Europe's oldest stone hand axes emerge in Spain [900,000 years B.P.]

Science News ^ | Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009 | Bruce Bower

[SunkenCiv]

A new analysis finds that human ancestors living in what is now Spain fashioned double-edged stone cutting tools as early as 900,000 years ago, almost twice as long ago as previous estimates for this technological achievement in Europe.

If confirmed, the new dates support the idea that the manufacture and use of teardrop-shaped stone implements, known as hand axes, spread rapidly from Africa into Europe and Asia beginning roughly 1 million years ago, say geologist Gary Scott and paleontologist Luis Gibert, both of the Berkeley Geochronology Center in California.

Evidence of ancient reversals of Earth's magnetic field in soil at two archaeological sites indicates that hand axes date to 900,000 years ago in one location and to 760,000 years ago in the other, Scott and Gibert report in the Sept. 3 Nature. Until now, most researchers thought that hand axes unearthed at these sites were made between 500,000 and 200,000 years ago.

[SunkenCiv]

	Stone Age site -- Excavations conducted more than 30 years ago in this quarry in southeastern Spain, which includes an extensive sequence of sediment layers, yielded several hand axes that have now been dated to about 760,000 years ago, pushing back the emergence of stone tools in Europe.[L. Gibert]
	First tool -- Researchers say that a stone hand ax, shown here from both sides, that was previously found in a Spanish rock shelter dates to 900,000 years ago, making it the oldest such implement in Europe. [Michael Walker]

[SunkenCiv]

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[ICCtheWay]

I have a nice example of a hand axe... date of origin and place of origin not known... found in a thrift store in Florida... I believe the rock is mostly chert.

I’ll be glad to send photos - if you email me...

[blam]

You already know I'm not suprised:

Stranger In A New Land

[DogBarkTree]

Impossible! The earth is only 6 to 10,000 years old. sarc/

[JoeProBono]

[aruanan]

Impossible! The earth is only 6 to 10,000 years old. sarc/

Some people never grow up.

[Crazieman]

That looks like a mace. In fact I think one of my characters has one.

[ThomasThomas]

How long has it been since Spain had stones?

[Ken H]

Nobody EXPECTED this Spanish excavation!

[TrueKnightGalahad]

Funniest post of the day!!!

[SunkenCiv]

[singing] I used to be disgusted, now I try to be amused.

[SunkenCiv]

“What about a ruthless efficiency?”

[SunkenCiv]

They only have stones when it comes to picking on A) the Jews, B) Israel, C) companies engaged in lawful marine salvage operations, and D) from a safe distance.

[SunkenCiv]

Ninja pachyderm?

[SunkenCiv]

;’) I had a file, “20090904”, with tons of goodies in it, along with some stuff I scared up tonight. I’ve posted a few of them, saved a bunch to files, and sent a number off to fellow FReepers in hopes that they’ll be inspired to post ‘em. Can’t believe I let this one set around!

[Tao Yin]

B.P. really? Before Present? Isn’t the BP year zero defined as 1950 AD? This is so silly. I’m annoyed by BCE, but BP is even worse. How about we stick to the numbering system we all know? BC! I know people complain about the origin of BC and AD, but come on. I was born in January, a month named after the god Janus. Maybe I should start a movement to change the name of January to Firstuary. Then we can change the names of the other months and then the names of the day. When will it end? Before Present? Ridiculous.

[going hot]

A new analysis finds that human ancestors living in what is now Spain fashioned double-edged stone cutting tools as early as 900,000 years ago, almost twice as long ago as previous estimates for this technological achievement in Europe.

Pshaw, nothing more than a couple of coracodilian stomach stones, used for digeting food and such.

'Sides, 6k is the limit.

[SunkenCiv]

Before Present, in this case, refers to 900K before today. BP is indeed used for radiocarbon dating, and the baseline is 1950 (when the method was invented); but the limit on that is around 50K years, and has nothing to do with the way these were dated. And there is no confusion between gastroliths and axes.

[going hot]

:-)