Until now it was thought that the manufacture of tools with animal bones was an almost exclusive ability of our species, Homo sapiens, but a study discovered that Homo Erectus produced 1.5 million years ago produced axes and bone knives in a methodical and systematized way.
The finding, made in a site of the Olduvai throat (Tanzania, East Africa), shows that Homo Erectus carved bone axes systematically one million years before the oldest evidence found so far in European deposits (southern Italy), about 500,000 years ago.
These hand axes are not only the oldest ever found, but prove that these humans were culturally innovative and could transfer and adapt their skills to carve stone to a new raw material, the bone.
The research, led by the researcher at the CSIC History Institute Ignacio de la Torre and made in collaboration with the National Center for Research on Spanish Evolution (CENIEH), the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), and several centers in the United Kingdom, Germany, United States and France, has been published on Wednesday in the journal Nature.
The finding is the result of seven excavation campaigns made between 2015 and 2022 in which the team studied the evolution of the first human groups that emerged in Africa: H.Habilis and H. Erectus.
These human species of the Pleistocene were the first to develop some technical skills that were perfected with human evolution and that prove the exclusive cognitive abilities of human beings.
The H. habilis – the first representatives of the Homo genre – lived in Africa between 2.5 and 1.5 million years ago and could manufacture simple and small lacquers (knives) of stone with cutting edges that carved from two stones (one with which they hit, called a firpor, and another, which was molded, called nucleus), a technology known as ‘Olduvayense’.
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But 1.7 million years ago, H. habilis evolved giving way to H. Erectus and a new culture, the Achalense, which lasted until 150,000 years ago (endured to our species) and was more sophisticated. This technology produced much larger and more resistant objects, mainly hand axes, with a tip and a shear edge that extracted from large blocks of stone.
“The transition between these species happened 1.5 million years ago, which is when we started finding the first Achelenses deposits. Now, in this study, we have shown that this transition not only innovated making new lithic tools, but also made them bone, ”he said of the tower in a meeting with journalists to present the finding.
The study accounts for the 27 bone tools found in perfect condition in the Olduvai throat, mostly made of long bones (femards, warm and huggers) of hippo and elephant.
These bones served to produce a variety of sharp, resistant and large utensils – some of them measure 38 cm – that were carved following standardized production patterns.
The brands and edges of these tools show that they were made intentionally and following a very different pattern from the one that would leave, for example, the rupture of a bone to extract the marrow and feed, explains De la Torre.
To confirm it, the team did experimental evidence with the bones of ‘Yoyo’, the longest elephant in history, died last December in the Barcelona Zoo and was dissected by scientists from the Catalan Institute of Human Paleoecology and Social Evolution (IPhes).
The authors believe that the decision to manufacture bone tools could be due to factors such as the lack of optimal stones to make stone tools in the environment and the advantages offered by the new material, which was more light to transport, more flexible to carve and also more abundant.
And, 1.5 million years ago, at the site of the site there was a lake that the animals of the African savannah were going to drink: “It is possible that humans find remains of bodies of hip hovers hunted by large felines” and that they would use them to manufacture the tools, he says.
In the case of elephant bones, they are most likely to brought them from afar because they were very precious for their resistance and size and because these animals did not live in the site environment.
Human beings would still take several thousand years to manufacture tools prepared to hunt great tonnage animals such as hippo or elephants.
With EFE information.
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