Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – @BednarChuck
Archaeologists have reportedly discovered the oldest tools ever created by human ancestors: Stone flakes that have been dated to 3.3 million years ago, or 700,000 years before the oldest previously-identified tools used by the predecessors of modern mankind.
According to Science, the discovery (if confirmed) would indicate that tools were being used hundreds of thousands of years before the genus Homo first arrived, and may even indicate that ancient australopithecines like “Lucy” also had the ability to fashion stone instruments.
A wrong turn leads to an archaeological bonanza
Previously, the earliest-known stone tools were dated to 2.6 million years ago and were found at the Gona site in Ethiopia, the website explained. In 2010, researchers working at a second site in Ethiopia reported the discovery of cut marks on animal bones dated to 3.4 million years ago, but they were unable to find the actual tools that may have been responsible for those cuts.
The new discovery, presented by Stony Brook University archaeologist Sonia Harmand at the annual meeting of the Paleoanthropology Society in San Francisco, appears to be those missing tools. They were found at Lomekwi 3, a site located west of Kenya’s Lake Turkana and roughly 1,000 km from where discovered tools similar to the Gona instruments were first unearthed.
Interestingly, the discovery was made by accident. Harmand said that she and her team were actually looking for the site where a controversial human relative called Kenyanthropus platyops was found in 1998. However, they took a wrong turn and stumbled upon another part of the area where they spotted what she called unmistakable stone tools on the surface.
Clear evidence of intentional tool creation discovered
The immediately launched an excavation at the site, and found more tools under the ground, including the so-called cores from which early humanoids would have struck off sharp flakes. They were even able to fit one of the flakes back into its original core, Science noted, showing that a hominin had created and then discarded both the flake and the core at that location.
The following year, Harmand and her colleagues returned to the location to continue their work, and to date they have discovered nearly 20 well-preserved flakes, cores, and anvils that appear to have been used to hold the cores while the flakes were struck off. All of the artifacts were sealed in sediments that assisted with the dating process, and an additional 130 pieces were discovered on the surface in the area.
At the meeting, Harmand reportedly said that the artifacts were “clearly” created by intentional flaking and were not caused by accidental rock fractures. Further analysis of the cores indicated that they had rotated as the flakes were stuck off, and dating of the surrounding sediments using paleomagnetic techniques placed them at approximately 3.3 million years old.
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