking it by throwing another rock. In research tape I have seen he was very accurate at rock throwing. When presented with five flakes for rope cutting Kanzi selected the sharpest flake nine times out of ten. His motivation for learning how to get a sharp flake was his strong desire to get the very good food in the box. A situation not unlike early hominids food gathering techniques that may have involved breaking open bones to get at the morrow or cutting into a thick animal hide with a sharp flake. The reward was the food and once a way was found to acquire a new source the technique was repeated, in some cases for millions of years.
   Kanzi's tool making ability has never reached the level of early hominid Oldowan stone tools. Many of his are no better than fractured stone found in nature. But isn't it intriguing that somewhere there may yet be identified an earlier stone tool industry that may have been made by apes like Kanzi and even more primitive that the Oldowan stone tool industry made by Homo habilis.

Drawing of Kanzi making a stone tool.
DRAWING OF KANZI ATTEMPTING TO REMOVE A FLAKE
BY HARD HAMMER PERCUSSION FLAKING
DRAWING BY MERA A. HERTEL, Pete Bostrom Coll.

   This drawing of Kanzi shows him attempting to drive off a simple flake. He will use it to cut through some rope tied around a box containing grapes or other food that he likes to eat. On research tape I have seen, when Kanzi is striking a rock with another rock (or hammer stone) he seems to strike towards his chest or stomach. His great strength actually powders and pulverizes so much rock particles onto his chest hair he will have to stop and brush it off. He does this with a striking distance of only 3 or 4 inches!


Kanzi's stone tool making kit showing hammer, core and flakes.

CLICK ON PICTURE FOR VERY LARGE IMAGE
KANZI THE CHIMP'S TOOL KIT
CRAFT RESEARCH CENTER COLLECTION

   This picture shows the simple stone tool making kit used by Kanzi. He produced these flakes to cut through ropes that were used to tie shut boxes of food.

One of Kanzi's stone flake cutting tools.

CLICK ON PICTURE FOR LARGE TRIPLE EXPOSURE
FLAKE TOOL MADE BY KANZI
CRAFT RESEARCH CENTER COLLECTION

   This picture shows a typical flake with a sharp cutting edge that Kanzi used to cut rope.


Hand held picture of Kanzi's stone flake cutting tool.

KANZI'S CUTTING FLAKE
CRAFT RESEARCH CENTER COLLECTION

   Kanzi's cutting flake shown as it would be held to cut hide, rope or anything soft. Kanzi will hold the flake in one hand and sometimes deftly pick apart and cut each strand of the rope with the other just as a human might do.

Flake tools from Olduvai Gorge and some made by Kanzi.

SIMPLE FLAKE CUTTING TOOLS
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-BERKELEY AND CRAFT RESEARCH CENTER COLLECTIONS

   These flakes represent the simplest and oldest type of stone tool. They are flakes of chert that have been or may have been used to cut soft materials. The top row of flakes were collected from Olduvai Gorge by Lewis Leaky & Desmond Clark and date to approximately 1.9 million years ago. The bottom row were made by Kanzi and were used to cut ropes off boxes of food. 

"REFERENCES"

1988,  "Encyclopedia of Human Evolution and Prehistory" Ian Tattersall, Eric Delson and John Van Couvering, PP 387-392.
1994, "Making Silent Stone Speak", Kathy D. Schick and Nicholas Toth, pp 135-140.
1994, "Kanzi", Sue Savage-Rumbaugh and Roger Lewin.
1994, "Flintknapping-Making And Understanding Stone Tools", John C. Whittaker, pp 243-246.
1995, "Piltdown Productions" catalog, Lynchburg, Virginia
1990's "The Alternative Edge" brochure for Aztecnics, Washington, D.C.

HOME    ORDERING