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Stone Tool 1.83M Years Old Discovered In Malaysia
goran72 writes with news out of Malaysia that archaeologists have announced the discovery of stone tools more than 1.8 million years old — the earliest evidence of human ancestors in South-east Asia. Researchers believe the tools were made by members of the early human ancestor species Homo erectus. The tools actually date as slightly older than the earliest H. erectus fossils, which came from Georgia and China. No bones of that antiquity have so far been found in Malaysia. "The stone hand-axes were discovered last year in the historical site of Lenggong in northern Perak state, embedded in a type of rock formed by meteorites which was sent to a Japanese lab to be dated."
More examples here
My web domain.
"The stone hand-axes were discovered last year ...embedded in a type of rock formed by meteorites"
Since the earth is only 6000 years old, the simplest explanation (Occams razor) must be these stone axes must have been created by some stone-age aliens in their big granite spaceships.
"So that's where I left my hand axe. Clumsy me!" said Dorthy Dinosaur before proceeding to eat more children from the front row at the Wiggles concert.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
This is just further proof on the existence of crab people. Beware! It is just a matter of time until they reemerge to conquer us all.
... homo erectus tool :-D
at what point does a stone that happens to have been eroded/chipped naturally into the rough shape of an axe-head become a stone that has been intentionally crafted by (pre)human hands. How likely is it that these things are a case of seeing things because we want to, c.f the face in the rocks on mars
Everyone knows the Earth is ~6000 years old!
I have a book that proves it, and if your book has a different age in it, it means you have the wrong book. Way more believable than all that "scientific" evidence!
Que the organ music, fade in picture of a black obelisk...
"Stone Stool"... and had to do a double-take...
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
I'm sorry, but I *do* have to ask... Does it run NetBSD 5.0 or Linux?
Rgds
Damon
http://m.earth.org.uk/
Our beloved christian GOD placed them there, in order to trick the sinful knowledge-seekers into thinking lies. knowledge is bad. That bitch Eve was hungry for knowledge according to Genesis. Thank the heavens women are completely the opposite these days in the christian community. Anyway, nice try scientists!
</sarcasm>
Nice echo chamber.
This stone tool is clearly a relic left behind from the Jurassic Elves, whose reign over Earth was ended almost two million years ago by the collision of the Shield of Immortality with the Sword of Penetrating Awesomeness. The world was torn asunder and all evidence of these majestic elfy creatures was lost to the massive geological events spanning between then and now, which simultaneously wiped out the Dark Dwarves of the Deep (having set up their vast cavernous cities under dormant volcanoes and all).
Unless the talking snake people are right and was infact placed by a monotheistic/polytheistic combo deity to fool everyone into thinking he doesn't exist, so that he can punish said people with eternal suffering.
It could also have belonged to the Migit, the first being to be crafted by his Noodliness' divine appendage. RAmen.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, watch it -- I'm huge!
I have no problem with the imterpretation that these are stone tools from 1.8 MYA (and you can tell by my pretentious use of the "MYA" abbreviation that I was once on the road to related Ph.D.).
But I don't understand this:
The stone hand-axes were discovered last year...embedded in a type of rock formed by meteorites....
How or why were these tools embedded in rock formed by meteorites? This rock was either formed before or after the tools. If formed before, they could only have been embedded manually, by H. erectus miners, I guess.
If the rock formed later, then these tools survived intact a meteorite strike, which seems unlikely. (Or was the rock formed by meteorite splash sediments?)
There is one other possibility, but it's so unlikely that I reject it: that the tools and rocks were thrown up in to the air and the whole mess coalesced and solidified.
I wish the article had more info, or I could find the original paper, although here is an AP article with a photo of the rocks.
"Even for Slashdot, that was a very obscure reference!" - Anonymous Coward
You must be new here, this is Slashdot, the proverbial Echo Chamber of the internets discussion threads.
"Experts say the result has a margin of error of 610,000 years and the find has to be approved by other experts as well, AP reported."
I think this piece of info is worth mentioning.
But does it run on Ubuntu?
Politics will sooner or later make fools of everybody... - Dick Armey
In Neal Stephenson's novel "Snow Crash" there's a character named Raven that made knives out of chipped glass. That gives more or less an idea of the difficulty in making a cutting edge in stone.
I guess you have to find out the existential persuasions of the archaeologists before you can answer that question. If they lean at all toward the notion of "intelligent design", they might see evidence of some sort of design - humanoid in this case - everywhere they dig, whereas a strict naturalist might just see materials formed by unusual but nevertheless natural processes.
Skepticism and literalism are useful but much-maligned survival traits.
When I first spotted the heading to this article I thought it was referring to some application called "Stone Tool version 1.83". I think I'm spending too much time in front of computers...
The only site with a decent image.
A little more info
Some more bits of info
As can be seen from the first link, the object is not fractured along natural lines and is definitely axe-shaped. It is not some irregular thing that could have been formed by a boulder smashing down a river.
The material is not flint. I am not certain what it is, but it's not a flint.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Patent lawyers for Microsoft, Intel and Apple are studying the axe to determine if prior art was infringed in the creation of the Malaysian tool...
we have christian creationists intepreting archeology in pseudoscientific ways, now we have meteorite preserved "proof" that mankind came from outer space. in other words, we've just handed pseudoscience to scientology originists. it's all according to xenu's plan...
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I think we'll find, after further investigation, that these tools were actually used by New Caledonian crows, not erect humanoids.
Organ music?
What 2001: A Space Odyssey were you watching?
Comment of the year
I thought you could date only organic matter based on carbon 14.
The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than the question of whether a submarine can swim.
It is a bit discouraging that there is evidence that old, of tool making beings on this planet. I would have thought intelligent life was much younger, and much less evolved, based on my personal observations.
Heck, even on this very web site, the are still arguing over vi vs emacs.
Give me a break!
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
And I didn't think they still existed. Sheesh, those scientists sure fooled me!
Also rather surprising, since I've seen examples of flint tools made by modern researchers by striking edges. Got a link?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
-- and all of it will happen again.
Found stamped on the bottom.
Invalid Checksum. Retrying.
There's their first mistake. The Japanese are always good at coming up with the "oldest" evidence. No doubt they'll "find" something even older somewhere in Japan in a few weeks. ;>
So is this real or not?
srsly.
Sorry, had to get a dig in on the Flat Earth crowd.
I anticipate we will find tools much older, somewhere between five and fifteen million years. The reason is that that is the age of the common ancestor of humans and chimps and gorillas.
Here is a movie of a wooden hammer and anvil use in chimpanzees: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AElmAJH2G00#
There is another movie of a captive chimp (or bonobo) hammer two rocks creating sharp edges to cut meat. But I cannot find it now. They were not designed, however, but pretty rough and unpolished. Still, good for the purpose.
Designed tools were previously known since 1.5 my ago. But how would we recognize a fool's rock tool in nature? The answer it that we probably wouldn't. And therefore, we can only rely on indirect evidence like the video above.
Tools are old, really old.
Those japanese will try anything to...
Well, okay, but I was in a hurry and not paying attention. Cue orchestra music: Thus Spake Zarathustra.
Happy?
And please don't tell me this is "Also sprach Zarathustra". That is simply an ambiguity of translation and not worth my time.
Old tools are sometimes very easily integrated into modern society and can prove very enlightening to researchers and education in general... but just one question does it run Linux?
This message was not sent from an iPhone because Peter Sellers really was a deviated prevert without a dime for the call
Ok, fine, you find a tool that the ROCK that it is made of dates back to 1.8 million years. So what? Does this mean that the composition of the rock changed at the time it was formed into a tool? Wouldn't the carbon dating stay the same before and after the "chipping away" of the portions that that were removed to form the tool? So the rock is 1.8 million years old, who is to say that the TOOL is not only 750 years old?
Am I missing something here?
I would take these claims with a large pinch of salt for a few reasons. They just announced it to the press but have not mentioned anything about publishing the results in a journal. So maybe what they have isn't good enough for a paper? Then TFA says that the dating method used has a margin of error of 610,000 years so the actual date may not even be anywhere near the 1.83M years claimed. Also, they haven't found any bones. Although the discoverers say that the tropical conditions make it unlikely for bones to be found, how about Java Man, one of the earliest H.erectus found? Java - if you look at a map - is pretty close to Malaysia and has the same kind of climate. H.erectus has been found at 2 locations in Java, in 1891 and 1936. So it is possible for very old bones to survive in the climate of Malaysia and Java.
It's unclear these days where erectus begins.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/20/science/20fossil.htm
The Dmanisi specimens were quite different. Their skull sizes indicated that their brains were not much larger than the brain of a chimpanzee. Their brains were closer in size to those of Homo habilis, a poorly understood earlier ancestral species.
In the last few years, however, the researchers collected more extensive, well-preserved skeletal remains of an adolescent and three adults. Some of the fossils resembled those of later erectus specimens in Africa. The lower limbs and arched feet reflected traits "for improved terrestrial locomotor performance," the team reported.
Over all, the fossils were "a surprising mosaic" of primitive and evolved features. The small body and small craniums, the upper limbs, elbows and shoulders were more like the earliest habilis specimens.
The Mel Brooks Special Steampunk Edition of course!
What? You haven't seen it? Which universe is this?
...when you read "Stone Tool 1.83M" as version 1.83M of the application "Stone Tool" Sigh
And please don't tell me this is "Also sprach Zarathustra". That is simply an ambiguity of translation and not worth my time.
The opening and final notes of that piece are played on an organ. So I can understand where the OP was coming from.
Squirrel!
I have stuff in my refrigerator that's 1.83M years old, you insensitive clod!
Nonaggression works!
Does this mean finally that we all approve that the carbon dating process they use to know how old things are, is greatly flawed, or are you telling me that when the earth was a mere gas ball, yes....there actually was humans using tools...?
I remember reading this book, about how certain evolutionary backers, would want you to believe the earth is really as old as they say, but what if instead of millions of years, it was more like tens of thousands...? Would we live differently, would we pay more attention to global events (warming ica age etc...)
I believe more so in evolution then I do Christianity, but like all religions, evolution has its flaws too, and instead of having people own up to say "between this time and this time, we are merely speculating...what happened as we don't know for sure"...they would rather use abstract thinking like, well because we were not there really to disprove what we say, we can pretty much say what we want....
I am a professional early stone age archeologist, so naturally this has my attention. Unfortunately, as long as the stuff is not properly published, there is no way to ascertain the reliability of the claim. The latter will hinge on:
a) are it really stone tools;
b) is the dating reliable (and there is more to this than just lab techniques).
Without clear details having yet been published to judge those, I remain very cautious. SE Asia has a history of dubious claims for stone "tools", and dubious dates attached to (real) stone tools. Partly, this has to do with the complex geology in many parts of the area. Partly this has to do with a persistent old-fashioned typochronological approach to archaeology with some SE Asian scholars (in which primitive looking "must" be old - while they not necessarily are).
Point to consider is that in SE Asia, bifacial tools are present that technologically look like the Acheulean (Lower Palaeolithic handaxe cultures of Africa and Europe), but are in fact Neolithic (i.e. from the last 5000 years).
In answer to some of the earlier comments: when chipped stone comes from high energy fluvial (water-laid) deposits, it is sometimes very difficult to make the distinction between intentionally flaked stone (shaped by human hand) or "geofacts", stone flaked by geological force (like tossing and banging against each other in a high energy stream). The latter sometimes can look very convincing. The same goes for tephrafacts (pseudo-artifacts created in a volcanic environment). Unfortunately, SE Asia with it's high energy monsoonal river systems is an ideal environment for the creation of geofacts. It is also an environment where chronologies are sometimes horribly and notoriously screwed up.
So we have to await publication of the details before we are able to say anything serious about this extraordinary claim.
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem delendam esse
Do you think they ran all of this by the prime minister?
or it didn't happen.
OTOH, what do you suppose a 2 million year old stone axe head would look like? i am suspecting a flake of stone that could well of been made by nature. Who knows though, right?
FTFA:
embedded in a type of rock formed by meteorites
Correct me if I am wrong; I think one of the aspects of Meteorites is that they come from off planet.
The rock itself may be 1.3 million years old....but how do they know the Homo who sharpened it was there when it was created? Exactly....they don't. It's not like finding a fossil or something. The base rock may be ancient, but I could go in my back yard and find an old rock and sharpen it this afternoon and it doesn't prove a thing (except maybe I have too much time on my hands).
WTF? Over?
Actually doctors are finding that torn skin heals faster than "cut". That is one reason why in births now many doctors just have the woman tear than give them an episiotomy (numerous other reasons too).
That's where I left that darn thing. Please sent it to me, and look around for my cars keys too. Last thing I remember I had them both in my hands at the same time....
- I live the greatest adventure anyone could possibly desire. - Tosk the Hunted
...it originally ran Windows 95, and the idiots tried to install XP on it. They really just need a new one.
How ya like dat?
The tool wasn't found on top of the soil. It was embedded deep within layers upon layers of earth. Each layer has very specific characteristics caused by events that happened on the planet (say a big volcano eruption).
You can tell if the layers have been disturbed (say someone 100,000 years ago decided to dig really deep).
So while you might be able to find a very old rock, you'd also have to find it in a layer of earth that corresponds to the same age.
I don't know f you didn't RTFA, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you misunderstood:
There is no disscusion or claim about the rock the axe was made of. That's presumably really old. But the axe was found embedded in some other rock. The rock it was embedded in is thought to have been formed by a meteor strike 1.3 million years ago. So some Homo had to be there to make the axe before a meteor struck, melting a bunk of ground into lava (poor Homo!) that the axe got stuck in.