Kenyan rockhound finds oldest known stone tool

[Judi Lynn]

Kenyan rockhound finds oldest known stone tool
May 21, 2015
10:55 AM MST


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Sammy Lokorodi, a resident of Kenya's northwestern desert who works as a fossil and
artifact hunter, led the way to a trove of 3.3 million-year-old tools.

West Turkana Archaeological Project
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Sammy Lokorodi, a resident of Kenya's northwestern desert who works as a fossil and artifact hunter, is credited with finding the oldest stone tool ever known. The tool is a rock that was shaped for a specific purpose and is 3.3 million years old. Geologist Chris Lepre of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and Rutgers University and Sonia Harmand of the Turkana Basin Institute at Stony Brook University documented the find and the age of the tool in the May 20, 2015, edition of the journal Nature.

The scientists consider that Kenyanthropus platytops, an early hominin and ancestor of humans, made the tool for breaking logs to get to insect larvae in the logs. The remains of Kenyanthropus platytops were found about a mile from the site where the tool was found and dates to 3.3 million years of age. The site was examined scrupulously for evidence of tool making and 149 artifacts involved with tool making have been found. The relics include hard stone anvils for breaking rock into tools, chips of flint that indicate tools were made, and rocks used for hammering tools.

The discovery is considered to be monumental in the world of anthropology. The oldest known tool ever found prior to this discovery was a mere 700,000 years old. Lokorodi is credited with finding the right type of sediment and the right location where the most ancient tool ever known was found in the Turkana Basin in Kenya.

Skeptics may consider this find to be just a rock but the evidence argues against this concept. The rock was machined for a purpose and there is no doubt of this. Modern apes including bonobos and chimpanzees have been filmed using stone tools. Modern apes have been trained to knap flint to make tools by humans. The basic idea is an ancient human ancestor had sufficient mental capacity to plan and execute a complicated task that had a purpose.

http://www.examiner.com/article/kenyan-rockhound-finds-oldest-known-stone-tool

(Short article, no more at link.)

[mysuzuki2]

1. This is a very important find.

The tools are pretty simple but show a basic knowledge of how stone fractures. One erroneous bit in this article; the oldest know tools prior to this were not 700,000 years old. They were 700,000 younger than this find and were 2.6 million years old. If anyone is interested, the original report can be found in the 05/21/15 issue of the journal Nature. Primary sources are always more informative.

[Judi Lynn]

2. Thank you for the correct information, mysuzuki2. Very helpful. n/t