Stone Spear Points @ 500Kybp

[uniface]

If the dating is correct, it suggests our evolutionary forebears mastered the art of the stone-tipped spear half a million years ago—some 250,000 years earlier than previously thought.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news ... l-hunting/

[kbs2244]

That kind of dating is very fragile.

Most likely headline or funding shopping.
Or the NGS trying to justify it’s funding.

More than a grain of salt is needed

[circumspice]

The only way to conclusively prove the use of composite tools at such an early date would be to find an inhumation containing the the fossilized remains of the tool user/maker along with one or more of the tools present in an uncontestable association with the remains. The inhumation could be a deliberate burial with associated grave goods or it could be an accidental inhumation, such as a cave-in or a fall into a pit/pothole. Who knows? Maybe someday someone will find something like that. Stranger things have happened. Personally, I think that hominids were far more advanced than they have been given credit for. It seems that the science of anthropology, in general, is trapped in a 19th century frame of mind.

[kbs2244]

I agree with you on the intelligence of long ago.
But half a million years ago is bordering on geologic time measurements.

[Minimalist]

Bednarik has HE building boats and sailing around Micronesia c 800,000 BC.

[kbs2244]

And we have supposedly 2 million year old “humanoids” in South Africa.
Maybe yes, maybe no.

I am just saying there is some reason to accept these extreme dates with caution.

We have discussed how the C14 foundation is crumbling.
Yet, like so many “long accepted” things it is still held as a “standard.”
Other methods have surfaced, but inertia is hard to fight.

And pure science is not the only reason for these headline grabing dates.

[E.P. Grondine]

The only way to conclusively prove the use of composite tools at such an early date would be to find an inhumation containing the the fossilized remains of the tool user/maker along with one or more of the tools present in an uncontestable association with the remains. The inhumation could be a deliberate burial with associated grave goods or it could be an accidental inhumation, such as a cave-in or a fall into a pit/pothole. Who knows? Maybe someday someone will find something like that. Stranger things have happened. Personally, I think that hominids were far more advanced than they have been given credit for. It seems that the science of anthropology, in general, is trapped in a 19th century frame of mind.

Hi circumspice -

IMO, the most likely way the story of tool development and use will be conclusively discovered is by finding fossiled caracases with tools in them and nearby. That is the way it has worked before.

Finding non-local stone makes the process easier.

How you do that is by figuring out what the ancient landscape and its animals looked like, and then figuring out how ancient man hunted there.

[Minimalist]

Yes..hunted or scavenged. In either case, tools for rapid butchering would be useful before more dangerous predators showed up.

[circumspice]

Hey E.P.,

Nah, the anthros will insist on finding the tool clutched in a bony fist before they'll give the discovery any credence. They really seem to NOT want to find evidence that any hominid other than HSS was capable of the concept & then capable of creating something as complex as composite tools. It flies in the face of the assertion that HSS is the 'crown of creation'. The accomplishment won't be quite so special if it's so simple that even a caveman can do it.

[Minimalist]

That train has already left the station, Circ.

http://www.uni-heidelberg.de/press/news/press77_e.html

Here a test demonstration with ancient wooden spears (reconstructed by experts from Schöningen) will cast light on what Homo erectus could bring down in the way of edible prey 400,000 years ago.

Of course, that does not mean that everybody got on the train.