A small shoulder bag made of animal hide or plant fibres was probably used to carry one of the oldest tool kits in existence.

The toolkit, containing 36 stone and horn tools at least 14,000 years old, was found in a small Neolithic hut in Jordan by Australian archaeologist, Dr Phillip Edwards.

The bag had long since rotted away, but the tools remained, providing a rare insight into life for prehistoric hunter-gatherers.

Dr Edwards, of Melbourne’s La Trobe University, said the implements had probably been carried in a shoulder bag made of animal hide or fibres.

"The most plausible explanation is it served as a toolkit for use on foraging excursions."

However, he said it was not known whether the tools belonged to one person, and if so, were they male or female, or if they were the collective tools of the group.

Wadi Hammeh Full of Artefacts

Jordan is a very ancient part of the world, and has been studied for over 50 years by archaeologists and anthropologists.

Dr Edwards has conducted digs there, particularly in an area called Wadi Hammeh 27, near Pella in the East Jordan Valley, which was excavated under the auspices of the University of Sydney. It contained a large number of Neolithic huts built from the local limestone.

The ancient people of this region were known as Natufians and built their earthen-floored huts near sources of water, gathering wild barley and wheat.

They hunted a wide range of animals and ate shellfish, according to the bones and shells found on the floors of the huts. Prey included red deer, goat, pig, fox, hare, stork, duck, owl and tortoise, which they killed with stone-tipped spears or arrows.

“The huts are provided with a variety of small stone facilities such as hearths, postholes and pavements,” Dr Edwards said on his La Trobe web page.

They provided a rich source of rock art, artefacts and other objects, and one of them contained the apparently abandoned or forgotten toolkit.

“Hundreds of thousands of items including rock-art (ranging from large-scale incised slabs to small plaques); artefact types in flint, limestone, siltstone, basalt, animal bone, ochre and shell; a taxonomically diverse fauna and botanical remains including wild barley and legumes,” he said.

Not Just Hunting

Other items found in the huts included a pestle lodged in a mortar, a second mortar, a second pestle, and two grinding stones, all showing the Natufians made flour out of the local grains – wild barley, wheat and legumes.

The sickle in the toolkit was probably used for harvesting these wild grains.

It was made of two pieces of animal horn and 10 small stone blades, which had been placed in two rows, according to their colour - pale brown or grey.

This careful gradation of colours showed the hunter-gathers were interested in appearance, not just utility, Dr Edwards said.

The large number of spare stones in the toolkit might have allowed a lone hunter to re-arm while pursuing an animal.

Other possible weapons included a clutch of smooth pebbles.

"The smaller stones may have been used as slingshot projectiles," he said.

Decorative Bone Jewellery

But the tool kit was not just for hunting. In amongst the tools were fragments of a bone pendant and a bone bead.

The gazelle bones found in the kit may have been kept ready to be turned into more of these decorative beads, a handicraft the hunter probably practised while waiting for prey to appear.

Dr Edwards’ finds at Wadi Hammeh 27 are outlined in the February issue of the journal Antiquity.

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