Basic Tools & Tool Making: History & Evolution

[ramonmercado]

Tool-making Human Ancestors Inhabited Grassland Environments Two Million Years Ago
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 203420.htm

Fossils, including an Antidorcas recki hemimandible and innominate, and an equid tooth, associated with flakes in Excavation 1. Scale in inches. (Credit: Thomas Plummer)

ScienceDaily (Oct. 21, 2009) — In an article published in the open-access, peer-reviewed journal PLoS ONE on October 21, 2009, Dr Thomas Plummer of Queens College at the City University of New York, Dr Richard Potts of the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History and colleagues report the oldest archeological evidence of early human activities in a grassland environment, dating to 2 million years ago. The article highlights new research and its implications concerning the environments in which human ancestors evolved.

Scientists as far back as Charles Darwin have thought that adaptation to grassland environments profoundly influenced the course of human evolution. This idea has remained well-entrenched, even with recent recognition that hominin origins took place in a woodland environment and that the adaptive landscape in Africa fluctuated dramatically in response to short-term climatic shifts.

During the critical time period between 3 and 1.5 million years ago, the origin of lithic technology and archeological sites, the evolution of Homo and Paranthropus, selection for endurance running, and novel thermoregulatory adaptations to hot, dry environments in H. erectus have all been linked to increasingly open environments in Africa.

However, ecosystems in which grassland prevails have not been documented in the geological record of Pliocene hominin evolution, so it has been unclear whether open habitats were even available to hominins, and, if so, whether hominins utilized them. In their new study, Plummer and colleagues provide the first documentation of both at the 2-million-year-old Oldowan archeological site of Kanjera South, Kenya, which has yielded both Oldowan artifacts and well-preserved faunal remains, allowing researchers to reconstruct past ecosystems.

The researchers report chemical analyses of ancient soils and mammalian teeth, as well as other faunal data, from the ~2.0-million-year-old archeological sites at Kanjera South, located in western Kenya. The principal collaborating institutions of the Kanjera project are QueensCollege of the City University of New York, the Smithsonian Institution's Human Origins Program, and the NationalMuseums of Kenya. The findings demonstrate that the recently excavated archeological sites that preserve Oldowan tools, the oldest-known type of stone technology, were located in a grassland-dominated ecosystem during the crucial time period.

The study documents what was previously speculated based on indirect evidence -- that grassland-dominated ecosystems did, in fact, exist during the Plio-Pleistocene (ca. 2.5-1.5 million years ago) and that early human tool-makers were active in open settings. Other recent research shows that the Kanjera hominins obtained meat and bone marrow from a variety of animals and that they carried stone raw materials over surprisingly long distances in this grassland setting. A comparison with other Oldowan sites shows that by 2.0 million years ago, hominins, almost certainly of the genus Homo, lived in a wide range of habitats in East Africa, from open grassland to woodland and dry forest.

Plummer and colleagues conclude that early Homo was flexible in its habitat use and that the ability to find resources in both open and wooded habitats was a key part of its adaptation. This strongly contrasts with the habitat usage of older species of Australopithecus and appears to signify an important shift in early humans' use of the landscape.

Funding from the L. S. B. Leakey Foundation, the Leverhulme Trust, the National Geographic Society, the National Science Foundation, the Professional Staff Congress-City University of New York Research Award Program, and the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Kanjera field and laboratory research is gratefully acknowledged. Logistical support was provided by the Human Origins Program of the Smithsonian Institution. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.


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Journal reference:

Plummer TW, Ditchfield PW, Bishop LC, Kingston JD, Ferraro JV, et al. Oldest Evidence of Toolmaking Hominins in a Grassland-Dominated Ecosystem. PLoS ONE, 2009; 4(9): e7199 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0007199

 

[ramonmercado]

Early stone tool making more sophisticated than originally thought
October 28th, 2013 in Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

Professor John Gowlett and his team made the discovery at this site in Kilombe, Kenya.

Professor John Gowlett and his team made the discovery at this site in Kilombe, Kenya.

(Phys.org) —Researchers at the University of Liverpool have found that long and slender stone tools were made by human ancestors at least a million years ago – nearly twice as long ago as generally thought.

Materials such as branches, twigs, and stems were readily available to both animal and human tool makers from millions of years ago, but research at Liverpool has now shown that elongate forms were also made out of stone by human ancestors much earlier than is usually recognised.

Professor John Gowlett, as a member of an international team based on the University's Department of Archaeology, Classics and Egyptology, is working at Kilombe in Kenya, where he has found a number of hand axe tools that are very long and narrow.

Professor Gowlett said: "Psychologists have shown that moderately elongate forms are often favoured, especially those in the ratio 0.61. But there also seems to be a special attraction to far longer and slenderer forms.

"Some of the stone tools from Kilombe and other early sites are almost two and a half times as long as broad and there is no way this can occur by accident. They must have been carefully crafted.

"Usually such slender shapes are found far later in the fine blade tools made by Homo sapiens. The hand-axes were made by the earlier Homo erectus.

"As the concentrations of elongate tools are rare on the Kilombe site, they were probably made to carry out tasks of animal butchery or plant preparation which did not occur very often.

"They show that when the need arose early humans were capable of strikingly sophisticated behaviour."

The research is published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B.

Provided by University of Liverpool

"Early stone tool making more sophisticated than originally thought." October 28th, 2013. http://phys.org/news/2013-10-early-ston ... ought.html

 

[ramonmercado]

Two and a half million years ago, our hominin ancestors in the African savanna crafted rocks into shards that could slice apart a dead gazelle, zebra or other game animal. Over the next 700,000 years, this butchering technology spread throughout the continent and, it turns out, came to be a major evolutionary force, according to new research from the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Liverpool and the University of St. Andrews, both in the UK.

Combining the tools of psychology, evolutionary biology and archaeology, scientists have found compelling evidence for the co-evolution of early Stone Age slaughtering tools and our ability to communicate and teach, shedding new light on the power of human culture to shape evolution.

To be reported Jan. 13 in the journal Nature Communications, the study is the largest to date to look at gene-culture co-evolution in the context of prehistoric Oldowan tools, the oldest-known cutting devices. It suggests communication among our earliest ancestors may be more complex than previously thought, with teaching and perhaps even a primitive proto-language occurring some 1.8 million years ago. ...

http://phys.org/news/2015-01-world-oldest-butchering-tools-gave.html#ms

 

[ramonmercado]

And it may be 3 million years back.

Move over Homo habilis, you're being dethroned. A growing body of evidence – the latest published this week – suggests that our "handy" ancestor was not the first to use stone tools. In fact, the ape-like Australopithecus may have figured out how to be clever with stones before modern humans even evolved.

Humans have a way with flint. Sure, other animals use tools. Chimps smash nuts and dip sticks into ant nests to pull out prey. But humans are unique in their ability to apply both precision and strength to their tools. It all began hundreds of thousands of years ago when a distant ancestor began using sharp stone flakes to scrape meat off skin and bones.

So who were those first toolmakers?

In 2010, German researchers working in Ethiopia discovered markings on two animal bones that were about 3.4 million years old. The cut marks had clearly been made using a sharp stone, and they were at a site that was used byLucy's species, Australopithecus afarensis. ...

http://www.newscientist.com/article...n-tools-3-million-years-ago.html#.VMTuuv6sWug

 

[ramonmercado]

Prehistoric stone tools bear 500,000-year-old animal residue
Date:
March 19, 2015

Source:
American Friends of Tel Aviv University

Summary:
Among 500,000-year-old elephant remains at a Lower Paleolithic site in Revadim, Israel, archaeologists recently analyzed 'hand axes' and 'scrapers,' universally shaped and sized prehistoric stone tools, replete with animal residue. The research represents the first scientifically verified direct evidence for the precise use of Paleolithic stone tools: to process animal carcasses and hides. ...

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/03/150319150753.htm

 

[ramonmercado]

Archaeologists working in the Kenyan Rift Valley have discovered the oldest known stone tools in the world. Dated to around 3.3 million years ago, the implements are some 700,000 years older than stone tools from Ethiopia that previously held this distinction.

They are so old, in fact, that they predate the earliest fossils representing our genus, Homo,by half a million years. As such they suggest that stone tool manufacture began not with Homo, but with a more primitive member of the human family.

A happy accident led to the discovery of the ancient tools. Sonia Harmand of Stony Brook University and her team had been en route to a known fossil site on the western shore of Lake Turkana one morning in July 2011 when the group took a wrong turn and ended up in a previously unexplored area. The researchers decided to survey it and by teatime they had found stone artifacts. They named the site Lomekwi 3, and went on to recover dozens of tools—including flakes, cores and anvils–from both the surface and below ground. Harmand described the findings April 14 in a talk given at the annual meeting of the Paleoanthropology Society in San Francisco. ...

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com...ke-wrong-turn-find-worlds-oldest-stone-tools/

 

[Naughty_Felid]

Archaeologists working in the Kenyan Rift Valley have discovered the oldest known stone tools in the world. Dated to around 3.3 million years ago, the implements are some 700,000 years older than stone tools from Ethiopia that previously held this distinction.

They are so old, in fact, that they predate the earliest fossils representing our genus, Homo,by half a million years. As such they suggest that stone tool manufacture began not with Homo, but with a more primitive member of the human family.


http://blogs.scientificamerican.com...ke-wrong-turn-find-worlds-oldest-stone-tools/

That'd be my brother probably.

 

[ramonmercado]

Marks on 3.4-million-year-old bones not due to trampling, analysis confirms
Analysis supports a previous finding, that the best match for the marks is butchery by stone tools
Date:
August 13, 2015
Source:
Emory Health Sciences
Summary:
Marks on two 3.4 million-year-old animal bones found at the site of Dikika, Ethiopia, were not caused by trampling, an extensive statistical analysis confirms. The results of the study developed new methods of fieldwork and analysis for researchers exploring the origins of tool making and meat eating in our ancestors.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/08/150813171207.htm

 

[ramonmercado]

Archaeology team makes unprecedented tool discovery
Mon, Aug 08, 2016

UNIVERSITY OF VICTORIA—How smart were human-like species of the Stone Age? New research published in the Journal of Archaeological Scienceby a team led by paleoanthropologist April Nowell of the University of Victoria reveals surprisingly sophisticated adaptations by early humans living 250,000 years ago in a former oasis near Azraq, Jordan.

The research team from UVic and partner universities in the US and Jordan has found the oldest evidence of protein residue—the residual remains of butchered animals including horse, rhinoceros, wild cattle and duck—on stone tools. The discovery draws startling conclusions about how these early humans subsisted in a very demanding habitat, thousands of years before Homo sapiens first evolved in Africa.

The team excavated 10,000 stone tools over three years from what is now a desert in the northwest of Jordan, but was once a wetland that became increasingly arid habitat 250,000 years ago. The team closely examined 7,000 of these tools, including scrapers, flakes, projectile points and hand axes (commonly known as the "Swiss army knife" of the Paleolithic period), with 44 subsequently selected as candidates for testing. Of this sample, 17 tools tested positive for protein residue, i.e. blood and other animal products. ...

http://popular-archaeology.com/issu...ology-team-makes-unprecedented-tool-discovery

 

[skinny]

Could go here I suppose.
https://cosmosmagazine.com/palaeontology/accidental-tool-makers

Stone tools not always deliberate, research finds
Monkey business forces a rethink on human evolution, reports paleoanthropologist Darren Curnoe.

Jeffrey Phillips
When did a human-like mind first emerge, setting its owner on a path distinct to that of other apes?

We paleoanthropologists have long looked to tool use as the marker – particularly the appearance of a cutting tool known as a flake.

It now seems we were wrong.

Recent research published in Nature by a team led by Tomos Proffitt at the University of Oxford shows that capuchin monkeys regularly produce sharp-edged flakes indistinguishable from those made by early hominins.

Could these South American simians be taking the same first steps that eventually delivered the spanner, wheel and smartphone? As it turns out, no. The flakes are produced by accident when the monkeys smash rocks together. Nonetheless, the capuchins have thrown a spanner in the works for archaeologists.

Since the flakes they make are not tools at all, we can no longer assume the flakes found in the archaeological record are tools either.



We know that monkeys can make tools of other kinds, of course. Ever since British primatologist Jane Goodall’s pioneering work in the 1960s, we have known our chimpanzee cousins use tools to shell nuts and to fish for termites.

Nor is tool use confined to primates. Other mammals, birds, snails, octopuses and even insects all turn out to be tool wielders. In fact, back in the 19th century an American husband and wife team, Elizabeth and George Peckham, first documented tool use outside human beings. They observed wasps hammering dirt with pebbles to build their burrows.

Nevertheless, the one tool we’ve never seen in any animal’s kit is the flake. One of archaeology’s most famous couples, Louis and Mary Leakey, first found flakes in the Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania. The artefacts are associated with Homo habilis, an early human ancestor who lived close to 2 million years ago. H. habilis made the flakes, it was believed, by selecting a piece of rock – called a core – and using a stone hammer to strike off a thin wedge. The resultant edge, sharp as surgical steel, enabled H. habilis to butcher animals. Telltale cut marks on ancient bones attested to their use as ancient tools.

Archaeologists argued that making a flake required sophisticated mental machinery such as the ability to plan and an understanding of the physical properties of raw materials. This was coupled with uniquely human hand-eye co-ordination that, for instance, allows us to thread cotton through the eye of a needle.

Flake making was also thought to be associated with the beginnings of language, since to develop such a sophisticated technology implied individuals who could communicate and collaborate, pass on knowledge and create culture.

Now it seems that flakes per se may not represent what we thought they did. Capuchins pound rocks together to crack them open and lick the powdered quartz, probably to access dietary minerals. The process sends flakes flying in every direction. But the monkeys don’t use the flakes as tools; they just leave them lying about.

So what these clever monkeys show us is that, if we find ancient flakes, we can no longer assume they were a tool made by a human ancestor.

The discovery of flakes at the Lomekwi archeological site in Kenya, which dates to 3.3 million years ago, led researchers to propose in 2015 that early humans appeared about 700,000 years earlier than previously thought. Now, however, without other evidence, such as cut marks on bones, we can no longer assume the flakes are evidence of a human presence.

One thing is clear: the capuchins have forced us to set the bar higher. A flake alone is not enough. The hunt now begins to find a new kind of artefact that is quintessentially human in its style of manufacture and use as a tool. Perhaps something like the hand axe that we see with Homo erectus much later, 1.6 million years ago.

It is a very exciting time to be an archaeologist.



This article appeared in Cosmos 73 - Feb-Mar 2017 under the headline "Accidental tool makers"


Explore #stone tools #capuchin monkey #homo habilis

Darren Curnoe is an paleoanthropologist with an insatiable curiosity for understanding the kind of creature we are and how we came to be this way.
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[kamalktk]

Could go here I suppose.
https://cosmosmagazine.com/palaeontology/accidental-tool-makers

So what were the monkeys doing that produced flakes?

 

[Monstrosa]

Capuchins pound rocks together to crack them open and lick the powdered quartz, probably to access dietary minerals. The process sends flakes flying in every direction. But the monkeys don’t use the flakes as tools; they just leave them lying about.

From the article.
There you go

 

[ramonmercado]

More on Sibudu.

'Staying Longer At Home' Was Key To Stone Age Technology Change 60,000 Years Ago
10/07/2017 06:00:00 PM

A new study by scientists at the University of the Witwatersrand suggests that at about 58,000 years ago, Stone Age humans began to settle down, staying in one area for longer periods. The research also provides a potential answer to a long-held mystery: why older, Howiesons Poort complex technological tradition in South Africa, suddenly disappear at that time.

Sibudu, a rock shelter near Tongaat in KwaZulu Natal, South Africa, has a long and diverse archaeological sequence.

The research paper by Dr Paloma de la Peña and Professor Lyn Wadley from the Evolutionary Studies Institute and the School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, was published in PLOSONE, and is titled: Technological variability at Sibudu Cave: The end of Howiesons Poort and reduced mobility strategies after 62,000 years ago.

De la Peña and Wadley explore the changes observed between an industry known as the Howiesons Poort (dated about 65,000 to 62,000 years ago at Sibudu) and the one that followed it at about 58,000 years ago.

The Howiesons Poort at Sibudu contains many finely-worked, crescent-shaped stone tools fashioned from long, thin blades made on dolerite, hornfels and, to a lesser extent, quartz. These ‘segments’, as they are called, were hafted to shafts or handles at a variety of angles using compound adhesives that sometimes included red ochre (an iron oxide). ...
Read more at https://archaeologynewsnetwork.blog...ome-was-key-to-stone.html#vg7DyWZUevgCAGfO.99

 

[ramonmercado]

More evidence suggesting that Paranthropus boisei, was a toolmaker.

Paranthropus boisei, an African hominid that lived between around 2.3 million and 1.2 million years ago, may have strong-armed its way into stone-tool making with a deft touch.

That’s the implication of the first hand, arm and shoulder fossils discovered from the same P. boisei individual, say paleobiologist David Green and colleagues. The fossils suggest that this extinct species combined powerful arms suited to tree climbing with grasping hands capable of fashioning stone implements, the researchers report in the April Journal of Human Evolution.

P. boisei, a distant cousin to modern humans, lacked a thick, powerfully gripping thumb characteristic of its hominid contemporary, Homo erectus (SN: 3/24/15), a prolific maker of sophisticated stone tools. But the newly described hand bones suggest that P. boisei gripped well-enough to make and use simple stone and bone tools, just as other members of the human evolutionary family may have as early as 3.3 million years ago (SN: 5/20/15). That’s long before the emergence of the Homo genus, which appeared around 2.8 million years ago. But reports of tool-making before Homo originated are controversial.

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/ancient-hominid-species-nutcracker-man-stone-tools

 

[ramonmercado]

Homo erectus was pretty nifty at the tool-making as well.

Hardly one-tool wonders, ancient hominids called Homo erectus relied on a toolkit that included relatively simple and more complex cutting devices, new discoveries suggest.

Excavations at two Ethiopian sites located about 5.7 kilometers apart uncovered partial H. erectus braincases alongside two types of stone tools, paleoanthropologist Sileshi Semaw of the National Research Center on Human Evolution in Burgos, Spain, and colleagues report March 4 in Science Advances. Some artifacts featured a single sharpened edge, while others consisted of double-edged designs such as pear-shaped hand axes. One H. erectus fossil dates to about 1.26 million years ago, the other to between around 1.6 million and 1.5 million years ago.

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/homo-erectus-fossils-artifacts-stone-age-tools

 

[ramonmercado]

Oldest ochre workshop in East Asia discovered.

Some 40,000 years ago, a small group of foragers parked themselves on a riverbank in what is now northeastern China. Some split pebbles and bones to make small tools while others made a fire. And at least one experienced craftsperson concentrated on the primary task: grinding red, purple, and gray chunks of ochre into a vibrant powder that could have been used as paint.

Now, scientists have confirmed this prepared ochre is the oldest yet found in East Asia. Although no human fossils were uncovered, the finds suggest the ochre artisans were modern humans and part of a previously undetected migration into Eurasia.

Scholars often depict the spread of modern humans beyond Africa as one successful migration about 60,000 years ago, says Christopher Bae, a paleoanthropologist at the University of Hawaii, Manoa, who was not involved in the study. But he says the new site, called Xiamabei, indicates there were “multiple dispersals” into Asia. “I don’t think enough people have paid attention to that region. … It’s only a matter of time before there’s a lot more evidence found.”

Worldwide, people past and present have processed ochre for a multitude of tasks, including symbolic use in rock art and body painting, and as an ingredient in adhesives, sunscreen, and insect repellent. Because it takes knowledge and skill to turn the iron-rich rock into useful pigment, ochre processing has often been considered a marker for modern human behavior, especially when paired with sophisticated stone tools.

“Ochre provides insight into people’s knowledge of the world around them,” says Rachel Popelka-Filcoff, an ochre expert and archaeological scientist at the University of Melbourne. “You have to have the ability to procure it, to change its properties, to utilize it, and when talking about symbolic practices, you have to have communities around you to understand that symbolism.” ...

https://www.science.org/content/article/archaeologists-uncover-oldest-ochre-workshop-east-asia

 

[ramonmercado]

More on ochre and tool-making.

Creativity runs deep in human evolution. Stone Age people steered their cultures through some inventive twists and turns as far-flung groups of Homo sapiens independently learned to cope with harsh African environments and unfamiliar Asian settings, two new reports suggest.

Southern African hunter-gatherers who inhabited an arid, inland landscape between around 92,000 and 80,000 years ago survived thanks to techniques and behaviors that they formulated on their own. Those ancient innovations owed nothing to seaside communities known to have influenced how many southern African groups made stone tools starting several thousand years later, say archaeologist Alex Mackay of the University of Wollongong in Australia and his colleagues.

And in what is now northern China, H. sapiens who reached the region by around 40,000 years ago also concocted novel tools and were the first in that region to grind up pigments for decorative or symbolic purposes, say archaeologist Fa-Gang Wang of the Hebei Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology in China and colleagues. ...

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/homo-sapiens-humans-culture-creativity-africa-asia-stone-age

 

[ramonmercado]

Going back 3 million years. Who made them?

Archaeologists have revealed what could be the oldest stone tools ever found, and they think someone other than our closest Homo ancestors may have made them.

Unearthed in 2016 at Nyayanga, Kenya, on the banks of Lake Victoria, the ancient implements fit with the design of the Oldowan toolkit, the name given to the earliest kinds of stone tools made by human-like hands.

According to dating estimates, the newly discovered tools were made between 2.6 and 3 million years ago, before being buried for eons in silt and sand. In total, 330 artifacts were found among 1,776 fossilized animal bones that showed signs of butchery.

Before this, the oldest known Oldowan tools dated to 2.6 million years ago.

While the age of the newfound tools may be further refined, their creation coincides with a time when ancestors of Homo sapiens roamed alongside other early humans, signaling a huge technological milestone for their creators – whomever they might have been.

"With these tools you can crush better than an elephant's molar can and cut better than a lion's canine can," says Rick Potts, a paleoanthropologist at the Smithsonian Institute's National Museum of Natural History, who was part of the study. "Oldowan technology was like suddenly evolving a brand-new set of teeth outside your body, and it opened up a new variety of foods on the African savannah to our ancestors."


Hammerstones and sharp-edged flakes struck from stone cores were excavated along with fragments of rib, shin, and scapular bones from hoofed ruminant mammals called bovids (such as antelope) and hippopotamids.

https://www.sciencealert.com/oldest...d-were-not-made-by-human-hands-study-suggests

 

[blessmycottonsocks]

Going back 3 million years. Who made them?

Archaeologists have revealed what could be the oldest stone tools ever found, and they think someone other than our closest Homo ancestors may have made them.

Unearthed in 2016 at Nyayanga, Kenya, on the banks of Lake Victoria, the ancient implements fit with the design of the Oldowan toolkit, the name given to the earliest kinds of stone tools made by human-like hands.

According to dating estimates, the newly discovered tools were made between 2.6 and 3 million years ago, before being buried for eons in silt and sand. In total, 330 artifacts were found among 1,776 fossilized animal bones that showed signs of butchery.

Before this, the oldest known Oldowan tools dated to 2.6 million years ago.

While the age of the newfound tools may be further refined, their creation coincides with a time when ancestors of Homo sapiens roamed alongside other early humans, signaling a huge technological milestone for their creators – whomever they might have been.

"With these tools you can crush better than an elephant's molar can and cut better than a lion's canine can," says Rick Potts, a paleoanthropologist at the Smithsonian Institute's National Museum of Natural History, who was part of the study. "Oldowan technology was like suddenly evolving a brand-new set of teeth outside your body, and it opened up a new variety of foods on the African savannah to our ancestors."


Hammerstones and sharp-edged flakes struck from stone cores were excavated along with fragments of rib, shin, and scapular bones from hoofed ruminant mammals called bovids (such as antelope) and hippopotamids.

https://www.sciencealert.com/oldest...d-were-not-made-by-human-hands-study-suggests

Nat Geo reckons it was Paranthropus:

https://www.nationalgeographic.co.u...ound-and-our-ancestors-likely-didnt-make-them

This chimp lookalike, which most scientists believe was not on the particular branch of the evolutionary tree that led to homo sapiens sapiens, was not previously thought to have been capable of knapping sophisticated stone tools.
Guess we're going to have to push the start of the stone age back another half million years or so.