Everything prepared for this charmig workshop (or at least this is what the teacher expected)
The oldest human preserved tool: choppers and chopping tools, created by Australopithecus and Homo Habilis in Oduwai, a couple of millions ago.
The students from Social Sciences has put in practice a different way of learning prehistory. Why don't we learn how the old lithic tools were created using not hard stones but soft potatoes?
This method is not unusual in some history faculties, and it is a very attractive way to get used to terms like chopper, chopping tool, bifaz, levallois technique and other useful tools from our ancestors. On the other hand it shows that this old techniques are not at all a simple break or clash of a couple of rock, and that the prehistoric mind was quite more intelligent and smart than what we can expect in a first sight. For this lesson, the library offered us the best means to achieve our goals: books, computers, wide tables and a permanent exhibition on evolution that includes skulls, different kinds of rocks and stone copies from ancient tools. A nice experience to be repeated as soon as possible for other students.
