Archeologists in Algeria have found stone tools and butchered animal bones from as far back as 2.4 million years ago. Such implements appear to have spread from East Africa earlier than scientists first thought.
The tools found in Algeria included cores just like this one, found in KenyaImage: picture-alliance/dpa/Nature/MPK-WTAP
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Humans may have started using stone tools to butcher animals far earlier — and in a different part of the world — than first thought, a team of paleoanthropologists claims.
The study reports the discovery of some 250 primitive tools and 296 animal bones from a site called Ain Boucherit — some 300 kilometers (190 miles) east of the capital, Algiers.
The implements were found near to many of the fossilized bones which had cut marks that clearly indicated the site was used to butcher animals. The bones came from animals similar to crocodiles, elephants, and hippopotamuses.
The cut-marked bones represent "the oldest substantive evidence for butchery" anywhere, according to paleoanthropologist Thomas Plummer, of the City University of New York's Queens College. Evidence for the actual butchery of animals in East Africa is not as strong, Plummer, who was not involved in the study, told Science's news website.
An early toolkit
The bones appeared to have been de-fleshed and pounded for marrow using so-called Oldowan tools, the earliest toolkit — includes sharp-edged flakes and round cores — used by hominins, the early human family. While the technology may have traveled from East Africa, the research team is also considering the possibility that it may have arisen separately.
The tools are too old to have been made by Homo sapiens — modern man — and no remains of other hominins have been found, so it's unclear which branch of the early human family was using the tools.
A brief history of humankind
What distinguishes humans from animals? What is culture? Did Homo sapiens and Neanderthals co-exist at any time in history? A museum in Bonn answers these questions by revisiting 100,000 years of cultural history.
Image: The Israel Museum Jerusalem/A. Avital
From molecules to the nuclear bomb
Life and death are inseparable. The exhibition "A Brief History of Humankind" in Bonn's Bundeskunsthalle museum shows how, 13.8 billion years ago, molecules began to connect and turn into structured organisms. The above video still by US artist Bruce Conner shows what could spell the end of evolution: the nuclear bomb.
Image: B. Connor
A turning point: fire
Remains of the oldest Eurasian hearth dating back 780,000 years were discovered on the banks of the river Jordan. The ability to control fire was a turning point in evolutionary history that moved mankind to the top of the food chain. Fire gave light, kept people warm; people cooked over a fire and used it to make stone tools. It was a gathering place - a Stone Age TV.
Image: The Israel Museum Jerusalem/E. Posner
The birth of mankind
Homo sapiens had a fleeting chin, slanting forehead and a narrow brow ridge. The above skull is about 100,000 years old and was found in Israel, where Homo sapiens co-existed with Neanderthals for quite some time. All of the artifacts displayed in the Bonn exhibition are from Israel - and it's the first time they are on view in Europe.
Image: The Israel Museum Jerusalem
Shaping culture
This Neanderthal skull was unearthed in the Amud Cave in Galilee. Anatomically, it is nothing like the skull of Homo sapiens: the chin is even more fleeting, the back of the head shows an indentation. These early humans not only fulfilled their basic needs, archaeologists also found they held burial rituals and other forms of culture.
Image: The Israel Museum Jerusalem/E. Posner
Togetherness
What makes us human? Family plays a huge role. Apart from historical objects, the exhibition also presents works by contemporary artists. US sculptor Charles Ray's 1993 "Family Romance" shows the fine line that connects family. In this sculpture, two parents hold their offspring's hands; however, the normalcy of a nuclear family is disrupted as both son and daughter are as tall as mom and dad.
Image: R. Charles
Gods made of stone
Humans started forming figurines depicting gods about 8,000 years ago, at a time when people were settling, planting fields and forming communities. They created goddesses they could pray to for good harvests and fertility. The phallic shape in the above photo could also symbolize a male god. Lines and etchings indicate abstract portraits.
Image: The Israel Museum Jerusalem/E. Posner
External memory aid
Unlike animals, humans can collect and write down knowledge. The Sumerians in southern Mesopotamia began to record information and numbers. This clay tablet was inscribed between 4,000 and 3,100 BC, paving the way for the complex memory systems needed to build cities and empires.
Image: The Israel Museum Jerusalem/E. Posner
Money instead of shells
This coin made of electrum, a gold and silver alloy, is the oldest-known coin in the world. Embossed with the picture of a grazing stag, it is from the seventh century BC. Of course, other forms of payment already existed: sea shells, pearls and promissory notes.
Image: The Israel Museum Jerusalem/Y. Hovav
Home sweet home
In the third century BC, Arad was a flourishing business center at the crossroads of two trade routes in the Middle East. For 350 years, it was a magnificent city of palaces, temples and homes. The above model shows a typical square one-room dwelling with a flat roof, dating back to between 3,000 to 2,650 BC.
Image: The Israel Museum Jerusalem/A. Hay
Two-faced progress
In 1912, Albert Einstein developed the theory of relativity, a sensation and a scientific revolution. The Israel Museum in Jerusalem owns the original manuscript to E=mc². The mathematical formula embodies the two sides of progress: With it, mankind gained important insight into physics, but it also enabled the creation of the first nuclear bomb.
Image: The Israel Museum Jerusalem/A. Avital
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While East Africa is normally the region most associated with early stone tools, there's been little evidence that such implements spread widely until 1.8 million years ago. The findings, reported in Science magazine, show that stone tools may have been used at animal kill sites in Algeria as far back as 2.4 million years ago.
It wasn't easy for the team to date the site where the relics were found. Volcanic minerals are usually used to date sites in East Africa, but these aren't found in Algeria. Instead, researchers used other methods, including one that detects clues in the rock about known changes over time in the Earth's magnetic field.
