In “Stone tools shed light on early human migrations” (Nature, August 31, 2011), Matt Kaplan tells us that “Hominins with different tool-making technologies coexisted,”
The axes, found in Kenya by Christopher Lepre, a palaeontologist at Columbia University in New York, and his team are estimated to be around 1.76 million years old. That’s 350,000 years older than any other complex tools yet discovered.
e significant finding is that the hand axes from 1.5 million years ago were found beside primitive chopping tools of a type used a million years earlieDid one type of human make both types of tools? Stone toolmaking is hard work, and it may be that no one saw a need to embellish a device that worked fine as it was for chopping meat or vegetables.
File under: Older than thought
See also: Stone tools nearly 2 million years old – and Michael Cremo is still wrong?
Were people cooking two million years ago?
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