#176

Amid all the dreadful news of devastang earthquakes, floods and cyclones, I have just read a fascinang piece of news that took my mind off the problems of the present.

Archaeologists in Kenya have found bones of a hippo that died between 2.6 and 3 million years ago at an archaeological dig on the banks of Lake Victoria

What makes this remarkable is that there are cut marks on the bones made by our early ancestors who had butchered the hippo using stone tools.

Photographs in the journal Science show idencal, parallel cut marks on the hippo’s leg bone and rib.

Although quite a rare find, cut marks on prehistoric bones have been found before.

What is new, and what makes this a great find, is that the scienfic dang of this site – 2.6 to 3 million years ago - shows that our early ancestors were using stone tools to cut up animals about 600,000 years earlier than was thought.

That is more than half a million years earlier!

That is the first thing that makes this new site important.

The lead author, Thomas Plummer, said in an interview with Nature that for early human ancestors, stone tools were crucial for being able to eat certain foods.

“A hippopotamus is like a giant leather sack. It’s full of stuff you could eat, but without stone tools, you can’t get at it,” he said.

True. I have seen a dead hippo cut open and its skin was about 5cm thick.

Although this ancient hippo was not exactly the same as today’s hippo, its hide would have been thick.

So stone tools opened up a whole range of new foods for our early ancestors.

Archaeologists also found bones of an antelope that had cut marks on its shoulder blade and leg bone. These prehistoric guys liked marrow too, and had smashed the leg bones with a heavy stone tool to get at the marrow

Stone tools changed over me, being prey crude millions of years ago, becoming more refined as me went by Archaeologists have put these tools into categories. Those that were first discovered at Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania were called Oldowan tools. These are simple, made by whacking stone flakes off a cobble, and were fashioned into choppers, scrapers and rough cung tools.

While they look crude to us, they marked the beginning of our ancestors’ technological revoluon.

Oldowan stone tools were also found at this Lake Victoria site.

But here’s the thing: because this site is 2.6 to 3 million years old, it means that our early ancestors were making Oldowan stone tools half a million years earlier than first thought. That is a crucial discovery and the second thing that makes this new site important. Finally, a third thing, is that Oldowan tools were more widespread than first thought, as this site is about 1300km from the Ethiopian site.

I walked around Lake Victoria many mes when I travelled around east Africa last year. I never thought that ancient bones and tools might be buried beneath my feet.

Africa, where humankind was born and evolved, sll holds many secrets to our prehistoric past.

Melanie Gosling

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