• humans have evolved a whole suite of specialized skills to help us survive. Perhaps the most important of these skills was our ability to make and use tools. Did you know that crows use tools, too?

Ask An Anthropologist

Ask An Anthropologist is an educational resource for students, teachers, parents, and life-long learners. We encourage anyone interested in anthropology to make use of its content.

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Becoming human brings together interactive multimedia, research and scholarship to promote greater understanding of the course of human evolution.

A hand pulls a orange rope through a tube. Shadows in the background look like another person is doing the same thing from far away

Pull it off

Even very young human children can learn simple games such as working together to pull a board. They can also figure out a fair way to share the rewards from cooperating. This activity may seem simple, but humans are the only animals with the ability and desire to work together and negotiate a fair deal in this way.
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The Setting for Science

If you like being outdoors, digging up bones, and doing science, then check out what it’s like to be an anthropologist.
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To the Laboratory!

The precious fossils are carefully bound in bubble wrap and placed in fireproof cases. Soon the fossils will have a new home—the laboratory— and the world will get to know all the secrets these fossils have to offer.
Link Tools in the Stone Age

Chipping Away: Tools in the Stone Age

Since long ago, the survival of our ancestors has depended in part on technology. Even today, the shoes you put on and the car you drive are both built on previous discoveries. We can trace human technological developments way back to over three million years ago.