Journal
SCIENCE
Volume 362, Issue 6420, Pages 1297-+Publisher
AMER ASSOC ADVANCEMENT SCIENCE
DOI: 10.1126/science.aau0008
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Funding
- CNRPAH
- MINECO [HAR2013-41351-P, CGL2010-16821]
- L.S.B. Leakey Foundation
- National Science Foundation [NSF-BCS-0517984]
- Wenner-Gren Foundation [7815, 8323]
- European Research Council [FP7-People-CIG2993581]
- Stone Age Institute (Bloomington, IN)
- Australian Research Council [150100215]
- European Science Foundation [Synthesys GB-TAF-4119, DE-TAF-668]
- MINECO/FEDER [CGL2015-65387-C3-1-P]
- AGAUR [2017SGR1040]
- URV [2017PFR-URV-B2-91]
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East Africa has provided the earliest known evidence for Oldowan stone artifacts and hominin-induced stone tool cutmarks dated to similar to 2.6 million years (Ma) ago. The similar to 1.8-million-year-old stone artifacts from Ain Hanech (Algeria) were considered to represent the oldest archaeological materials in North Africa. Here we report older stone artifacts and cutmarked bones excavated from two nearby deposits at Ain Boucherit estimated to similar to 1.9 Ma ago, and the older to similar to 2.4 Ma ago. Hence, the Ain Boucherit evidence shows that ancestral hominins inhabited the Mediterranean fringe in northern Africa much earlier than previously thought. The evidence strongly argues for early dispersal of stone tool manufacture and use from East Africa or a possible multiple-origin scenario of stone technology in both East and North Africa.
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