At the risk of sounding stupid, I just found out how long the stone age lasted. In my head it's about as long as other historical time periods, a couple thousand years before ancient egypt, and conceptually looks like a bad car insurance commercial. Nope! Dead wrong! The stone age lasted for 3.4 MILLION YEARS.

Okay wow i would not have guessed millions. Maybe in like the tens of thousands? But definitely would have way undershot.

I told my wife and they said "Yeah, modernity is a recent and strange invention"

Oh yes! Hello I am wife. And these are the oldowan tools:

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The first image is my favorite, the iconic oldowan hand axe, but you'll note there's a wide range of other tools crafted for everything from crushing nuts and stones, to awls and engraving devices. There is some evidence, albeit hotly debated, that these tools MIGHT have been used in ancient burials. Maybe. This is up for debate because these tools are THREE MILLION YEARS OLD. They pre date homo sapiens and homo erectus. They pre date the ice age. Hell, they pre date the fucking ice caps. We don't think humans were burying their dead as we understand it today, but maybe?? These were made by homo habilis, or the "handyman", so named for their invention of tools.

It makes me feel very small to look at these, like looking up at a starry sky.

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