hereward
08-11-2010, 08:23 PM
Scientists have discovered evidence of the use of stone tools to eat meat 3.4 million years ago – 800,000 years earlier than previously thought.
The find means that our first ancestor to use tools was not Homo "the handy man" Hablis but Australopithecus afarensis, the half ape, half human, nicknamed "Lucy" when her skeleton was found in 1976.
.The team led by Dr Zeresenay Alemseged from the California Academy of Sciences discovered two fossil animal bones dating back 3.4 million years that had evidence of being cut and having their marrow extracted with a stone tool. The find in Ethiopia, close to where Lucy was found in 1976, means that our ancestors first use of technology was nearly a million years earlier than first thought.
"This find will definitely force us to revise our text books on human evolution, since it pushes the evidence for tool use and meat eating in our family back by nearly a million years," said Dr Alemseged.
"These developments had a huge impact on the story of humanity."
His colleague Dr Shannon McPherron, an archeologist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, said: "This is pushing the Stone Age back 800,000 years.
More at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/7939243/Hail-Lucy-the-new-Queen-of-the-Stone-Age.html
Is there an earliest date? I have seen Chimps and Bonobos using implements to extract insects, crack shells etc, on many a wild life programme.
The find means that our first ancestor to use tools was not Homo "the handy man" Hablis but Australopithecus afarensis, the half ape, half human, nicknamed "Lucy" when her skeleton was found in 1976.
.The team led by Dr Zeresenay Alemseged from the California Academy of Sciences discovered two fossil animal bones dating back 3.4 million years that had evidence of being cut and having their marrow extracted with a stone tool. The find in Ethiopia, close to where Lucy was found in 1976, means that our ancestors first use of technology was nearly a million years earlier than first thought.
"This find will definitely force us to revise our text books on human evolution, since it pushes the evidence for tool use and meat eating in our family back by nearly a million years," said Dr Alemseged.
"These developments had a huge impact on the story of humanity."
His colleague Dr Shannon McPherron, an archeologist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, said: "This is pushing the Stone Age back 800,000 years.
More at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/7939243/Hail-Lucy-the-new-Queen-of-the-Stone-Age.html
Is there an earliest date? I have seen Chimps and Bonobos using implements to extract insects, crack shells etc, on many a wild life programme.