"The longest recorded transport of a tool by a chimpanzee seems to be
about 800 m. Hominids at Olduvai Gorge, about 1.8 million years ago, carried
stone from the nearby volcanic uplands up to 10 km to the sites of DK and FLK
N (Zinj), and some sites of this period had bones with stone tool cut marks
butno stone tools (the obvious inference being that the hominids were
carryingstones with them). ."~Iain Davidson and William Noble, "The
Archaeology of Perception: Traces of depiction and Language" Current
Anthropology 30:2, April 1989, p. 134-135.
The Nature article reports of Longgupo
"Two items from the clay facies show three characteristics of early
stone artefacts. They have exotic petrological composition (andesite-
porphyrite), they are twice the size of the largest normal deposit clasts,
and they exhibit surface damage inconsistent with natural cause. The closest
primary outcrops for andesite-porphyrite rocks lie 130 km ENE and 150 km NNW.
Derived sources occur within the non-carbonate sediments of the Miao-yu
polje, a function of pre-Yangtze Valley (Pliocene and earlier) fluvial
system. Potential sources are to be found about 2 km downstream from
Longgupo, but andesite-porphyrite remains undocumented. As both objects are
more than twice as large as the largest clay facies clasts, fluviatile
transport does not explain their presence. Assuming artefact status, these
specimens recall the Oldowan technology of early Pleistocene East Africa in
two ways. First, they were chosen from the natural environment for inherent
qualities of raw material and morphology and thus used with little
modification. The andesite-porphyrite
raw material is resilient to repeated battering, and both implements fit
within the had to offwer numerous surfaces and edges for use. Second, the
tightly patterned distribution of surface and edge damage indicates
deliberate and cosistent gestures of use. If, eventually,
andesite-porphyrite cobbles prove unavailable within several kilometres of
the Longgupo cave site, curation may distiguish this potentially earliest
Asian technology from its African contemporaries.
"We have estimated the age of the Longgupo hominid speciemns and
artefacts in three ways. The co-occurrence of Sinomastodon, Nestoritherium,
Equus yunnanensis, Ailuropoda microta and Mimomys peii place the middle zone
clay facies in the late Pliocene and earliest Pleistocene. Palaeomagnetic
data then bracket levels 7-8 within the Olduvai chron, 1.96 to 1.78 Myr.
Finally, the ESR determination of 1.02+/-).1 Myr, on material from level 4
(3 m above levels 7-8), constrains and reinforces these
interpretations."~Huang Wanpo et al, "Early Homo and associated artefacts
from Asia", Nature, 378, Nov. 16, 1995, p. 277-278
Notice that the dates are consistent with each other.
They further state,
"The new evidence suggests that hominids entered Asia before 2 Myr,
coincident with the earliest diversification of genus Homo in Africa.
Clearly, the first hominid to arrive in Asia was a species other than true
H. erectus, and one that possessed a stone-based technology. A pre-erectus
hominid in China as early as 1.9 Myr provides the most likely antecedents for
the in situ evolution of Homo erectus in Asia."~Huang Wanpo et al, "Early
Homo and associated artefacts from Asia", Nature, 378, Nov. 16, 1995, p. 278
Note that this being possessed a technology. Animals do not possess
technology. Besides, I will inject here again the fact that habilis is the
first creature found in the fossil record with the one physical thing which
distinguishes mankind from the animals, Broca's brain.
This find remarkably supports a now successful prediction made nearly 8 years
ago by Dennel, Rendell and Hailwood. They discussed their finding of stone
tools in rocks 2 million years old in Pakistan,
"There is, therefore, in our opinion, irrefutable evidence that the
geological
horizon in which the artefacts were embedded is 2 million years old.
"This find has several implications for our understanding of early human
developments. The first is that it is considerably older than any well-
provenanced find of either hominid fossil or artefacts in Eurasia. On
present from Java, of which the earliest may be 1.3, 1.0, or 0.7 million
years old or even less, depending on which of several schemes is preferred
(and disregarding as unsound a date of 1.7 million years. The oldest
currently claimed artefacts from Eurasia are those from Thailand, where
artefacts have been found on -- but not in -- the surface of deposits that
dip below a basalt dated at 0.83 million years ago, and from Isernia, Italy,
at 0.7 million years ago. Those from Ubediya, Israel, may be in the same age
range but seem unlikely to be as ancient as claimed by Repinning and Fejfar.
Secondly, the artefacts we have found in the Soan Valley are within the time
range of the oldest generally accepted in-situ artefacts from East Africa,
where those from Koobi Fora and Olduvai Bed I are dated at 1.6-1.8 million
years ago. Earlier instances, such as Hadar and others as early as 3.0
million years ago, still arouse contention amongst East African specialists
because of problems over dating, context, and identification.
"On the basis of our results, therefore, we argue that current thinking
on early man may need reappraisal; implications are (amongst others that may
be considered) that (a) Homo habilis was distributed as far east as Pakistan,
(b) H. erectus is an Asian lineage at least as old as H. habilis, or (c)
another, as yet unidentified tool maker was responsible. One clear
implication of this discovery, however, is that early tool making has an
Asian as well as African dimension."~R.W. Dennell, H. M. Rendell and E.
Hailwood, "Late Pliocene Artefacts from Northern Pakistan," Current
Anthropology, 29:3, June 1988, p.498.
This opens up the regions in which habilis can be searched for. Habilis is
not strictly an African species and may eventually be first found in the
fossil record in southeast Asia rather than in Africa.
glenn