Between modern-day humans and our closest hominid cousins is a vast gulf of time, longer than every human civilization combined. However, even across all this time, these prehistoric ancestors still fall under the Homo sapiens umbrella. They originated over 195,000 years ago in Ethiopia—the earliest modern human population discovered to live in prehistory, and a tether to our ancient past.

Our connection to these early humans is not just a matter of anatomy—strong archaeological evidence tells us they developed unique cultural practices at least 70,000 years ago. They had language, art, and even spiritual practices. Many details of their lives remain mysterious, as their physical remains can only hint at what their culture was like. However, through the stone tools they left behind, we can track a clear course as to how humans became the dominant species on Earth.

This specimen is an Aurignacian stone tool recovered from a Paleolithic site in southern France, dated around 36,000-29,000 years old. (Specimens come from either Abri de Gane or Tarté cave. See description at the top of the page for exact details.)

The techniques needed to shape these tools allows some insight into how these Upper Paleolithic cultures functioned: sophisticated language was needed to explain the techniques,
and some degree of hierarchy would exist to teach the tool-making method to a younger toolmaker.

Each specimen is shipped in a sturdy carton and comes complete with a certificate of authenticity. Explore the complete collection below!

Early human populations were not tightly knit beyond their local communities, but different groups still shared resources and ideas with one another. These trades created a series of broadly shared cultures in the Paleolithic world. We call these cultures “industries,” and identify them based on their tool-making techniques, the types of tools they created, and the sites and timeframes in which they are found.

One extremely successful group was those who moved northward into the European continent, the Aurignacian industry—this period of tool-making flourished between about 37,000 to 33,000 years ago. Around this time, humans began to outperform the Neanderthal populations in Europe thanks to an amazing increase in the efficiency of technology and tool-making techniques. The defining trait of the Aurignacian innovations was the use of a flint stone core to create a variety of different blades, scrapers, and points.

These cores were large pieces of flint that stoneworkers shaped to be easy to carry and use. By slamming a heavy hammer stone across the top of the core, one could flake off a long and narrow piece of stone called a blank. Early humans refined these blanks into many different tools like blades, points, burins, awls, scrapers, grinders, crescents, and mortars.

Stoneworkers knew just the right angle and amount of force needed to create all sorts of shapes on the fly, making a single core an entire Paleolithic toolbox waiting to be crafted. If a tool or weapon broke while away from a camp, they could simply pull out the core, create a new blank, and shape it into a replacement in seconds. These stone tools also allowed humans to develop new methods of shaping bone to create stronger weapons and even needles to sew clothes.

The humans of the Aurignacian industry were quite selective about what sorts of flints they used. Studies of the Bacho Kiro cave in Bulgaria show that toolmakers crafted more than half of their tools from a flint deposit located 110 km (70 mi) away. The pattern repeats at Dolní Věstonice, a similar site in the Czech Republic, where researchers concluded that 90% of all stone tools originated from material sourced from a deposit over 200 km (120 mi) away. High-quality flint was crucial to making cores that could produce useful blanks, and stoneworkers were willing to travel long distances to collect it. This spurred long expeditions of flint collectors and helped facilitate trade and connections with other human groups on the way to a source.