Palaeontology

3.3 million-year-old stone tools discovered

By T.K. Randall
May 21, 2015

Image: Paranthropus Boisei - Forensic Facial Reconstruction
Credit: Cicero Moraes / CC BY-SA 4.0 (adapted) Thought to be the earliest evidence of toolmaking ever found, the discovery casts serious doubt on the idea that humans were the first species to create and use tools. The find predates the previous record holder by around 700,00 years.

While it isn't clear exactly which species created the tools, scientists believe that a primitive hominim known as Kenyanthropus platyops may have been responsible. It is also possible that the tools were made by an as-yet undiscovered ancestor of modern humans."This discovery challenges the idea that the main characters that make us human - making stone tools, eating more meat, maybe using language - all evolved at once in a punctuated way, near the origins of the genus Homo," said paleoanthropologist Jason Lewis.

An analysis of the tools suggests that they were created either by placing one stone on a hard surface and striking it with a second or by grasping the stone and striking it against a large rock.

Source: Smithsonian Magazine

Tags: Stone Tools