Posted on 12/26/2014 3:05:13 AM PST by SunkenCiv
Scientists have discovered the oldest recorded stone tool ever to be found in Turkey, revealing that humans passed through the gateway from Asia to Europe much earlier than previously thought, approximately 1.2 million years ago.
According to research published in the journal Quaternary Science Reviews, the chance find of a humanly-worked quartzite flake, in ancient deposits of the river Gediz, in western Turkey, provides a major new insight into when and how early humans dispersed out of Africa and Asia.
Researchers from Royal Holloway, together with an international team from the UK, Turkey and the Netherlands, used high-precision equipment to date the deposits of the ancient river meander, giving the first accurate timeframe for when humans occupied the area.
Professor Danielle Schreve, from the Department of Geography at Royal Holloway, said: "This discovery is critical for establishing the timing and route of early human dispersal into Europe. Our research suggests that the flake is the earliest securely-dated artefact from Turkey ever recorded and was dropped on the floodplain by an early hominin well over a million years ago."
The researchers used high-precision radioisotopic dating and palaeomagnetic measurements from lava flows, which both pre-date and post-date the meander, to establish that early humans were present in the area between approximately 1.24 million and 1.17 million years ago. Previously, the oldest hominin fossils in western Turkey were recovered in 2007 at Kocabas, but the dating of these and other stone tool finds were uncertain.
(Excerpt) Read more at royalholloway.ac.uk ...
I just want to thank you for posting all these neat articles.
My pleasure, and thanks!
This is why I always buy fresh, never frozen......
Does the stone tools say ‘Made in China’? Does it also say ‘Craftsman’?
The first stone tool ever used was the rock that some animal
used to throw at another.
noprogs: “I just want to thank you for posting all these neat articles.”
Me too. Thanks.
‘Craftsman’?
Lifetime warranty and I’ll bet it’s still covered.
If it’s a Craftsman, don’t expect the next one to last 1.2 million years.
More junk science, always wanting to keep evolution alive, how about finding some written script or maps from millions of years ago?
That piece of stone could be anything including just being a piece of stone never seen before by anyone other than the self serving archeologist that is holding it.
Humanly-worked quartzite flake
There are unmistakable signs on a piece of quartz or flint when it has been worked.
Right back at ya.
Thanks Slambat, Vaduz, and Dusty Road!
:’D
Yes, me too, thank you SC. There are lots of silly comments but serious readers appreciate them so much.
That said I wonder if this early human was homo ergaster? It certainly wasn’t homo sapiens sapiens?
Leaving a digital trail on the internet, was BEYOND stupid! That tells me they were planning on having no witnesses, and you know what that means for the home owner.
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My crescent wrench could have been a hunk of iron ore that fell into a volcano, melted, mixed with carbon, was erupted out and flowed into an obscure, wrench like depression in the ground, and became a weird, natural, wrench shaped rock. Works pretty good though.
Who ever it was had the manual dexterity to work a piece of stone and a simple understanding of the process.
seems I’ve cross posted. Could you remove?
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