Archaeologists have dug up a collection of mass-produced bone tools, the earliest ever discovered, suggesting that hominins systematically made tools out of bone around 1 million years earlier than previously thought. Described in a Nature study, the collection contains 27 fossilized tools that were fashioned around 1.5 million years ago.
According to the archaeologists, this tool “factory” indicates that hominins exhibited advanced abstract thought early on in their history.
“The tools show evidence that their creators carefully worked the bones, chipping off flakes to create useful shapes,” said Renata F. Peters, an archaeologist at University College London who was involved in the discovery, according to a press release. “We were excited to find these bone tools from such an early timeframe. It means that human ancestors were capable of transferring skills from stone to bone, a level of complex cognition that we haven’t seen elsewhere for another million years.”
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Pushing Back the Mass Production of Bone Tools
Hominins, the taxonomic “tribe” that includes humans and human ancestors who walked upright, have been making tools out of stone for several million years. But their techniques haven’t stayed the same throughout that time. While hominins used simple methods to chip a few flakes off of stones at the start of the Oldowan age, around 2.7 million years ago, they used complex methods to chip many flakes off of stones at the beginning of the Acheulean age, around 1.7 million years ago.
This more complex method of toolmaking from the start of the Acheulean, known as knapping, allowed hominins to mass-produce sharp, standardized tools from stone. But, apparently, it also allowed them to mass-produce sharp, standardized tools from bone, too.
Unearthing a set of 27 bone tools at the important archaeological site of Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania, archaeologists have shown that the Acheulean’s more complex methods were used to mass-produce bone tools around 1.5 million years ago — approximately 1 million years earlier than previously thought. Indeed, bone tools are relatively rare and isolated in the archaeological record until around 500,000 years ago, when the systematic production of these tools was previously thought to start.
“This discovery leads us to assume that early humans significantly expanded their technological options, which until then were limited to the production of stone tools and now allowed new raw materials to be incorporated into the repertoire of potential artifacts,” said Ignacio de la Torre, another paper author and an archaeologist at the Instituto de Historia of the CSIC-Spanish National Research Council, according to the release.
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Handy Hominins
Fashioned from the limb bones of large mammals, mainly elephants and hippos, the tools were strong and sturdy — possibly suited for the processing of animal carcasses into food.
According to the archaeologists, the transition from stone to bone was a feat of abstract thinking, requiring an aptitude in toolmaking and an appreciation that the knapping techniques that worked on one material would also work on another.
“This expansion of technological potential indicates advances in the cognitive abilities and mental structures of these hominins, who knew how to incorporate technical innovations by adapting their knowledge of stone work to the manipulation of bone remains,” said de la Torre, according to the release.
Though it isn’t clear which hominin created the tools, as hominin remains weren't found nearby, at least two species of human ancestor inhabited the region around 1.5 million years ago, including one species of Australopithecus and one species of Homo, the latter being Homo erectus. Whoever the toolmakers were, however, the archaeologists say that the hominin inhabitants of the area were a bit handier a bit earlier than previously believed, at least when it came to bone tools.
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Sam Walters is a journalist covering archaeology, paleontology, ecology, and evolution for Discover, along with an assortment of other topics. Before joining the Discover team as an assistant editor in 2022, Sam studied journalism at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.
