WORLD

A fragment of the world’s oldest known ground-edge ax has been found in the remote Kimberley region of northern Australia. (ABC, Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Watch our video explaining how toolmaking is part of what makes us human.

Teachers, scroll down for a quick list of resources in our Teachers Toolkit.

Discussion Ideas

• Researchers recently identified a stone flake from what they think is the world’s oldest ground-edge ax. What is a ground-edge ax?
  • Ground-edge tools are made from hard, durable stone such as basalt. They are shaped by blows from a large, blunt hammer stone, and then their edges are refined by grinding them against coarse, gritty rock such as sandstone.

 

• Archaeologists think the flake found in Australia came from a hafted ax. What is a hafted ax?
  • Axes have two parts: The head and the haft, or handle. A hafted tool simply means it has a handle.

 

• The ax flake from the Kimberley dates to about 45,000 years ago. When were other early ground-edge axes identified?
  • “In Japan, such axes appear about 35,000 years ago. But in most countries in the world, they arrive with agriculture after 10,000 years ago.”
  • In northern Australia, the oldest ax previously identified was from about 38,000 years ago.
  • In southern Australia, the earliest axes date to about 3,000 years ago.

 

• How do scientists know how old the ax fragment from the Kimberley is?
  • Scientists used radiocarbon dating, which estimates the age of an organism by tracking the decay of the isotope carbon-14.

 

• But wait. The stone itself is not an organism and doesn’t have any carbon. (Basalt is mostly made up of silicates). How could archaeologists carbon-date something with no carbon?
  • Well, they didn’t. They used stratigraphy, the study of rock layers and how to date them. Crucially, the flake was discovered in the same sediment layer as a deposit of charcoal.
    • Charcoal is a substance created by the burning of wood or other organic materials in the absence of oxygen. Wood is the product of an organism (a plant), and charcoal is made almost entirely of carbon. Charcoal is great for dating items at Stone Age sites like the one in the Kimberley. The charcoal associated with the Kimberley ax flake was dated to between 48,875 and 43,941 years ago.

 

• One archaeologist says “The moment people set foot on Australia, [they started] adapting to survive.” How does the ax flake support this theory? Take a look at this article on human migration to Australia for some help.
  • People arrived in Australia about 50,000 years ago, and the Australian ax was developed as little as a thousand years later. A thousand or even 5,000 years is just a moment in paleoanthropological time.

 

• How do you think ancient Australians used their ax?
  • Hafted axes were some of the most sophisticated, powerful tools of the Stone Age. They could be wielded with great control for cutting or chopping trees, shrubs, or hard-shelled fruits; digging holes; slaughtering meat; or even breaking other, softer rocks. They could also, of course, be used as weapons.

 

• Is the Australian ax flake evidence of the oldest stone tools in the world?
  • No! Not even close. It’s the oldest artifact of its kind, but toolmaking is a much older behavior.
    • The oldest stone tools yet identified are about 3.3 million years old. The Lomekwi 3 tools, unearthed from a dry riverbed near Lake Turkana, Kenya, were hand-held (not hafted) and shaped (fractured and flaked) by our human ancestors.

 

TEACHERS TOOLKIT

ABC: World’s oldest known ground-edge stone axe fragments found in Western Australia

Nat Geo: What Makes Us Human? video

The Genographic Project: Migration to Australia

(extra credit!) Australian Archaeology: World’s earliest ground-edge axe production coincides with human colonisation of Australia