All articles tagged with #toolmaking
New analyses of a 500,000-year-old elephant bone hammer from Boxgrove, England, using 3D scanning and electron microscopy, reveal deliberate wear and flint residues showing it was a crafted tool used to shape stone, indicating advanced planning by Homo heidelbergensis or early Neanderthals and making it the oldest known elephant bone tool in Europe.
Archaeologists in Rome have uncovered a 404,000-year-old site where early humans butchered and used elephant bones for tools, revealing sophisticated survival strategies during the Middle Pleistocene in Italy.
A new model of Homo sapiens' movement into Europe proposes two periods of coexistence with Neanderthals, before a subsequent replacement associated with technological development. The author concludes modern humans arrived in three waves, only displacing the Neanderthals with the third. The study is likely to spark furious debate among anthropologists.
X-ray technology has allowed researchers to identify the unique geochemical fingerprint of obsidian from Yellowstone's Obsidian Cliff, which has been used by Indigenous people for over 11,500 years to make deadly knives, razor-sharp spear points, darts, and arrowheads. The obsidian columns have helped reveal the travels and migration of people thousands of years ago, and the technology has become easier to use, more portable, and far less expensive. Obsidian is among the most prized tool stones in the world, and this particular deposit is exceptional because of its continual use by Indigenous people since the last ice age.