There's something kind of special about using a 'good' tool though, not just one that will do.
I'm an archaeologist, and it's the one tool that is so often found in graves. A small belt knife. From the mesolithic right through to the present, those little at hand knives are found among the personal belongings. Men, women, even some children went to their graves with their prized possessions....and mind, many of those knives were expensive items in the past too...bronze must have shone and been coveted like the utmost bling when it was first known.
Later mesolithic in Denmark for instance.
Vedbaek, Denmark (c.6000 years ago) is in an area well known for Mesolithic settlement. Seventeen graves are known, in rectangular or oval pits, most containing single burials but also some multiples. Most burials were extended on their backs. One grave contained a young woman and newborn baby. The woman had c.190 teeth of red deer and wild boar around her head and another fifty tooth pendants around her hips, with several rows of perforated snail shells. The child had a flint blade at the waist and lay on a swan's wing. This could suggest hereditary status, but there are other interpretations.
There's another site there where two women were buried each with a knife at their waists and a man with five knives in his goods.
Neolithic in N. Ireland
Neolithic flint blades, found in the interior of the Tirnony Dolmen (Maghera, Northern Ireland) was likely left with the body of an individual who was buried there 5,500 years ago. Archaeologists excavating the ancient tomb say "it's the best find of the dig so far".
The 4.5cm long, 1cm wide knife blade made from translucent flint - in pristine condition - suggests the tomb was not 'excavated' in the 18th or 19th centuries by antiquarians who frequently looted the artefacts but rarely recorded or published their work. There is no trace of the handle of the knife, which was probably made from an organic material which has decayed.
Chalcolithic
http://finds.org.uk/bronzeage/objects/knife
Bronze Age,
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=9090604
and those are just a minute sample of the finds.
Earliest signs we find of 'humanity' are fire and tools. The knife is just one of the most useful tools
Toddy