THE RUDAPITHECUS AND THE EVOLUTION OF MANKIND

Stone tools

By the time of the Mesolithic (or Middle Stone Age) smaller and smaller blade tools were made (fig. 42 below). It can be related to partially the depletion of raw material sites, and to the fact that at the end of the Ice Age, large-bodied preys (mammoth, woolly rhinoceros, reindeer… etc.) which had been hunted earlier either moved to north, or died out. For the hunting and processing of smaller prey replacing them (bore, deer, hare… etc.), smaller tools were more suitable.