Rob Picheta - Ancient tools found in North Africa could 'rewrite human origin story'
The story of humankind
may need some editing. A collection of
2.4-million-year-old stone tools has been found in Algeria, throwing into
question the long-held theory that humanity emerged in East Africa. The discovery of the
250 tools, found alongside 296 animal bones, suggests early humans were
butchering meat in North Africa about 600,000 years before scientists had
thought they arrived in the region.
It was previously
believed that early humans, known as hominins, originated and stayed in East
Africa for hundreds of millions of years, before beginning to move across the
continent. But the new discovery
"shows that our ancestors ventured into all corners of Africa, not just
East Africa," Mohamed Sahnouni, who led the project and detailed the findings in the journal Science, said in a
statement. "The evidence
from Algeria changes the earlier view that East Africa was the cradle of humankind.
Actually, the whole of Africa was the cradle of humankind," he added.
The findings were made
at the Ain Boucherit site near the city of Setif, about 200 miles east of
Algeria's capital, Algiers. They resemble similar
tools, known as Oldowan, which had previously only been found in the east of
the continent, and predate other tools found nearby in the north by at least
600,000 years. Researchers from
Algeria, France, Spain and Australia were involved in the project, which
involved 25 years of excavations.
"The effective
use of sharp-edged tools at Ain Boucherit suggests that our ancestors were not
mere scavengers," says Isabel Cáceres, of Spanish archaeological organization
IPHES, who was involved with the project. "It is not clear
at this moment whether they hunted, but the evidence clearly shows that they
were successfully competing with carnivores and enjoyed first access to animal
carcasses," she adds... read more:
