Researchers have found 3 million-year-old tools in Kenya, showing the evolution of human ancestors

On a lakeside peninsula in East Africa, archaeologists have found evidence of a society that lived there more than 3 million years ago.

The Homa Peninsula, in Kenya, is part of the East African Rift Valley, a part of the world often called the “Cradle of Humanity.” Lots of oldest clues about The early days of humanity Underneath the valley’s fertile human soil have been preserved, including the remains of “Lucy.” An ancient human relative Who lived more than 3 million years ago.

Tom Plummer and his team are the latest to make discoveries in the region, working at a site on the peninsula called Nyanga. The team found flakes or small knives at the excavation site. The blades are believed to be some of the first tools used on Earth, and even after more than 3 million years, they still have a sharp edge.

The blades were made by pounding a single stone against each other, said Plummer, an archaeologist at the City University of New York. The knives were used to peel and cut fruits and vegetables, and cut the flesh of prey such as hippopotamuses, Plummer said. The meat is then pounded between stones to tenderize it. Known as the Oldowan tool set, the knife and stones likely paved the way for further technological advances in the future.

“I think Oldowan technology is probably the most important technological innovation that has ever occurred in human history,” Plummer told CBS Saturday Morning.

“It allowed (pre-human ancestors) access to a whole range of foods that they didn’t have access to before.”

The new diet would have fueled body and brain development, starting a “feedback loop” that created more advanced organisms that “begin to do more with technology,” Plummer said. A similar, older cutting tool has also been found in Kenya, but this technology appears to have become extinct, so Plummer believes it is this tool that can be credited with these advances.

“I think it all started with Oldowan,” Plummer said.

Who made the tools is another surprise. Along with the tools, Plummer’s team found the tooth of Paranthropus, an early hominin who is not a direct ancestor of humans. This suggests that early tool-making was not a human legacy, but rather an idea that humanity’s ancestors copied and then used to control other hominins, who eventually became extinct.

Rick Potts, director of the Smithsonian Institution’s Human Origins Program and head of research on the peninsula, said the discovery could… They help frame the existence of humans On this planet.

“We’re the last ones standing on two legs, as I call it,” Potts said. “All other ways of life are extinct. This gives us a lot to think about, and draws attention to the fragility of life, even in our journey through time.”

Searching for pre-human history

The search for these early artifacts has the look and excitement of an “Indiana Jones” movie. Finding split rocks that showed evidence of their use as tools was one thing, but the archeology team then had to find cut marks on animal bones that confirmed how knives were used.

Plasto Onyango, a local archaeological legend who helped unearth Turkana Boy, the most complete early hominin skeleton ever, said his impressive find took “four or five years” to find. Over time, he and other archaeologists found “various parts of the skeleton,” working slowly but surely to uncover the remains of a young boy who lived more than one and a half million years ago.

Rose Nyabock, a paleontology researcher, said that this kind of painstaking and slow research is what constitutes the daily work of archaeological excavation. Sometimes she and other researchers find small pieces of bone, but they have to leave those where they are found.

“We don’t just choose anything,” Nyabock explained. “It has to make sense in paleontology.” “We tell her: ‘Sorry. We can’t choose you today.’

Important bones are those that can add context to the area, such as pig teeth. Pigs evolved very quickly and their skeletons helped date the surrounding area. The site is too old for carbon dating, and the ancient volcanic ash that preserved the artifacts makes it very difficult to use other dating methods. Researchers actually abandoned the area after artifacts from the Houma Peninsula led to inaccurate claims about human origins. Despite all this, Potts began drilling on the peninsula nearly 40 years ago.

“We found a place that was difficult to date, but we didn’t leave it, because science requires persistence,” Potts said.

This persistence has been rewarded with discoveries like Plummer’s. New technologies have made identifying sites even easier, and new discoveries across East Africa have improved researchers’ understanding of human roots. Researchers knew that modern Homo sapiens appeared in Africa about 300,000 years ago, but they did not understand until recently that their hominin ancestors began walking on two legs at least 6 million years ago.

“Some things that we thought happened in a very short period of time, within the last million years, have now spanned over 6 million years,” Potts said. “This includes making tools.”