A tool is an object that can extend an individual's ability to modify features of the surrounding environment or help them accomplish a particular task. Although many animals use
simple tools, only
human beings, whose use of
stone tools dates back
hundreds of millennia, have been observed using tools to make other tools.
Early human tools, made of such materials as
stone,
bone
A bone is a rigid organ that constitutes part of the skeleton in most vertebrate animals. Bones protect the various other organs of the body, produce red and white blood cells, store minerals, provide structure and support for the body, ...
, and
wood, were used for preparation of
food,
hunting, manufacture of
weapons, and working of materials to produce
clothing and useful artifacts. The development of
metalworking made additional types of tools possible. Harnessing energy sources, such as
animal power
A working animal is an animal, usually domesticated, that is kept by humans and trained to perform tasks instead of being slaughtered to harvest animal products. Some are used for their physical strength (e.g. oxen and draft horses) or for t ...
,
wind, or
steam, allowed increasingly complex tools to produce an even larger range of items, with the
Industrial Revolution marking an inflection point in the use of tools. The introduction of widespread
automation
Automation describes a wide range of technologies that reduce human intervention in processes, namely by predetermining decision criteria, subprocess relationships, and related actions, as well as embodying those predeterminations in machines ...
in the 19th and 20th centuries allowed tools to operate with minimal human supervision, further increasing the productivity of human labor.
Definition
While a common-sense understanding of the meaning of tool is widespread, several formal definitions have been proposed.
In 1981, Benjamin Beck published a widely used definition of tool use. This has been modified to:Other, briefer definitions have been proposed:
History
Anthropologists believe that the use of tools was an important step in the
evolution of mankind.
Because tools are used extensively by both humans and wild
chimpanzees, it is widely assumed that the first routine use of tools took place prior to the divergence between the two species. These early tools, however, were likely made of perishable materials such as sticks, or consisted of unmodified stones that cannot be distinguished from other stones as tools.
Stone artifacts date back to about 2.5 million years ago.
[ Also (paperback)] However, a 2010 study suggests the
hominin species ''
Australopithecus afarensis'' ate meat by carving animal
carcasses with stone implements. This finding pushes back the earliest known use of stone tools among hominins to about 3.4 million years ago. Finds of actual tools date back at least 2.6 million years in
Ethiopia
Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the ...
. One of the earliest distinguishable stone tool forms is the
hand axe.
Up until recently, weapons found in digs were the only tools of "early man" that were studied and given importance. Now, more tools are recognized as culturally and historically relevant. As well as hunting, other activities required tools such as preparing food, "...nutting, leatherworking, grain harvesting and woodworking..." Included in this group are "flake stone tools".
Tools are the most important items that the ancient humans used to climb to the top of the
food chain; by inventing tools, they were able to accomplish tasks that human bodies could not, such as using a
spear or
bow to kill
prey, since their teeth were not sharp enough to pierce many animals' skins. “Man the hunter” as the catalyst for Hominin change has been questioned. Based on marks on the bones at archaeological sites, it is now more evident that pre-humans were scavenging off of other predators' carcasses rather than killing their own food.
Timeline of ancient tool development
Many tools were made in
prehistory
Prehistory, also known as pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the use of the first stone tools by hominins 3.3 million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. The us ...
or in the early centuries of recorded history, but archaeological evidence can provide dates of development and use.
*
Olduvai stone technology (
Oldowan) 2.5 million years ago (scrapers; to butcher dead animals)
*
Huts, 2 million years ago.
*
Acheulean stone technology 1.6 million years ago (hand axe)
*
Fire
Fire is the rapid oxidation of a material (the fuel) in the exothermic chemical process of combustion, releasing heat, light, and various reaction products.
At a certain point in the combustion reaction, called the ignition point, flames ...
creation and manipulation, used since the
Paleolithic, possibly by
Homo erectus as early as
1.5 Million years ago
*
Boat
A boat is a watercraft of a large range of types and sizes, but generally smaller than a ship, which is distinguished by its larger size, shape, cargo or passenger capacity, or its ability to carry boats.
Small boats are typically found on i ...
s, 900,000 years ago.
*
Cooking, 500,000 years ago.
*
Javelins, 400,000 years ago.
*
Glue, 200,000 years ago.
*
Clothing possibly 170,000 years ago.
*
Stone tools, used by
Homo floresiensis, possibly
100,000 years ago.
*
Harpoon
A harpoon is a long spear-like instrument and tool used in fishing, whaling, sealing, and other marine hunting to catch and injure large fish or marine mammals such as seals and whales. It accomplishes this task by impaling the target ani ...
s, 90,000 years ago.
*
Bow and arrows, 70,000–60,000 years ago.
*
Sewing needles, 60,000 - 50,000 BC
*
Flutes, 43,000 years ago.
*
Fishing nets, 43,000 years ago.
*
Ropes, 40,000 years ago.
*
Ceramics c. 25,000 BC
*
Fishing hooks, C. 23,000 years ago.
*
Domestication of animals, c. 15,000 BC
*
Sling (weapon) c. 9th millennium BC
*
Microliths c. 9th millennium BC
*
Brick used for construction in the Middle East c. 6000 BC
*
Agriculture
Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people ...
and
Plough c. 4000 BC
*
Wheel c. 4000 BC
*
Gnomon c. 4000 BC
*
Writing systems c. 3500 BC
*
Copper c. 3200 BC
*
Bronze c. 2500 BC
*
Salt c. 2500 BC
*
Chariot c. 2000 BC
*
Iron
Iron () is a chemical element with symbol Fe (from la, ferrum) and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, right in ...
c. 1500 BC
*
Sundial c. 800 BC
*
Glass ca. 500 BC
*
Catapult c. 400 BC
*
Cast iron c. 400 BC
*
Horseshoe c. 300 BC
*
Stirrup first few centuries AD
Several of the six classic
simple machines (
wheel and axle,
lever,
pulley,
inclined plane,
wedge, and
screw) were invented in
Mesopotamia. The wheel and axle mechanism first appeared with the
potter's wheel, invented in what is now Iraq during the 5th millennium BC. This led to the invention of the
wheeled vehicle in Mesopotamia during the early 4th millennium BC. The
lever was used in the
shadoof water-lifting device, the first
crane machine, which appeared in Mesopotamia circa 3000 BC. and then in
ancient Egyptian technology circa 2000 BC. The earliest evidence of
pulleys date back to Mesopotamia in the early 2nd millennium BC.
The
screw, the last of the simple machines to be invented,
first appeared in Mesopotamia during the
Neo-Assyrian period (911-609) BC.
The Assyrian King
Sennacherib (704–681 BC) claims to have invented automatic sluices and to have been the first to use water
screw pumps, of up to 30 tons weight, which were cast using two-part clay molds rather than by the '
lost wax
Lost-wax casting (also called "investment casting", "precision casting", or ''cire perdue'' which has been adopted into English from the French, ) is the process by which a duplicate metal sculpture (often silver, gold, brass, or bronze) is ...
' process.
[S Dalley, ''The Mystery of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon'', Oxford University Press(2013)] The Jerwan Aqueduct (c. 688 BC) is made with stone arches and lined with waterproof concrete. The earliest evidence of
water wheels and
watermills date back to the
ancient Near East in the 4th century BC, specifically in the
Persian Empire before 350 BC, in the regions of Mesopotamia (Iraq) and
Persia (Iran). This pioneering use of
water power constituted the first human-devised motive force not to rely on muscle power (besides the
sail).
Mechanical
Mechanical may refer to:
Machine
* Machine (mechanical), a system of mechanisms that shape the actuator input to achieve a specific application of output forces and movement
* Mechanical calculator, a device used to perform the basic operations ...
devices experienced a major expansion in their use in
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece ( el, Ἑλλάς, Hellás) was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity ( AD 600), that comprised a loose collection of cu ...
and
Ancient Rome
In modern historiography, ancient Rome refers to Roman people, Roman civilisation from the founding of the city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingdom ...
with the systematic employment of new energy sources, especially
waterwheels. Their use expanded through the
Dark Ages with the addition of
windmills.
Machine tools
Machine tool
A machine tool is a machine for handling or machining metal or other rigid materials, usually by cutting, boring, grinding, shearing, or other forms of deformations. Machine tools employ some sort of tool that does the cutting or shaping. Al ...
s occasioned a surge in producing new tools in the
Industrial Revolution. Pre-industrial machinery was built by various craftsmen
millwrights built water and windmills,
carpenters made wooden framing, and smiths and turners made metal parts. Wooden components had the disadvantage of changing dimensions with temperature and humidity, and the various joints tended to rack (work loose) over time. As the Industrial Revolution progressed, machines with metal parts and frames became more common.
Other important uses of metal parts were in firearms and threaded fasteners, such as machine screws, bolts, and nuts. There was also the need for precision in making parts. Precision would allow better working machinery, interchangeability of parts, and standardization of threaded fasteners. The demand for metal parts led to the development of several
machine tools. They have their origins in the tools developed in the 18th century by makers of clocks and watches and scientific instrument makers to enable them to batch-produce small mechanisms. Before the advent of machine tools, metal was worked manually using the basic hand tools of hammers, files, scrapers, saws, and chisels. Consequently, the use of metal machine parts was kept to a minimum. Hand methods of production were very laborious and costly and precision was difficult to achieve.
[. Reprinted by McGraw-Hill, New York and London, 1926 (); and by Lindsay Publications, Inc., Bradley, Illinois, ().] With their inherent precision, machine tools enabled the economical production of
interchangeable parts.
Examples of machine tools include:
*
Broaching machine
*
Drill press
*
Gear shaper
*
Hobbing machine
*
Hone
*
Lathe
*
Screw machines
*
Milling machine
*
Shear (sheet metal)
*
Shaper
*
Bandsaw
A bandsaw (also written band saw) is a power saw with a long, sharp blade consisting of a continuous band of toothed metal stretched between two or more wheels to cut material. They are used principally in woodworking, metalworking, and lu ...
*
Planer
*
Stewart platform
A Stewart platform is a type of parallel manipulator that has six prismatic actuators, commonly hydraulic jacks or electric linear actuators, attached in pairs to three positions on the platform's baseplate, crossing over to three mounting poin ...
mills
*
Grinding machines
Advocates of
nanotechnology expect a similar surge as tools become microscopic in size.
Types
One can classify tools according to their basic functions:
*
Cutting and edge tools, such as the
knife
A knife ( : knives; from Old Norse 'knife, dirk') is a tool or weapon with a cutting edge or blade, usually attached to a handle or hilt. One of the earliest tools used by humanity, knives appeared at least 2.5 million years ago, as evid ...
,
sickle,
scythe
A scythe ( ) is an agriculture, agricultural hand tool for mowing grass or Harvest, harvesting Crop, crops. It is historically used to cut down or reaping, reap edible grain, grains, before the process of threshing. The scythe has been largely ...
,
hatchet, and
axe, are wedge-shaped implements that produce a
shearing force along a narrow face. Ideally, the edge of the tool needs to be
harder than the material being cut or the blade will become dulled with repeated use. But even resilient tools will require periodic
sharpening, which is the process of removing deformation wear from the edge. Other examples of cutting tools include
gouges and
drill bits.
* Moving tools move large and tiny items. Many are
levers which give the user a
mechanical advantage. Examples of force-concentrating tools include the
hammer which moves a nail or the
maul which moves a stake. These operate by applying
physical compression to a surface. In the case of the
screwdriver, the force is rotational and called
torque. By contrast, an
anvil concentrates force on an object being hammered by ''preventing'' it from moving away when struck.
Writing implements deliver a fluid to a surface via compression to activate the ink cartridge. Grabbing and twisting nuts and bolts with
pliers, a glove, a
wrench, etc. likewise move items by applying torque (rotational force).
* Tools that enact chemical changes, including temperature and ignition, such as
lighters and
blowtorches.
* Guiding, measuring and perception tools include the
ruler,
glasses,
square,
sensors,
straightedge,
theodolite,
microscope,
monitor
Monitor or monitor may refer to:
Places
* Monitor, Alberta
* Monitor, Indiana, town in the United States
* Monitor, Kentucky
* Monitor, Oregon, unincorporated community in the United States
* Monitor, Washington
* Monitor, Logan County, West ...
,
clock,
phone,
printer
* Shaping tools, such as
molds,
jigs,
trowels.
* Fastening tools, such as
welders,
soldering iron
A soldering iron is a hand tool used in soldering. It supplies heat to melt solder so that it can flow into the joint between two workpieces.
A soldering iron is composed of a heated metal tip (the ''bit'') and an insulated handle. Heating ...
s,
rivet guns,
nail guns, or
glue guns.
* Information and data manipulation tools, such as
computers,
IDE,
spreadsheet
A spreadsheet is a computer application for computation, organization, analysis and storage of data in tabular form. Spreadsheets were developed as computerized analogs of paper accounting worksheets. The program operates on data entered in ...
s
Some tools may be combinations of other tools. An alarm-clock is for example a combination of a measuring tool (the clock) and a perception tool (the alarm). This enables the alarm-clock to be a tool that falls outside of all the categories mentioned above.
There is some debate on whether to consider protective gear items as tools, because they do not directly help perform work, just protect the worker like ordinary clothing. They do meet the general definition of tools and in many cases are necessary for the completion of the work.
Personal protective equipment includes such items as
gloves,
safety glasses,
ear defenders and
biohazard suits.
Function
Tool substitution
Often, by design or coincidence, a tool may share key functional attributes with one or more other tools. In this case, some tools can substitute for other tools, either as a makeshift solution or as a matter of practical efficiency. "One tool does it all" is a motto of some importance for workers who cannot practically carry every specialized tool to the location of every work task, such as a carpenter who does not necessarily work in a shop all day and needs to do jobs in a customer's house. Tool substitution may be divided broadly into two classes: substitution "by-design", or "multi-purpose", and substitution as makeshift. Substitution "by-design" would be tools that are designed specifically to accomplish multiple tasks using only that one tool.
Substitution is "makeshift" when human ingenuity comes into play and a tool is used for an unintended purpose such as using a long screw driver to separate a cars control arm from a ball joint instead of using a tuning fork. In many cases, the designed secondary functions of tools are not widely known. For example, many wood-cutting
hand saws integrate a
square by incorporating a specially shaped handle that allows 90° and 45° angles to be marked by aligning the appropriate part of the handle with an edge and scribing along the back edge of the saw. The latter is illustrated by the saying "All tools can be used as hammers." Nearly all tools can be used to function as a hammer, even though very few tools are intentionally designed for it and even fewer work as well as the original.
Tools are also often used to substitute for many mechanical apparatuses, especially in older mechanical devices. In many cases a cheap tool could be used to occupy the place of a missing mechanical part. A window roller in a car could easily be replaced with a pair of
vise-grips or regular
pliers. A transmission shifter or ignition switch would be able to be replaced with a screwdriver. Again, these would be considered tools that are being used for their unintended purposes, substitution as makeshift. Tools such as a
rotary tool
Die grinders and rotary tools are handheld power tools used for grinding, sanding, honing, polishing, or machining material (typically metal, but also plastic or wood). All such tools are conceptually similar, with no bright dividing line ...
would be considered the substitution "by-design", or "multi-purpose". This class of tools allows the use of one tool that has at least two different capabilities. "Multi-purpose" tools are basically multiple tools in one device/tool. Tools such as this are often power tools that come with many different attachments like a rotary tool does, so you could say that a power drill is a "multi-purpose" tool because you can do more than just one thing with a power drill.
Multi-use tools
A
multi-tool is a hand tool that incorporates several tools into a single, portable device; the
Swiss army knife represents one of the earliest examples. Other tools have a primary purpose but also incorporate other functionality – for example,
lineman's pliers incorporate a gripper and cutter and are often used as a hammer; and some
hand saws incorporate a
square in the right-angle between the blade's dull edge and the saw's handle. This would also be the category of "multi-purpose" tools, since they are also multiple tools in one (multi-use and multi-purpose can be used interchangeably – compare
hand axe). These types of tools were specifically made to catch the eye of many different craftsman who traveled to do their work. To these workers these types of tools were revolutionary because they were one tool or one device that could do several different things. With this new revolution of tools, the traveling craftsman would not have to carry so many tools with them to job sites, in that their space would be limited to the vehicle or to the beast of burden they were driving. Multi-use tools solve the problem of having to deal with many different tools.
Use by other animals
Tool use by animals is a phenomenon in which an animal uses any kind of tool in order to achieve a goal such as acquiring food and water,
grooming, defense,
communication,
recreation or
construction
Construction is a general term meaning the art and science to form objects, systems, or organizations,"Construction" def. 1.a. 1.b. and 1.c. ''Oxford English Dictionary'' Second Edition on CD-ROM (v. 4.0) Oxford University Press 2009 and ...
.
Originally thought to be a skill possessed only by
humans" \n\n\n\n\nThe robots exclusion standard, also known as the robots exclusion protocol or simply robots.txt, is a standard used by websites to indicate to visiting web crawlers and other web robots which portions of the site they are allowed to visi ...
, some tool use requires a sophisticated level of cognition.
There is considerable discussion about the definition of what constitutes a tool and therefore which behaviours can be considered true examples of tool use.
Observation has confirmed that
a number of species can use tools including
monkeys,
apes,
elephants, several birds, and
sea otters. Now the unique relationship of
humans with tools is considered to be that we are the only species that uses tools to make ''other'' tools.
Primates are well known for using tools for hunting or gathering food and water, cover for rain, and self-defense. Chimpanzees have often been the object of study in regard to their usage of tools, most famously by
Jane Goodall, since these animals are frequently kept in captivity and are closely related to humans. Wild tool-use in other primates, especially among
apes and
monkeys, is considered relatively common, though its full extent remains poorly documented, as many primates in the wild are mainly only observed distantly or briefly when in their natural environments and living without human influence.
Some novel tool-use by primates may arise in a localized or isolated manner within certain unique
primate cultures, being transmitted and practiced among socially connected primates through
cultural learning.
Many famous researchers, such as
Charles Darwin in his book ''
The Descent of Man'', mentioned tool-use in
monkeys (such as
baboons
Baboons are primates comprising the genus ''Papio'', one of the 23 genera of Old World monkeys. There are six species of baboon: the hamadryas baboon, the Guinea baboon, the olive baboon, the yellow baboon, the Kinda baboon and the chacma b ...
).
Among other
mammals, both wild and captive
elephants are known to create tools using their trunks and feet, mainly for swatting flies, scratching, plugging up waterholes that they have dug (to close them up again so the water doesn't evaporate), and reaching food that is out of reach. Many other
social mammals particularly have been observed engaging in tool-use. A group of
dolphins in
Shark Bay uses
sea sponges
Sponges, the members of the phylum Porifera (; meaning 'pore bearer'), are a basal animal clade as a sister of the diploblasts. They are multicellular organisms that have bodies full of pores and channels allowing water to circulate through ...
to protect their beaks while foraging.
Sea otters will use rocks or other hard objects to dislodge food (such as
abalone) and break open
shellfish. Many or most mammals of the order
Carnivora have been observed using tools, often to trap or break open the shells of prey, as well as for scratching.
Corvids (such as
crows,
ravens and
rooks
Rook (''Corvus frugilegus'') is a bird of the corvid family. Rook or rooks may also refer to:
Games
*Rook (chess), a piece in chess
*Rook (card game), a trick-taking card game
Military
*Sukhoi Su-25
The Sukhoi Su-25 ''Grach'' (russian: � ...
) are well known for their large brains (among
birds) and tool use.
New Caledonian crows
The New Caledonian crow (''Corvus moneduloides'') is a medium-sized member of the family Corvidae, native to New Caledonia. The bird is often referred to as the 'qua-qua' due to its distinctive call. It eats a wide range of food, including many ...
are among the only animals that create their own tools. They mainly manufacture probes out of twigs and wood (and sometimes metal wire) to catch or impale
larvae. Tool use in some birds may be best exemplified in nest intricacy.
Tailorbirds manufacture 'pouches' to make their nests in. Some birds, such as
weaver birds
Ploceidae is a family of small passerine birds, many of which are called weavers, weaverbirds, weaver finches and bishops. These names come from the nests of intricately woven vegetation created by birds in this family. In most recent classific ...
, build complex nests utilizing a diverse array of objects and materials, many of which are specifically chosen by certain birds for their unique qualities.
Woodpecker finches insert twigs into trees in order to catch or impale larvae.
Parrots may use tools to wedge nuts so that they can crack open the outer shell of nuts without launching away the inner contents. Some birds take advantage of human activity, such as
carrion crows in Japan, which drop nuts in front of cars to crack them open.
Several species of
fish
Fish are Aquatic animal, aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing animals that lack Limb (anatomy), limbs with Digit (anatomy), digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and Chondrichthyes, cartilaginous and bony fish as we ...
use tools to hunt and crack open shellfish, extract food that is out of reach, or clear an area for nesting. Among cephalopods (and perhaps uniquely or to an extent unobserved among
invertebrates),
octopuses
An octopus ( : octopuses or octopodes, see below for variants) is a soft-bodied, eight- limbed mollusc of the order Octopoda (, ). The order consists of some 300 species and is grouped within the class Cephalopoda with squids, cuttlefis ...
are known to use tools relatively frequently, such as gathering coconut shells to create a shelter or using rocks to create barriers.
Tool metaphors
A telephone is a communication tool that interfaces between two people engaged in conversation at one level. It also interfaces between each user and the communication network at another level. It is in the domain of media and communications technology that a counter-intuitive aspect of our relationships with our tools first began to gain popular recognition.
Marshall McLuhan famously said "We shape our tools. And then our tools shape us." McLuhan was referring to the fact that our social practices co-evolve with our use of new tools and the refinements we make to existing tools.
See also
*
Antique tool
*
Ergonomics
*
List of timber framing tools
*
Tool library
A tool library is an example of a Library of Things. Tool libraries allow patrons to check out or borrow tools, equipment and "how-to" instructional materials, functioning either as a rental shop, with a charge for borrowing the tools, or more c ...
*
Toolbank
ToolBank USA is a not-for-profit organization based in Atlanta, Georgia with a mission to strengthen local communities through the establishment of ToolBank affiliates across the United States and the provision of infrastructure to support affi ...
*
Toolmaker
References
External links
*
*
{{Authority control
Industrial equipment
Tools
ceb:Himan