1.2-Million-Year-Old Stone Tool Unearthed in Turkey

a reply to: Tangerine

Indeed, and when one makes them and examines the debitage it becomes much easier to recognise intentional flakes/working.... especially in idiosyncratic materials like flint that leave very clear traces of shockwaves, bulbs of percussion and so forth.

To the uninitiated it may seem very unclear how the flake in the OP could be identified as worked by man, but really it's a lot like determining whether a tree was felled by a steel axe or a beaver.

a reply to: Tangerine

[quotye]There are ways to tell how tools are formed, including the method and tools used to form the tool.

But not when or who did it.

If a rock dates to a million years and I find it tomorrow and chip on it…

I'm no geologist by any means but that looks to me like thousands of rocks I have seen while walking along railroad tracks. I'm not sure how they can consider it a tool, or part of a tool or scraps from making a tool. I am also unsure how they can place this supposed artifact at that location 1.2 million years ago. I was initially excited to see something made by homo erectus dated that far back but this is the epitome of anticlimax, imo.

a reply to: intrptr

The chippings aren't just found on the ground. The sediment layer they are found in is used to date them, for example. I think the scientists have put a bit more thought into these questions then you have. Heck, even a simple google search would be enough for you in this instance.

originally posted by: IWasHereEonsAgo
How and why did we get infused with curiosity and ambition when pretty much all other species on Earth still after millions of years have none of those.

It's a puzzler. Even though some of these early hominids were able to make tools and had fire and other fairly complicated behaviors, it's curious that they just never got any smarter than they were at first. Like making stone tools to them was like a bird building a nest. A kind of vague instinct. Not like us. We have our instinctual behaviors, but nothing like these creatures.

a reply to: intrptr
In this case there are many ways to pin down its age.
The first one is laid out in the article, the flake was found in a layer laid down by a river on top of a layer of lava, that was 1.24 million years old, but before a lava flow 1.17 million years old that blocked the river from flowing.
So the although the item could be older than 1.24myo but it's unlikely , but it's not younger than 1.17, the time at which it was buried.
Stratigraphy is everything.
The real importance in this find is its age and location, it is nearly as old as the oldest HE finds in Africa and is nearly contemporaneous with Georgian HE, which lends creadance to a Eurasian origin for HE.
By the for everybody when it comes to lithics Skalla knows his stuff.

a reply to: Blue Shift
This was a blade based tool , not a random pebble tool. Like Skalla noted its pretty hard to make a blade from a river cobble.
In another thread HE 's intelligence was discussed at some length. HE built multi family dwellings , with paving stone floors, they built boats and settled fairly remote islands and traveled to islands out of sight to obtain stone for tools. In some areas that HE inhabited, they would have to had clothing to survive the winters. It's also very likely that HE survived until fairly recently in Se Asia, and by the time they were fully assimilated into us , you would not have been able to tell the difference between us and them.

That was a kids toy over a million years ago. His parents wouldn't let him play with real knives so he formed his own knife. He was only four years old playing in the back yard of his parents bi-level home. He may have got a spanking for making that.

It's pretty easy to tell a flaked tool from a regular rock.

We cleaved stone in my anthro class at Penn.

a reply to: intrptr

Yeah, Sherlock Holmes would have read the article before going off half cocked..

a reply to: intrptr

This artifact actually can be dated with a high degree of accuracy. It was found above a volcanic lyer dated to 2.24 MYA and below another volcanic layer dated to 1.17 MYA therefore it is at least that old. Its not like thy just used thermoluminescence to obtain a rough estimated date on the piece, it was the stratigraphy that tell the tale. Making your entire determination of sheer incredulousness based on the headline alone as opposed to actually reading the article itself is the "obvious flaw" you attempted to allude to in your earlier reply and as such, neither Sherlock nor Occam play any role in this endeavor so no, you would not be able to just pick up any old rock, strike some chips off to show it was worked by the hands of a hominid, toss it to the side and get the Sa,e results as this particular artifact. Hence its importance.

a reply to: punkinworks10

I'm addition to the multitude of skills you mention that show a marked differentiation between the Australopithecines that preceded HE as ell as Ergaster, there are very c.ear indications of Broca's area in the brains of HE which would have given them the biology of more complex speech like later members of the genus Homo and this likely enabled them to act upon the obvious increased imagination and problem solving skills. Its ome thing to understand that there may be land out of sight that they could travel to and build boats to reach it, but the bili try to properly communicate these ideas as well as skills such as boat or raft construction and dwellings likely assisted them in their long term success and survival as well as adaptability. I re,e,her reading a paper in 98 or 99 that indicated they may have survived in Imdonesia and nearby areas as recently as 5 KYA but haven't been able to find Amy follow up studies to see how that research panned out. Their cognition md social skills as well as their superior bipedalism compared to more recent hominids made them quite suitable to spreading as far and as quickly throughout Eurasia and beyond as they did. What they accomplished with what hey had to work with, particularly in the face of much more dangerous fauna is nothing short of incredible in my opinion.

a reply to: Pistoche

Interesting find , now if someone could Calculate the Odds of that particular piece of Rock being formed that way in say a Natural Rock Formation Avalanche , I would be impressed ...

a reply to: GetHyped

The sediment layer they are found in is used to date them, for example.

I am aware of that.
Didn't think I needed to explain that to you, by the way.

As well you are aware that dating "nearby" material (because simply dating the rock only tells how old the rock itself is) still doesn't give us any more than presumptive basis for drawing conclusions. Especially if there aren't other tools nearby or carbon from fire pits, bones, shells, whatever…

Iv'e seen the photo. Reaching.

a reply to: punkinworks10

In this case there are many ways to pin down its age.

But not the "User".

River beds? "Chips" rocks just fine. Lava flows? So does heat. So do avalanches.

Inconclusive. Presumptive. "looks like" is not very scientific.

a reply to: peter vlar

you would not be able to just pick up any old rock, strike some chips off to show it was worked by the hands of a hominid, toss it to the side and get the Sa,e results as this particular artifact. Hence its importance.

One bit of flint? Just One?

Yawn…

Its "importance" is obviously desired to kick start agendized theories about "early" man.

Like moon rocks on Mars. Close ups of an anomaly are cool until you pan back and see all the other anomalous rocks around there that look just like it.

“although the find of an individual struck flake may not in itself be unusual, the observation is significant because we can assign a precise time range to the artifact and thus the presence of hominids.”

]
Love that logic.

"--thus the presence of "hominids."

Fail. (But we need mo money to continue our hunt, hint, hint)

Show me a bone, a bead, another tool or the striker, bits of flint nearby.

Just "dropped there" is subjective reasoning.

a reply to: intrptr

Are you deliberately being facitious?

This artefact that has been found can be compared to other similar stone tools found in the area, ones that couldn't be dated.

That's why this one is significant.

If they're money grabbers as you seem to think, I'm sure they could have made the claims much earlier, with their other finds that couldn't be accurately dated.

a reply to: Chadwickus

This artifact that has been found can be compared to other similar stone tools found in the area, ones that couldn't be dated.

You just rewrote the article.

Are you deliberately being facitious?

Only to "true believers" such as your self and everyone else in the church of evolution. I been there, too. They scold and scoff about their "known artifacts", too. Just like evolutionists. What a crack up.

a reply to: intrptr

From the abstract of the paper in question:

Although early hominins are known to have occupied Turkey, with numerous finds of Lower Palaeolithic artefacts documented, the chronology of their dispersal has little reliable stratigraphical or geochronological constraint, sites are rare, and the region's hominin history remains poorly understood as a result. Here, we present a Palaeolithic artefact, a hard-hammer flake, from fluvial sediments associated with the Early Pleistocene Gediz River of Western Turkey. This previously documented buried river terrace sequence provides a clear stratigraphical context for the find and affords opportunities for independent age estimation using the numerous basaltic lava flows that emanated from nearby volcanic necks and aperiodically encroached onto the contemporary valley floors.

www.sciencedirect.com...

Perhaps getting your information from just the article isn't the best idea here, "Sherlock"

And the rest, well, if you want to go into ad hominem attacks, that's your business, I've been around long enough to know why some members decide to embrace such tactics.