As the article brings out, the complexity of the tool in the making is a factor. I am thinking that it would be easy to see some trees and figure out how to make a house of them. - even chimpanzees are capable of something of the sort. When it comes to sharpening a rock, it's more complicated perhaps, but still wouldn't require much verbal instruction, if any. If, on the other hand, we are talking about more advanced tool making, which might go as far as metallurgy, for example, then verbal instruction is absolutely necessary. Some things just can't be taught to apes. Some things are less intuitive than others. For example, what would make a hypothetical cave man figure out how to melt rock to get iron from it?
I appreciate the article, and agree with the conclusion; good food for thought.
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Lead melts at campfire heat.
That's a fact and I agree. But how many lead rocks have you seen lying around, ready to be melted in a campfire? So many details are involved in the technology that can't be passed on without the means of verbal communication.
Metallurgy definitely followed verbal in the sequence of things