World's Oldest Stone Tools Discovered In Kenya 89
sciencehabit writes: Researchers say they have found the oldest tools made by human ancestors—stone flakes dated to 3.3 million years ago. That's 700,000 years older than the oldest-known tools to date, suggesting that our ancestors were crafting tools several hundred thousand years before our genus Homo arrived on the scene. If correct, the new evidence could confirm disputed claims for very early tool use, and it suggests that ancient australopithecines like the famed 'Lucy' may have fashioned stone.
why must human ancestors be involved (Score:1)
Considering that plenty of non-human ancestors also use tools I'm not sure how what they say shows tool use, also shows that it was a human-ancestor that used them.
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I'm pretty sure stone flakes are a hallmark of human-like intelligence. Other animals fashion tools, yes, but to my knowledge, not cutting tools.
Re:why must human ancestors be involved (Score:4, Informative)
New Caledonian crows are known to be tool users and makers. Some of the tools they make could be classified as "knives":
http://www.welcomewildlife.com/?folder=pages/featured/birds/smartest
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Caledonian_crow#Tool_use_and_manufacture
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Most fascinating was the meta-tool usage, and the fact that they can teach each other how to manufacture certain tools.
Sadly, due to the patent system, innovation for tools made by crows has almost stopped.
Re:why must human ancestors be involved (Score:4, Interesting)
You don't know which species had "human-like" intelligence 3.3 million years ago. There were a number of "human-like" species that aren't our ancestors.
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Congratulations, you won todays "Race to the Bottom", your prize of a fetid pile of turds can be collected from your local Republitard office.
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You can always spot the Democrat when they use the term "Repubitard" because that's the best their their public education could afford on welfare.
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Swing and a miss.
I vote Liberal, I call myself a socialist, I sent my kids to private school and I probably make more than you.
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You are very harch Mr. just because he missed the L in Republitard? /.
Or what exactly was your point?
I actually doubt people living on welfare (and what is wrong with that?) are common on
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Some time between now and November 2016, I would like to see one article about Africa that doesn't have a comment from some mouth-breather emoting all over the page about Obama.
Is that really too much to ask.
I am sick up to here of the bullshit.
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Mostly because Humans are the only ones that love killing each other.
Dont see prides of lions killing the pride next door just for shits and giggles or because a magical invisible sky lion tells them to do so.
Re:why must human ancestors be involved (Score:5, Informative)
Mostly because Humans are the only ones that love killing each other.
Dont see prides of lions killing the pride next door just for shits and giggles
Sure they do, if you count sex. Male lions will kill rival males in other prides so they can take over mating rights. Both male lions & female lions will kill the cubs of rival prides.
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Lions were the first example I thought of also. A male lion taking over a pride will also kill all cubs that aren't his own to ensure that the females only raise his own offspring. Nature isn't a rainbow-sunshine world of peace and harmony. It's a nasty world of kill or be killed and eaten. Anyone who thinks that humans are the only ones who kill really hasn't seen much of nature.
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Male lions will kill rival males in other prides so they can take over mating rights. Both male lions & female lions will kill the cubs of rival prides.
Almost all animals will do this. Some nutball [wikipedia.org] recently tried to release a family of zoo-raised apes back into the wild in Africa. The second they encountered a rival male and his females, the wild-raised male killed the zoo ape and his offspring and took his females as his own.
Nature is ugly. Humans may be the best killers, but we're FAR from the most brutal, remorseless, or vicious ones.
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Mostly because Humans are the only ones that love killing each other.
Dont see prides of lions killing the pride next door just for shits and giggles
Sure they do, if you count sex. Male lions will kill rival males in other prides so they can take over mating rights. Both male lions & female lions will kill the cubs of rival prides.
I think you missed GP's point. The behavior you describe is the result of selective reproductive pressure over millions of generations of lions. It is hardwired into the lion's genome, and is quite rational behavior for any organism looking to optimize its reproductive probabilities. . But sometimes humans kill even when it doesn't optimize their reproductive probabilities. As far as we know, humans are the only organisms that kill for sport.
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As far as we know, humans are the only organisms that kill for sport.
As others have pointed out, this is false. Multiple species kill for fun.
War is mate competition pursued by other means. The reasons why humans kill each other is because it is an evolved, adaptive, behaviour carried over into a world that we are desperately trying to engineer in such a way that killing is no longer necessary or functional. The problem is that it's still fun: it feels good because we are the descendents of individuals who were selected to be good at it, and part of being good at it was enjo
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You needn't go so far as lions. Our near relatives, the chimpanzees, often kill other chimps. http://www.bbc.com/news/scienc... [bbc.com]
But I'd say humans are arguably unique in caring about suffering of other species (not counting our domesticated dogs.)
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Cub killing actually is a male domain, and more or less only happens 'inside' of a pride.
Lions don't strive around and kill rival prides cubs, the idea is retarded.
At least not on a measure that is relevant for this discussion.
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Cub killing actually is a male domain, and more or less only happens 'inside' of a pride.
Lions don't strive around and kill rival prides cubs, the idea is retarded.
At least not on a measure that is relevant for this discussion.
And yet here's a a video [youtube.com] of a lioness killing a rival pride's cubs. Maybe it's not such a retarded idea after all...
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The parents claimed/implied female lions would intentionally kill other prides cubs. ... the likelihood to succeed unharmed is very close
Which they don't. They kill any other cub of any other animal of prey when they stumbke over them.
They don't 'seek and hunt and destroy' them. In other words, if they stumble over some abondaned cubs (because they don't belong toma pride but a couple of lions) they kill them, but often enough they adopt them.
A lion is not going to another prides den and trying to kill cubs
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Mostly because Humans are the only ones that love killing each other.
No, mostly because we like to eat meat and survive. And killing your prey with tools is a shit-ton lot easier than having to hunt it down and do it by hand. The ability to defend that meat against other primates who didn't have tools was just a nice bonus.
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Chimps kill each other.
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Our closest cousins among the great apes sure do as well:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G... [wikipedia.org]
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Dont see prides of lions killing the pride next door...
Yes you do you idiot; male Lions are the de jure example of a territorial animal. Go ahead and climb into a cage and cuddle up to one of them if you don't believe me.
Here's a thought, why do you think it is that there is only ever one male Lion in a zoo pen at any given time?
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They will also wage war. [wikipedia.org]
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What is interesting is thinking that our tool use could have completely sprung from one of our distant ancestors mimicking what they saw a sub-species of our ancestors doing.
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I've heard that before, but repeating a lie doesn't make it true.
http://www.sciencefocus.com/qa... [sciencefocus.com]
http://www.cracked.com/article... [cracked.com]
It'd be a real shame if anything happened to that nest.
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The sort of tool use in TFA is interesting because it suggests fairly advanced cognition(and sometimes communication and transmission of learned techniques). Ants ar
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http://www.imdb.com/title/tt00... [imdb.com]
It's called Phase IV
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It's too bad that (to the best of my knowledge, and I've hunted a bit), no organisms have evolved to exploit RF signalling. It's not inconceivable, loads of organisms use electrical signalling internally,
The secret is... (Score:4, Funny)
...to bang the rocks together, guys.
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BS (Score:1)
Quick, remove everything (Score:2, Interesting)
Before IS and their Al-Shabaab buddies come and blow those non-muslim relics to smithereens...
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I do not understand why they are doing that. It makes me cringe.
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that's why they're doing it. Clear now?
Some Chimps use tools to hunt (Score:3)
If poking at bush babies with a broken stick to hurt them enough to come out to be eaten constitutes a tool, then Fongoli chimpanzees of Senegal (NYT article) use tools. At least the females do, the males do he-male things like chase down their prey. It is thought the females do this because they are not big and brawny like the males. Actually, the males just feel like they are losing their testosterone if they stoop to using tools...or asking the females which direction their prey went.
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More evidence humans and chimps evolved from a common ancestor.
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Hey, RTFS! They aren't talking about humans existing 3.3 million years ago... they aren't even talking about the freaking genus existing back then. They're talking about the earliest tools known to exist ever!
Better Slashdot title... no, actually, the title is actually good for once!
Or it could be their breakfast. (Score:4, Funny)
I mean, how can you tell rock flakes from 3.3 million year old corn flakes...
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It's not that modern: "Maize" was raised in Mexico at least 2500 years ago.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M... [wikipedia.org]
In most of the world, "corn" can mean any cerial crop, including wheat It makes the old phrase "eating your seed corn" more meaningful, since the "seed corn" would include wheat, barley, rye, and oats, and any other bread or beer making crops.
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The sediment in which the flakes were found was dated by magnetostratigraphy to have been deposited 3.3 million years ago, meaning the flakes cannot be younger than that age.
Remarkably, the article's authors did actually put that information into the article, so that people could possibly read it and become better informed. It's a shocking new concept called "communication".
Whoops. (Score:2)
I was wondering where I left those.
The first tech (Score:2)
...still confuses management.
Pictures? (Score:3)
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Something like this probably:
https://www.google.com/search?... [google.com]
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Where are the photos of these tools? (Score:2)
Headline (Score:1)
"World;s Oldest Stone"
That's Keith Richards isn't it?
Sears (Score:2)
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Chimps do it too (Score:3)
Seeing as chimps have been observed making and using tools [janegoodall.ca], it would seem at least plausible that our common ancestor 4 to 6 million years ago was making and using tools too.
Chimps have been seen to make wooden tools (which obviously don't preserve very well in the fossil record), and to use stone tools. I don't know of them being observed to make stone tools, but that doesn't seem like it would be a huge leap.
So the difference between early man's use of tools and that of our co-chimpanzee ancestor was most likely just one of degree, if anything.
stome tools used in documentary "Chimpanzee' (Score:2)
double any ages in archeology (Score:2)
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