Oldest Stone Blades Uncovered, 500,000 years old

reply to post by Hanslune


Good post!!!

Perhaps as a result of the last dramatic expansion of brain size ???

That teaches humans to be humble eh? SOMETING changed in the human lineage about 600,000 years ago ...... that's for sure.

600.000 : (12 x 2000) = 50 Astronomical Cycli back .... that was in a Aries periode .....
576.000 years back was in an Aquarius periode ....
552.00 years back was in a Sagitarrius periode
526.00 years back was in a Libra periode

What were there nearest constellations at that time? Has anyone a programme that can give the answer? I'm just curious ...

[edit on 4/4/2009 by Melyanna Tengwesta]

Kandinsky:

Things like this are locked firmly within the realm of speculation.

However, to say that because academia has told us that stone tools were used 500,000 years ago mentions NOTHING towards the idea that advanced civilization could have existed say... 30,000 years ago. Pay attention to the numbers. Big gap.

And I believe you would be foolish to presume that political factors don't influence what academia releases.

Good example: The recent "studies" telling the world that the planet is overpopulated. This is demostratably false. However, in order for the planet to be put to better use to accomodate populations on the order of 10x their current levels, it would require an entire restructuring of our infastructure (way out of the global recession, btw)...
But these ideas don't suit the agenda of the PTB. So, they have unobjective, and most likely corrupt, "scientists" manipulate data to conform to their objectives.

To convince most researchers that such a dramatic breakthrough really took place so early in human evolution, however, anthropologists will have to find more blades this ancient, says paleoanthropologist Rick Potts of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. Stay tuned: The search is already under way for more African blade runners.

So I wonder if this is gonna produce a lot of other findings since people are now gonna be on a gold rush of sorts to find other blades.

And it is neat to know our predacessors were capable of more then of running from mammoths.

And this further proves the theory that humans devloped in Africa and made their way north. Especially since the article said blades were found in the middle east at 350k bc and then 300k bc in europe.

great find Hans

[edit on 4-4-2009 by nixie_nox]

reply to post by Melyanna Tengwesta


I suspect astrology has nothing to do with it but.... it isn't known whether this was a common technology or if it was an isolate. A one time or a small group of 'brights' developing something that later died out. Further discoveries will determine that.

Also note that this is the preliminary report. In science that means everyone and their brother will no re-examine the data the tools. The findings may stand up or there may be an alternative suggestion for age, whether they are indeed blades, etc, etc.

I'd also speculate that it was done just after the split between the lines of Homo who would later become Neanderthal and our own ancestors

It is commonly assumed that there is a single "time line", one line of gradual development applied to all humanity. But truth is, there were many parallel lines, some extinguished, some further evolving. And probably circular time dominated - more like a sinusoid than a straight line.

Originally posted by DangerDeath
It is commonly assumed that there is a single "time line", one line of gradual development applied to all humanity. But truth is, there were many parallel lines, some extinguished, some further evolving. And probably circular time dominated - more like a sinusoid than a straight line.

Yes indeed,

There are multiple lines, as clearly shown by the different development rates in different parts of the world. Civilizations rise and fall, technology diffuses, is lost, reinvented or utilized in a different way.

How did they date them?
Stratigraphically? (notice that it is a second line)

reply to post by haika
Possibly by the age of the layer/ strata they were found in? The article is vague on some details.

The blades come from the same part of the formation where researchers have found two lower jaws that have been variously described as belonging to Homo heidelbergensis or H. rhodesiensis, human ancestors in Europe and Africa that predate the origin of our species, H. sapiens.

OP article

Cara Roure Johnson, Ph.D. appears to be preparing a paper on the findings ...

Johnson, C. R., & McBrearty, S. (in prep) 500,000 year old blades from the Kapthurin Formation, Kenya. Journal of Human Evolution.

Roure Johnson's CV

Her next expedition to the Kapthuri Formation is to look for further evidence of chimpanzee fossils dating to the same time 500 - 550 ka. She found a couple of chimp fossils on an earlier trip and is seeking to identify the point of species divergence. The Kapthurin Formation seems a most intriguing location from all sorts of perspectives.

The Kapthurin Formation chimpanzee fossils demonstrate that chimpanzees and Homo were in fact sympatric in this part of East Africa during the Middle Pleistocene, and may have been since the time of their divergence. The discovery that Pan (sp. indet.) and Homo rhodesiensis were sympatric reopens the issue of the impetus for the initial divergence of the lineages. More must be known about paleohabitats and specific niches occupied by the two species in order to address this issue.

Source

I hope we are able to read some of the paper after it's submitted.

Originally posted by Hanslune
The existence of blades, a more complex stone tool working technique has been found, dated to 509,000-543,000 years ago.

it appears that more than 500,000 years ago, human ancestors living in the Baringo Basin of Kenya collected lava stone cobbles from a riverbed and hammered them in just the right way to produce stone blades. Paleoanthropologists Cara Roure Johnson and Sally McBrearty of the University of Connecticut, Storrs, recently discovered the blades at five sites in the region, including two that date to between 509,000 and 543,000 years ago. "This is the oldest known occurrence of blades," Johnson reported Wednesday here at the annual meeting of the Paleoanthropology Society.

The link

Not long ago, researchers thought that blades were so hard to make that they had to be the handiwork of modern humans, who had evolved the mental wherewithal to systematically strike a cobble in the right way to produce blades and not just crude stone flakes. First, they were thought to be a hallmark of the late Stone Age, which began 40,000 years ago. Later, blades were thought to have emerged in the Middle Stone Age, which began about 200,000 years ago when modern humans arose in Africa and invented a new industry of more sophisticated stone tools. But this view has been challenged in recent years as researchers discovered blades that dated to 380,000 years in the Middle East and to almost 300,000 years ago in Europe, where Neandertals may have made them

Verrrry interesting!

COMPLETELY POINTLESS THREAD! It's obvious that the proven scientific method of dating that they used HAS MADE A MISTAKE, because our lord (thank you jesus) our savior, amazing man, trust me, I love him, so great. He uh, only made the world like less than 10000 years ago, so to suggest that something intelligent made tools over 50 times the length of time before that.... well blasphemy... how dare u question thy lord???

If it were so that the dating were correct, then it is clear... god put those there to TEST MY FAITH and I shall be FAITHFUL, good day.

Originally posted by Hanslune
reply to post by Melyanna Tengwesta

 

I suspect astrology has nothing to do with it but.... it isn't known whether this was a common technology or if it was an isolate. A one time or a small group of 'brights' developing something that later died out. Further discoveries will determine that.

Also note that this is the preliminary report. In science that means everyone and their brother will no re-examine the data the tools. The findings may stand up or there may be an alternative suggestion for age, whether they are indeed blades, etc, etc.

I'd also speculate that it was done just after the split between the lines of Homo who would later become Neanderthal and our own ancestors

I know Astrology doesn´t have anything to with it, directly, it´s for my selfish curiosity

You speculate it was just after the split between Homo Erectus and Neanderthals .... I thought the same .... but WHAT was responsible for THAT split?

Thats why I want to know what constellations where closest to Earth, I have my suspicions but I´m not an Astronomist

reply to post by king9072


Hans: The customary dismissal of reality by the religious representative! LOL

Well said King!

Howdy Melyanna Tengwesta

You speculate it was just after the split between Homo Erectus and Neanderthals .... I thought the same .... but WHAT was responsible for THAT split?

Speculation: It may have been a geographical separation, different environments causing different environment and evolution pressures - we see that in the split between the Chimps and Bonobos. To a lesser degree we see that in how humans, coming from a common African source evolved different body types (what use to be called races) due to the different environments they were in. If that had continued for hundreds if not millions of years they may have evolved into different species.

But I think we are going off topic!

[edit on 5/4/09 by Hanslune]

reply to post by Hanslune


I tend to agree.. wouldnt the human race as a hole be a civilization that just has gone through many changes??

Still an interesting find, like them footprints found next to dino ones.. cant remember if i find the link ill update it on here, not to derail but kinda for date/findings ect colaborate?

neways S+F

very nice find

Howdy SA

Still an interesting find, like them footprints found next to dino ones.

Hans: Those aren't human, despite the creationist desire for them to be so

. cant remember if i find the link ill update it on here, not to derail but kinda for date/findings ect colaborate?

Hans: Not quite sure what you mean here. These tools, if verified, pushes back human tool technology at that specific level, back around 175,000 years. A discovery in December 2008 had pushed it back around 325,000 years.

500,000 years is a mere sliver of time compared to tens of millions years when the last dinosaurs wandered around - not counting their cousins the birds of course.







[edit on 5/4/09 by Hanslune]

You can read about these blades and others like them in Loren Eiseley' masterpiece "The Immense Journey" 1958.

Originally posted by grover
You can read about these blades and others like them in Loren Eiseley' masterpiece "The Immense Journey" 1958.

Thanks for bringing up Eiseley, he spoke to my Anthropology class in the early 70's.

Although it has been some time I do remember his comments but not precisely what he might have said on the making of this type of stone technology, can you give us a sample?

As an aside I can also recommend Eiseley' book, The Man Who Saw Through Time - which ISN'T about Nostradamus!

ah sorry my bad..

I just seen it some place and wanted to give abit of imput regarding the dates ect.

"addmitidly" this aint my kinda subject so im happy to be correct

Interesting tho

reply to post by Hanslune


Eiseley was a profoundly liberal, humane individual and his writings went a long way in shaping my intellectual life...I must have been 15 or 16 when I first read the Immense Journey... and I have read the book you mention... but its been a long time.

The only reason I remember him mentioning 500,000 year old blades was that I reread the book recently... a bit dated but still the work of a genuine soul.

I thumbed though my copy briefly and couldn't find it right off but he talks about the discovery of the bones a small delicate apelike human... human like ape that may or may not be in the direct line of decent but none the less produced a profusion of delicate stone blades...

The thing is shaped stone tools have been found as far back as Homo Halibis so 500,000 years is not a stretch especially since they have also found remains of fire as old as Homo Erectus...

apparently we started making tools real early.

reply to post by grover


I can remember reading the book and as graduate student assigning passages of it to undergrads but dang I can no longer remember the details!

Another professor of mine, Stephen T Boggs made a great impact on my thinking during his lectures. In one, located inside a huge movie threatre, he threw a pencil against the wall - where it left a small lead mark. This room could hold 800-900 people, it was an old fashion theatre and very large.

"That expanse of wall stands for all human activity from 1,000,000 to 200,000 years ago, that pencil mark represents the amount of information we have on them."

reply to post by Hanslune


I am pretty much old school about some things... I believe human history is richer and more complex than we know... especially from around 12,000 B.C.E. onwards but i don't buy into the notion that there were ancient civilizations as advanced or more advanced than us or that we walked with Dinosaurs... and while I believe that there is life on other planets and solar systems I seriously doubt that they have visited us (the distances are too vast and all the other ideas such as star gates and warp drives violate the laws of physics) muchless molded us somehow...

... Human history is rich and complex enough without such nonsense... besides that it is insulting to our ancestor's memories to think that they needed help to become what we've become.

Originally posted by Hanslune
reply to post by king9072

 

Hans: The customary dismissal of reality by the religious representative! LOL

Well said King!

Well played, Hans.

This is VERY interesting. It may take awhile to put into perspective....thanks for sharing.