Humans no longer have tails, but we may have more in common with our primate relatives than we thought.
German scientists have studied broken stones used by monkeys to crack nuts. It turned out that primates inadvertently broke stones into pieces that are very similar to the tools created by ancient people found in the earliest settlements in Africa. This discovery could help scientists understand how ancient humans developed their first technologies and could change understanding of human evolution.
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Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Germany, suggest that the new discovery raises the possibility that the first stone tools were created by ancient people completely by accident. That is, what the monkeys in Thailand are doing now, when they break large stones into smaller ones with sharp edges, ancient people could do, and thus they accidentally got another useful tool.
According to Tomos Proffit of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, the ability to purposefully create sharp stone tools is considered a defining moment in hominin evolution.
German scientists have studied broken stones used by monkeys to crack nuts. It turned out that primates inadvertently broke stones into pieces that are very similar to the tools created by ancient people found in the earliest settlements in Africa.
Photo: ScienceAlert
“To understand when and how this first happened is the subject of much research through the study of ancient stone artifacts. Our study shows that the production of stone tools is not unique to humans and our ancestors,” says Proffit.
According to scientists, the real breakthrough in the evolutionary history of people, which goes back millions of years, was just the creation of stone tools. They were found in the places of residence of ancient hominids, including the ancestors of modern man, and they were all very simple. These were small stones that were sharpened to be used for butchering the carcasses of slaughtered animals, as well as for cutting meat and dressing hides. And only then more complex stone tools began to appear.
Some modern primates now use stones to dig up plants, to crack nuts, or to crush shellfish shells. And during this process, the stones break into pieces with the appearance of smaller pieces with sharp edges.
Some modern primates now use stones to dig up plants, to crack nuts, or to crush shellfish shells. And during this process, the stones break into pieces with the appearance of smaller pieces with sharp edges.
Photo: ScienceAlert
Scientists analyzed the stone tools of monkeys and compared them with artifacts that were found next to the remains of ancient people and our ancestors. They came to the conclusion that monkeys inadvertently create such convenient stone tools for further use, which means that human ancestors could also do the same. That is, they could accidentally create new technologies for themselves. Moreover, some stones created by monkeys are very similar to the earliest tools of ancient people.
It is also known that monkeys do not use stone fragments, as they consider them useless garbage. Therefore, they are looking for new stones for food.
What the apes are doing now was a precursor to the deliberate process of making stone tools among ancient hominins, scientists say. Therefore, scientists believe that human ancestors could have created the earliest stone tools absolutely by accident. But further research is needed to confirm this theory.
As Focus already wrote, researchers are restoring ancient Bronze Age tools. Archaeologists have created replicas of Bronze Age artifacts found at the site, which has been called “British Pompeii”.
