"Many non-humans use tools, even crows use tools."
Posted on 04/16/2015 12:03:51 PM PDT by Fractal Trader
Researchers working in Kenya's archaeologically prolific Lake Turkana region claim to have uncovered a set of 3.3-million-year-old stone tools. That's 700,000 years older than the previous record, and predates evidence for the evolutionary origins of the genus Homo by half a million years.
Above: A satellite image of Lake Turkana, where the stone tools – and many other artifacts and fossils of human ancestors – have been recovered
NPR's Chris Joyce reports on the findings of Stony Brook University archaeologist Sonia Harmand and her colleagues, which were announced Tuesday at the annual meeting of the Paleoanthropology Society in San Francisco:
[The 3.3-million-year-old dating] is remarkable because it's well before the human genus, Homo, emerged 2.8 million years ago. So clearly these early humans didn't make these tools. The team presumes they were made by an early ancestor of humans, probably a member of a genus called Australopithecus. The famous ape-like creature known as Lucy was from that genus and first appeared in Africa about four million years ago.
Leading stone tool experts who've seen the tools say they have the markings of a process called "knapping." Knapping a piece of stone produces flakes that can have sharp edges and are useful for working with plants, nuts or meat. These flakes can be distinguished from naturally occurring pieces of rock. Knapping also leaves characteristic marks on the rock from which the flakes are chipped.
In 2010, researchers working in the Dikika region of Ethiopia reported evidence of "stone-tool-inflicted marks" on animal bones dating to somewhere in the range of 3.24- to 3.42-million years ago. This team, too, attributed the use of stone tools to Australopithecus afarensis. Their evidence was indirect (stone-tool-inflicted-marks, however compelling they may be, are not stone tools), and, perhaps unsurprisingly, controversial; but this most recent discovery by Harmand and her colleagues provides what multiple outside experts have called powerful corroborating evidence of purposeful and intentional tool-making long before the evolution of modern humans.
ping
That Alan Turning guy, right? He was pretty smart.
I found your hammer, sorry I had lost it....
How could we all be descended from a homo genus?
But they sure are trying to cram a german airplane in your head !
Yea, everyone knows that homos can’t reproduce.
I may be wrong, but I will not be surprised to see these dates revised at some point. I’m not as confident about their dating techniques as the scientific community is today.
I’m going on nothing but my gut instincts here, so as I said, I could be wrong.
In 2010, researchers working in the Dikika region of Ethiopia reported evidence of “stone-tool-inflicted marks” on animal bones dating to somewhere in the range of 3.24- to 3.42-million years ago.
...
Most scientific work contains error bars or a margin of error as the above sentence indicates.
S’alright, I got another one.
I appreciate that, and in doing so I think they address reasoned room for various time frames within the dating system they have confidence in now. I question if these millions may not become thousands at some point.
Other accepted theories have been proven to be completely wrong over time. Will the carbon dating suffer the same fate?
Perhaps not. I still think it may.
“The famous ape-like creature known as Lucy “
She was a Kappa Delta at App. We just shared a bed together. Nothing happened.
“As ancient astronaut theorists believe”.
I met a German girl in England
Who was goin’ to school in France
Said we danced the Mississippi at an Alpha Cappa dance
It wasn’t me
Woo, it wasn’t me
Yeah, you must’ve met some other body,
No, no child it wasn’t me
How do we know that they weren't just chipping away on some old bones they found to possibly use as a tool much more recently, like only a million years ago?.............
Many non-humans use tools, even crows use tools.
Homo erectus , tee hee
"Many non-humans use tools, even crows use tools."
And they can distinguish between marks left on bones by stone tools, as opposed to those made by carnivorous animals’ teeth exactly how?
“I think I detect the obnoxious odor of mendacity,” to quote Big Daddy Pollock in CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF.
They were cordless.
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