The use of guns - the most important step in the evolution of man, which opened in front of our ancestors a lot of opportunities. The new finding overturned existing ideas about when the first hominid picked up a stone to cut, chop, scrape, etc. Until now, tools were considered a privilege genus Homo. Now, any evidence that they have already used the australopithecines. And use them to eat meat of large animals.
An international team led by an Ethiopian scholar Zeresenaya Alemsegeda (Zeresenay Alemseged), a leading anthropologist California Academy of Sciences (California Academy of Sciences) in San Francisco, worked in Dikika, located in the valley of the Afar in Ethiopia. This valley is famous for discoveries of fossilized remains of skeletons of hominids, which got its name from the area - Australopithecus afarensis (Australopithecus Afar). They include the world famous' Lucy. And in 2006 the group Alemsegeda found the skeleton of an Australopithecus pup - three year old girl, called Selam, and dubbed "the daughter of Lucy, though she lived at 150 thousand years earlier. Who marked bone
The latter finding paleoanthropologists represents two fossilized bones of large mammals on which the traces of the use of stone tools. Layperson grooves and chips on the surface of bones, of course, not say anything. But scientists have found their origin through careful analysis.
The bones were found in the thickness of volcanic tuff, their age is measured stratigraphic method. They, like the filling in a sandwich, lay between the layers of age, 3,24 and 3.42 million years old, closer to the older layer, so the scientists decided that they had about 3.4 million years.
One of the bones - part of the edge of a large animal the size of a cow, the other - part of the femur beast the size of a goat. On the bones, there are several different types of damage. Some are similar to cuts - traces of the knife, others were from scraping the bone, others - from the blows.
Scientists have examined the bones under the electron microscope and examined by X-ray spectrometry. The most important thing - the analysis showed that the damage to the bones appeared to their mineralization. So, rule out the possibility that the bones broken and scratched, lying in the ground. The nature of injuries said that they left the stone, but no teeth. Deep grooves are found even microscopic particles of rock.
It remains to admit: they are traces of stone knives and scrapers, which our ancestors cut off and wiped with a bone meat. But traces of blows left, when the bones split to get a brain. This did not only Homo
So far, the most ancient evidence razdelyvaniya animal carcasses with stone tools belong to the time 2.5 million years ago. In the same valley in Ethiopia Bowry paleoanthropology dug up some bones with traces of stone knives. And in the Kada Gona River Basin - the oldest stone tools.None of these findings was not accompanied by human remains, but not far - in the Hadar area - discovered the upper jaw of an early representative of the genus Homo age 2.4 million years. He is credited with scientists and possession of a weapon. Now, during this stage in human evolution has receded by nearly a million years.
Location and age of processed bone from Dikiki leave no doubt that work on them Afar australopithecines, since no other hominids did not live at that time in this part of Africa. By the way, not so long ago, scientists have evidence bipedal locomotion Australopithecus afarensis.
"Now we can imagine Lucy not only walking in search of food, but also with a stone knife in his hand, cut up the carcass - says study participant Shannon McPherron (Shannon McPherron), specialist of the Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology Max Planck Society (Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology) . - Possession of guns made it possible to learn a new Australopithecus attractive source of food - meat of large animals.
Biologists emphasize that none of our current immediate family - no chimpanzees, or bonobos - did not prey on such large animals and not feed them carrion. So australopithecines made this a real breakthrough. With guns, they were able to compete with predators, who for this purpose have teeth and claws. Know how to use, but could I get?
"This discovery overturns our understanding of the timescale of the behavior of our ancestors, - said Alemseged. - Use tools radically alter their interaction with nature, allowing you to switch to new sources of food and explore new territory. The next crucial step - making guns.
However, evidence that Australopithecus afarensis taken this step yet.
Analysis of bones from Dikiki not possible to tell whether to use the australopithecines just sharp rocks or independently created them tools. Near found nothing resembling flakes left over from the chips. On the other hand, and suitable stones in local deposits no, there is dominated by small stones such as pebbles. Scientists do not exclude the possibility that hominids may have brought tools with them from there, where there was a suitable raw material. So now researchers are going to explore the neighborhood in search of such places.
The remains of bones from the kitchen of Australopithecus, scientists have described in the latest issue of Nature.
0 comments:
Post a Comment