Earliest Stone Tools And Bones Site Discovered

Newswise ^ | 11-3-2003 | Southern Connecicut State University

[blam]

Source: Southern Connecticut State University
Released: Mon 03-Nov-2003, 14:00 ET

Earliest Stone Tools and Bones Site Discovered

An assistant professor of anthropology has discovered the earliest direct evidence of stone tool manufacture and use in a controlled setting, in an excavation in Gona, Ethiopia. His research team dates the tools they found to 2.6 million years old.

Newswise — Michael Rogers, an assistant professor of anthropology at Southern Connecticut State University, has discovered the earliest direct evidence of stone tool manufacture and use in a controlled setting, in an excavation in Gona, Ethiopia. Rogers and his research team date the tools they found to 2.6 million years old. An article reporting their findings was published in the September 2003 issue of the Journal of Human Evolution.

Three years ago, Rogers was in Ethiopia working on a paleoanthropological research project in Gona, in an area that hadn’t been looked at before. He found a few flakes—tools that are pieces of stone chipped off of a larger stone—and began digging with a crew of experienced excavators. What they eventually discovered is a significant development in the field of paleoanthropology: the earliest stone tools and animal bones at the same site, clearly associated with each other, indicating early humans’ use of tools to provide food for themselves.

“This is the earliest site that really documents the two together,” says Rogers, adding, “There’s no question that they are associated with each other. Our ancestors were using the artifacts to process animal parts, which probably shows that humans were expanding their diets to include animals and were no longer largely vegetarians—they were becoming at least partly carnivorous.”

At the time of the discovery, Rogers was part of an international research team, the Gona Paleoanthropological Research Project, led by Sileshi Semaw, Ph.D., an Ethiopian anthropologist working at CRAFT Research Center, Indiana University. Gona is in Ethiopia’s Awash Valley, nearly at sea level. This area was already known to have the earliest stone tools, and is adjacent to Hadar, where “Lucy,” probably the most famous hominid fossil yet to be discovered, was found in 1974.

Researchers on the Gona Project have found cutmarked bones before, says Rogers, but not in a controlled setting. The setting where he and his group made their discovery is an excavation area that is four meters wide by one meter deep. Several hundred artifacts were found in this area. “If this was the earliest site in the world, we expected things to be crude, but the tools appear to have been well made,” says Rogers. The tools they found “are incredibly fresh for their age,” he adds. “The condition of the site, for its age, is shocking.”

Rogers says the site is on the bank of a river and at one time was probably covered over when the river flooded and hasn’t been touched since. “This site is in pristine condition,” he says. “We know it hasn’t been moved.” The materials the researchers found are being kept at the National Museum of Ethiopia in Addis Ababa.

Rogers and his colleagues found at the site diverse types of stone, indicating that the toolmakers were discriminating about the materials they chose to use. “Our ancestors had to know what kind of rock flakes the best,” says Rogers. “They chose only the rarest kinds of cobbles from the ancient stream bed nearby for their ‘flake-ability.’ They were being very selective.”

Rogers says that the group’s find shows the start of something that hasn’t yet stopped: human beings’ use of technology. “You can trace our technology use way back,” he says. “These stone tools show that our human ancestors were capable of creating something completely new and that they had an insight about what they were creating.”

In his anthropology classes, Rogers shows his students how flaking works, and then has them give it a try. To do it, one holds the core stone in one hand and a smaller stone in the other, and then hits the smaller stone against the core, with the goal of flaking pieces off. It’s not easy to do well, Rogers points out, so the earliest toolmakers must have had some kind of skill. “You have to make a glancing blow, at the right angle and with the right force. It requires good eye-hand coordination. And you have to choose the right kind of stone. All of this was abundantly evident at the site.”

In the field of the earliest archaeology, Rogers says, “everything is in Africa—there is nothing older anywhere else. People say it all the time: Africa is the cradle of humankind.”

[f.Christian]

see below ...

At the bottom is the nea ... aclu --- dept of education (( rat's nest republicans )) !

[miloklancy]

This is a perfectly intelligent article to post and I thank you for it. It is just a shame that zealots need to pipe in and beat us over their head with their mideval superstitious religious non-sense. I would ask the deeply religious to keep their snide remarks out of legitimate discussions of science and I will keep my snide remarks out of their legitimate discussions pertaining to scripture.

[f.Christian]

The Judeo - Christian - Reformation revolution created the the American nation - Republic ...

evolution created it's anti - thesis ---

morphed into a two - headed monster - devil !

[mgstarr]

Oh come on - this is really no place for a rational, coherent and cogent discussion.

Sad isn't it?

[f.Christian]

Fo you think the problem is ...

reality is stable - defineable - predictable ---

evolution is relative - spin ?

[mgstarr]

Do you ever speak in complete sentences?

[f.Christian]

Do you think the problem is reality is stable, defineable, predictable and evolution is relative - spin; i.e., esoteric babble - ideology ?

[whattajoke]

Thank you for ruining another thread that somehow (in your own mind) threatens your supernatural belief system.

It is indeed a mystery how you get away with your incoherent spamming over and over and over.

[mgstarr]

Actually I think miloklancy summed up the issue rather well in post 22.

[f.Christian]

You worry about a thread ... what about civilzation --- evo zoo world !

Brave new evo beast america ... you like that !

[mgstarr]

Hamlet Act 1, Scene V, lines 191-192

[f.Christian]

Pre and post hamlet !

The 1st - last freep - scorcher !

23"Oh, that my words were written!
Oh, that they were inscribed in a book!
24That they were engraved on a rock
With an iron pen and lead, forever!
25For I know that my Redeemer lives,
And He shall stand at last on the earth;
26And after my skin is destroyed, this I know,
That in my flesh I shall see God,
27Whom I shall see for myself,
And my eyes shall behold, and not another.
How my heart yearns within me!
28If you should say, "How shall we persecute him?'--
Since the root of the matter is found in me,
29Be afraid of the sword for yourselves;
For wrath brings the punishment of the sword,
That you may know there is a judgment."

[hosepipe]

The difference between fiction and reality is that fiction has to make sense - Tom Clancy

[f.Christian]

Do you think reality has a source ... counter source ?

[mgstarr]

"Humani iuris et naturalis potestatis, unicuique quod putaverit colere, nec alii obest aut prodest alterius religio. Sed nec religionis est religionem colere, quae sponte suscipi debeat, non vi."
Tertullian

And no I don't actually expect you to understand what it means anymore than I did the context of the Hamlet quote.

[Lurking Libertarian]

Is it really necessary to post that chart twice on the same page?

Once is funny, twice is spamming.

[f.Christian]

anymore than I did the context of the Hamlet quote.

You didn't recognize my quote ... from the Bible --- book of Job ?

[f.Christian]

Spam ...

maybe you didn't notice ---

different captions ?

Is that all the evolutionists can do is come up with false charges -- attacks ... lies - slander --- hypocrisy ?

[Aracelis]

Thanks for the ping...an important find. I think however, that H. habilis, like all other creatures on the edge of survival, were opportunists (read scavengers) and ate what was available. Interesting though that even at this early date, the evidence suggests the use of tools in a deliberate, methodical fashion.