Oldest Tools Pushed Back to 1.7+ Million Years

From the NYT via Boing Boing comes evidence of the earliest tool manufacture. From the science journal Nature, tools from Kenya that were dated to about 1.7 million years ago. This is the earliest found so far. Previous estimates ranged from 1.4 million to 1.6 million years ago.

A skull belonging to Homo erectus was excavated last year from the same sediment level suggesting that this species of pre-humans was responsible for the tool manufacture.

What makes the find even more amazing is the type of tools uncovered. The oval and pear-shaped hand tools are refer to as Acheulean technology. Tools that were sophisticated displayed signs of symmetry, uniformity and planning - a specialty of early humans.

The strata from which these tool types were uncovered in, (1.7 million years ago) often contain artifacts from an earlier and simpler technology or Oldowan artifacts which were tools mainly made up of sharp stone flakes and roughly worked rock cores. Finding the two tool types side by side was a bit unsettling, but technologies that were not mutually exclusive.

What has not been reasoned out yet is whether the technology was imported from somewhere else or originated from Oldowan toolmakers in the area.

Wiki article on Acheulean NYT article

Mayan Underworld Found.

Archeologists in Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula have discovered an impressive labyrinth of fourteen caves, filled with pyramids and stone temples. This discovery has led archeologists to wonder if a Mayan myth may have inspired this labyrinth or if it may have inspired the myth. Though, William Saturno, a Boston University expert on the Mayais fairly certain that the maze of temples was built after the story.

What is clear is that the Maya used them for elaborate rituals including, unfortunately, human sacrifice. All linked to a myth that the souls of the dead must follow a dog through darkness "on a horrific and watery path and endure myriad challenges before they could rest in the afterlife."

While archeology doesn't seem the most natural science to link to SF, countless great SF stories have dealt with archeology and myth. Delany's classic Ballad of Beta 2 comes to mind.

<National Geographic article on the discovery>

'Stupid' Neanderthals A Myth

A new Science Daily article reports that American and UK researchers have brought new evidence to light that crushes a long held belief that Neanderthals went extinct because they could not compete with Homo-Sapiens in areas requiring intelligence. For 60 years it had been a commonly held belief that in the area of tool making, homo-sapiens outstripped and out performed those of neanderthals. Researchers spent three years producing stone tools. Archaeologists often use the development of stone blades and their assumed efficiency as proof of Homo sapiens' superior intellect. Yet when scientists compared the type of blades created by homo-sapiens to those of the neanderthal they found that there were no fundamental difference in efficiency and effectiveness in either tool types. In fact, their findings showed that in some respects the flakes favoured by Neanderthals were more efficient than the blades adopted by Homo sapiens. Far from clearing up the mystery of why the neanderthal became extint, it now has deepened it. It has been shown that neanderthal was equal in hunting, had no real disadvantage in communicating and now in some cases, superiour tools.

<- read more of the science daily article ->

graphic via Rhagor