Ancient Humans Carved Up Elephant Meat with Small, Yet Sophisticated Stone Tools
The old hominines needed good stone tools to massacre their meals, a technique of preparation for the long lifespan that helped the belly of our ancestors to stay full. A 430,000 -year -old stone set of stone tools found in Greece shows how the sophisticated cut of meat was in the medium pleistocene.
A new study published in Plos a Details The discovery of stone tools in Marathousa 1, located in the Megalopolis basin in the Peloponnese region, and is one of the oldest archaeological sites in Greece. The site also contained the leftovers of the elephant off at the right point (Palaeoloxodon Antiquus), implying that hominines who used to live there had used the tools for butcher’s shop.
The first butchers in the world
The meat cut has been a pillar of all human skills for more than 2 million years. Evidence suggests that the first hominines used simple stone tools to sculpt smaller slices of animal carcasses 2.5 million years ago. Research even proposed that the ability to massacre meat may have changed the first humans smaller teeth and jaws That their chimpanzee parents, which could easily eat away at difficult foods.
THE tools Of the early stone age – part of the Oldowan archaeological industry – were simpler than the subsequent tools, but they still did the job; Hominine tool manufacturers have often used a hammer to hit and green the flakes of another stone. The sharp edge of this stone would transform it into a “helicopter”, capable of cutting, scratching and massacring animals.
The next era of tool creation emerged approximately 1.7 million years ago when the Achaean archaeological industry began to replace Oldowan tools. The Acouuléens tools were known for more refined handling of hands that had a form of pear or tear and were better to massacre a wild game. The compleous industry would continue to last for 1.5 million years, ending between 100 and 200,000 years.
Learn more:: 20,000 -year -old whale bone tools in Europe are considered the oldest in the world
Prepare an elephantine meal
The researchers involved in the new study examined the stone tools of Marathousa 1 in the hope of learning what their appearance could transmit on human behavior in the south of Europe during the average pleistocene.
“We wanted to discover how the hominines of the Middle Pleistocene made their tools and organized production. We were also interested in the way the environment rich in resources in the megalopolis basin – with water, raw materials and abundant animals – influenced their behavior, ”said the first author Dalila de Caro, a doctoral candidate in the department of paleoanthropology at the University of Tübingen, in a statement.
The researchers have noticed cutting marks and damage to percussion on the bones of elephants found alongside the tools, showing them how humans in the region exploited the megafauna.
To understand how these stone tools were manufactured, the researchers recreated the manufacturing process that would have been used 430,000 years ago on the site. They determined that the tools were mainly made of local radiolary, a hard sedimentary rock capable of creating lithic and abundant flakes in the environment rich in resources in the megalopolis basin. Other small tools were limestone, flint and quartz.
Tool manufacturing techniques
One of the main objectives of the study was to examine two tool manufacturing techniques: hand -raising and bipolar stalking. Striking stones with the hand -raising method created small acute gun flakes, while the bipolar method was particularly useful for producing small tools from small nuclei and opening rounded pebbles that lacked practical angles to strike. The bipolar heel was separate for its use of anvils – a nucleus was based on a platform so that it is easier to remove the flakes.
Although the tools are small, the authors declare that this is not synonymous with a lack of refinement.
“Our results clearly show that small tools are not a sign of simplistic technology – on the contrary, they reflect a well -thought -out adaptation to respective environmental requirements,” said the last author Vangelis Tourloukis of the universities of Tübingen and Ioannina.
The marathousa 1 stone tools were perfect for preparing a meal from elephants and other animals – they prove the ingenuity of ancient humans, who knew how to fully enjoy the materials around them.
Learn more:: The ruins of the ancient temple have highlighted the life of Tiwanaku, a flourishing pre-incapidity civilization
Article Sources
Our writers at Discovermagazine.com Use studies evaluated by high quality peers and sources for our articles, and our publishers examine scientific precision and editorial standards. Review the sources used below for this article:
Jack Knudson is a deputy editor -in -chief to discover with a strong interest in environmental sciences and history. Before joining Discover in 2023, he studied journalism at the Ohio University Scripps College of Communication and previously interned at Recycling TODAY magazine.
