Media release

From: AAAS

A critical step in prehistoric stone tool use may have taken place 600,000 years earlier than thought

Science Advances

Ancient Oldowan toolmakers transported raw stone materials for toolmaking roughly 600,000 years earlier than thought, a new study suggests. The geochemical analyses of 401 artifacts from a site in Kenya indicates these early hominins sourced higher-quality stones from up to 13 kilometers away – meaning that they could strategize about land-use and remember locations of high-quality resources.

Primitive stone toolmaking took hold roughly 3.3 million years ago. 700,000 years later, the practice became more refined, marking the advent of what archaeologists call the Oldowan industry. Scientists theorized that early Oldowan toolmakers relied on local resources until 2 million years ago.

Now though, Emma Finestoneand colleagues show that Oldowan toolmakers were transporting raw stone material from faraway at the onset of the Oldowan industry. First, the researchers examined the geochemical composition of stone artifacts from the Nyayanga site in Kenya, including Bukoban quartzite and Nyanzian rhyolite. Then, they mapped the sources of these artifacts’ raw materials and found that the stones must have come from roughly 13 kilometers away.

The findings strongly suggest that Oldowan toolmakers could use mental maps, plan in advance, and judge stone quality 600,000 years earlier than believed. Notably, the Nyayanga site holds fossils of Paranthropus, an extinct genus of hominid. “Although the taxonomic identity of Nyayanga toolmakers remains unknown, the association of this [artifact] assemblage with fossils attributed to the genus Paranthropus calls into question whether the transport of core and flake technology was exclusive to genus Homo,” Finestone et al. write.