The oldest gemstone tools ever found have been discovered in a lake in eastern Africa . Dated at 3.3 million years sometime , the discovery break the previous record by 700,000 geezerhood and predates the show of the genus Homo by half a million years .
The idea that tool use is uniquely human has been well and rightfully put to repose over late years , as species fromcrowstodolphinshave been show to not only habituate tools , but to regulate them to suit their purpose . Nevertheless , our capacity to supplement fingers and teeth with something stronger is still regarded as a central turning point in ourrise to spheric domination .
Prior to the latest breakthrough , the earliest confirmed evidence for this primordial engineering number from Gona , Ethiopia , where thousands of2.6 million - year - old flaked stone tools were found .
In 2010 , however , fauna bones estimated to be 3.4 million years old were found in Dikika , Ethiopia . Linear marks on these pearl have beenattributed to stone prick , but without unmediated examples of such dick until 800,000 years thereafter , manyanthropologists were questioning .
This week , Stony Brook University ’s Dr. Sonia Harmand annunciate at thePaleoanthropology Society ’s annual meetingthe finding of tools that could have made the Dikika mark in a site known as Lomekwi 3 . The website lie in northwest Kenya , on the polar shore of Lake Turkana from thewind farmthat could put the region at the cutting edge of engineering again . It was discovered when Harmand and colleagues got lost take care for a nearby site where a3.5 million - year - old skull was find . The tools were lie in plain mint on sandy terra firma .
Harmand report that shallow archeological site expose the cores from which our ancestors struck eccentric person . One eccentric person and the center from which it was move were check to each other . “ The artifact were clear knapped [ created by intentional flaking ] and not the result of accidental faulting of rocks,“Science Magazine reportsHarmand saying at the meeting .
Having found 130 pieces on the Earth’s surface and almost 20 buried in the sand , Harmand has concluded the methodological analysis used was like to theOldowan pebble toolsto which the Gona tools belong to . However , the Lomekwi tools are magnanimous than typical Oldowan specimens , and Harmand claims they represent a distinct technology .
Determining the age of the tools found on the airfoil is almost unimaginable , but Harmand used reversals in the Earth ’s magnetic field recorded in the deposit to date the buried tools to 3.3 million years ago . The date is half a million years before the oldest get laid representatives of the genusHomo , indicate the prick were made by australopithecine such as thefamous Lucy , who lived 100,000 age later on .
Lake Turkana lies in northwest Kenya and southern Ethiopia . Once among the cradle of manhood , a change in clime several thousand years ago allow for much of its valley uninhabited .
