Topic ID #10074 - posted 3/25/2011 10:11 AM
Jennifer Palmer
Webmaster
Stone cutting tools link early humans to prehistoric India
Jennifer Palmer
Webmaster
Stone cutting tools link early humans to prehistoric India
March 25, 2011
Extensive excavations brought to light stratified sequences of occupation by prehistoric populations.
Dating of recently discovered artifacts in South India indicates that early humans lived in the region more than a million years ago, and that they used distinct 'Acheulian' stone cutting tools, a new study reports in journal Science.
Acheulian tools originated in Africa around 1.5 million years ago and are thought to have spread throughout Eurasia.
The exact chronology of this spread, however, has been a longstanding puzzle. Knowing how old the oval and pear-shaped hand axes, cleavers and other artifacts are will help archeologists understand early human migration into South Asia and the Indonesian archipelago.
The artifacts were discovered in one of the richest Paleolithic sites in Tamil Nadu, India, called Attirampakkam. Nestled in the Kortallayar river basin, the site was discovered in 1863 by British geologist Robert Bruce Foote, and has been excavated (off and on) since then.
Shanti Pappu and colleagues determined the ages of these tools, which suggest that Acheulian tool-making humans were present in South Asia around a million years ago or earlier, existing at the same time as other populations in southwest Asia and Africa.
Read the rest here.
March 25, 2011
Extensive excavations brought to light stratified sequences of occupation by prehistoric populations.
Dating of recently discovered artifacts in South India indicates that early humans lived in the region more than a million years ago, and that they used distinct 'Acheulian' stone cutting tools, a new study reports in journal Science.
Acheulian tools originated in Africa around 1.5 million years ago and are thought to have spread throughout Eurasia.
The exact chronology of this spread, however, has been a longstanding puzzle. Knowing how old the oval and pear-shaped hand axes, cleavers and other artifacts are will help archeologists understand early human migration into South Asia and the Indonesian archipelago.
The artifacts were discovered in one of the richest Paleolithic sites in Tamil Nadu, India, called Attirampakkam. Nestled in the Kortallayar river basin, the site was discovered in 1863 by British geologist Robert Bruce Foote, and has been excavated (off and on) since then.
Shanti Pappu and colleagues determined the ages of these tools, which suggest that Acheulian tool-making humans were present in South Asia around a million years ago or earlier, existing at the same time as other populations in southwest Asia and Africa.
Read the rest here.
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