To learn how smart our early tool-making ancestors were, an interdisciplinary research team is scanning the brains of modern humans to find out what kind of brainpower is needed to complete tool-making tasks.

In the article posted on The Conversation, the author reveals some facts about our earliest human ancestors, including evidence showing how they chipped small flakes off larger stones to make sharp cutting edges as early as 2.6 million years ago. The author also discusses other time periods, in which our ancestors made tools with whatever objects were around them.

Presented in the article were details on how volunteer participants for the study, recreated similar behaviors of early humans to make a replica of the type of tools they created millions of years ago. Researchers used a brain imaging technology, functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), that allows the person being imaged to sit up and move their arms.

Prior to the patients undergoing fNIRS and making tools, participants were trained on how to make Oldowan and Acheulian tools. The researchers controlled for language in designing the experiment to test the idea that language and tool making share a common circuit in the brain. To do so, one group was trained how to make tools via video with language instructions, while the other learned via the same videos, but with the audio muted.

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