During the Paleoanthropology Society Annual Meeting in San Francisco a team of archaeologists presented some incredible findings.
They have found tools of stone shards claimed to have been made 3,3 million years ago. By far the oldest manufactured tools in history.
The oldest tools previously found were some 2,6 million years old tools manufactured by primates in Gona, Ethiopia. But this new discovery was made near the Lake Turkana in Kenya.
In 2010 some archaeologists found 3,44 million years old bones that were thought to have cut marks from tools but until now they have not been able to confirm this.
These newly discovered tools were manufactured before our genus Homo existed. Homo being the genus of hominids that includes modern humans and those species closely related to us humans, a genus estimated to be about 2.5 million years old. These tools are instead believed to have been made by Australopithecus Afarensis or Kenyanthropus Platyops.
These tools could confirm disputed claims for very early tool use, suggesting that ancient australopithecines like the famed “Lucy” may also have fashioned stone tools.
More information will certainly follow with research to be published in a scientific journal.
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Stone tools now 3.3 million years old
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