Early body tools

The most experienced mechanics worked faster, resulting in lower costs to the owner and more business for the mechanic or dealer. As the Great Depression hit, auto sales declined, and the market — including auto maintenance and production — was pressed to continue making a profit despite its inability to evolve until demand increased.

During this time of still-early car maintenance, one of the most popular and noticed auto body tools, paint, was often handled by the owner. According to Eastwood. Therefore, cars needed frequent touch-ups for protection from the elements.

Car owners would paint their automobiles by hand with brushes. Runs and finish imperfections were common even on cars directly out of the assembly line, so owners had little reason to hire an individual auto body mechanic to conduct paint repairs.

To resist market stagnation and the do-it-yourself mindset around auto body repair, History. Sloan, Jr. From this point forward, -individuals in the auto industry could begin to focus on auto body or auto mechanics or both , creating a lasting split in the industry. With automobiles continuing to advance, and the industry continuing to grow in America, the changes in the auto mechanics and body repair industry are largely driven by technology.

As the vehicles become more advanced, efficient, powerful, and long-living, auto mechanics working in the field are constantly learning.

Similarly, auto body repair continues to advance as styles and tools evolve. Auto body focuses on:. With auto-travel continuing to dominate American society, auto mechanics and body repair continue to advance as trade and career choices for those passionate about vehicles, from operation to style. Want to take your interest in cars to the next level? Explore the Automotive Service and Repair program at Apex.

These early toolmakers were selective in choosing particular rock materials for their artifacts. They usually chose hard water-worn creek cobbles made out of volcanic rock. There were two main categories of tools in the Oldowan t radition.

There were stone cobbles with several flakes knocked off usually at one end by heavy glancing percussion blows from another rock used as a hammer. This produced a jagged, chopping or cleaver-like implement that fit easily in the hand. These core tools most likely functioned as multipurpose hammering, chopping, and digging implements. Efficient use of this percussion flaking technique requires a strong precision grip. Humans are the only living primates that have this anatomical trait. Probably the most important tools in the Oldowan tradition were sharp-edged stone flakes produced in the process of making the core tools.

These simple flake tools were used without further modification as knives. They would have been essential for butchering large animals, because human teeth and fingers are totally inadequate for cutting through thick skins and slicing off pieces of meat.

Evidence of their use in this manner can be seen in cut marks that still are visible on bones. Some paleoanthropologists have suggested that the core tools were, in fact, only sources for the flake tools and that the cores had little other use. In addition to stone tools, Homo habilis probably made simple implements out of wood and other highly perishable materials that have not survived.

In the 's, Raymond Dart suggested that australopithecines and early humans also used the hard body parts of animals as clubs , daggers, and other sorts of weapons. Dart proposed an entire tool making tradition which he named o steodontokeratic , based on the presumed use of bones osteo , teeth donto , and horns keratic. This idea has been rejected by most paleoanthropologists today since there is a lack of evidence for the systematic shaping or even use of these materials for weapons or other types of tools at this early time.

In addition, it is unlikely that the earliest humans were aggressive hunters. They most likely were primarily vegetarians who occasionally ate meat that was mostly scavenged from the leftovers of kills abandoned by lions, leopards, and other large predators. At times, they also may have hunted monkeys and other small game much as chimpanzees do today. Homo habilis made and use d stone tools in the Oldowan t radition for nearly a million years but with gradual improvements over time.

The early Homo erectus also used what could be described as advanced or evolved Oldowan tool making techniques. Their tool kits were sufficiently advanced by 1. It was named after the Saint Acheul site in southwest France where these kinds of tools had been discovered in the 19th century.

However, the Acheulian tool making tradition was first developed in East Africa. Perhaps, the most important of the Acheulian tools were hand axes. They are rock cores or very large flakes that have been systematically worked by percussion flaking to an elongated oval shape with one pointed end and sharp edges on the sides. Since they were shaped on both faces, they are also referred to as biface tools. In profile, hand axes usually had a relatively symmetrical teardrop or broad leaf shape.

Referring to these artifacts as hand axes may be misleading since we do not know for sure whether they were primarily axes in a modern sense or even if they were held in the hand.

Based on tool edge wear patterns and the brittle fracturing lithic materials that were used to make them, it is likely that hand axes were multipurpose implements used for light chopping of wood, digging up roots and bulbs, butchering animals, and cracking nuts and small bones. In a sense, they were the Swiss Army knives of their times. They were reusable portable tools intended to be carried from place to place rather than made each time they were needed.

Acheul i an bifaces hand axes --the earliest known bilaterally symmetrical tools Some of the Acheul i an tools were shaped by additional percussion flaking to relatively standardized forms.

For instance, the surfaces of late Acheul i an hand axes often had many relatively small flake scars , suggesting that these tools were not completely made with heavy hammerstones. Late Homo erectus or their immediate successors must have begun using softer hammers for greater control in the final shaping process. Pieces of hard wood, antler, or bone would have functioned well for this purpose.

While hand axes are the most diagnostic of Acheul i an tools, they usually make up only a small percentage of the artifacts found at Homo erectus sites. In fact, these early humans made a relatively wide variety of stone tools that were used for processing various plant and animal materials. Their tool kits included choppers, cleavers, and hammers as well as flakes used as knives and scrapers.

It is quite likely that Homo erectus also made many implements out of more perishable materials such as wood, bark, and even grass , which can be easily twisted together to make string and rope. The Acheul i an t radition of tool making apparently began in East and South Africa by 1.

It spread into Israel and probably other parts of Southwest Asia by 1. However, not all early Homo erectus leaving Africa had Acheulian tools. Apparently, some only had the older Oldowan tradition. Acheulian tool making reached Europe by at least 5 00, years ago and possibly as early as , years ago. Until recently, the lack of hand axes at Zhoukoudian and other East Asian Homo erectus sites suggested that the Acheul i an t radition did not reach that far.

It was thought likely that the same functions that hand axes performed in the west were being performed in the Far East by other kinds of tools , perhaps made of bamboo. However, 24 sites in s outhern China have now been found to contain Acheul i an tools dating back about 80 0 , years. There remains controversy as to whether they include true hand axes.

Throughout most of the Homo erectus geographic range, there is clear evidence of progressive improvement in tool making over time. The late Homo erectus had more complex mental templates guiding them in the manufacture of their artifacts. In addition, the reliance on tools increased as the implements became more useful. By half a million years ago, major Homo erectus habitation sites commonly had tens of thousands of discarded stone tools.

New Subsistence Patterns. Anthropologists use the term subsistence pattern , or subsistence base , to refer to sources of food and the way it is obtained. A clear measure of success in human evolution has been the progressive development of new food getting techniques and the inclusion of new food sources.

These measures have made it possible for humanity to increase in numbers from a few thousand australopithecines in Africa three million years ago to perhaps hundreds of thousands of Homo erectus by a half million years ago. This trend of expanding and diversifying subsistence patterns making it possible for population growth continues to the present. In fact, it accelerated dramatically two centuries ago and is largely responsible for our burgeoning world population of seven billion people today.

Our modern hybridization and genetic modification of food crops and farm animals is just the latest human attempt to solve this recurring problem. Based on the analysis of tooth wear patterns and food refuse evidence, it is likely that australopithecines and early transitional humans were primarily wild plant food collectors and occasional scavengers of meat and eggs.

By the time of Homo erectus , small game hunting and large animal carcass scavenging were apparently becoming much more common. The evidence of this change in subsistence pattern can be seen especially at late Homo erectus sites such as Zhoukoudian.