as much as another ten years (7).
It is not until the mysterious crystal monolith appears that the man-apes begin to gain in both skills and technology. The monolith not only studies the man-apes' minds and bodies, but is able to control their actions as well. Soon, the minds of some of the man-apes, including Moon-Watcher, begin to develop, and they learn to hunt and make their own tools. In the beginning, the technology is not great, but "The tools they had been programmed to use were simple enough, yet they could change this world and make the man-apes its masters" (20). Indeed, from these early crude tools, more advanced ones are built, and soon hunger and drought are no longer a problem for the man-apes. They are able
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