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Oldest Stone Tools Predate Previous Record Holder By 700,000 Years
derekmead writes: The oldest stone tools ever found have been discovered by scientists in Kenya who say they are 3.3m years old, making them by far the oldest such artifacts discovered. Predating the rise of humans' first ancestors in the Homo genus, the artifacts were found near Lake Turkana, Kenya. More than 100 primitive hammers, anvils and other stone tools have been found at the site. An in-depth analysis of the site, its contents, and its significance as a new benchmark in evolutionary history will be published in the May 21 issue of Nature.
It wouldn't be the first time that academics are misguided, or just plain full of shit. Hell, just look at all of the computer science academics who were really into UML. Any intelligent person could easily see that it was a crock of shit. Or look at all of sociology. There are entire fields of study that are loads of horse kaka.
Yes because all science is based on photography at a distance. I'm sure no scientists picked it up and looked at it under a magnifying glass or anything to see marks in the rock that indicate it was made by a humanoid. Or that there are no residue of how it was used. They just saw it from a distance and declared: Tool!
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Look more closely. Are the the stone tools out of place in the volcanic sedimentary strata they are found in (xenolith)? Stone tools are often made of chert or some other material completely unrelated to the volcanic material that entombs them. Do they share similar fracture patterns to other xenoliths? Are they the right size to be held in a humanoid hand. The evidence adds up. Fascinating.
I decided to log in for this one.
OP asked a question. You obviously do not know the answer because you just made a stupid, insulting reply. Perhaps if you don't know the answer, don't reply. I don't know the answer either, but would be interested in knowing the answer as well and would have asked the question had the AC not already asked. But instead of an answer you just shit all over it and are apparently offended that it got asked. Get over yourself and realize that some people aren't afraid to ask questions when they are ignorant... you might want to try it.
Goodness knows why I feel the need to defend myself here but when a question is asked with the word "fucking" in it, I assume it was not asked in a genuine spirit of enquiry and I answered in sarcastically. Mood is sometimes hard to discern on the net so maybe we are both guilty of misreading it. One of the comments above makes a very good attempt at a more serious answer.
Well, the Anthropologists may know what they are doing but the guy taking photos of the tools certainly isn't helping matters. Why can't he take a picture of something that actually resemble a tool? Better yet, why the reporter can't explain briefly why this chunk of rock pictured can be considered a tool?
That's why you should read the original papers rather than secondary articles by reporters who may or may not know their subject. The article in the May 21 issue of Nature will probably be more informative.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
They very fact that they were banged together by an intelligent agency makes them a tool.
No it doesn't. When I was a child (ostensibly an "intelligent agency") I was known to bang rocks together but it certainly didn't make them tools - not in any meaningful sense of the word. For something to be a tool it has to have a functional purpose.
In general you can tell by close examination whether a potential tool is simply the product of natural erosion or in fact was used as a tool.
Quite correct. However I've had the same doubts being discussed here regarding whether certain rocks really were used as tools or not. I'm not an expert so I don't pretend to know the answer but I've seen "tools" in museums which made me wonder if the people who collected them really knew what they were doing. Call it skepticism even though I don't really know what I'm talking about on the subject. I tend to be skeptical about things by default until I understand them.