Free Republic

Archaeologists have unearthed the oldest large collection of wooden tools made by humans at a site in Schöningen, Germany. The artefacts date back to about 300,000 years ago.Included in what ancient people left behind are wooden spears and shorter throwing sticks that have been sharpened at both ends. It is unclear exactly which hominin is responsible for producing the tools, but their age suggests either Homo heidelbergensis or Homo neanderthalensis...The 300,000-year-old tools found at Schöningen were analysed using micro-CT scanning, 3D microscopy and infrared spectroscopy to better understand how they were made and their potential uses. The results are published...

...an international research team led by scientists from the University of Tübingen and the Senckenberg Center for Human Evolution and Paleoenvironment presents the earliest human footprints known from Germany. The tracks were discovered in the roughly 300,000-year-old Schöningen Paleolithic site complex in Lower Saxony. The footprints, presumably from Homo heidelbergensis, are surrounded by several animal tracks—collectively, they present a picture of the ecosystem at that time.In an open birch and pine forest with an understory of grasses sits a lake, a few kilometers long and several hundred meters wide. On its muddy shores, herds of elephants, rhinoceroses, and even-toed ungulates...

Artist rendering of H. bodoensis. (Ettore Mazza) Scientists have named a new species that may have been the direct ancestor of modern humans. The newly proposed species, Homo bodoensis – which lived more than half a million years ago in Africa – may help to untangle how human lineages moved and interacted across the globe. Although modern humans, Homo sapiens, are the only surviving human lineage, other human species once roamed Earth. For example, scientists recently discovered that the Indonesian island Flores was once home to the extinct species Homo floresiensis, often known as "the hobbit" for its miniature body....

The last 10 years have transformed the evidence concerning the early origins and evolution of Neanderthal populations. Genetic comparisons of Neanderthal and Denisovan ancient DNA suggest that the common ancestor of these populations separated from African ancestors of modern humans prior to 600,000 years ago, followed by a rapid differentiation in Eurasia. Later, additional episodes of gene flow brought genes into Neanderthal populations, including the mtDNA clade carried by all later Neanderthals. Yet, a number of western Eurasian fossil samples from the time between 600,000 and 100,000 years ago are difficult to accommodate within the category of "Neanderthals", including European...

Britons '200,000 years earlier than first thought' Man could have settled in Britain up to 200,000 years earlier than previously thought, according to new studies. Prehistorians had thought the predecessors of modern humans began living in Britain between 450,000 and 500,000 years ago. But recent discoveries in eastern and south western England suggest that is wrong, according to an article in the magazine New Scientist. Researchers working in conjunction with the Natural History Museum are basing their new theories on analysis of a flint axe and other tools found on the East Anglian coast and investigation of butchery marks ...

Research at Schengen demonstrates that already 300,000 years ago Homo heidelbergensis used a combination of throwing sticks, spears and thrusting lances. Prof. Nicholas Conard and Dr. Jordi Serangeli, who lead the research team, attribute the exceptional discovery to the outstanding preservation of wooden artifacts in the water saturated lakeside sediments in Schengen. The throwing stick was recovered in layer 13 II-4, which in the 1990s yielded examples of throwing spears, a thrusting lance and additional wooden tools of unknown function. Like almost all of these finds, the new artifact was carefully carved from spruce wood. The throwing stick is 64.5...

Griffith University scientists have led an international team to date the skull of an early human found in Africa, potentially upending human evolution knowledge with their discovery. The Broken Hill (Kabwe 1) skull is one of the best-preserved fossils of the early human species Homo heidelbergensis and was estimated to be about 500,000 years old... Discovered in 1921 by miners in Zambia, the Broken Hill remains have been difficult to date due to their haphazard recovery and the site being completely destroyed by quarrying. Using radiometric dating methods, Professor Grün’s analyses now puts the skull at a relatively young date,...

The Paleolithic site of Schöningen in north-central Germany is famous for the earliest known, completely preserved wooden weapons or artifacts uncovered there by archaeologists under the direction of Dr. Hartmut Thieme between 1994 and 1998 at an open-cast lignite mine. Deposited in organic sediments at a former lakeshore, they were found in combination with the remains of about 16,000 animal bones, including 20 wild horses, whose bones featured numerous butchery marks, including one pelvis that still had a spear protruding from it. The finds are considered evidence that early humans were active hunters with specialized tool kits as early as...

Researchers in Germany have unearthed 400,000 year old wooden spears from what appears to be an ancient lake shore hunting ground stunning evidence that human ancestors systematically hunted big game much earlier than believed. The three spears, each carved from the trunk of a spruce tree, are 6 feet to more than 7 feet long. They were found with more than 10,000 animal bones, mostly from horses, including many obviously butchered. That indicates the ancient hunters were organized enough to trap horses and strong enough to kill them by throwing spears, perhaps ambushing herds that showed up for water. “There’s...

“We regard its age as quite likely between 865,000 and 810,000 years ago,” said Michael Walker of Spain’s Murcia University, a lead researcher on Cueva Negra. “[Arguably] Until now hand-axes in Europe have not been recorded from before 500,000 years ago,” said Walker. Moreover, he adds, “the evidence of combustion [use of fire] is also the oldest anywhere outside Africa.” The new dating results were acquired through biochronological analysis of small-mammal teeth remains found within the Cueva Negra rockshelter, indicating they accumulated during what is technically called the Matuyama magnetochron, or between 0.99 and 0.78 Ma. Researchers do not yet know...

The late Early Pleistocene site near Untermassfeld, in Germany, is now well known for a rich array of fauna dating back to about 1.07 million years ago, including simple 'Mode 1' (or Oldowan-type) stone tools evidencing early human occupation. Now researchers Günter Landeck and Joan Garcia Garriga report, for the first time, evidence of early human butchery in the form of cut marks on animal bones and intentional hammerstone-related bone breakage. These human-modified bones were recovered in a small faunal subsample excavated from levels with simple 'Mode 1' stone tools. The butchered assemblage was found during fieldwork and surveying of...

The mysterious end of Essex man Archaeologists now believe two groups of early humans fought for dominance in ancient Britain - and the axe-wielders won Robin McKie, science editor Sunday January 23, 2005 The Observer Divisions in British culture may be deeper than we thought. Scientists have discovered startling evidence that suggests different species of early humans may have fought to settle within our shores almost half a million years ago. They have found that two different groups - one wielding hand-axes, the other using Stone Age Stanley knives to slash and kill - could have been rivals for control...

Stone Age elephant remains foundThe skeleton was found at the site of a new station Construction work on the Channel Tunnel Rail Link (CTRL) in Kent has unearthed the 400,000-year-old remains of an elephant. The skeleton was found on the site of the new Ebbsfleet station, an area thought to be an early Stone Age site. Bones from other large animals, including rhinoceros, buffalo and wild horses, have also been found nearby. The remains were preserved in muddy sediment near what was once the edge of a small lake, a spokesman said. The elephant, which has been identified as a...

Stones may hold key to why we are here ISABEL COCKAYNE January 28, 2004 10:06 They may not look like the greatest talkers, but these stones have a story to tell. Hundreds of thousands of years ago they were washed down to East Anglia with a vast river that cut through the middle of England. But what the experts are puzzling over today is where this river ran its course. If they can plot its course and date it accurately, they could prove there were humans living in Britain 500,000 years ago and fill a gap in our pre-historic knowledge....

Prehistoric Knives Suggest Humans Competed By Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News Feb. 1, 2005 — A recent excavation of 400,000-year-old stone tools in Britain suggests that two groups of early humans could have competed with each other for food and turf. In the past, anthropologists have argued that only one group of ancient humans lived in Britain, and that these hominids created and used both axes and flake knives, which were made by flaking off small particles from a larger rock, or by breaking off a large flake that was then used as the tool. Some form of prehistoric human had...

Most recent dating places one wave of human dispersal out of Africa into southeastern Spain at almost one million years ago. Using state-of-the-art dating methodologies, a team of scientists have obtained or confirmed a date range between .9 and .85 Mya (million years ago) as a time when a species of Old World monkey (Theropithecus) and an early species of human occupied the cave site of Cueva Victoria in southeastern Spain. It is a location not far from where many scientists have hypothesized that humans may have crossed over into Europe from North Africa through the Strait of Gibraltar at...

Neanderthals and other extinct human lineages might have been ancient mariners, venturing to the Mediterranean islands thousands of years earlier than previously thought. This prehistoric seafaring could shed light on the mental capabilities of these lost relatives of modern humans, researchers say. Scientists had thought the Mediterranean islands were first settled about 9,000 years ago by Neolithic or New Stone Age farmers and shepherds... For instance, obsidian from the Aegean island of Melos was uncovered at the mainland Greek coastal site of Franchthi cave in layers that were about 11,000 years old, while excavations on the southern coast of Cyprus...

Modern science has held that islands such as Cypress and Crete were first inhabited by seafaring humans approximately 9,000 years ago by agriculturists from the late Neolithic period. Simmons writes that research over the past 20 years has cast doubt on that assumption however and suggests that it might be time to rewrite the history books. He cites evidence such as pieces of obsidian found in a cave in mainland Greece that were found to have come from Melos, an island in the Aegean Sea and were dated at 11,000 years ago as well as artifacts from recent digs on...

IT LOOKS like Neanderthals may have beaten modern humans to the seas. Growing evidence suggests our extinct cousins criss-crossed the Mediterranean in boats from 100,000 years ago - though not everyone is convinced they weren't just good swimmers. Neanderthals lived around the Mediterranean from 300,000 years ago. Their distinctive "Mousterian" stone tools are found on the Greek mainland and, intriguingly, have also been found on the Greek islands of Lefkada, Kefalonia and Zakynthos. That could be explained in two ways: either the islands weren't islands at the time, or our distant cousins crossed the water somehow. Now, George Ferentinos of...

Archaeologists on the island of Crete have discovered what may be evidence of one of the world's first sea voyages by human ancestors, the Greek Culture Ministry said Monday A ministry statement said experts from Greece and the U.S. have found rough axes and other tools thought to be between 130,000 and 700,000 years old close to shelters on the island's south coast. Crete has been separated from the mainland for about five million years, so whoever made the tools must have traveled there by sea (a distance of at least 40 miles). That would upset the current view that...