Turkana Boy, also occasionally, Nariokotome Boy is the common name of fossil KNM-WT 15000,[1] a nearly complete skeleton of a hominid who died in the early Pleistocene. This specimen is the most complete early human skeleton ever found. It is 1.5 million years old.[2] Turkana Boy is classified as either Homo erectus or Homo ergaster. His age has been estimated from as old as 15 years to as young as 7 years six months. The most recent scientific review suggests 8 years of age.[3] It was initially suggested that he would have grown into 1.85 m tall adult but the most recent analysis argues for the much shorter stature of 1.63 m.[3] The reason for this shift has been research showing that his growth maturation differed from that of modern humans in that he would have had a shorter and smaller adolescent growth spurt.[3] The skeleton was discovered in 1984 by Kamoya Kimeu, a member of a team led by Richard Leakey, at Nariokotome near Lake Turkana in Kenya.[4

A new study suggests that Homo erectus, a precursor to modern humans, was using advanced toolmaking methods in East Africa 1.8 million years ago, at least 300,000 years earlier than previously thought. The study, published this week in Nature, raises new questions about where these tall and slender early humans originated and how they developed sophisticated tool-making technology

Homo ergaster used more diverse and sophisticated stone tools than its predecessors: H. erectus, however, used comparatively primitive tools. This is possibly because H. ergaster first used tools of Oldowan technology and later progressed to the Acheulean:[23] while the use of Acheulean tools began ca. 1.6 million years ago, the line of H. erectus diverged some 200,000 years before the general innovation of Acheulean technology. Thus the Asian migratory descendants of H. ergaster made no use of any Acheulean technology. In addition, it has been suggested that H. erectus may have been the first hominid to use rafts to travel over oceans.[24]

Originally posted by BritofTexas
reply to post by kdog1982

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The domestication of Wolves to Dogs has also been found to be earlier.

Archaeological evidence goes back about 14 000 years.

But DNA evidence goes back 60 - 100 000 years.

UCLA Link

Dogs have ancient origins, dating back perhaps 100,000 years or more -- much older than scientists had thought, UCLA scientists and colleagues found. While many scientists believed, based on archaeological records, that domestic dogs dated back only 14,000 years, molecular genetic techniques reported in the June 13 issue of the journal Science show that man's best friend is much older. The new research also confirms that dogs evolved from wolves. "Our data show that the origin of dogs seems to be much more ancient than indicated in the archaeological record," said Robert K. Wayne, UCLA associate professor of biology. "The origin of dogs dates well before the development of agricultural population centers that occurred approximately 10,000-14,000 years ago, and goes back to hunter-gatherer societies. While many people think a high level of sophistication was required to domesticate wild mammals, our data imply that very primitive societies may have had domestic animals." Scientists believe from archaeological records that many domestic animals, including cats and cattle, originated within the last 14,000 years. Cats may have been domesticated as recently as 7,000 years ago, Wayne said. Wayne noted that his techniques do not enable exact dates to be determined for dogs. "Because of the extrapolation involved in the calculations, it's possible that the first dog dates back 60,000 years, or perhaps more than 100,000 years," he said.

Originally posted by BritofTexas
reply to post by kdog1982

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Here's another link to the University of Florida on clothes lice.

It suggests we started wearing clothes about 170 000 years ago.

University of Florida News

I was toying with the idea of starting a thread on it but never did.

Stone tools played an important role in human evolution and one of the most significant stone technologies was the Acheulean, distinguished by the tools' characteristic tear drop and oval shaped handaxes. This technology, named for the place in France where some of the first examples were found in the 19th century, was thought to have originated around 1.4 million years ago (ma).