Archaeological Find in East Africa Shows Homo Erectus Created Complex Tools

An archaeological find in East Africa shows how ancient Homo erectus hominids were capable of crafting tools ranging from the simple to the more complex, such as a hand ax made of bone.

The bone tool was dated at 1.4 million years old and provided revealing information about the capacity and technology of Homo erectus for toolmaking. Archaeologists found that hard sediment was attached to the hand ax, which was lighter in color compared to the tool.

The Homo erectus hominid is considered as a possible direct modern human ancestor. A recent dig in East Africa discovered the surprising find that this hominid was able to create a cutting-edge sawing and cutting tool from a hippopotamus' leg bone roughly 1.4 million years in the past.

The tool is a rare type of ancient hand ax that was made from bone instead of the usually excavated ones which were made of stone. This is according to the report of the research team led by Katsuhiro Sano from Tohoku University Sendai, Japan, and Gen Suwa from the University of Tokyo. Both of them are paleoanthropologists. This report was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

They discovered the tool at the archaeological site of Kondo-Gardula in Ethiopia. This area has produced fossils and stone tools considered to be from Homo erectus.

According to Suwa, the stone tools that have been excavated in various sites in East Africa, along with the recently discovered hand ax from bone, suggest that the technology of the Homo erectus was more versatile and sophisticated than previously thought.

These excavated tools show how Homo erectus, for hundreds of thousands of years earlier than we have previously believed, had a toolkit with items that were manufactured using several precise operations, including bone and stone hand axes, plus simpler tools which could be made more easily and quickly.

The excavated bone hand ax was made from a modified piece of the leg bone of a hippopotamus. The researchers reported in their publication that an oval piece of about 13 centimeters with a sharp edge near its tip was struck and removed with one blow from a bone hammer or stone. Afterward, more bone was further chipped off so that the artifact can take a final, finished, and working shape. The signs of blade wear in the bone tool suggest that it was utilized in sawing and cutting work.

In another site, the only other similarly made and comparably aged bone hand ax was found from the Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania. It is dated at about 1.3 to 1.6 million years old. This artifact had fewer shaping and chipping wear compared to the Konso-Gardula artifact. The Olduvai Gorge is the site known for holding the earliest fossils of our ancestors. Here, hundreds of stone tools and fossil bones were found, leading scientists to name Africa as the origin of modern humans.

Out of all the early Homo species, the Homo erectus is the one who possessed modern body proportions closest to modern humans.