Oldest stone tools found in Africa unlikely to be from our ancestors

[gary]

A team of archaeologists working on the north-eastern shore of Lake
Victoria in Kenya have recovered 330 stone tools.

The tools are a type known as Oldowan, named for Oldupai gorge in
Tanzania where the first examples were found.

The only remains they have found with the tools are two teeth belonging
to to hominins called Paranthropus.

Based on analysis of the sediments in which the tools were found and
other fossils they estimate they are between 2.6 and 3.3 million years old,
the oldest Oldowan tools known.

The use of stone implements had been primarily associated with the
Homo genus, from whom we are descended.

However, the only hominin remains found so far are with the tools are of
Paranthropus from whom we are not descended.

Story here at New Scientist :-
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2358821-early-hominin-paranthropus-may-have-used-sophisticated-stone-tools/

Paper at Science :-
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abo7452

[John.oshea1]

That's an amazing story.

[xelasnave]

Thanks Gary.
Alex

[AstroViking]

From what I can recall, there have been 6 or so 'human-like' species on the planet. It's just that ours survived and out-evolved the others.

[AdamJL]

Sort of. We also interbred with the closest ones. We're not a pure strain :)

[AstroViking]

Ah. I'd forgotten that. Yeah, us humans are a mix of Neanderthal, Denisovian and who ever else was around. Aren't genetics fun!

[xelasnave]

I think the number may be nearer 20. I love studying this stuff. We go back a long way but as each month passes and new research hits the deck the picture becomes less clear.

What I find fascinating is the time Neanderthals existed...years ago they were presented as rather unintelligent but clearly that has been changing and now it is clear they were very clever to have survived for as long as they did...and you really need to put that in a context that they were primarily meat eaters with a much higher calorie requirement than ( us?) other early humans ... that means they would be hunting non stop although one really does not know... maybe they knocked over a few mamoths every couple of months and spent the rest of the time doing astronomy....

Then they went extinct and I bet, although pure speculation, we hunted them as food..there have been Neanderthal bones found with "cut" marks associated with butchery and they got the blame... I expect anything that moved way back was food slow food would have been fast food and we like fast food.

Alex

[Steffen]

So, if we found bronze age knife blades next to cow teeth, what would we conclude?

[pmrid]

As amazing as these discoveries are, I find it puts a different perspective on the current thread in this forum ( under the “General” heading) lauding the latest JWST data - an image posted by NASA of the Pandora Cluster showing light from galaxies up to 5 times older that is just reaching us now.

[pmrid]

Cows had table manners?

[Steffen]

That’s one possible conclusion. I think a more likely one is that the cow was carved up with a knife and subsequently eaten.

Why are we not considering the possibility that other hominids ate Paranthropus? Not that homo has the exclusive claim on making tools. Far from it.

I believe that throughout the ages lots of different apes (and other animals) would have had the ability to manufacture tools, with varying degrees of sophistication. I just don’t think “Paranthropus made stone tools” necessarily follows from the finds.

[Swagman105]

Not sure the researchers claimed that Paranthropus made the tools. It would be a suggestion to consider.
it was significant that analysis of the P. molar showed evidence that P. was both a plant and meat eater.
The variety of animal bones found with the tools suggests that the toolmakers were scavengers rather than skilled hunters where one would expect a more limited range of animal bones representing the hunters preferred prey.
Time will tell and especially if other sites are found associating P. with tool sites.