Predecessors of prehistoric man already manufactured tools. This is shown by the discovery of 3.3 million-year-old carved stones, from the period before hominins of the genus Homo made their entrance on earth. Until now it was thought that the Homo habilis made the first stone tools.
Stone tools dating back 3.3 million years have been discovered in Kenya. That is 700,000 years older than the oldest carved stones known to date, and older than the first hominins belonging to the genus Homo. be counted. It means that the predecessor of the oldest known prehistoric man was already capable of working stones. Until now, the oldest tools were attributed to the Homo habilis ('the handy man') who appeared on the scene 2.8 million years ago.
Nutcrackers
Pieces of the discovered stones have clearly been deliberately knocked off, the French, American and Kenyan scientists wrote in Nature. yesterday. Characteristic is the somewhat clumsy way in which this apparently happened, and especially the size of some tools; there are copies of 15 kilos. The carved stones probably served as hand axes, hammers or anvils. Our distant ancestors used them, for example, to crack nuts or break open tubers, the researchers think.
Scientists cannot say who used the tools. However, they do have ideas. Near the find, less than a kilometer away, a 3.3-million-year-old skull of the Kenyanthropus platytops was discovered in 1999. found, and later more skull fragments and some teeth. But it could also be the Australopithecus afarensis from the same epoch, a similar, somewhat lanky ape-like. Or maybe it was a primeval man, who for the Homo habilis lived but simply hasn't been discovered yet.
Modern apes such as gorillas and chimpanzees are known to regularly use branches or rocks as tools. However, it is never described that they process material to make their own tools.
Old age
The age of the stones could be determined quite accurately. They were in a sediment pile that contained volcanic ash, among other things, and these can be dated very well. The researchers arrived at an age between 3.33 and 3.11 million years.
This age is not entirely unexpected. Previously, bones of prey animals were found from the same period, which appeared to have been worked with sharp objects. There were already indications that hominins already used stone blades or scrapers.
What is unexpected is the environment in which they apparently worked the stones. The site was a forest area 3.3 million years ago. Until now, it was assumed that the hominins only started making tools when they moved from the forest - where there was enough fruit - into the savannah, and became dependent on a diet with a lot of meat.
New questions
It is not yet clear why tools were needed, and for whom tools weighing 15 kilos made life more convenient is still something that still needs to be investigated. And what does all this say about the development of intelligence? “With these kinds of finds you don't solve questions, but you create new ones”, as Chris Lepre of Columbia University, one of the authors of the article, puts it in the press release of his University.