Ethiopia strikes again.

[Jacques Cinq-Mars]

New Clue on Which Came First, Tools or Better Diets
By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD
NYTimes.com
Published: October 21, 2003.

On a hillside in the badlands of Ethiopia, an ancestral home of the human family, an international team of scientists has uncovered the earliest known stone tools to be found mixed with fragments of fossilized animal bones. The scientists think the material, almost 2.6 million years old, is the strongest evidence yet that the primal technology was used to butcher animal carcasses for meat and marrow.

The discovery could go a long way toward resolving a debate in paleoanthropology: which came first, a significant advance in the brain that enabled human ancestors to make tools, or the toolmaking ability that led to an enriched diet and then an evolutionary change in the brain?

Click HERE for the full text.

Presumably, reference is made here to:

Semaw, Sileshi, , Michael J. Rogers, Jay Quade, Paul R. Renne, Robert F. Butler, Manuel Dominguez-Rodrigo, Dietrich Stout, William S. Hart, Travis Pickering,  and Scott W. Simpson. 2003. 2.6-Million-year-old stone tools and associated bones from OGS-6 and OGS-7, Gona, Afar, Ethiopia. Journal of Human Evolution 45(2): 169-177,

… which I have yet to see.

Jacques Cinq-Mars

[lagarvelho]

Jacques:

That's probably because the relevant JHE hasn't hit your academic shelves yet.  And as usual, this probably won' t "resolve" anything.  Few discoveries in paleoanthropology actually do. My cynical response tends to be, "they just cause more arguments".
Anne G

[Jacques Cinq-Mars]

Jacques:

That's probably because the relevant JHE hasn't hit your academic shelves yet.

Thanks for you compassion and understanding, but I just happen to have received copy today ...

And as usual, this probably won' t "resolve" anything.  Few discoveries in paleoanthropology actually do. My cynical response tends to be, "they just cause more arguments".
Anne G

... which allows me to suggest that your "cynicism" is a bit misplaced or, at the very least, overstated. The material presented in said paper is quite convincing, that is, to anyone who happens to know stones tools and the traces they leave when used for butchering. "Bickering" possibilities (if any) could only result from valid questioning (falsification) of the 2.6MYA  date/age estimate, and the implications that such finds may have for our understanding of human cognitive development.

Jacques Cinq-Mars

[Daryl Habel]

"Bickering" possibilities (if any) could only result from valid questioning (falsification) of the7.6MYA age date or estimate,

While I was impressed with the conclusions of the Semaw paper, I would question a "7.6MYA" age.

Scratching my head,
Dar

[Jacques Cinq-Mars]

While I was impressed with the conclusions of the Semaw paper, I would question a "7.6MYA" age.

Scratching my head,
Dar

Good point. I suppose I was suffering from temporary dyslexia when I clicked "post". The appropriate correction will be done right away.

Jacques

[Daryl Habel]

Well, I didn't spend much time "scratching."  Assuming, then that  hypothetical "bickering" would be over the 2.6 MYR dating,  I don't see much basis for that.   The radiometric dating of the overlying tuff is 2.53 MYR (+/-) and as added support the palaeomagnetic reversal at or near the level of the archaeological site is dated from numerous other determinations in the Gona region at 2.58 MYR.  

From prior reading of the "history" of the research, Semaw et al. seem to be bolstering the previous claim made by Semaw (2000) that all hominid stone-tool assemblages from 2.6 until 1.6 MYR BP represent a period of technological "stasis" which can be fit within Mary Leakey's original scheme for Oldowan at Olduvai Gorge, thus laying to rest previous claims made by others that "pre-Oldowan" (> 2.0 MYR Pliocene at Omo and perhaps including the 1.86 MYR  Karari at Koobi Fora) industries represent a less-sophisticated technological practice.

In effect, the way I read this paper (and previous research "history") Semaw et al. are saying there is no discerned difference in the technological repertoire of the 2.6 MYR Gona and 1.8 MYR Oldowan hominids, regardless of the difference in dates.

Although they are just slightly short on in situ "cut-marked" bones in association with the stone tools, there is that one in situ "bone flake" that appears to be modified, as well as the cut-marked bone from the surface  that appears freshly eroded from the 2.6 MYR deposits.  That, along with the cut-marked bones at Bouri (2.5 MYR), seems like a very good case for arguing that the stone tools function was carcass processing.

I could be wrong about all this, of course, but JNW's New York Times article seems on the money.

Dar