A recent study has revealed that our ancestors were making tools from bones 1.5 million years ago.
According to the report, while ancient humans (also known as hominins) such as robust Australopithecus are known to have used bone fragments to dig into the ground, even today, apes, considered the closest to humans, use wooden sticks for digging.
More than 2 million years ago hominins were using crude stone tools at Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania, one of the world's most important historical sites, but no one saw any examples of systematic bone tool making until 500,000 years ago.
A team of Spanish researchers at Olduvai discovered 27 tools made from the leg and arm bones of large mammals, particularly elephants and hippos.
They wrote in a study published in the journal Nature that the discovery sheds new light on the almost unknown world of early hominin bone technology. To the untrained eye, the tools may look like random pieces of bone, but for researchers, “they are evidence of the remarkable cognitive abilities of our distant ancestors,” showing that they had the ability to select appropriate materials and tailor them to their needs.
"There is a clear desire to change the shape of bones to turn them into very heavy and long tools," says Francesco D'Errico, an archaeologist at the University of Bordeaux in France and co-author of the study. "Unknown hominins used rocks as hammers to shape bones."
The resulting tools were 20 to 40 centimeters long, some weighing up to a kilogram, D'Errico said, adding that in some cases there was even a temperature in the middle of the bone, perhaps so they could better grip it in their hands.
