While this may be the earliest finding of H. erectus tools, other ancestors of ours were using simple Olduwan-style tools as far back as 2.4 million years ago. But it wasn't until 50,000 years ago or so that we really had the explosion in technology, art, etc. that allowed humans to take over the world. What's amazing isn't that that explosion didn't happen earlier, but that it happened at all.
"What's amazing isn't that that explosion didn't happen earlier, but that it happened at all."
Why is that amazing?
What do you characterize as the "explosion" about 50,000 years ago?
> But it wasn't until 50,000 years ago or so that we really had the explosion in technology, art, etc. that allowed humans to take over the world. What's amazing isn't that that explosion didn't happen earlier, but that it happened at all.
Three cheers for the Toba supervolcano and the near-extinction of the early humans as a result! Those who survived had to be the smarter and cleverer ones. Once the "jocks" got weeded out, the early "nerds" were able to lead humanity on it's road to the stars.