Nearly 3 million years ago, hominids employed stone toolkits to butcher hippos and pound plants along what’s now the shores of Kenya’s Lake Victoria, researchers say.
Evidence of those food preparation activities pushes back hominids’ use of these toolkits, known as Oldowan implements, by roughly 300,000 years, say paleoanthropologist Thomas Plummer of Queen’s College, City University of New York and colleagues. That makes these finds possibly the oldest known stone tools.
Several dating techniques place discoveries at the Kenyan site, known as Nyayanga, at between around 2.6 million and 3 million years old. Based on where artifacts lay in dated sediment layers, these finds are probably close to about 2.9 million years old, the scientists report in the Feb. 10 Science.
Until now, the oldest Oldowan tools dated to roughly 2.6 million years ago at an Ethiopian site more than 1,200 kilometers north of Nyayanga (SN: 6/3/19). Excavations at another site in Kenya, called Lomekwi 3, have yielded large, irregularly shaped rocks dating to about 3.3 million years ago (SN: 5/20/15). But claims that these finds, which include some sharp edges, represent the oldest known stone tools are controversial.
Similarities of the Nyayanga artifacts to those found at sites dating to as late as around 1.7 million years ago “reinforce the long trajectory of Oldowan technology in the early stages of human evolution,” says archaeologist Manuel Domínguez-Rodrigo of Rice University in Houston and the University of Alcalá in Madrid. He did not participate in the new study.
2023-02-09 14:00:00
Post from www.sciencenews.org
A revolutionary new discovery is changing the way scientists look at the way ancient hominids lived. According to a recently-published study, it appears that stone tools were being used to butcher animals by hominids hundreds of thousands of years earlier than previously thought.
The research, which is based on data and content collected using evidence from archaeological sites in Ethiopia and Kenya, suggests that hominids were using blades and other tools to slice and butcher animal carcasses as early as 3.4 million years ago. This is considerably earlier than the previous estimate of 2.6 million years ago.
The study offers a new picture of the way hominids lived and how some were able to survive in an increasingly complex environment. Researchers believe that the use of these stone tools enabled hominids to become more efficient hunters, giving them the ability to unlock much of the meat from animal carcasses and providing them with vital nutrients.
The use of stone tools and the introduction of more sophisticated hunting strategies provided hominids with the opportunity to significantly expand their diets and develop better methods of obtaining and preparing food. This allowed them to survive and become more independent.
The discovery of the earlier stone tool use also has a significant impact on our understanding of hominid evolution. Traditional explanations surrounding the development of human tools and abilities may have to be re-examined, as this study suggests that hominids had these abilities a long time ago.
This groundbreaking discovery is undoubtedly a major step forward in our understanding of hominid evolution, and it is sure to spur more research into this enigmatic subject. As more research is done and more evidence presented, it is likely that our understanding of these ancient peoples will be continually refined and improved.