by The ancestors of humans started doing tools about 3.3 million years ago. First they made them out of stone, then switched to bones as a raw material. Until recently, the earliest clear evidence of creating bone tools from locations in Europe came to 400,000 years. But archaeologists have found and outdated in Tanzania, which are one million years older.
The tools consist of the bones of large animals such as hippos and elephants and have been deliberately shaped to make them useful for the slaughter of large Kadavers.
The discovery of bone devices that have ever found the oldest found that has ever been found throws light on human evolution. It shows that our Hominin ancestors think about this technology and made this technology much earlier than anyone recognized.
I am a scientist who heads a multidisciplinary research project team at the Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania with the lead over Hominin Evolution. The main goal of our project was to investigate the changes in Hominin technology and behavior that took place 1.66 million and 1.4 million years ago.
We are interested in this time because it marks a crucial change in human technology, from the rudimentary stonemasons and seeds of the oldowan culture to the more advanced processed stone handles of the eherklen culture.
We found the Olduvai Bone Tools in 2018 and recently described them in the Nature magazine. They show that our ancestors 1.5 million years ago (ancestors (Homo erectus) had already developed the cognitive skills that are necessary to create skills from stone tools to bone tools.
This leap in the history of mankind was a game changer because it made it possible to overcome survival challenges in landscapes early in which suitable stone materials were scarce.
Tools in Olduvai
Olduvai Gorge is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It became known in 1959 by the pioneering work of paleontologists Louis and Mary Leakey, whose discoveries of the early human remains deformed our understanding of human evolution. The website offers an unprecedented window in the history of humanity, which extends over almost 2 million years.
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Apart from petrified bones, it has provided the most detailed recording of stone tool cultures in the world. It documented the development of simple hacking tools and stonemasons of the Oldowan industry (about 2 million years ago) to the more advanced eggs (1.7 million years), e.g.
All of these tools provide an insight into the ingenuity and the cultural progress of our early ancestors.
And now the picture has new details.
Our team discovered 27 old bone tools during the excavations in the T69 complex FLK West in Olduvai. We know how old they are because we certainly embedded them 1.5 million years ago, together with thousands of stone artifacts and petrified bones. We dated them with geochronological techniques.
In contrast to stone, bone waves cracked and break in a way that enables the systematic production of elongated, well -shaped artifacts. If you have them by beating with a different object – a process called Knapping – you lead to top tools that are ideal for slaughtering, hacking and other tasks.
The snapped tools we found were made from large wave fragments that came from the limbs of elephants and hippos, and were found at Hippo butcher locations. Hominine probably regularly brought elephant bones to the location and received limb bones from slaughtered fluid people at the location itself.
What homo erectus knew
The find shows that 1.5 million years ago, Homo erectus Could apply crucisiors to bones. Homo erectusregarded as an evolutionary successor to the smaller hemner Homo habilisleft a lasting impression in history. The fossils found in Olduvai offer an insight into a period of about one million years, which extends from 1.5 million to around 500,000 years ago.
Now we know that this hominine not only understood the physical properties of bones, but also knew about the skeletal anatomy. They were able to identify and select bones that are suitable for peeling. And they knew which animals had skeletons that were big enough to create reliable tools after the animals died.
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We don’t know exactly why you selected bones as raw material. It may have been that suitable stone material was scarce, or they realized that bones offered a better grip and were more durable.
Why have not yet been found old bone tools? The answer is likely to be destroyed by weathering, abrasion by water transport, trampling and schnitzel activity. Organic materials do not always have time to encourage themselves. In addition, analysts were not used to searching for bone tools under fossils.
This discovery will probably encourage the researchers to consider the subtle sign of a bone shortage in fossil assemblages. In this way we learn more about the development of human technology and behavior.
This article will be released from the conversation, a non -profit, independent news organization that brings you facts and trustworthy analyzes to help you understand our complex world. It was written by: Jackson K Njau, Indiana University
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Jackson K Njau does not work for a company or an organization that benefits from this article and have not published any relevant affiliations about their academic appointment.
