He is a Professor in the Cognitive Science Program at Indiana University and is a founder and co-director of the Stone Age Institute.

[2] Toth attended Oxford University, England where he obtained a Post-graduate Diploma with distinction in Prehistoric Archaeology in 1975.

[6][7][8][9] Toth has engaged in field and laboratory research since the late 1970s, resulting in scientific publications on a variety of topics including human evolution, African prehistory, Paleolithic studies, the evolution of human intelligence, lithic technology, raw materials of antiquity, experimental archaeology, microscopic approaches to archaeology, faunal analysis, and taphonomy, geoarchaeology, ethnoarchaeology, primate studies, history of evolutionary thought, and Big History (studying and teaching history from the Big Bang to recent times).

[4][5][2] Toth has conducted archaeological field research and studied the lithic assemblages from Oldowan and Acheulean sites including Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania,[10] Dmanisi in the Republic of Georgia, Gona in Ethiopia, Middle Awash in Ethiopia,[11] Nihewan Basin in China,[12] Lake Natron in Tanzania, Ambrona in Spain,[13] and Koobi Fora in Kenya.

[13][14][15][16][17] During investigations at Gona, Ethiopia in 1999, Toth discovered the fossil cranium of a Homo erectus individual which dates to about 1.2 million years ago.

Flake assemblages had been a largely ignored part of archaeological collections from sites of this time period because they were thought to have been a by-product of the manufacture of the more formal choppers and other pebble tools.

Toth’s research supported the idea that these flakes were the simple, highly effective base of early stone tool technology.

[18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29] In 1990, Toth began a long-term collaborative research project, along with Kathy Schick and psychologist Sue Savage-Rumbaugh, to observe the bonobo Kanzi as he learned to make and use stone tools.

This research would allow the scientists to investigate what, if any, cognitive and biomechanical adaptations required for stone tool technology may be present in modern day primates.