Archaeologists examining artifacts collected from a site in Italy found that 400,000 years ago an archaic hominid species had made elephant bone tools, including sharp tools for cutting meat, and wedge-shaped tools for cracking femurs. grains and other long bones. This happens hundreds of thousands of years before such a thing would have been considered possible. These innovative toolmakers lived in the Middle Pleistocene era, at least 100,000 years before modern man appeared in distant Africa.
Fig. 12 of the study showing unifaces and pointed tools made of elephant bones found in the Place of Castel di Guido, Rome, Italy. AC: unifaces with a side scraper edge; D: pointed wedge (base is plastered). EF: pointed tools in fragments of bovine shaft, catalog numbers 326, 2807. GH: sharp tools. ( Plos One )
A total of 98 elephant bone tools were found in scales
This startling discovery was made by a team of researchers from Italy, France, South Africa and the United States, led by University of Colorado-Boulder professor of archeology Paola Villa. They studied elephant bone tools excavated between 1979 and 1991 from the Castel di Guido site near Rome, and in the process revealed fascinating details about the craftsmanship of making these bone tools.
Writing about their findings in the study of the journal Plos One, archaeologists point out that the 98 verified elephant bone tools found in Castel di Guido represent “the largest number of flake tools made by premodern hominids. published so far “. Recognizing the advanced techniques used to make these rare tools, archaeologists credit ancient toolmakers with completing “the first step in the process of increasing the complexity of bone technology.”
In the middle Pleistocene, there was a stream that crossed Castel di Guido. An extinct straight Eurasian elephant species used the stream as a source of fresh water, and archaic humans were also attracted to the area and probably settled nearby. From time to time, one of these four-foot-tall elephants died of natural causes and local hominins swept the massive remains of skin, flesh and bones.
These elephant bones were strong and resilient, making them suitable for use as tools. They were often randomly broken into pieces and used as is. But sometimes toolmakers customized the bones by using rocks or other pieces of bone to break flakes or pieces, carefully working the shape of the bone until it was the way they wanted it.
Not all the bone tools found in the Castel de Guido site were made of elephant bones. Figure 14 of the study shows the polished tip of an aurochs bone (a species of wild cattle), compared to an old German horse bone tool (bottom right). These tools are known as lissoirs, with which ancient humans used to treat leather. ( Plos One )
In this case, the tools were modified in unusual ways 400,000 years ago.
“Right now we see other places with bone tools,” said Professor Paola Villa, who is also the deputy curator of the CU Boulder Museum of Natural History, in a University of Colorado-Boulder press release. “But there isn’t that variety of well-defined shapes.”
“In Castel di Guido, humans broke the long bones of elephants in a standardized way and produced standardized blanks to make bone tools,” Villa continued. “That kind of fitness didn’t become common until much later.”
“Much later” in this case means up to 100,000 years later.
“Until recently the generally accepted idea was that early bone technology was essentially immediate and timely, based on single-stage operations, using available bone fragments of large to medium-sized animals,” wrote Villa and colleagues. legacies in his Plos One article. “Only Upper Paleolithic tools would involve several stages of manufacture with clear evidence of primary flaking or bone breaking to produce the type of fragments needed for different types of tools.”
The discovery of the work of toolmakers Castel di Guido has broken the previous timeline. Archaeologists are left wondering what they thought was new about the development of human tool manufacturing practices on the Eurasian continent. It seems that the process was not linear and that it advanced much faster in at least a small part of the world.
Did Neanderthals live in Castel di Guido? The main author of the study, professor of archeology Paola Villa ( University of Colorado Boulder) , believes that Neanderthals are the possible makers of these extremely ancient elephant bone tools. ( Gorodenkoff / Adobe Stock)
Did Neanderthals or Homo Erectus live in Castel di Guido?
Until now, archaeologists working in Castel di Guido have not been able to find the fossilized remains of ancient humans. This discovery could have helped them identify the true identity of the former toolmakers.
Still, Paola Villa has a theory about who they might have been. He believes they were Neanderthals, the missing cousin of modern humans who were in Eurasia during the Middle Pleistocene.
“About 400,000 years ago, the usual use of fire began to be seen and it is the beginning of the Neanderthal lineage,” Villa explained. “This is a very important period for Castel di Guido.”
It is not uncommon for Villa to identify Neanderthals as potential toolmakers. She is considered one of the world’s best experts on Neanderthals and her contributions have helped reverse previous negative judgments about her intellectual abilities and her level of cultural and social development.
Another possible candidate for who would make these bone tools would be Right man . ( York / Adobe Stock)
Another possible candidate for tool manufacturing would be Homo erectus. This ancient ancestor of Homo sapiens (modern man) first emerged more than two million years ago and lived 400,000 years ago throughout Europe and Asia. They were the first hominin species to demonstrate impressive tool-making skills, although they should have been more advanced than the elephant bone tools found in Italy were believed to have produced.
Whatever the manufacturer, the tools they created were impressively diverse. The elaborate objects found in Castel di Guido included tools with sharp points, which could have been used to cut meat. There were also bone wedges that could have been used to divide large, long, heavy elephant bones into smaller pieces.
One tool was especially sophisticated. Long and smooth at one end, this object was identified as a lissoir, which ancient humans used to treat leather. All the previously discovered slabs have been dated to 300,000 or later, and of all the tools discovered at Castel di Guido, this is the one that takes the archaeological record further back.
Interestingly, this particular tool was not made from an elephant bone. Instead, it was formed from a bone of wild cattle. The former toolmakers of Castel di Guido were evidently happy to use elephant bones whenever possible, but they did not rely on them exclusively as a source of raw material.
Professor Paola Villa is the lead author of the study he does not believe that the Castel di Guido hominins who made elephant bone tools were unusually intelligent, compared to Neanderthals who lived in other areas. . ( Leakey Foundation )
Innovation determined by circumstance
Paola Villa does not believe that the hominins of Castel di Guido were unusually intelligent, compared to the Neanderthals who lived in other areas. He believes they used the resources at their disposal as best they could and, as they did not have access to large chunks of flint at their location, they turned into elephant bones as an alternative. Elephant bones were not so easy to find elsewhere, so other groups of hominins would not have had the opportunity to explore so deeply the possibilities of tool making.
“Elsewhere, 400,000 years ago, people only used the bone fragments they had available,” Villa noted. “The people of Castel di Guido had cognitive intelligences that allowed them to produce complex bone technology. In other sets, there were enough bones for people to make some pieces, but not enough to start a standardized and systematic production of bone tools.
The hominins of Castel di Guido were pioneers. But they remained relatively isolated, with little chance of passing on what they had learned to others. Consequently, the techniques they perfected would have to be rediscovered independently by others, at various times in the future.
Top image: a close-up of some of the 98 verified elephant bone tools found in Rome, Italy, that have been attributed to an archaic hominin species based on a recent study published in the journal Plos One. Source: Plos One
By Nathan Falde