Tools of the Wild: Unveiling the Crafty Side of Nature

Once considered a uniquely human activity, tool use has been spotted across diverse species. It’s time to rethink what tools reveal about their users’ intelligence and evolution.Like you—and the device you’re reading this on—these creatures are using tools.

As archaeologists, we have worked for decades studying tools made by human ancestors and relatives, as well as wild tool-using animals such as monkeys, sea otters, and crows. Confronted by the expanding diversity of tool users, researchers have reached a tipping point: It’s time to rethink the meaning of tool use—and what it implies about the intelligence of humans,Tools aren’t part of our body, but they allow us to act on the world in new ways.

One of the most influential steps taken by hominins—our ancestors since we split from chimpanzees and bonobos about 7 million years ago—was to start breaking apart stones, leaving sharp edges. Turns out,What of shoes and oven mitts, sunscreen and underpants? Another trait we share with various critters is using tools to help insulate ourselves from bodily harm.protect themselves by holding tough sea sponges over their beak as they forage in the sandy seafloor.

But we do believe there is one limitation: Tools must be portable. With a watering can, you can dampen any garden in the world. With a hose attached to your house, not so much. The obvious drawback for fixed objects, even flexible ones like a hose or a hanging vine, is that your reach is extremely limited. From this come other limits on how you can combine one object with another or share. Portable tools can be passed around and passed on.

Features critical to animals’ success sometimes evolve independently in distantly related lineages—a fascinating process called “convergent evolution.” Most bats, birds, and bees can all fly, for example. And the eyes of humans and squids evolved separately from one another.

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