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Archaeology

Tools go back in time

Nature volume 521, pages 294–295 (2015)Cite this article

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The finding of 3.3-million-year-old stone flints, cores, hammers and anvils in Kenya suggests that the first stone tools were made by human ancestors that pre-dated the earliest known members of the genus Homo. See Article p.310

The earliest production of stone tools by human ancestors marked the dawn of an innovative behavioural strategy that transformed the ecology, social systems and culture of humans through social learning of skills and technology. Direct evidence for this behaviour is found in the archaeological record, and its earliest appearance has been gradually pushed deeper into time over the past five decades1. On page 310 of this issue, Harmand et al.2 report findings from Lomekwi 3 (LOM3), a site on the western side of Lake Turkana, Kenya, that extend the record of material culture by some 700,000 years, to 3.3 million years ago.

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Figure 1: A Lomekwi tool.

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  1. Erella Hovers is at the Institute of Archaeology, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Mount Scopus, Jerusalem 91905, Israel.,

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Hovers, E. Tools go back in time. Nature 521, 294–295 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/521294a

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