In Kenya found stone tools 3.3 million years ago – Universe

When you take a wrong in a dry riverbed in Kenya twist, scientists discovered a set of more ancient than any previously discovered stone tools. Nobody knows who did it, or why.

With 3.3 million years old surpass the record of stone tools 700,000 years. More importantly, they are more than half a million years older than any vestige discovered in our branch of the evolutionary tree.

Scientists have long thought that the stone tools with sharp tip only were made by members our branch called “Homo” as our own species, Homo sapiens. That idea has been questioned, and the new discovery offers a great argument that toolmaking could begin with predecessors with smaller brains.

The discovery was reported Harmand Sonia and Jason Lewis University Stony Brook New York, co-authors of a essay published Wednesday in the journal Nature (in English).

The paper describes 149 stones and flakes found west of Lake Turkana a remote area of ​​Kenya. Almost all objects are “cores”, which are stones that were hit to break the sharp point of chips.

Africa where it first appeared our own species, and from long ago is buzzing with fossils of our predecessors. The Kenyan site was discovered in July 2011 when Harmand, Lewis and a team went to check one area and accidentally ended up in another. There were ditches and slopes that looked promising, so they searched around, he told Lewis in a telephone interview.

Before tea time, a team member saw a stone tool on the floor. They appeared more quickly. They began excavations.

Compared with the oldest known tools, “these things are huge”, which adds to the mystery of why they were used, said David Braun, an expert in tools University George Washington.

Harmand said he believes that the overall purpose of the tools was to make sharp cutting chips, but no one knows exactly how they were used.

There is also the question of who made them. A candidate would be a Homo species unknown to science, Lewis said. Other possibilities come from outside the Homo branch, such as Australopithecus afarensis, best known for his skeleton nicknamed Lucy. Another candidate is the kenyanthropus, known remains found not far from the site of the stone tools. (I)