人類の進化：最古の骨製道具

Ancient humans were systematically producing bone tools as early as 1.5 million years ago, a Nature study suggests. Bone tools discovered in Tanzania pre-date previous evidence of systematic bone tool production by more than a million years.

Evidence for stone tools goes back at least 3.3 million years. However, the earliest systematic production of tools made from bone, and fully shaped by knapping, is more recent, hailing from European sites between around 400,000 and 250,000 years ago.

Ignacio de la Torre and colleagues document 27 bone tools from the Olduvai Gorge site in Tanzania. Fragments of long bones, mostly from hippopotamus and elephant, were knapped to produce a variety of sharp, heavy-duty implements that are up to 38 cm long. It was previously thought that the production of bone tools by early hominins was sporadic and expedient. The new findings suggest that early humans at Olduvai may have been routinely selecting specific bones from large mammals and then shaping them using standardized production patterns. This evidence indicates that these humans were culturally innovative, able to transfer and adapt their stone knapping skills to a new raw material.