Sunday 24 May 2015

Oldest stone tools pre-date earliest humans


By Rebecca Morelle
Science Correspondent, BBC News

20 May 2015 
From the sectionScience & Environment

The tools includes sharp-edged flakes, hammers and anvils

The world's oldest stone tools have been discovered, scientists report.

They were unearthed from the shores of Lake Turkana in Kenya, and date to 3.3 million years ago.

They are 700,000 years older than any tools found before, even pre-dating the earliest humans in the Homo genus.

The find, reported in Nature, suggests that more ancient species, such asAustralopithecus afarensis or Kenyanthropus platyops, may have been more sophisticated than was thought.

"They are significantly earlier than anything that has been found previously," said Dr Nick Taylor, from the National Centre of Scientific Research (CNRS) in France and the University of Leiden in the Netherlands.

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