Ancient stone machine technologies may be tens of thousands of years older than scientists previously thought, according to a recent study published in the Journal of human evolution.
The oldest machines allowed human ancestors to acquire new types of food and make wooden tools
The new findings offer a new historical basis in which scientists can experience how our early ancestors made stone tools. This could also extend the timeline in which we can assess the evolutionary potential of human technology, along with associated behavioral and dietary changes.
The research comes from the University of Kent’s School of Anthropology and Conservation, and analyzed Oldowan and Acheulean stone machine technologies – in particular, two tools that are like the oldest recorded by archaeologists.
Led by Alastair Key and David Roberts of Kent, together with Ivan Jaric from the biology center of the Czech Academy of Sciences, the research team used novel statistical modeling methods to estimate the age of Oldowan stone tools – at about 2.617 to 2.644 million years age. , which is 36,000 to 63,000 years earlier than previously thought.
The origin of Achilles dates back at least 55,000 years – at 1.815 to 1.823 million years ago. The Oldowan and Acheulean machines allowed early human ancestors to acquire new types of food, and reduced the learning curve on processing animal carcasses and creating woodworking machines.
New sites of undiscovered human devices are awaited
“These dates provide a new time-based foundation for understanding the origins of the first flaked stone technologies, along with their behavioral and evolutionary effects,” the authors of their study said. “Furthermore, they suggest that much of the artifact record will still be found. “
“Our research provides the best possible estimates for understanding when hominins first invented these types of stone tools,” said Key, who is a paleolithic archaeologist and lead study author, according to a Phys.org report. “This is important for many reasons, but for me at least, it’s very interesting because it shows that much of the artifact record seems to be waiting to be discovered.”
“The best serial predictive modeling (OLE) modeling method has been developed by myself and a colleague to date,” said Roberts, study co-author and conservation scientist. “It has been a reliable way of tracing the eradication of species and is based on the times of the last scenes, so to apply it at the first sight of antiquities was a another interesting break. We hope that this method was more widely used within archeology. “
Scientific consensus assumes the existence of ancient stone tool sites and is awaiting discovery, but this study offers the first quantitative data on the age of the undiscovered sites. And as we work to understand more about how older people created the first machines, we may find behavioral systems or technological styles that greatly expand or enhance our understanding of how we came to be. rely on technology itself.