Bone tool shaped on a 1.5-million-year-old elephant humerus. CSIC
CSIC
Archeologists know early humans used stone to make tools long before the time of Homo sapiens.
But a new discovery out this week in Nature suggests early humans in eastern Africa were also using animal bones – one million years earlier than researchers previously thought.
The finding suggests that these early humans were intentionally shaping animal materials – like elephant and hippopotamus bones – to make tools and that it could indicate advancements in early human cognition.
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