One of The Earliest Stone Tool Types Could Date Back 2.6 Million Years, New Data Show

Figuring out when the earliest human species first developed and used stone tools is an important task for anthropologists, since it was such an important evolutionary step. Remarkably, the projected date of early stone technology just got pushed back by tens of thousands of years.

Using a recently introduced type of statistical analysis, researchers estimated the proportion of stone tool artifacts that might be lying undiscovered based on what has been dug up so far. In turn, this gives us clues about how old the tool remnants we don't yet know about are likely to be.

These calculations reveal that ancient hominins may have been using basic Oldowan tools 2.617-2.644 million years ago (up to 63,000 years earlier than previous findings suggest), and the slightly more sophisticated Acheulean tools may have been used 1.815-1.823 million years ago (at least 55,000 years earlier than previously thought).

"Our research provides the best possible estimates for understanding when hominins first produced these stone tool types," says paleolithic archaeologist Alastair Key from the University of Kent in the UK.

"This is important for multiple reasons, but for me at least, it is most exciting because it highlights that there are likely to be substantial portions of the artifact record waiting to be discovered." Read the free article.