Slashdot Mirror
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."
Accepting the axioma of the earth being 6000 years old, Occam's razor would cut you for introducing new entities where they are not needed. More logical would be that someone used a granite rock from outer space to create stone axes and then arrange for some scientist to 'find' them.
You were probably not a Boy Scout as a kid. There is actually a lot of work to make a sharp object out of a stone that is sharp and concisely sharp enough to be useful. Weather erosion like to make smooth surfaces not sharp ones. Rock chips at best will be good for poking but not cutting. So man made stone tools are actually quite different then a naturally occurring tool
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
The article doesn't say, but if it's a flint then the stone is incredibly brittle and takes a considerable amount of skill to work without shattering the stone. Working flint (or any stone) to a point or an edge leaves a distinctive pattern of markings on the stone which would be all but impossible to have occurred naturally as you basically need to flake off the unwanted bits of flint until you get the desired edge or point. Natural weathering of stone tends to fall into a limited number of types, predominantly rounding through contact erosion, and shearing which is usually caused by freezing water breaking a stone in two. Neither of the natural patterns are likely to lead to the organised pattern of chips that a worked stone would exhibit.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
That's science fiction, not archaeology.
Stone stools AKA coprolites are actually pretty common, human or not.
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)
Work with the native American cultures in Utah has shown that flint was not "chipped" into shape by striking. Arrow heads and spear points were shaped by heating the rock and dripping water on it. Thermal shock did the hard work. Yes, it took a considerable amount of work and skill to shape, but does not require impact that might shatter the rock. Pretty sophisticated technology for the day, but really all you needed was rock (flint, jasper or similar), fire, water and a steady hand. Try it yourself.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
Carbon dating is not the only dating technique. There are actually perhaps 30-35 different common dating techniques with useful time range from a matter of decades to billions of years, tens of billions of years infact.
Another common one is radiometric dating which gives you a range of 700 million to 50 billion years (!). In a way Carbon 14 dating is radiometric dating, it's just using one particular isotope. In reality there a many different isotopes that may be used to suit the range you need.
Since the stone tool is not organic matter, carbon 14 would not be useful. Carbon dating gets too inaccurate after 50,000 years.
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
Oh, those scientists are still unable to do what cro-magnon man could: make a simple obsidian rock pointy like an arrowhead.
Um, what? Obsidian knapping is practiced by many people around the world who are quite capable of producing fine points. You can find howtos on YouTube, so it's far from being a lost secret of the ancients.
Best to check those overly broad claims before committing yourself to perpetuating them.