Innovative Stone Age tools were not African invention, say researchers

This image shows Levallois and biface tools.  Credit: Royal Holloway, University of London

Royal Holloway, University of London. A new discovery of thousands of Stone Age tools has provided a major insight into human innovation 325,000 years ago and how early technological developments spread across the world, according to research published in the journal Science.

Researchers from Royal Holloway, University of London, together with an international team from across the United States and Europe, have found evidence which challenges the belief that a type of technology known as Levallois – where the flakes and blades of stones were used to make useful products such as hunting weapons – was invented in Africa and then spread to other continents as the human population expanded.

They discovered at an archaeological site in Armenia that these types of tools already existed there between 325,000 and 335,000 years ago, suggesting that local populations developed them out of a more basic type of technology, known as biface, which was also found at the site.

Dr Simon Blockley and Dr Alison MacLeod, from the Department of Geography at Royal Holloway, analysed volcanic material that preserved the archaeological site in the village of Nor Geghi, in the Kotayk Province of Armenia. By employing innovative procedures developed at Royal Holloway, they extracted suitable material to help date the Levallois tools.

"The discovery of thousands of stone artefacts preserved at this unique site provides a major new insight into how Stone Age tools developed during a period of profound human behavioural and biological change", said Dr Blockley. "The people who lived there 325,000 years ago were much more innovative than previously thought, using a combination of two different technologies to make tools that were extremely important for the mobile hunter-gatherers of the time.

"Our findings challenge the theory held by many archaeologists that Levallois technology was invented in Africa and spread to Eurasia as the human population expanded. Due to our ability to accurately date the site in Armenia, we now have the first clear evidence that this significant development in human innovation occurred independently within different populations."

Archaeologists argue that Levallois technology was a more innovative way of crafting tools, as the flakes produced during the shaping of the stone were not treated as waste but were made at predetermined shapes and sizes and used to make products that were small and easy to carry. With the more primitive biface technology, a mass of stone was shaped through the removal of flakes from two surfaces in order to produce bigger tools such as a hand axes. eurekalert.org / Link 2 (University of Connecticut)

More information: Early Levallois Technology and the Lower to Middle Paleolithic Transition in the Southern Caucasus, Science, 2014. www.sciencemag.org/lookup/doi/… 1126/science.1256484


Actualización: Los humanos tenían capacidad para innovar hace 300.000 años / SINC
La innovación local y no la expansión de la población provocó la aparición de nuevas tecnologías en Eurasia hace más de 300.000 años, según un estudio que publica la revista Science. Este resultado pone de manifiesto la antigüedad de la capacidad humana para la innovación. 

El análisis de los artefactos de piedra de un yacimiento de hace 325.000 años en Armenia indica que la innovación tecnológica humana se produjo de forma intermitente en distintas partes del Viejo Mundo, en lugar de dispersarse desde un único punto de origen, como se pensaba anteriormente. El estudio se publica hoy en la revista Science.

Investigadores de la Universidad de Connecticut (EE UU) examinaron miles de artefactos de piedra recuperados en Nor Geghi 1, un yacimento armenio único al estar conservado entre dos flujos de lava, y datado hace entre 200.000 y 400.000 años.

El estudio detallado de los sedimentos permitió a los investigadores correlacionar las herramientas de piedra con un período de tiempo de entre 325.000 y 335.000 años, momento en el cual el clima de la Tierra era similar al de hoy.

Estos utensilios proporcionan la primera evidencia clara de que hubo un uso simultáneo de dos tecnologías distintas: la bifacial, comúnmente asociada con la producción de hacha de mano durante el Paleolítico Inferior; y la tecnología Levallois, que se relacionaba hasta ahora con la desaparición de esta primera hace unos 300.000 años...