World's oldest stone tools that predate humans found

In a discovery that could rewrite the early human history, archaeologists have found the world's oldest handmade stone tools in Kenya, dating back 3.3 million years, long before the advent of modern humans.

The tools, whose makers may or may not have been some sort of human ancestor, push the known date of such tools back by 700,000 years.

They also may challenge the notion that our own most direct ancestors were the first to bang two rocks together to create a new technology, researchers said.

The discovery is the first evidence that an even earlier group of proto-humans may have had the thinking abilities needed to figure out how to make sharp-edged tools.

The stone tools mark "a new beginning to the known archaeological record," say the authors of a new paper about the discovery, published in the journal Nature.

"The whole site's surprising, it just rewrites the book on a lot of things that we thought were true," said geologist Chris Lepre of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and Rutgers University, a co-author of the paper who precisely dated the artifacts.

The tools "shed light on an unexpected and previously unknown period of hominin behaviour and can tell us a lot about cognitive development in our ancestors that we can't understand from fossils alone," said lead author Sonia Harmand, of the Turkana Basin Institute at Stony Brook University.

Hominins are a group of species that includes modern humans, Homo sapiens, and our closest evolutionary ancestors.

Anthropologists long thought that our relatives in the genus Homo - the line leading directly to Homo sapiens - were the first to craft such stone tools.

But researchers have been uncovering tantalising clues that some other, earlier species of hominin, distant cousins, might have figured it out.

The researchers do not know who made these oldest of tools. But earlier finds suggest a possible answer: The skull of a 3.3-million-year-old hominin, Kenyanthropus platytops, was found in 1999 about a kilometre from the tool site

Source: www.business-standard.com...

Listened about this on the radio on the way to work, and apart from it being great news, what is of more interest to me is the way scientist welcomed this news.

"The whole site's surprising, it just rewrites the book on a lot of things that we thought were true,"

Firstly, some on this very site tried to prove that scientist don't like if someone shows evidence to something that is not already in history books. This simple find proves as good evidence that those claims have no grounds.

Secondly, many here accused science on constant changes, but this is it - you have to adopt new find and evidence. Ignoring it would be anti-science.

Seems every day we are learning more about our past...

The article had no pictures; could the artifacts be light sensitive?

BBC Article has pictures: www.bbc.com...


The tools includes sharp-edged flakes, hammers and anvils




This stone tool is known as a core - flakes, used for cutting, are sheared away from its edges




The tools were found near to Lake Turkana in northern Kenya




Before this discovery, Homo habilis was thought to be the first species to use stone tools




Australopithecus afarensis is a primitive species with both human and ape-like features


All images are from BBC site.

This is a very interesting find because it also has implications for how the human brain evolved.

About the dating methods utilized, magnetic polar shifts are recorded on the geomagnetic polar time scale - the rocks or objects are measured with a magnetometer and the average directional polarity can then be used to date the object.

Quite sure the Creationists are hard at work figuring out how to come up with some bs excuse as to why the authors are completely wrong.

Lepre said a layer of volcanic ash below the tool site set a "floor" on the site's age: It matched ash elsewhere that had been dated to about 3.3 million years ago, based on the ratio of argon isotopes in the material. To more sharply define the time period of the tools, Lepre and co-author and Lamont-Doherty colleague Dennis Kent examined magnetic minerals beneath, around and above the spots where the tools were found.

The Earth's magnetic field periodically reverses itself, and the chronology of those changes is well documented going back millions of years. "We essentially have a magnetic tape recorder that records the magnetic field ... the music of the outer core," Kent said. By tracing the variations in the polarity of the samples, they dated the site to 3.33 million to 3.11 million years.

phys.org...

Folsom points they are not.
I know I am speaking from an extremely unlearned POV, but it really looks like I have a driveway filled with pre-human stone tools.

a reply to: SuperFrog
Thanks for the pictures
Really is amazing isn't it. To think people keep finding new evidence that predates the last. We really have no clue when intelligent life began

a reply to: SuperFrog

Excellent post!

If they are confirmed to be 3.3 million year old tools created by a hominid then I guess this means more understanding of the evolution of the human brain, as a skill such as tool making requires a good level of hand motor control, besides the cognitive ability that enabled them to think they needed tools and how to make them.... wow!

a reply to: Agartha

Well actually chimps use stone tools, so cognitive ability to use them doesn't need anymore brain power than chimps. If they had better hand to finger coordination then shaping rock tools probably wouldn't beyond them. Where chimps fall short, is when it comes to keeping possession of tools for long periods without needing them. They just can't really consciously plan days ahead.

The ability of long term foresight is when the big bang of the hominid brain occurred.

originally posted by: SuperFrog
Seems every day we are learning more about our past...

No way!

Just a bunch of rocks. Rocks are old. If I pick up an irregular shaped rock and hammer something with it, does that make me a million years old too?

a reply to: SuperFrog
Already posted yesterday Super...
www.abovetopsecret.com...
Def an interesting find.

a reply to: Subaeruginosa

True, chimps do use stones to crack nuts but the ancient tools found were actually 'made' by the hominid whilst chimps simply use a stone, that's the difference in cognitive abilities I was referring to... unless chimps do chip stones too but I have never heard of that. I think it shows a change in brain activity as they did create different types of tools for different uses/needs.

a reply to: TinfoilTP

Replace your ignorance with knowledge:

www.cafg.net...
www.leics.gov.uk...
www.wessexarch.co.uk...
en.wikipedia.org...

a reply to: Klassified

Thank you for pointing it out. Not sure what mods will do, IMHO this is more origin topic then lost or ancient civilization.

I guess this thread will amalgamate with the other, but I do ponder.
Thanks gethyped for the links.

SO they are all specially "Knapped" tools are they? All created by an intelligence, so it must be a Homo Man thing then obviously......so the experts all decree.

But lets see.....we have evidence that chimps etc (otters, ravens, birds etc) use stone/wood tools to help find food.
Whether digging for grubs/ants/honey etc or smashing stones to opens nuts/shellfish etc.

How likely would it be...say 3.3 million years ago, that an ape, not yet a "hominid", grabbed a nice hand sized roundish rock, near a river etc, and started to smash his nuts or shell, also sitting on another heavier rock, because he knew this would break the food. Anyway, away he goes, smash smash ouch, damn, just hit his leg, smash, smash, each time the slippery food slides around on the large rock, each time he misses the food and Hits The Rock, in doing so flakes bits of Rock Off His Hand Held Rock.......actually Knapping the rock (but he doesnt know that).

Thats right, he accidently creates knapping on his piece of stone, that he had no idea he was doing...that suddenly 3.3million years later, some University educated smart ape comes along, see the chips where he missed the food and hit the rock, and declares...Oh Oh an Intelligent Man Thingy has created special tools with his super mind.

When in actual fact, the "Tool" was accidently made by flailing away at some food and missing 5 out of 10 times.

Be Honest people, how many times have ATS readers...cut themselves with a knife, pricked themselves with a needle, banged their finger/thumb/leg or hand or head with a hammer/door/table, someone elses head etc etc.

Miraculously 3.3 million year old ape, never misses when he hits his food, and flakes pieces of rock off his tool?
He must be the smartest most intelligent Ape that ever lived, including now.

Please, these scientists are stretching reality more and more.......the more they learn, the less they know.

a reply to: SuperFrog

But what if it was created by another intelligent species that existed before humans came.

a reply to: gort51

I believe what makes big difference is re-usability of tools. For example, if you watched Chimpanzee movie/documentary made by Disney, you will note that they learn how to use tools to get food, but they are not reusing them. As soon as they are done feeding at that location and migrate to next one, they don't carry them and with lack of re-usability they don't upgrade them to better ones.

But tools on this site show actual work to make them more specialized. It's not just stone used to open food, but it shows work on the tools to make it more efficient.

originally posted by: starwarsisreal
a reply to: SuperFrog

But what if it was created by another intelligent species that existed before humans came.

It is somewhat intelligent species that comes before modern human, but intelligence does not necessarily mean 'civilization'.

Here is meaning of civilization:

A civilization (US) or civilisation (UK) is any complex society characterized by urban development, social stratification, symbolic communication forms (typically, writing systems), and a perceived separation from and domination over the natural environment.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8] Civilizations are intimately associated with and often further defined by other socio-politico-economic characteristics, including centralization, the domestication of both humans and other organisms, specialization of labor, culturally ingrained ideologies of progress and supremacism, monumental architecture, taxation, societal dependence upon agriculture, and expansionism.[2][5][3][8][7] Historically, a civilization was an "advanced" culture in contrast to more supposedly barbarian, savage, or primitive cultures.[1][3][5][9] In this broad sense, a civilization contrasts with non-centralized feudal or tribal societies, including the cultures of nomadic pastoralists or hunter-gatherers. As an uncountable noun, civilization also refers to the process of a society developing into a centralized, urbanized, stratified structure.

Source: en.wikipedia.org...

originally posted by: gort51
I guess this thread will amalgamate with the other, but I do ponder.
Thanks gethyped for the links.

SO they are all specially "Knapped" tools are they? All created by an intelligence, so it must be a Homo Man thing then obviously......so the experts all decree.

Please just believe what they tell you to believe, life is easier.
never question those in authority, we know they are always right, except when they are wrong.

Monkeys dont and cant and will never chip, flake tools till next time.

originally posted by: TinfoilTP
Just a bunch of rocks. Rocks are old. If I pick up an irregular shaped rock and hammer something with it, does that make me a million years old too?

Why do you hate facts so much?

originally posted by: borntowatch


Monkeys dont and cant and will never chip, flake tools till next time.

Being so close-minded must make life a lot easier.

You don't ever have to consider the implications of new discoveries. You can just sit back and go "nope, that's BS" and continue on with your perceived status quo.