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Early hammers were simply hand held stones and continued to be used in this form until the Greek period. Hammers with handles were made of bronze, iron and finally steel. The Romans made extensive use of nails and developed the basic claw hammer as a result. English hammers developed with round striking faces and were known as the ‘Exeter’ or ‘London’ pattern. Various trades developed specialist hammers to suit their type of work, including picture framing, upholstering, saddle making, veneering, engineering and even telephone cable installation. Mallets date back to early history when tree branches or roots were used as a kind of club or cudget. The Egyptians and Romans both used wooden mallets, although the typical square sectioned English mallet did not develop until the later medieval period.

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The first benches appeared in the Greek and Roman period. Work was held in place by pegs driven into pre-drilled holes in the top of the bench. By the early 17th century simple wooden screw vices were in general use. By the early 19th century bench vices as we know them today began to be developed. Metal cramps using wooden screws were in use from the late Medieval period. Improvements in screw design made them more widely available for woodworkers from the 17th century, although the modern ‘G’ cramp form did not appear until the early 19th century.

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Date back to at least 8000BC when Reindeer antlers were sharpened to form a cutting edge. Later on the stump end was hollowed out to hold a piece of hard stone or flint. Combined antler and wooden handled axes first appeared about 6000BC. Copper and Bronze axes and adzes developed after 3000BC in the Middle East. Iron axes similar in shape and size to the form we know today, developed sometime between 500-200BC. During the Middle, Axes and Adzes were developed into many different forms and shapes. During the Eighteenth Century, advances in saw design led to a slow decline in their use, although an 1969 trade catalogue still lists 47 different types of axes for various trades, including coachmaking, coopering, and boat building.

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This finding pushes back the earliest known use of stonetools among hominins to about 3.4 million years ago. Finds of actual tools date back at least 2.6 million years in Ethiopia. One of the earliest distinguishable stone tool forms is the hand axe.