The bone tools that were dug in Tanzania are the closest known people use by old humans.Credit: csic
Ancient human beings constantly used bone tools at least a million years ago, which was previously thought.
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The results come from the study of bone tools discovered in Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania and its history about 1.5 million years ago. This discovery joins other discoveries-such as 1.4 million years of bone ax from Ethiopia-which refers to the human grandfather Men alert Bones are often used as tools.
“The culture of bone tools appears in the archaeological registry” before anyone could think. “Says Michael Pant, a Cases of Cases at Colorado State University in Fort Collins. “He only talks about this type who has the ability to do things that any other kind could do.” The results were published1 On March 5 in nature.
Trench excavation
The use of the tool is to imitate the floors between homesins. Sex members Australopithecus Which includes the famous fossil Lucy – it was making stone tools at least 2.6 million years ago. Bone tools appear only later in the human story, usually in locations in Europe and Asia about 400,000 years ago.
Olduvai Gorge was in the Rift Great Rift, Tanzania, a site for many fossil discoveries.Credit: Dietmar Rauscher/Alamy
The discoveries in Olduvai Gorge are among the discoveries that challenge that narration. The region has a long history of fossil discoveries: early huntin samples A useful man They were discovered there in the 1960s, and the researchers found signs of bone tools in the region for years. Mary Lecky, the famous old world Mary Lecky, wrote about some of these results, but she only partially published her results. This, partly, because most of the bone tools are found outside their original context and therefore cannot be accurately historian.
The organisms in the carefully engraved trenches are easier in time and space. The latest results are based on excavations in Olduvai that took place between 2015 and 2022. The researchers spent several field seasons in digging trenches to study how technology changes when H. Erection A small predecessor of species, including contemporary humans, and Eristani, have been replaced- H. Handy In the region, somewhere is between 1.8 and 1.5 million years.
To form bone tools, Men alert Use a tactic similar to a rift stone.Credit: csic