“Unearthed Secrets: Ancient Bone Tools in Tanzania Could Rewrite the Story of Humanity’s Origins”
Imagine a time when your ancestors were out there with bone tools in hand, slicing meat from enormous hippos and elephants. It might sound like the plot of a prehistoric reality show, but this is the real deal! A recent discovery in Tanzania’s famous Olduvai Gorge has blown the minds of archaeologists, revealing that humans were crafting these animal bone tools a whopping 1.5 million years ago—yes, you read that right! This find not only pushes back the timeline of tool-making by over a million years but also hints at an unexpected level of intelligence in our early relatives. These early hominins weren’t just surviving; they were innovating! Curious about how these ancient tools were used and what they tell us about the minds of our ancestors? Let’s dig deeper into this fascinating chapter of our history. LEARN MORE
The animal bone tools, the oldest ever discovered, were likely used to remove meat from the carcasses of creatures like hippos and elephants.
CSICOne of the bone tools, which shows signs of being struck in order to create a sharpened edge.
Archaeologists have long believed that humans didn’t start crafting tools from bone until between 250,000 and 500,000 years ago. However, a 2018 excavation in Tanzania’s Olduvai Gorge turned up a cache of animal bone tools that have now been determined to be 1.5 million years old, pushing back the hominin tool technology timeline by more than one million years.
Made from elephant and hippo bones, the tools show distinct signs of being purposefully carved. This suggests that early humans had “more complex cognition” than experts believed and that they were capable of transferring their tool-making skills from stones to bones earlier than previously known.
