In this section, you learned about the significance of collective learning to human social evolution. You also learned a bit about artifacts and what they might tell us about ancient people. 

For this assignment, you will be researching an artifact then doing your best to explain what kind of collective learning would be involved in its creation and use. 

Let's consider for a moment the stone ball that you looked at which has been determined to have come from a set of Paleolithic bolas. The person who created it would have to know what kind of stone to make it from, how to shape it, and how to connect it to cords made of another material such as twine or sinew. Someone would have to know how to effectively throw it at an animal to bring it down. This person would need to know how to deal with an immobilized wild animal, then would need to know how to retrieve the weapon. 

Image from US Army Survival Manual

Your task is to research a paleolithic tool. You will need to do a search using Google or another search engine. You could look at a hand-axe, spearhead, or bone awl (it needn't be made of stone) though you can research any tool made more than 10 000 years ago. 

Once you have chosen your tool, write down the following:

• What we call this tool
• material
• shape
• size
• special qualities
• use
• who might have used it
• where it was used
• what it tells us about technology at that time in that place

Next, write a paragraph in which you explain what someone would need to know to create this tool and to use it effectively. Also, consider how this information might have been passed on. Remember that there was no writing during the paleolithic. Would someone watch and mimic how a tool was being used, or would it be demonstrated? Would corrective feedback have been given or not? Would diagrams have been drawn?

Format this assignment as a word-processing document. Include the following:

• picture of the object that you used as well as its source
• answers to the questions above and any other notes
• your paragraph response 

This will be marked out of 16 according to the paragraph rubric.