Stone tools more than two million years ago in Algeria



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The oldest evidence of stone tools ever found in North Africa was discovered in Algeria and dates back 1.9 to 2.4 million years, or about half a million years of more than they were known to date.

The discovery, presented in the journal Science, took place in Ain Busharit, in the highlands of eastern Algeria, by a team of researchers led by Professor Mohamed Sahunni of CENIEH (National Research Center for Research). human evolution), in Spain.

Scientists from many countries (Algeria, Spain, France and Australia) have discovered both primitive stone tools and fossilized animal bones with sharp cutting tools. The tools were mainly sharp-edged stones that our ancestors had collected in the beds of nearby small rivers.

The bones come from a wide variety of savannah animals, such as mammals, elephants, horses, rhinos, hippos, antelopes, pigs, hyenas, crocodiles, and so on. According to the researchers, human ancestors have undoubtedly eaten the meadows and the meat of all the animals they could find in front of them. It is not known yet whether they were hunting or whether they were simply forced to eat corpses.

The discovery shows that human ancestors have been extended to North Africa, considered to be the cradle of humanity in East Africa, much earlier than archaeologists and paleoanthropologists thought. The alternative explanation is that the production and use of stone tools developed parallel to East and North Africa and did not extend from first to second.

The first historical discovery of 1.8 million year old discoveries in East Africa was made about 50 years ago by the paleoanthropologist Mr. Liki in the Olduvani area of ​​Tundzha. . Other discoveries have been discovered in Ethiopia and Kenya, with the most famous "Lushi" in the Afro-Ethiopian region. More recently, similar discoveries have been made in South Africa and something similar in North Africa.

The first animal bones bearing traces of stone tools, found in East Africa, in the Gona region of Ethiopia, date back to about 2.6 million years ago. As a result, the discoveries of Algeria are almost as old as the Ethiopian.

"Ain Busharit's archaeological findings, similar in technological terms to those of Gona, show that our ancestors had spread to every corner of Africa and not just to East Africa." Algerians are changing the earlier perception that East Africa was the cradle of humanity.In fact, all of Africa was the cradle, "said Dr. Sabochy.

As he said, the most interesting question is who built the stone tools of Ain Buchearit, since the fossils of such a former ancestor of a member of the great Homo have not yet been discovered in North Africa. But in Chad, in the southern Sahara, some 3,000 kilometers from East Africa, have been discovered fossils of a 3.3 million-year-old Australian neo-Australian, approximately "Lushi" (3 , 2 million years).

According to Sachyon, "these Australian pigeons may have wandered in the Sahara, and their descendants might have left the archaeological" signatures "discovered today in Algeria, 2.4 million years old, almost contemporaneous with those in East Africa. "

Scientists most likely consider the Sahara to be a rich "deposit" of fossils, but its huge and inhospitable extent has hitherto hindered its systematic study.

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