Long before modern supply chains, ancient hominins were moving stone across long distances, potentially reshaping what we know about our evolutionary roots.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/40535172

“What’s really interesting about humans and their ancestors is we’re a technologically dependent species,” Finestone said. “We rely on tools. We’re obligate tool users. We don’t do it opportunistically or occasionally the way that a lot of other animals use tools. It’s really become ingrained in our way of life, in our survival, and our foraging strategies across all people and all cultures.”

The study of early hominins (our cousins) and the many branches in the path of our evolution is easily my favorite area of science. This topic is evergreen, with new discoveries every year that frequently upend our understanding of the landscape. Dinos and the like are fave number two.

    • RozzEnglish
      13·
      3 个月前

      Also he had to have a job like that with a name like Finestone. A geologist would have been better, nobody’s perfect.

  • Dasus@lemmy.worldEnglish
    13·
    3 个月前

    What’s the new discovery I’m too drunk to care about reading articles

    • MysteriousSophon21@lemmy.worldEnglish
      13·
      3 个月前

      Probably refering to those 3.3 million year old stone tools found in Kenya that show tool use way before we thought - pushes tool use back to before Homo genus even existed.

      • PaintedSnail@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        3 个月前

        Those are maize dogs if they’re from that region of France. They’re just corn dogs if they come from anywhere else.

        • frongt@lemmy.zipEnglish
          1·
          3 个月前

          I’d say they’re only corn dogs in the US (or maybe North America) and maize dogs everywhere else, because that’s how the terms corn and maize are used.

          • Dasus@lemmy.worldEnglish
            21·
            3 个月前

            Yes, we (I’m speaking for the entire non-US world) also enjoy our popped maize and maizeflakes.

            ^/s

    • frongt@lemmy.zipEnglish
      6·
      3 个月前

      Tools, work processes, and movement of material were found earlier than previously known.

  • DarkCloud@lemmy.worldEnglish
    101·
    3 个月前

    So our plan is to tool our way into destroying the planet… Then try to tool our way out of destroying the planet?

      • jordanlund@lemmy.worldEnglish
        51·
        3 个月前

        “Greetings to all intelligent life in the universe! And to the rest of you out there, the secret is ‘bang the rocks together’ guys!”

  • Cypher@lemmy.worldEnglish
    43·
    3 个月前

    So they contextualised an activity as intelligent based off of human activities, then found that they deemed humans as intelligent based on the same criteria.

    What a shocker.