Oldest tool-use claim challenged

BBC ^ | November 16, 2010 | Jonathan Amos

[decimon]

The idea that human ancestors were using stone tools about 3.4 million years ago has been challenged by a Spanish-led team of researchers.

The original claim was based on what were purported to be butchery marks on animal bones found in Ethiopia.

It pushed back the earliest known tool-use and meat-eating in our ancestors by some 800,000 years.

But Manuel Dominguez-Rodrigo and his team tell PNAS journal that the marks are more likely to be animal scratches.

"A mark made with a stone tool could be morphologically similar to a mark that is accidentally made by an animal trampling on a bone, if the bone is lying on an abrasive [surface]," said Dr Dominguez-Rodrigo from the Complutense University of Madrid.

"We can match mark-by-mark every single mark on the fossils with marks that we obtain using trampling criteria," he told BBC News.

The group behind the original claim has robustly defended its position.

[decimon]

Scratching the surface ping.

[SECURE AMERICA]

IN OTHER WORDS SCIENCE REALLY DOESN’T KNOW IT WAS JUST PUSHING SOMEONES AGENDA..

[screaminsunshine]

Maybe Bernake could put it to use. He is out of ‘Tools’.

[Porterville]

LOL... I rode a dinosaur once .. because we were here at the same time.... and my grandpa was a mormonsauras... meaning he could herd 20 dinosaurs at a time in the streets of Pravo.

[tophat9000]

Oldest tool-use claim challenged

There a Hugh Hefner/viagra joke in here somewhere

[AndyJackson]

SCIENCE REALLY DOESN’T KNOW IT WAS JUST PUSHING SOMEONES AGENDA..

This snide remark shows your own ignorance. Scientists do not know everthing. There are a lot of things that are not known. When new information is obtained through observation, such as scrapings on fossils known to be of a certain age, various explanations are put foward to explain the observation. Then others challenge those explanations and try to come up with their own. As the debate goes on, analytic methods are improved and people look for more data to try to answer the question. Eventually you hope through better data and better techniques the issue is resolved. Some issues never are, and some result in amazing breakthroughs.

That is what scientific debate is all about and that is what you are witnessing here.

[bunkerhill7]

Oldest tool-use claim challenged

BBC ^ | November 16, 2010 | Jonathan Amosillas de Cabarone

Posted on Tuesday, November 16, 2010 4:51:09 PM by decimon

The idea that human ancestors were using stone tools about 3.4 million years ago has been challenged by a Spanish-led team of flamenco dance researchers.

The original claim was based on what were purported to be butchery marks on animal bones found in Ethiopia, which has no flamenco dancers.

These bones were evidently left there by a visting Spanish flamenco dance troupe, the "Touring Toledo Torridas".

"We can match mark-by-mark every single mark on the fossils with marks that we obtain using flamenco trampling criteria, preferably by females with high heel flamenco dancing shoes," he told BBC News.

[decimon]

Life is a Cabarone, old chum,
Come to the Cabarone.

[GreenHornet]

The original claim was based on what were purported to be butchery marks on animal bones found in Ethiopia. But Manuel Dominguez-Rodrigo and his team tell PNAS journal that the marks are more likely to be animal scratches.

However, Dominguez-Rodrigo and his team could not explain the presence of the word "Craftsman" found on one of the bones in question.

[Tijeras_Slim]

Man had a tool that long ago, but got a good look at Helen Thomas and refused to use it.

[Raymann]

Don’t bother, there are a lot of fools in this forum who wouldn’t understand the scientific method if you put it in a children’s book and read it to them like they were kids.

[reed13]

here here - very few laws lots of theories.

[SunkenCiv]

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[GSP.FAN]

This is the oldest tool i know..