Human evolution: erectus made barbed bone points (Introduction)

by David Turell , Thursday, October 22, 2020, 23:11 (1491 days ago) @ David Turell

A new study from the Olduvai gorge:

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/homo-erectus-not-humans-invented-barbed-bone-point-...

"A type of bone tool generally thought to have been invented by Stone Age humans got its start among hominids that lived hundreds of thousands of years before Homo sapiens evolved, a new study concludes.

"A set of 52 previously excavated but little-studied animal bones from East Africa’s Olduvai Gorge includes the world’s oldest known barbed bone point, an implement probably crafted by now-extinct Homo erectus at least 800,000 years ago, researchers say. Made from a piece of a large animal’s rib, the artifact features three curved barbs and a carved tip, the team reports in the November Journal of Human Evolution.

"Among the Olduvai bones, biological anthropologist Michael Pante of Colorado State University in Fort Collins and colleagues identified five other tools from more than 800,000 years ago as probable choppers, hammering tools or hammering platforms.

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"This find and four of the other bone implements date to at least 800,000 years ago, based on their original positions below Olduvai sediment that records a known reversal of Earth’s magnetic field about 781,000 years ago. Another bone artifact dates to roughly 1.7 million years ago, the researchers say.

“The Olduvai point implicates H. erectus as the inventor of barbed bone point technology,” Pante says, because stone tools previously excavated in the same Olduvai Gorge sediment resemble those that have been found at other African sites with H. erectus fossils.

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"Along with bone toolmaking, a series of critical behavioral advances in hominids occurred before the emergence of H. sapiens around 300,000 years ago. These developments include the invention of stone tools (SN: 6/3/19), controlled fire use (SN: 4/2/12) and the ability to survive in new environments (SN: 11/29/18). Exploiting bone to make tools such as barbed points would have aided ancient Homo groups migrating through unfamiliar regions where locations of stone sources were unknown, Pante suspects."

Comment: Erectus were bright folks shown by what they learned to invent. They just lacked the 200 cc of prefrontal and frontal lobes for advanced conceptualization.