First Globetrotters Had Primitive Toolkits

[trehinp]

First Globetrotters Had Primitive Toolkits
Ann Gibbons

AAAS ANNUAL MEETING:
SCIENCE News This Week
February 20 2009, 323 (5917)

The earliest members of the human family known outside Africa managed to trek all the way across Africa and the Middle East with the most primitive kind of stone tools known rather than with more sophisticated stone hand axes that were thought to be essential for intercontinental travel, it was announced at the AAAS meeting.

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This announcement leads to some very interesting questions about the "invention" of new stone technologies throughout the world. Were there several inovation centers for Acheulean hand axes and later more refined stone knapping technologies?

Paul

[lagarvelho]

Paul:

Do you have a link you can post?
Anne G

[trehinp]

Anne,

Sorry I didn't check the link attached to the abstract... As usual, it sends the reader to a "pay per view" subscription... I find that this is really defeating the purpose of an organisation such as AAAS which should be more enclined to render scientific information available to a large public.

Here is the link to the summary page of SCIENCE Magazine where I took the summary:


http://www.sciencemag.org/content/vol323/issue5917/news-summaries.dtl

I haven't read the full paper since they ask for 15$ for it. For information a subscription to SCIENCE Magazine paper version costs about 200$ and entitles you to access to on line papers... As a private user I can't afford such a fee...

I haven't found a way to get an online subcription only...

It remains that this seems to be an important announcement if human beings were able to travel so far with rather crude tools as opposed to more sophisticated ones...

Paul