To become the dominant species on earth, man was able to count on several skills including a capital: that of the creation of tools. And if we used to produce such stone objects 3.3 million years ago, we did only from relatively close materials. It was not until much later that we started exploring our environment to find what we needed. Finally, with regard to recent discoveries, such behavior arrived much earlier with our ancestors.
Well, it seems that this was part of the daily life of prehistoric men in the lower Paleolithic. But that is not a secret for anyone and even less for archaeologists who date such behavior at around 2 million years back.
Finally, that was without counting a recent study published in the review Science Advances. Indeed, led by Emma M. Finestone of the Cleveland Natural History Museum (Ohio, USA), the study shows that this behavior linked to human history would have appeared much earlier than you think.
Thus, man would not have started to explore his environment over long distances to find materials for his tools 2 million years ago, but well 2.6 million years ago. It is an incredible rewriting of human history which shows that we have evolved much earlier and much faster.
It was by studying special tools found in Kenya that archaeologists were able to estimate that certain stones used to manufacture these objects had been transported over distances of up to 13 kilometers.
A rewriting of human history
Yes, we transported stones for 13 kilometers to make them tools with almost 600,000 years in advance. And how does it change something?
In fact, not much. However, this constitutes a concrete proof of our behavior and its rapid evolution. When we built tools with materials that we had on hand, we must surely not worry about our long-term needs.
While browsing 13 kilometers in a hostile environment, not to hunt or pick only, but to find specific stones which were going to have the sole purpose of being worked, cut and reduced to be transformed into tools, this translates a specific behavior.
The study talks about potential anticipatory behavior of food needs “representing the first archaeological sign visible to the integration of lithic technology [ndr, liée à la pierre] in the landscape picking directories”.
We did not manufacture tools by simple opportunism, we had a real strategy in their design even if it means taking risks to ensure our survival and we were dependent as we are today with the smartphone.
Source : Science Advances
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