The Making of Chipped Stone Tools

[Narration]
These are stone tools from the Paleolithic Age.

[Tourist]
They’re tools? They look like normal stones to me.

[Narration]
They do, yes, but they really are chipped stone tools that Paleolithic people made and used for many different purposes.

[Tourist]
How did they chip the stones?

[Narration]
The simplest method they used was to smash one stone with another stone and hope for the best! Later on, they used stone hammers or horns to chip the stone in a more directed, controlled manner.

[Tourist]
I see. What did they use the chipped stone tools for?

[Narration]
They were used for hunting and skinning animal carcasses for leather and fur to make clothes. The stone on the left is quartzite. Since it is a very hard type of stone and is found all over Korea, quartzite was the most practical stone for tool-making during the Paleolithic Age. The stone on the right is obsidian. Obsidian was commonly used to make arrowheads because it has a propensity to break into thin, sharp shards.

[Tourist]
So, you’re saying that Paleolithic people exploited the properties of different types of stone to invent new tools?

[Narration]
That’s right. They realized that different types of stones were suited to different uses. Obsidian naturally forms on the edges of lava tracts, so it is very common in volcanic regions, such as Japan. These stones were often excavated in Korea as well, suggesting that the peninsula’s Paleolithic inhabitants traded with peoples in other countries and imported their goods.