The first form of original ancient weapons would have been the use of sticks and stones and were probably used more often as tools than weapons for hunting or self-defense. So as our species evolved to the early stone age some 2.5 million years ago, we first made or modified a simple stone into a single edged instrument. As an original ancient weapon or tool this set early human apart from other animals we could now purposely modify stone to help alter sticks, bone and antler into tools to add to our list of original ancient weapons for survival. Early humans called Homo Habilis (meaning " skilled or handyman") predating Homo Erectus and Homo Sapiens were believed to be some of the first hunter gatherers near the end of that era. They also introduced the bi-face ( a double edged stone tool ) which 1.8 million years ago Homo Erectus further developed into a hand axe. By 1.5 million years ago and arguably earlier we have another original ancient weapon or tool the acheulean a more refined bi-face tool taking on a more oval shape.

Now there is debate among scientists as to how much and when we actually depended on hunting for meat on a regular basis, we may have done more scavenging of carcasses especially where larger animals like mammoths and so on were concerned. If this is true the evolution of the original ancient weapons may have been only tools until humankind started to either rely more on meat and or they started to war amongst themselves. This could explain why the advancement of the original ancient weapons and tools was very slow until the age of metal.

As humanity was in the neolithic period around 8000 bc, we started to become more civilized by domesticating plants and animals and coppersmithing also began in this period. Although copper is a soft ( ductile ) metal it was used for some of our original ancient weapons and tools. Due to availability and different advancement of cultures the use of metal greatly varies as far as a timeline in the evolution of these original ancient weapons goes. Smelting of copper dates back to 6000 bc in Turkey and varies in time for other parts of the world. To get into the more popular or useful original ancient weapons our ancestors found by adding tin to the copper when smelting that the metal became harder, this gave us bronze so now we move into the bronze age which again varies as to world locality but is generally excepted as between 3500 bc and 1200 bc. So with the use of bronze, knives got longer and developed into short swords and other original ancient weapons the mace ,lance and the list goes on. As nations were developing the warring still remained as tribal warfare until the Roman empire which was established well into the iron age. The iron age started in 1200 bc and the evolution of tools and original ancient weapons advanced once more.