It was a great day in the long climb toward civilized ways of living when some unknown inventor made the first bow. With arrows tipped with sharp bits of stone, man could now kill the larger animals. Stone knives were used to skin the game. Flint scrapers and other implements were very useful in scraping and softening the skins to fit them for use.
By using pieces of flint with rough edges as saws and files, men began to make tools of horn, bones, and shells. They now possessed daggers and hammers of horn and awls and needles of bone.
The Evolution of the House
For many thousand years, stone arrow-heads, knives, and axes were made with rough, chipped edges. This time is sometimes called the Old Stone Age. When men had learned to make better tools of their stone knives and axes by grinding and polishing them to a smooth, sharp edge, they had entered upon the New Stone Age.
The next great forward step in human progress was taken when men discovered metals and began to use them. Copper was the first metal used, but it was soon found that it was too soft for making many articles.
Presently it was discovered that if a little tin were mixed with the copper it made a harder metal called bronze. So many weapons, tools, and ornaments were made of bronze that the time when it was used is called the Bronze Age.
Iron is the most useful of all the metals. It is much harder than bronze and better suited in every way for making tools and implements. It took man a long time to learn how to use it, because it is not so easy to work as copper and bronze. When man made this "king of metals" his servant, he traveled a long, long way on the road which leads to civilization.
The men invented the weapons and some of the tools of the earliest ages. But it is probable that the women first made many useful tools and utensils. Women wove the first baskets to use in gathering and carrying berries, nuts, and other articles of food. They used to cover fish with clay in order to bake them in the coals and they noticed how the fires hardened the clay. Then by molding clay over baskets so that they could be hung over the fire, women gradually learned how to make earthenware pots and bowls. Afterwards they cut spoons, ladles, and drinking cups from shells, gourds, and the horns of animals. In these ways our foremothers made their first cooking utensils and their first dishes for holding and serving food and drink.