1.5 million-year-old bone tools discovered in Tanzania rewrite the history of human evolution
The ancestors of humans started making tools about 3.3 million years ago. First they made them out of stone, then they switched to bone as a raw material. Until recently, the earliest clear evidence of bone tool making was from sites in Europe, dated to 400,000 years ago. But archaeologists have now found and dated bone tools in Tanzania that are a million years older.
The tools are made from the bones of large animals like hippos and elephants, and have been deliberately shaped to make them useful for butchering large carcasses.
The discovery of bone implements that are the oldest ever found, by far, casts light on human evolution. It shows that our hominin ancestors were able to think about and make this technology a lot earlier than anyone realised.
I am a scientist who co-directs a multidisciplinary research project team at the Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania, focusing on hominin evolution. Our project's main goal has been to investigate the changes in hominin technology and behaviour that happened between 1.66 million and 1.4 million years ago.
We're interested in this time period because it marks a pivotal change in human technology, from the rudimentary stone knives and cores of the Oldowan culture to the more advanced crafted stone handaxes of the Acheulean culture.
We found the Olduvai bone tools in 2018 and recently described them in the journal Nature. They show that by 1.5 million years ago, our ancestors (Homo erectus) had already developed the cognitive abilities required to transfer skills from making stone tools to making bone tools.
This leap in human history was a game-changer because it allowed early hominins to overcome survival challenges in landscapes where suitable stone materials were scarce.
Olduvai Gorge is a Unesco World Heritage site. It became well known in 1959 through the pioneering work of palaeontologists Louis and Mary Leakey, whose discoveries of early human remains reshaped our understanding of human evolution. The site offers an unparalleled window into human history, spanning nearly 2 million years.
Read more:
Aside from fossilised bones, it has yielded the most detailed record of stone tool cultures in the world. It has documented the evolution from the simple chopping tools and stone knives of the Oldowan industry (about 2 million years ago) to the more advanced Acheulean tools (1.7 million years ago), such as handaxes, cleavers, picks and spheroids and then on – through arrowheads, points and blades (about 200,000 years ago) to the micro-blades of the Later Stone Age (about 17,000 years ago).
All these tools provide a glimpse into the ingenuity and cultural advancements of our early ancestors.
And now the picture has new detail.
Our team uncovered 27 ancient bone tools during excavations at the T69 Complex, FLK West site at Olduvai. We know how old they are because we found them securely embedded underground where they had been left 1.5 million years ago, along with thousands of stone artefacts and fossilised bones. We dated them using geochronological techniques.
Unlike stone, bone shafts crack and break in a way that allows the systematic production of elongated, well-shaped artifacts. Flaking them by hitting them with another object – a process called knapping – results in pointed tools that would be ideal for butchering, chopping and other tasks.
The knapped tools we found were made from large shaft fragments that came from the limb bones of elephants and hippos, and were found at hippo butchery sites. Hominins likely brought elephant bones to the site on a regular basis, and obtained limb bones from butchered hippos at the site itself.
The find shows that 1.5 million years ago, Homo erectus could apply knapping skills to bone. Homo erectus, regarded as the evolutionary successor to the smaller-brained Homo habilis, left a lasting imprint on history. Its fossils, found at Olduvai, offer a glimpse into a span of about a million years, stretching from 1.5 million to roughly 500,000 years ago.
Now we know that these hominins not only understood the physical properties of bones but also knew about skeletal anatomy. They could identify and select bones suitable for flaking. And they knew which animals had skeletons large enough to craft reliable tools after the animals' death.
Read more:
We don't know exactly why they chose bones as a raw material. It may have been that suitable stone material was scarce, or they recognised that bones provided a better grip and were more durable.
Why haven't such old bone tools been found before? The answer is likely that they are destroyed by weathering, abrasion from water transport, trampling and scavenger activity. Organic materials don't always get time to fossilise. Also, analysts were not used to looking for bone tools among fossils.
This discovery will likely encourage researchers to pay closer attention to the subtle signs of bone knapping in fossil assemblages. This way we will learn more about the evolution of human technology and behaviour.
This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Jackson K Njau, Indiana University
Read more:
When did our ancestors start to eat meat regularly? Fossilised teeth get us closer to the answer
New technology tells us which animal bones were used to make ancient tools
The whole story of human evolution – from ancient apes via Lucy to us
Jackson K Njau does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
20 hours ago
- Yahoo
Xanadu Unveils First On-Chip Error-Resistant Photonic Qubit
TORONTO, June 4, 2025 /PRNewswire/ - Xanadu has achieved a significant milestone in the development of scalable quantum hardware by generating error-resistant photonic qubits on an integrated chip platform. A foundational result in Xanadu's roadmap, this first-ever demonstration of such qubits on a chip is now published in Nature. This breakthrough builds on Xanadu's recent announcement of the Aurora system, which demonstrated—for the first time—all key components required to build a modular, networked, and scalable photonic quantum computer. With this latest demonstration of robust qubit generation using silicon-based photonic chips, Xanadu further strengthens the scalability pillar of its architecture. The quantum states produced in this experiment, known as GKP states, consist of superpositions of many photons to encode information in an error-resistant manner—an essential requirement for future fault-tolerant quantum computers. These states allow logic operations to be performed using deterministic, room-temperature-compatible techniques, and they are uniquely well-suited for networking across chips using standard fiber connections. This demonstration of generating photonic qubits was enabled by a number of key technological achievements from Xanadu's hardware team. These include the development of photon-number-resolving detectors with detection efficiencies above 99%, the fabrication of customized ultra-low loss silicon nitride waveguides on 300 mm wafer platforms, and the implementation of in-house state-of-the-art optical packaging. "GKP states are, in a sense, the optimal photonic qubit, since they enable logic gates and error correction at room temperature and using relatively straightforward, deterministic operations," says Zachary Vernon, CTO of Hardware at Xanadu. "This demonstration is an important empirical milestone showing our recent successes in loss reduction and performance improvement across chip fabrication, component design, and detector efficiency." The next hurdle towards a utility-scale photonic quantum computer remains clear: further reduction of optical loss will allow for higher quality GKP states suitable for fault-tolerance. With another significant milestone in its hardware roadmap complete, Xanadu remains focused on further optimizing fabrication and photonics packaging processes to alleviate optical loss across its platform. About Xanadu: Xanadu is a Canadian quantum computing company with the mission to build quantum computers that are useful and available to people everywhere. Founded in 2016, Xanadu has become one of the world's leading quantum hardware and software companies. The company also leads the development of PennyLane, an open-source software library for quantum computing and application development. Visit or follow us on X @XanaduAI. View original content: SOURCE Xanadu Quantum Technologies Inc. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
21 hours ago
- Yahoo
AI can make storm warnings faster and more accurate, researchers say
Artificial intelligence could soon be used to generate faster predictions and more timely warnings of imminent typhoons and downpours, according to scientists based in the US and the Netherlands. In a paper published by the journal Nature, Microsoft researchers claimed that the company's Aurora AI model "outperforms operational forecasts in predicting air quality, ocean waves, tropical cyclone tracks and high-resolution weather, all at orders of magnitude lower computational cost." Microsoft stated that the system was "trained on more than one million hours of diverse geophysical data" - enough information to enable it "more accurately predict not just the weather, but a wide range of environmental events in a series of retrospective analyses," including, hurricanes, typhoons and ocean waves Meanwhile, a team from the US government's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the University of Oklahoma said that a prediction model they created using Google DeepMind's Graphcast tool could be 10 times faster at predicting storms than previous computer-based platforms. The researchers "trained" the Google platform on data from NOAA's Warn-on-Forecast-System (WOFS), creating an AI variant called WOFSCast that shortens forecast times from minutes to seconds. "The model yielded largely accurate predictions of how storms would evolve for up to 2 hours; these predictions matched 70% to 80% of those generated by the Warn-on-Forecast system," according to the American Geophysical Union, which published the NOAA/Oklahoma findings its Geophysical Researh Letters journal.
Yahoo
a day ago
- Yahoo
New study raises concerns over troubling phenomenon pushing amphibian species to their limits: 'Will likely exceed our projections'
Planet-warming pollution isn't a future threat to amphibians — it's a problem impacting their survival right now. A recent study published in Nature found that the planet has already heated so much that around 2% of amphibian species are already subject to overheating events in their native homes. If warming remains unchecked, researchers say that number could rise to 7.5% of species pushed past their heat-tolerance limits by the end of the century. As detailed in the study, amphibians — including frogs and salamanders — rely on their environment to regulate their body temperature. If it gets too hot, they experience impacts or simply can't survive — as Mongabay summarized. Heat-trapping pollution has already made the globe unbearable for some species. "We found that currently, about 100 species [104 out of 5,203 studied] are likely experiencing overheating events right now, where environmental temperatures exceed their physiological heat limits," study co-author Alex Gunderson, an ecologist at Tulane University, told Mongabay. To evaluate the climate's impact on amphibians, the researchers used experiment-based heat tolerance data for 524 species and statistical estimates for more than 5,000 species. Altogether, their research covered about 60% of all known amphibian species. They pinpointed global "hotspots" where many amphibians are already overheating, including the southeastern U.S., northern Australia, and the Amazon Rainforest, as Mongabay detailed. However, it's not just geography that matters. Where an amphibian lives within its habitat also plays a role. The study found that aquatic species are generally safest from the effects of planet-warming pollution, while ground-dwelling species face the highest risk of overheating. The study also identified a dangerous tipping point for amphibians — between 2 and 4 degrees Celsius (3.6 to 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit) of planetary warming over preindustrial levels. Gunderson told Mongabay that as the average temperature gets closer to that range, the number of days with heat beyond what amphibians can handle starts to significantly climb. Alarmingly, the United Nations Environment Programme estimated in late 2023 that the planet was on track for about 2.5 to 2.9 degrees Celsius of warming by 2100 without additional reductions in planet-warming pollution. The researchers indicated to Mongabay that their estimates are on the conservative side since they assumed all amphibians can find shade. "Therefore, the impacts of global warming will likely exceed our projections," lead author Patrice Pottier, a researcher at the University of New South Wales, told the news outlet. Amphibians are an essential part of their ecosystems, so any threat to their well-being has the potential to disrupt an area's entire food web — as well as have impacts on humans. Do you think America has a plastic waste problem? Definitely Only in some areas Not really I'm not sure Click your choice to see results and speak your mind. A decline in amphibian populations can have negative human health impacts. Amphibians eat insects that transmit diseases, including mosquitoes. Mongabay cited a 2020 study that showed that the decline of amphibian species in Central America was linked to an increase in malaria. Amphibians help control insect populations in their ecosystems, cycle nutrients, and serve as food for many other species. Their decline is a direct trigger for broader environmental consequences. "They're sort of the potato chips of the forest in many of these ecosystems where they serve as food for birds and bats and mammals and fish," Gunderson told Mongabay. One scientist unaffiliated with the study told Mongabay that research of this kind is often used to help decide where to focus conservation work by identifying at-risk species and triaging where the greatest impact can be made. In the study, the researchers called for increased conservation efforts to protect amphibian habitats worldwide, especially focused on maintaining dense vegetation for shade and abundant water for hydration. "If you provide amphibians with enough water and enough shade, a lot of them can survive extreme heat events," Pottier told Mongabay. "We must protect and restore the environments that allow them to regulate their body temperature." Along with conservation efforts, scientists are employing captive breeding and, in some cases, assisted migration to help vulnerable species survive. In the end, however, none of that will be enough without bigger action to address the root cause — pollution itself. Join our free newsletter for good news and useful tips, and don't miss this cool list of easy ways to help yourself while helping the planet.
