Early Stone Tools
An Oldowan pounding tool and flake fashioned from nonlocal raw materials. These tools were uncovered nearby a butchered hippopotamus skeleton.
Credit: T.W. Plummer, Homa Peninsula Paleoanthropology Project
Durable and versatile tools like these were crafted from special stone materials collected up to eight miles away, according to new research led by scientists at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, Cleveland Museum of Natural History and Queens College. Their findings, published Aug. 15 in the journal Science Advances, push back the earliest known evidence of ancient humans transporting resources over long distances by some 600,000 years.
In an earlier 2023 paper, the scientists who led the new Science Advances study posited that hippo bones found from the same site represent the oldest known evidence of ancient hominins using stone tools to butcher large animals.
