The art of drawing even in today's highly advanced technological world is still being practiced using primitive tools that have basically never moved on very far from the original design, another perfect example is the wheel. Ok so wheels made better, faster, bigger, smaller, stronger, lighter but they are still basically wheels.
In ancient Rome the Romans used a tool called a stylus which was a long thin strip of led that when used to scratch on papyruses, a predecessor for modern paper it left a faint grey line so was used for writing and perhaps drawing as a primitive form of pencil. This was approximately 753 BC and was over 2000 years ago nearer 3000 yet writing and drawing tools just like the wheel have not moved on very far from that basic design.
Much later in history the graphite pencil arrived about 1662 when in Nuremberg, Germany the first attempts at making graphite sticks from powdered graphite where made even this was over 300 years ago.
The humble graphite pencil as we now know it arrived sometime in the 1700s with credit being given to Italy in particular for encasing the graphite in wood giving us something near to what we see and use today.
Yet even with today's technological advances and computer assisted design software most artist and designers still return to the good old graphite pencil to do their initial sketches and drawings. Many prefer this tool because it is easy to use and very practical so they can get their ideas down on paper very quickly for perhaps later advancement by using advanced computer technologies.
So when this is all taken into consideration the pencil or stylus as it was originally called has not moved on very far in nearly 3000 years if at all and is still the preferred and best drawing tool there is.
The graphite pencil as stood the test of time it is the preferred choice of tool for artists and crafts people the world over with many quality drawings and sketches having been produced with this wonderful tool.